Redemption (28 page)

I have to take the stairs slowly, as they are covered in ice. My heart pounds a million times for each step I take. I hear a strange creaking sound from the side of the house. The side my bedroom is on. I speed up my descent and nearly slip. I grab the banister to steady myself. The cold of the ice-covered metal awakens my senses. The cityscape appears as if it’s made out of glass. It shimmers in the streetlamps’ light. If it weren’t for the alternating snow and freezing rain blocking my visibility, it would appear serene.

When the creaking sounds start up again, I realize it’s my bedroom window.

I bring my phone back to my ear. “Still there?”

“What’s happening?”

“It’s opening my window.”

“Call it.”

“But then it will come after me.”

“Guillaume should be almost there.”

I look at the phone for a moment. Is he crazy? But I can’t very well let my mom take her chances with him. She doesn’t even have essence. She doesn’t even know what’s going on.

“I’m over here,” I call out.

There. I can now say I have done at least one truly heroic thing in my life. I don’t wait to see if it follows me. I try to find the least slippery area to walk on, but everything is covered in ice. I slide along the sidewalk as quickly as I can manage. When I get to the street corner, I turn around. The Terra Cotta man is only about ten feet away from me and he’s moving fast. There is no way I can escape him. The streets are empty and there is no one I can run to for help.

I focus on him. I search for my core, like I was taught to, and when I find my essence, appearing like nothing more than a few pinches of glitter within me, I pull on them and wrap myself with whatever power I can find. I think this is what I meant to do. I listen hard for the drums but hear nothing.

“Ancestors! I need you!” I scream out in the quiet night.

The only drumming I hear is my heart. The Terra Cotta man grabs me roughly. I close my eyes, and send my essence into him, to try to seek out his and drain it. Or destroy it. Or, I don’t know exactly what, but do something.

I think I feel something, some sort of resistance, and the Terra Cotta man staggers back. Just by one step. I turn to run across the street but am stopped by a reckless car fishtailing along the street. The driver slams on the brakes and the car does a one-eighty. The driver’s door opens and Guillaume jumps out, with a blue glow around him. By the time he hits the ground, he’s already transforming.

The Terra Cotta man grabs me and beast-Guillaume snarls at him. He circles around us, like a predatory wolf. I close my eyes and concentrate on my essence again. I find the same sprinkling of it as last time, but I know there is much more in there somewhere. The Terra Cotta man kicks Guillaume, who falls back with a cry of pain. A barrier within me breaks and suddenly I’m drowning.

There is essence all around me and I grab it with my mind and wrap myself completely in it. It feels like my skin itself is shimmering. I push it outward from myself, hoping to push away the Terra Cotta man. But it just goes through him. So I use it like tentacles and push them into him to seek out whatever I can find of his own essence. I grasp at whatever strands I can find, though his is more like smoky wisps than tingly liquid.

He lets me go. He turns to run and Guillaume pounces on him and knocks him to the ground.

“Finish what you started,”
he says.

“What did I start?”

“Drain his essence.”

So I send my essence back into him, but he fights back and suddenly it’s as if he’s draining me. I try to block him but his power is inside me and I don’t know how to fight him. I need to get it out. I concentrate hard and think I hear the drums faintly in the distance. I let the rhythm calm me, and with every beat I push him back some more. Once I am no longer under assault from his essence, I block my life energy within me as I have always kept it: out of reach even from myself. Then I reach out inside him the same way I reached inside myself. With my will and my force, I tug and tug at his centre until I feel the wispiness of his life all around me, and I unravel it. I don’t take it within myself. It makes me sick like old cigarette ashes. Instead I just let it dissipate into the air.

The Terra Cotta man becomes harder and more stone-like until he crumbles into dust.

“You did it,”
Guillaume tells me.

He starts shimmering and wavering.
“I don’t have enough essence to stay in this form,”
he says.

Guillaume quickly changes into stone, then more painstakingly, with a strange crumbling sound, he transforms to his human form. His naked human form. The noise is followed by a string of expletives—mostly in French.

“You’re going to freeze,” I tell him, trying to avoid looking at his naked form.

“I have clothes in the car,” he answers.

He limps to his car, and throws on a sweatshirt and jeans. He sits in the passenger seat and invites me to sit next to him.

“Let’s get you home,” he says. His voice sounds wrong.

I’m still clutching my phone tightly, and remember, then, that Garnier is still on the line.

“Hello?” I call out.

“Is everything okay?” he asks.

I give him the details of defeating the Terra Cotta man while Guillaume drives the short block back home.

We sit in the car for a moment without saying anything.

“Do you want to come up?” I ask him, biting my lip. What the hell am I asking him?

“What?”

“I mean you seem shaken up and your essence is so low, maybe I can figure out how to help with that … ” And it’s cold and I don’t want to be alone.

“Is it okay?”

“For you to come up? Of course, I mean it’s not like we’re going to do anything.”

He gives a small laugh.

He’s weaker than I thought and I have to help him climb the icy stairs. When we reach the door to my apartment, I put my finger to my lip to signify he’ll have to be quiet. I can’t imagine how disappointed Mom would be to find me bringing a boy in the house in the middle of the night. Every little creak that sounds while we walk through the hall sets my nerves on edge and my teeth grinding against each other, but no noise sounds out from Mom’s room.

We enter my room and I bar the door behind us.

We stare at each other. His clothes look hastily put on and he’s shivering, so I take the blankets off my bed and give them to him.

“Thanks,” he whispers through clenched teeth.

I nod and close the window that had been opened from the outside by the Terra Cotta man.

When I return to Guillame, I reach inside myself and try to find the essence I locked away. Like earlier, I can only find a minimal amount. I try to grab it and transfer it to him but what comes out is completely insignificant.

“Damn it,” I say. “I thought I’d finally figured it out.”

Guillaume places his hand on my arm and I jump back from how cold his skin feels. I reach inside myself again and imagine the essence as it was when I had broken through that barrier. I start transferring this invisible essence into Guillaume in thick, gloopy strands. I repeat the exercise over and over again until I know that I’m not pretending anymore and the essence is flowing thick and strong into him. His skin against mine becomes warmer and warmer. Finally, I stop.

We sit next to each other, but now I’m the only one shivering.

“You could probably warm yourself,” he says.

“With my essence?”

He nods.

“Probably. But I’m too tired to try.”

“Of course,” he says. “You must be so tired.” He places the blanket over me.

My heart races as I feel his body against mine. He feels so human that I have a hard time reminding myself that he isn’t.

No longer conscious of anything but the warmth slowly making its way between us, I press myself closer to him. His arm wraps tighter around me and we sit like that on the edge of my bed.

When I can no longer ignore the fire burning inside, I speak.

“The power went out.”

“Aye.” His voice is rough.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Because it’s cold.”

“Mmm … is it cold?” I ask drowsily. With my cheek against his neck, I feel his Adam’s apple move as he swallows hard.

“I think it was,” he says.

“I don’t want to be cold anymore,” I whisper.

“You don’t have to be,” he says. “Just sleep against me. I’ll keep you safe.”

I’m already half-asleep, but I let out a little giggle. “From what? I defeated our enemy.”

He laughs. “You did. I’ll keep you safe from the evil cold.”

I close my eyes and drift off to sleep.

I wake up to find my light on. I rub my eyes in confusion. Was I so tired that I fell asleep with it on? No, the light was off because the power was off and Guillaume was in my bed.

I sit up and look around. He had been here last night, hadn’t he?

A heavy knock comes to my door.

“Aude, are you awake? It’s time to get up! The clocks are out, remember?”

“Yeah, thanks Mom,” I call out.

There had been a power outage last night, but I see no clue that Guillaume was ever in my room. I grab my watch to check the time and rush to get ready for work.

43

Guillaume

I didn’t know exactly when she became the most important thing to me, but sitting in my car, waiting for her to come down to go to our last guitar lessons before the holidays, I knew it had happened. I also knew it hadn’t happened as recently as it seemed.

I heard a knock on the car window and jumped. Aude stood at the door, so I unlocked it, and she let herself in.

“Tired much?” she asked.

“Not really.”

“Oh. I thought you were sleeping.”

“No, lost in thought … ”

“About last night?” She bit her lip, as if nervous about something.

“Not really … ” I said again. I lied.

I started the car.

I heard her swallow and could see her watching me from the corner of my eye but I kept my eyes on the road—not because I needed to, but because suddenly I was a coward and couldn’t handle another intense moment between us.

When the light had come on earlier that morning, it had woken me. Aude stirred but didn’t wake, not even when I untangled her from me. The furnace had kicked in by then and I knew she’d be warm.

“You don’t need me anymore, so I’m going to talk to the others. I’ll pick you up in the morning as usual,” I whispered to her. She moaned and stirred. She wore no make-up, her hair was messy and tangled, and the blankets partially exposed her cute, pink flannel pajamas. I reached out and tucked her back in and she murmured something and smiled, but her eyes still didn’t open.

“Thank you, for being there,” Aude finally whispered, even quieter than my own admission had been. It brought me back to the present.

We pulled up to the music studio and Aude talked of our lesson plans as we went up the stairs. There was a spring in my step. Aude was safe, and she had transferred enough essence that I felt better than I had in over half a century. The Stone Monster was gone and there was nothing but hope for us for the future.

She paused at the top of the landing and turned to me.

“I’m meeting for coffee with Kateri to talk about music stuff.”

“Should I come too?”

“I think it would be better if it was just us.”

I agreed readily. Without the Stone Monster around, Aude should be safe enough.

She opened the door to the classroom and stopped in her tracks. When I joined her, I came face to face with Ramtin.

“What are you doing here?” she asked him.

“Remember what I said about being useful to me?”

“I’m a de Rouen witch and not just a plaything for your games.”

He laughed. He looked between me and her and passed her a card. “If you change your mind, you can reach me at this number. Otherwise, I’ll be in touch with you.”

He turned his back on us and exited the door.

Aude watched him with a look of concentration on her face. “I can’t even sense his essence,” she whispered to me. She threw his card in the garbage and began to prepare her lesson plans for the students who would soon begin to arrive.

“He’s much too powerful.” I sighed. I guess she wasn’t exactly safe after all.

44

Aude

Guillaume helps me with my guitar and hands it to me at the bottom of the stairs.

“Are you sure I shouldn’t come with you?”

“Guillaume, I’m fine. You can’t possibly watch me at all times. Anyways, I can take care of myself, remember?”

“I’m worried about Ramtin. He wants something from you.”

I’m worried too. I hesitate for a moment. “Why don’t you drive me there? Then, at least you know where I am. You’ll know that I’m fine.”