Dread Nemesis of Mine (44 page)

"You do realize Ivy has the same parents,
right?" I said, mustering some venom. "She's as much spawn as I
am."

He chuckled. "In that, you are quite
mistaken, boy. She takes after her mother." His gaze turned to Ivy.
"I do believe our conversation is at an end." He flicked his hand
toward me and something clamped my mouth shut. I could still
breathe through my nose, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't
pry my jaws open, not even using my hands.

The time for pleading was at an end. Now I
had to do something. But what?

Anything physical was out of the question.
Even if I managed to build up enough rage to manifest into my demon
form, all the strength in the world wouldn't matter if I couldn't
touch the ground or move.

It occurred to me I might have one powerful
tool at my disposal, and extended my incubus senses, hoping I might
be able to upset her concentration at the very least. My essence
reached toward her aura. The swirling energy around her masked, it,
but I knew it was there. But as it reached her, it found only a
void. Every attempt I made to latch on was like grasping at thin
air. She was either shielded, or had some way of protecting
herself. I grunted in frustration and withdrew my tendril.

No good, damn it!

The only avenue left to me was magic.
Considering the amount of raw power my sister wielded, and how
effortlessly Conroy had snared me, I knew, without a doubt, I had
very little chance of pulling off anything. If I was lucky, I might
manage another fireball. But I had to choose a target. A fireball
would undoubtedly burn the hell out of whoever it hit, but it was
likely Conroy still had a shield around him. If dear old Granddad
did have a shield, the element of surprise would be lost. I
wondered if he might also be shielding Ivy. I wondered how terrible
I'd feel for burning my sister. She was still so young. The Conroys
had brainwashed her all her life, twisting her into a little
monster. I didn't want to be responsible for destroying her
physically.

I don't have a choice.

Peering hard at Conroy, I tried to see if the
air was rippling around him. I switched to incubus view, but the
brightness of the swirling energy overwhelmed everything else. I
could just barely make out the outline of something around me, but
only because it was so close. I suspected it was whatever force
Conroy had used to keep me in place.

Extending a tendril toward the vortex of
energy around Ivy, I opened myself up to it. The shock of so much
raw power hit me like a wall. I blacked out for a second. My vision
flickered. Nausea churned up my throat. Puking would be the worst
thing possible with my mouth clamped shut. I withdrew my probe,
cutting off the flow with a gasping snort. Something wet dribbled
on my lips. I touched a finger to them and saw blood.

Power pulsed in my veins. I felt as though I
might explode with energy. I tried to concentrate on Ivy, but my
vision swam. My head lolled to the side and my eyelids fluttered. I
was drunk on magic, or else so sick with it, I wanted to spew.

No, dammit. Concentrate! Do it!

I clenched my teeth tight. Balled my hands
into tight fists. Glared at Ivy. Imagining a fireball was easy.
Imagining it engulfing the lithe figure of my little sister was
hard. So damned hard. God, I didn't want to do this. But I had to.
I had to.

Using every last shred of willpower, I
imagined the fireball, white hot, and laser-fast blasting Ivy to
the ground. Something built inside me. My head roared with power.
And then the next rune sucked in the vortex of energy around Ivy.
As the air around her cleared, a faint bluish ripple became
visible. I looked to Conroy and, without the blinding energy
present, could see the same thing around him. They were definitely
both shielded.

Relief spread through me, so powerful it
almost erased the sick churning feeling in my stomach. At the same
time, despair took hold. This was hopeless. I couldn't do anything
to stop her.

I was done.

Fighting back useless anger, I looked at the
symbols in the air, my incubus senses still highlighting the
magical energy in the room. Ivy wiped her forehead. Her face looked
pale. Dark rings underlined her eyes. The effort of casting this
spell seemed to be wearing her down. I dared to hope she might be
too tired to finish it, but even that was false hope. Our
grandfather wouldn't have a problem taking over and completing
it.

As I stared at the last remaining rune, I
realized it was the one Adam had identified as the killing rune.
The other symbols floating in the air flickered. I had the
strangest sensation I could read them, if only I looked at them a
certain way. They had to be Cyrinthian. My demonic side seemed
well-versed in the language. Unfortunately, I didn't have a way to
summon those lingual abilities at will.

A thought occurred to me. The desperate
thought of a person who has run out of time and with nothing left
to lose. Reaching inside me, I let the anger and frustration free.
I let the incubus within loose. Focusing on Conroy, I reminded
myself of all he'd done. Stolen my sister. Brainwashed her.
Betrayed me to Maximus. Anger piled upon hate and grew to rage.
Blinding red fury washed across my eyes and a skull-piercing
headache cracked into my head with all the force of a boulder. I
touched my forehead and felt the tiny points of horns.

My eyesight shimmered as I crossed the
threshold from somewhat human to demonic. Some of the symbols
suddenly held meaning for me, clear as reading about Dick and Jane.
But there was so much to read. My gaze locked onto the last rune.
Even with this new understanding, it looked like a mass of
gibberish. As the spell rotated around Ivy, I realized with a
start, I had been viewing the rune from the back. With it facing me
from the front my vision zoomed in until I could see the hundreds
of tiny symbols creating the pattern, almost like ASCII art.

It was like looking at a picture with two
different images hidden inside it. Like seeing a face on the
surface of the moon. The meaning of the pattern clicked inside my
head. I traced the symbols until I found one tiny part that held
the meaning of the rune together and defined it. I willed it to
vanish, but the single character was bound by the symbols around
it, held into form by the magic used to create it in the first
place. Digging inside, I pulled up every shred of energy I'd
absorbed, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't erase any part
of it. Doing so would erase the rune and cause a vacuum, some part
of me realized. There was too much energy bound in the spell to
allow it.

But there was an alternative. One thing that
might work. Instead of erasing the tiny symbol holding the rune
together, I could add a tiny slash through the center, like
changing the letter "C" to an "E". It took everything I had just to
make one tiny mark. As my will finished adding the slash, I
collapsed—or at least would have if I hadn't been held captive in
Conroy's anti-gravity field.

Ivy was already summoning more energy,
renewing the vortex around her as she started the incantation to
power the last rune. To commit mass murder. As exhaustion took hold
of me, my demonic sight flickered off. Tiny nubs fell from my
forehead as my manifestation aborted itself. I had done all I
could. I hoped.

Knowing my luck, I'd come up with an even
better idea after the fact and curse myself. Like the time Phyllis
Jenkins had called me a loser during recess in eighth grade, and by
the time I came up with what I should have retorted, it was already
lunchtime.

I wondered how Elyssa was doing and prayed
she'd been able to evacuate the place in case my plan failed.

The last rune burst into red light. Energy
washed across the cavern as the powered runes glowed with the
brilliance of a small sun. Ivy, a look of triumph and pride on her
face, placed the staff in the center of the runes and shouted a
word. Bolts of white energy speared into the staff. A sphere of
power gathered atop the ivory shaft, growing larger and larger. It
floated up into the air, gathering size until it was the size of a
watermelon.

It exploded.

A wave of energy washed over me like the
mother of all static electricity charges. The hairs on my arm and
head prickled straight up with the sensation of needles all over my
skin. The prickles across my lower regions made me glad I at least
didn't have back hair to add to it.

Light bulbs exploded. The air thundered.
Whatever had been supporting me cut out and I tumbled to the
ground, my jaws suddenly free.

For a moment, there was only darkness. Then
some of the surviving light bulbs flickered back on. Ivy lay in a
heap in the middle of the floor, the staff beside her. Conroy
noticed I was free, and flicked his hand, sending me back up in the
air again. He scooped up Ivy, his staff, and her arcphone.

She lifted her head. "Did I do it, Bigdaddy?"
Her voice sounded tired.

He smiled. Kissed her forehead. "Yes you did,
my little angel. Yes you did."

"Can I have cake now?"

Conroy laughed. "All you want, honey." He
looked at me. "Well, boy. I just don't know what to do with you. I
hesitate to leave you alive, lest your mischief completely derail
our plans, and the Foreseeance—" He broke off as if coming to a
conclusion. Sighed. "It pains me to do this. Truly it does. But I
see no other choice. I know you're an abomination—all your kind
are—but this is the only way." He regarded me for a long moment,
and then chanted something.

My jaw clamped shut again. My nose pinched
tight. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't draw another breath. Terror
slammed into me and my heart raced.

"Your kind is very difficult to kill, but
even if you somehow manage to survive without oxygen, I suspect
you'll be too brain damaged for even your remarkable healing
abilities to fully repair the damage. I know it's a terrible way to
go, but I much prefer it to—ahem—other methods."

He made a motion with his hand like tying a
knot. "Rest in peace, boy." He turned and left, leaving me
suspended in the air.

I knew from experience I could hold my breath
for a long time, having performed an underwater tour of terror at
Thunder Rock, holding my breath for minutes. But I had the sinking
feeling this spell wouldn't free me until I was stone-cold dead.
Drawing upon the final shreds of will I had left, I extended my
incubus senses so I could see the magical energy.

Ghostly patterns hovered before my eyes. I
could tell they covered my nose and mouth, but when I touched my
face with my hands, they went through the insubstantial binding
magic. I tried to soak in the energy around me, but spots danced
before my eyes, and dizziness made it impossible to concentrate.
Again and again I tried to will the spell off of me, but nothing I
did had any effect.

Time slipped from seconds into minutes.

Consciousness left me little by little.

I was going to die, and there was nothing I
could do about it.

Goodbye, Elyssa. I love you.

A bright flash startled me. Arms enfolded me
and pulled me to the ground. I looked up with blurry vision and saw
bright blonde hair cascading down from a face I couldn't make
out.

The pressure on my nose and mouth abruptly
vanished. I sucked in a long breath of air, gasping and panting for
precious oxygen as my brain screamed and pounded with pain.

When my eyesight cleared I looked into clear
blue eyes and the concerned face of my mother.

"Mom?" I said, rubbing my eyes and looking
again to be sure I was really seeing her and not some hallucination
brought on by brain damage from oxygen deprivation.

She nodded, tears clouding her eyes, and
pressed her hand to my face. "I'm so sorry, Justin. So sorry." She
sobbed harder. Tears dripped onto my face.

I sat up. My head hated me for it, throbbing
with pain, but I let it wash right through me. "What—how—why?" I
had no idea what to ask first. The last time I'd seen her she told
me that Dad and I were no longer part of her family. That she never
wanted to see us again.

She shifted into a kneeling position, wiping
away the tears, and pulling a tissue from a pocket in the pants she
wore. "I wish I could answer those questions, Justin. But I can't."
She leaned forward and gripped me in a tight hug, kissing my cheeks
and holding me for so long, I wasn't sure she'd let go.

Without thinking, I returned the hug and felt
tears burning in my eyes.

She does love me. She really does.

"I can't stay, darling," Mom said after a
long moment. "I'm risking too much by coming here, but I couldn't
stand by. I just couldn't." She planted another kiss on my
forehead. "Just know that no matter what you hear or find out, I
love you with all my heart, and I'm proud—so proud—you're my
son."

"Please don't go, Mom," I said my voice
sounding like a little kid. "Dad's going to marry Kassallandra, and
Ivy is brainwashed, and—and I don't know what to do. I don't know
how to stop it all. Everything is crazy and the world doesn't make
any sense!"

A smile shined through her tears, and she
laughed. "Honey, if I knew the answers any better than you, I
wouldn't hesitate to fix everything for my little boy." She
caressed my cheek. "Everything I've had to do has been so hard. To
see the way you looked at me that day—" she choked up. Turned her
head away. "I'm afraid it won't get any easier from here, and I
don't want you relying on me." She put a finger on my chest. "You
have all the power you need right here, son. No matter what anyone
else tells you, I believe you can do anything once you put your
mind to it."