It would take the witch who cursed him or the demon that aided her, to free him.
I knew that part of his secret now, for the darkness inside me whispered it to me.
** *
I stoodin the heart of a delicate flat in Oxford, looking around at an untouched memory. Considering it had been over twenty years since I last stood here, at my father’s side, after I clutched a blood-slick athame in my small hand and looked down at the dead body of Heather Briar, I felt as though I was still that little boy. The little boy frightened of what his father would do to the people he loved, who was prepared to kill other people just to protect them.
I lifted my attention to the fireplace on the far side of the living room. The stonework was coated in soot, rotten bits of kindling and wood sitting in the hearth waiting to be lit. Without thought, my feet guided me towards it until I knelt on the cold tiles before it. I reached into the gaping mouth of darkness, searching.
This was where Hector hid from us.
My fingers traced the soot-coated grooves, sensing a thrum of dark power left imprinted on the bricks. It was the same dark power that writhed and called out from inside of me.
“You told me he would be here,” I said aloud, speaking to the demon inside of me. “But you lied. Ihateliars.”
Bahmet pressed against my skin like a hand trying to break free of a puppet.“I do not lie, Arwyn. You asked me to take you to the place where his presence is most prominent, and that is here. His memory stained the air in his place… it reeks of him.”
Bahmet’s disgust was evident in the bite of his words.
I rocked backwards on my feet, pushing my thighs to stand. “And yet we are alone. And I’m wasting time.”
“This is the room where Hector Briar’s soul broke into far too many pieces to ever collect. It is not my fault that there is so much of him scattered here that his imprint is strong. Perhapsit was your guilt that has overridden your desire for him. Have you come back here to pick up all those pieces and give them back to Hector as a gift?”
My hands balled to fists, nails pinching into soft flesh and yet the pain was kept at bay. “Quiet.”
“It hurts you for someone to speak the secrets of your broken soul, does it not?”Bahmet taunted, his sickly voice filling my skull as though he was shouting into a barren cave.
“I told you to bequiet,” I snapped, magic cracking out of me in a wave.
The walls around me splintered, the floor cracking like the shell of an egg. Pictures that clung to the walls, showing the faces of a smiling, happy family, fell and smashed. Tables toppled, and windows shattered.
“You forget yourself,”Bahmet sang,“for I am no familiar for you to control. I am Bahmet, Lord of the?—”
“Enough!”
I pictured fire beneath my skin, boiling and hissing tongues as they lashed back at the demon inside of me.
Bahmet receded back into the very pits of my body, proving I was the one in control. At least enough to quieten him, not silence the demon entirely.
“Do you not wish for me to take you to him?”Bahmet whispered, so faint now that I had to focus to hear him.
Twice I’d stepped foot into Hector’s home, and both times I’d brought ruin with me. But I had failed him more times than I could count. Starting with what I did to his family, and leading up to the fact that the one person he wished to destroy would never die.
“That is unless you do as your father wants, and lift the curse placed upon him,”Bahmet reminded, a lilt of enjoyment in his ancient voice.“He has asked it of you, and I can do it if you allow me. And yet, you refuse.”
I ground my teeth together, turning away from the suggestion as if it was a physical barrier before me. “My father doesn’t deserve the peace he seeks.”
“And yet you allow him to continue living, knowing all the lives he will end?”
I bristled at the truth, and yet I still wouldn’t do it. “My father will face his judgement, but it will be at the hand of the man who deserves to deal it out.”
“Are you not that man, Arwyn?”A strange weight laid out on my shoulder, as if a hand was rested there.“Have you not been made to commit heinous crimes? Have you not been worn down by the years of abuse and torture? I have seen into your mind and witnessed all the hurt Tomin has caused you, and yet you are the one being with the capability of lifting that curse I was made to set upon him like a crown, and still you will not do it.”
I pinched my eyes closed, dark and bloody scenes racing through my mind. Even beneath the anxiety gripping my body, I knew this was Bahmet’s doing. He might not have been able to control me like previous Grand Highs, but he was using every trick up his sleeve to taunt me into a malleable position.
“Do you know where Hector is or not?” I asked, forcing out the question as though my mouth was filled with mud.
The echo of Bahmet’s laugh cut me deep, already answering my question.“Of course I do. We are connected, Hector and I.”
