The Taking (38 page)

“I vanquish you back to Hell,” Felix said, picturing steel cords wrapping around Alcroft’s hands and feet.

As Felix pulled a knife out of his pocket, Alcroft writhed around on the ground, his hands and feet bound by invisible restraints. Turn the magic back onto the magician. If Alcroft could bind Felix, he could turn it back and bind him.

Turning the trick back, as his mother would have said.

Felix pictured his mother’s smile, her gentle demeanor, as he pulled the knife out of his pocket. He silently thanked her before slashing the knife across his wrist. The pain had him gritting his teeth, but he braced himself against it and squeezed his fist open and closed. Standing over Alcroft, he let his blood drip down onto him.

Alcroft’s eyes flashed with anger, and maybe fear. “If I go back, you’ll go with me.”

“I know,” Felix said calmly, resigned to the inevitable. It was time for him to die. He had lived long enough to no purpose, and he would die to save Regan. To release Camille from her torment.

He knelt to his knees and slashed open his other wrist, the blood flowing wet and warm in the humid evening air.

Alcroft lay on his back, breathing hard, struggling against the invisible bonds. “She’ll think you abandoned her, you know,” he said, the smirk still on his face despite the circumstances. “She’ll hate you.”

His arrogance irritated Felix, so he just ignored him, watching his blood drip down onto Alcroft’s shirt. His head was starting to swim. But the wound on his left wrist was coagulating, so he sliced a fresh one right below it, the sting of the pain less of a shock this time, more of a heady triumphant feeling that this would be over.

“She’ll move on, get married, have children, live a happy life hating you, and you’ll be rotting with me in Hell.”

Felix laughed softly. “That’s what you don’t understand. What you’re incapable of understanding because you’re so truly selfish.” His mouth was hot, and his hands were starting to feel numb, but he kept his focus, on Alcroft, on the binding, on the request for vanquishment. “That is what I want, Regan to be happy. I would do anything to make that possible.”

Right then they both heard laughter from the balcony.

Regan.

Felix snapped his head up to see, the movement making him dizzy.

And wished he hadn’t.

Regan’s hand was shaking as she put the pen to the yellowed paper, right below Camille’s last entry. She didn’t know what had happened that fateful night, Felix had never had a chance to tell her, but she could guess.

And change the result.

Staying in the middle of the bed, a wary eye on the snake, Regan wished she had kept a diary at some point. She had no idea what to write.

Felix arrived,
she scrawled.
He broughta snake.

She stared at her wobbly handwriting. Now what? She needed to get into Camille’s head, Camille’s voice.

He played the drum and I danced. Dancing is a delight
.
Here
, at
home, I can let my hair downand dance the way I cannot in the ballroom.

That was better. Regan stared at the French doors. What had drawn Camille to them?

That didn’t sound right, it was too generic for Camille, but Regan had no desire to go into details of their sex, no matter how long ago it was, and she had to assume they’d already consummated their relationship by that point.

Regan paused, pen on the paper. She could feel it. She could feel the warm breeze, feel the nakedness of her own flesh, feel the hint of laughter washing in like an ocean wave, smell the heavy floral perfume of Camille’s mother. Her mother.

The words came without thought, her handwriting slanting and scrolling and beautiful.

Regan dropped the pen down. The drums were louder. She had to dance.

The snake no longer scared her. With the journal in hand, she stepped onto the area rug in the middle of the room, in front of the open doors, and moved her hips to the rhythmic beat of the nonexistent drums. The candlelight cast shadows around the room and the snake glided toward her.

Regan ignored him. She wasn’t ready for him. Walking to the chest of drawers, she slid the journal back into its secret compartment, and closed it firmly shut. She drank the wine that had appeared out of nowhere, the red liquid warming her as it slid down her throat.

She tore off her shirt, even as she told herself she shouldn’t. Couldn’t. But it was as it would be and she was powerless to stop it.

One last night she would be Camille then they would both be free.

Regan dropped her skirt to the floor and danced, her hands in her hair. She had never danced alone like this, and there was something freeing, elemental about it. Just her and the music, swelling up inside her. The snake moved around her feet, dancing with her, and she reached down and picked it up.

Holding its head, Regan stared into its eyes, the deep liquid pools of black mesmerizing. There was no fear and there was no Camille.

This was her, Regan, staving off her fear and reclaiming her life.

She walked with the snake, its thick body heavy and draped over her arms. Going through the doors, she moved to the railing of the Juliet balcony and closed her eyes. “Be at peace,” she whispered to Camille. “They are welcoming you home.”

The wind kicked up, flinging her hair in her face, and yet despite the strands over her eyes, she saw them. Camille, walking forward out into the air, in her black mourning gown, being wrapped in the embrace of a petite woman in a rich ruby gown. Four young women huddled around her, while a man watched paternally from behind. There were smiles and tears of joy and laughter, and Regan felt the squeeze of deep familial love.

Camille turned and smiled and waved in her direction, and Regan laughed, a sob of joy and relief. Tears were in her eyes as she waved back, the weight of the snake shifting on her arm.

Then without warning the railing she was leaning on gave way.

Felix looked up to see Regan standing on the balcony in her bra and panties, her hands out holding a thick, long snake. It was a mistake to look up. Alcroft did the same, and the second Felix saw the railing start to shift forward, he knew it was Alcroft’s doing.

“No!” He jumped up, woozy from the loss of blood and the exertion of trying to contain and banish Alcroft.

If he left the circle, his spell would be broken and Alcroft would be free.

But Regan was stumbling, pitching forward, and she was going to fall.

Just like Camille.

Felix moved, but Alcroft grabbed his leg, his hands still bound. “Leave her. Let her die. That’s the only way to end this.”

“The only way to end it is for
you
to die,” Felix said in anger, yanking as hard as he could to escape the grip.

Then he ran forward, breaking free, trying to find the spot where Regan would drop down. She was screaming, her arms flailing, as she lost her balance and tumbled over the side. Felix backed up, stumbling over Alcroft as he gauged where Regan would land. She was going to fall into the binding circle. Felix braced himself, dropping the knife he’d been holding to the ground.

Regan hit him full force and he went down, desperate to keep her from hitting the stones. He hit the ground and gasped in shock when the knife went straight into his back. The pain tore through him and he knew it was Alcroft. One last trick from the conjurer, setting the knife on its handle straight up to impale him.

He couldn’t see or feel Alcroft next to him anymore and he knew he should deal with the demon, but Regan was weeping quietly, trembling, and she was his focus. “Are you okay?” he asked her.

She nodded. “I’m fine. I just scraped my leg, that’s all.” She sat up over him and ran her hand down his cheek. “What are you doing here? You saved my life... again.”

“I didn’t know you were going to be here,” he told her, struggling to keep the pain from his voice. “I met Alcroft here.” He turned to see what the demon was doing, aware they were in danger if Alcroft had broken the bonds of the binding, fully expecting to see a triumphant grin on the bastard’s face.

But there was no Alcroft, in the circle or out. There was only a snake, a cottonmouth, curled up beside Felix, a wallet and car keys lying next to it. Amber eyes glowed up at Felix with hatred and malice, before it uncoiled and quickly glided toward the gate and the street.

Alcroft couldn’t shape-shift into animal form, he had told Felix that many times.

Which meant that instead of Hell, Felix and Regan had banished him to the body of the snake. When Regan had fallen with the snake wrapped around her, she’d landed in the binding circle. Instead of vanquishing Alcroft, Felix’s spell had bound him to the snake.

He laughed softly. “Regan, Alcroft is in the snake. You’re free of him.”

“He is?” Regan asked in shock. “How ...”

“A binding spell. Not exactly what I had planned, but this works. It’s over. Now Camille can be released, too.”

“She already has.” Regan swallowed hard, tears in her eyes. “I saw her being met by her family. It really is over.”

Closing his eyes briefly, Felix reached up and ran his fingers over her lips. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she said, her words choked.

“Now will you please pull this knife out of my back?” He rolled onto his side, fighting the nausea that had gripped his stomach and was crawling up his throat. He wanted to vomit, something he never did, and there were spots dancing in front of his eyes.

Regan yelped when she saw his wound. “Oh, my God!” Felix could feel the warmth of his blood soaking through the back of his T-shirt and seeping across to his elbows and forearms as he lay on the ground.

“Honey,” he said, a little confused. He really shouldn’t feel this horrible. He should be healing already. “I think I’m going to pass out.”

Her face blurred in front of him as he fought to stay conscious, and lost the battle.

“Felix, stop.” Regan laughed and pushed his hand away. “You’re still recovering. I don’t want to tear your stitches.”

But she was secretly thrilled that he was here with her in their new rental shotgun cottage on St. Ann, healing and healthy and apparently aroused.

He had scared her senseless when he had passed out in the courtyard. She had still been shaking herself from the fall over the balcony and the realization that Beau had been shoved into the snake she had conjured up when they had collided, and she had been relying on Felix to calm her down. To make sense of all of it for her. Instead, he’d passed out from blood loss.