The Gramm Curse (The Night Watchmen Series) (10 page)

Before I get there, I stop right beside him as he stares out the window with a contented smile. “That wasn’t your place to tell her,” I say under my breath to him.

He waits a moment before flicking his gaze up in my direction. “Then why didn’t you stop me?”

“PUT ME DOWN!” JEZI SHOUT
S
as her fists beat against my back. I barely even flinch from her magic-filled punches. I set her down outside of Gavin’s apartment door and take a step back. “Why didn’t you back me up? Why don’t you ever back me up?” she shouts at me angrily. “You’re a liar! I hate you, Jaxen Gramm! I wish I’d never been partnered with you!”

Her words slice through my heart, switching my emotions back on. This has been a long time coming. This has been a realization I’ve ducked and avoided for far too long. I owe it to her to be honest with her. I owe it to her to give her a fighting chance at real love. I run my hand up her arm and grab her chin, forcing her to look at me.

“You knew this day would come, Jezi.” I’m surprised at how relieved I feel as the words pass through my lips.

Her eyes clench shut as more tears silently drip down her cheeks. “I don’t understand, Jaxen. I love you. Don’t you know that? Despite everything, I love you. Just let me in a little. I can show you. This can work.”

“No,” I say firmly. She wants to continue to debate, but I stop her. “It isn’t because of the curse, Jezi. I’ve used that as a shield…a crutch, and up until this moment, up until I decided I wanted to go through with this spell, I didn’t know for sure how I felt about you. I told myself we never tried because I didn’t want you hurt by the curse, but that’s not the truth. We’ve never tried because I don’t love you like that. You’re my friend, a very good one, but Weldon is right. There is no spark, and you deserve better. You deserve that spark.”

She takes a step back from me, shaking her head in denial. “You don’t mean it.”

I reach for her hand, but she yanks it away. “I do, Jezi. I do and I’m sorry.”

An eerie calm settles over her. It’s a rare moment where I don’t know what to expect…what to say. She wipes her eyes and straightens her shoulders. Resilience overtakes her gaze. She is a woman of strength; a hardened heart I have unintentionally created. “Fine. I’m done chasing you.”

“I never asked you to chase me.”

Hazel eyes, boiling in fury, find mine. “No? Well, good for you.”

“Jezi, come on,” I say, reaching for her again. I don’t want her to hurt, but I also don’t want to drag this out any further than it already has been. “I never meant to hurt you. I don’t want you to hurt.”

She sucks in a deep breath. “You can’t change it with words, Jaxen.” She exhales and stares down the hall. “But if I’m being fair, I know…I think I’ve known all along. I just need time to accept this.”

“Okay,” I say, feeling a small sliver of relief.

“And your support,” she says firmly, looking me dead in the eyes. “You have my back, no matter what. And don’t…don’t date in front of me…if that ever happens.”

I laugh. “Yeah, right.”

A small smile flashes across her lips. “And I won’t do the same.”

I cup her face. “I want you to date. I want you to be happy.”

She shuts her eyes. “As sweet as that is, please stop. Saying things like that is like pouring salt on my open wound.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, dropping my hand.

She sighs. “We should get back in.”

“Yeah.” I turn for the door.

“Jaxen?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you for finally opening up to me…for finally letting me in, even if it didn’t work in my favor.”

I toss her a small smile and open the door.

“ARE YOU DONE BREAKING HEARTS
?
Can we get this over with now?” Cassie asks the moment I cross the threshold. Joe struggles under her spell, trying to break free. “His dark magic is going to eat through my spell if we don’t hurry.”

I shut every one of my emotions off. I know I won’t go through with it if I don’t. Jezi pulls out the spell and moves to stand in front of the Witch. He’s glaring daggers at her, struggling against the magic holding him down. Gavin moves next to Cassie, using his strength and volation to dissipate the magic streaming off the Witch.

We all stare at each other for a moment, realizing that there is no going back, realizing that we will forever be bonded in blood.

“Is this where you want to do it?” Jezi asks, looking around the room. “We have to bleed him out. I don’t want it to ruin your carpet.” Her voice quivers a little as she adjusts her stance.

“I got this,” Cassie says. Her eyes close as words roll off her tongue under her breath. A very large bucket appears beneath the chair, ready to contain Joe’s life force.

“You’re making a mistake,” Joe says, his voice hardened with fear. “My blood will do nothing to help you. I’m
not the one who cursed you.”

Cassie slaps him across the face with a spell that seals his lips shut. “We didn’t ask for your opinion, now did we?”

Jezi looks rattled. “Okay,” she says. She adjusts her stance again. Her thoughts tumble through my head in a scattered mess.

I reach out and rest a hand on her shoulder, stabilizing her. “You can do this.”

“Odd, coming from you,” Cassie spits out. I ignore her.

Jezi nods, taking in a few good, deep breaths. “Okay,” she says. “I can do this.” She shuts her eyes, and words roll off her tongue, calling the God and Goddess to us.

“To the great Horned God, Lord of the sun,

We call upon you to witness our rite and offer us protection.

To the blessed Triple Goddess, Lady of the moon,

We call upon you to witness our rite and offer us protection.”

A slight breeze wraps around the room, and then enters us, filling us with the spirit. She spreads her hands out by her sides and begins the spell.

“A curse of death tied to the Gramm bloodline,

I come to break thee.

A traitor’s blood spilled for the curse,

I come to cleanse thee.”

As the spell takes hold, Joe’s head is thrown back, exposing his throat. His eyes twitch with awareness as Jezi conjures a blade in her hand. She continues the next part of the spell, and the magic wraps around the blade. In her other hand, she conjures a wooden bowl.

“It’s time.” The room goes still and quiet as she steps up to him. I stay right beside her, taking everything in. It doesn’t seem real, even though I know it really is. She glances over her shoulder at me, searching my eyes. I nod, giving her the go ahead. With one last deep breath, she drags the blade across the fragile flesh of his neck. A crimson flood cascades down his neck, some going into the bowl, and the rest flowing down into the bucket on the floor.

The Witch makes awful gurgling sounds. I know I should be sickened, horrified, maybe even upset that we did this, but I feel nothing, and I’m grateful for that. I look up at Gavin. His eyes are wide and tortured. I’ve never seen him look so terrified. Jezi steps away from the Witch, holding the wooden bowl out in front of her. Some of the blood has spilled over onto her trembling hands.

“Take your shirts off and form a circle around him,” she says to me and Gavin. I think I might throw up, but we do as she says. “Take each others’ hands.” We do what she says. She steps up to us as Joe fights to stay awake. “I have to rub his blood over your heart.” She forms a pentagram over my heart, smearing the warm blood over my flesh, her hands trembling.

In that moment, I’m glad I shut everything off. I push the thought of what’s happening far away from me, knowing emotions will only weigh me down. Gavin panics for a moment. His eyes find mine, and I drill strength into him. Every emotion disappears from his face as he shuts down. She rubs the blood over his chest and then steps away.

“Now, I will complete the spell, and then it will be done.”

I hold my breath, hoping that this is all worth it.

“
The souls united before the God and Goddess,

I anoint thee.

To the great Horned God, Lord of the sun,

I ask you to relinquish this curse.

To the blessed Triple Goddess, Lady of the moon,

I ask you to relinquish this curse.”

When the spell is over, Joe takes his last breath. I look to Gavin, hardly able to grip what has happened. I don’t feel different. “Did it work?” I ask. My voice is not my own anymore. It belongs to a killer, a selfish, ruthless murderer.

He shrugs and drops his gaze.

“How can we tell?” I ask Jezi, surprised by the calmness of my tone.

She puts her hand over my heart, using her Witch’s intuition. When her eyes open again, tears fill them. Her lips form into a frown. She inhales and steps away, slightly shaking her head. “I’m so sorry.”

“What? What the hell does that mean?” Gavin says, panic sprinting off his words.

“It didn’t work,” I say flatly. I think my heart has stopped working. I’m sure my brain is misunderstanding. Even though I’ve said it, I don’t believe it. It had to have worked. This couldn’t have been for nothing.

“What the hell do you mean?” Gavin says. His chest is bucking in and out. His face is splotched in shades of red. A glaze has covered the crystal blue of his eyes.

And somehow, I find my words. I make sense of a situation that doesn’t make sense. “I mean it didn’t work, Brother. The Demon lied to us. We’re still cursed. Cassie and I will still die. We just committed a crime against our Coven for absolutely no reason.”

Mad laughter bubbles out of Gavin as both his hands plunge through his unruly hair. “No. This is a freaking joke.” He lifts the Witch’s head by the hair, staring down at him. I think his mind is processing more than he can take.

Cassie slaps her thighs. “This is bullshit,” she says. She storms past him and down the hall to his room. A door slams shut. Jezi winces at the sound.

Weldon is standing when I look at him. “I’m sorry, Jax,” he says sincerely. “We knew going into this that it was a fifty-fifty thing.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Yes it is,” Jezi says under her breath. She lifts her gaze to him. “You did this. You read this spell and knew it wouldn’t work. We should have never trusted you.”

He flinches back. “No, Jezibelle. I had no way of knowing it was a fake. I’d never do something like that. No one told you to go on a whim and believe a Demon. Blame yourself.”

He flies back against the wall before I can stop her. Her hands are splayed out by her sides as she stalks over to him with murder in her thoughts. He tries to pick himself up, but she’s sucking every bit of power from me to fuel her rage.

“This is your fault,” she continues, “and I’ll never forgive you. I’ll never trust you again.”

I run up behind her, reaching for her. “Jezi, stop. He didn’t know.”

She spins on me. “Don’t defend him! My back, remember? You have my back!”

I grab her shoulder and squeeze, pushing volation into her to quiet her magic. The lights in the room flicker in and out as I absorb the electricity. It takes everything I have to fight against her magic. I turn back for Gavin, but he’s still looking down at Joe, lost in a stupor.

When I turn back to her, I’m fuming. “Jezi, this isn’t all about you. Look at him. Look at my brother!” I shout at her, trying to bring her back down. “He needs me right now.”

“I need you!” she shouts. “Weldon is a liar, and liars deserve to be punished.”

“I didn’t lie,” Weldon squeezes out. His eyes darken, and his face begins to morph. She’s forcing him to change, to shift into his Demon.

“Stop it,” I command, squeezing her arm a little harder.

“Make me.”

I
suck in a breath and tug hard on all the power. The apartment darkens. Before she can stop me, a web of volation wraps around her, encasing her behind electricity. Magic won’t pass through it.

“Take it down, Jaxen!” she screams at me as she thrashes against the sparking web.

“Not until you cool off.”

Weldon stands the moment her magic lifts off of him. He looks over at me, questioning what he should do.

“Go,” I say. “I’ll call you.” He slips out the front door. I turn to my brother. “Gavin, snap out of it.”