Eighth Note (Fire Ballad Book 1) Read online

  Nonexistent.

  “Eva,” he repeated, slowly crawling off the couch from beneath me. My red curls fell around my face, and through the darkness, I could see headlights in the windows from outside.

  I fell to the couch just as he moved. My landing was graceful, calculated. Cole backed to the door, and I fought the vertigo eating at my mind. Focus.

  Focus.

  “I feel better,” I said, my voice stronger, thicker. Straightening, I placed my feet on the floor and stood up.

  In a matter of seconds, I’d crossed the room to Cole, just like in my dream. My feet were pointed inward again, bare, and I straightened them.

  He met my eyes, inching toward the door.

  And I wanted him.

  Locking my hands around his wrists, I threw him against the wall, flattening my body on his. He tried to fight me, and I laughed, a strange sound that I didn’t recognize.

  “This is what you’ve been waiting for. You wanted me. I’m here,” I purred, tearing his thin tee-shirt from the neck down. It felt like paper in my hands; my strength was not only rejuvenated, but I felt a thousand times more powerful, and the lusty ache in my belly forced my mouth on his. “Do everything I say, Cole,” I ordered, ripping at his jeans.

  “Let her go!” He roared, rearing back and punching me in the face.

  I should have landed on my back, but instead I stopped inches from the ground, suspended in midair.

  Flipping back to my feet, I smiled, sliding my hands up my face and into my hair.

  And I pulled.

  One long, red curl fell to my feet, the pain at my scalp forgotten before I could register. Another, and another, until I felt Cole tackle me. My head knocked against the floor with a sickening crack.

  Voices.

  I struggled to move, turning my face toward the sounds. Two men, speaking softly. I know them. Yanking at my arms, I realized that my wrists were strapped to something that I couldn’t see.

  “Cole?”

  I tried my voice, and it sounded so young, so pathetic. I must have drawn his attention; he was getting closer, and my whole heart burst as I focused on Will’s face.

  Will.

  “Eva,” he bent to me, his mouth catching mine in a soft, careful kiss. “I am here now, love. Do not be afraid.”

  “What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I move?” I cried, pulling again at my restraints. I began to focus on my magic, but a splitting head-ache answered me cruelly.

  “They are to protect you. From harming yourself,” his fingers drew up and down my arm, and I felt my chin quiver, tears threatening.

  “I’m so glad you’re here. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean what I said, I just didn’t want to hurt you, and-…,”

  “Hush, little one. You are brave, and though impulsive, your decisions are made with both logic and caution. I will not let you go, Eva, I will not let this thing take you.”

  I rolled my head to look away from Will, seeing Cole sitting across the room. He was bandaging his elbow, and I narrowed my eyes at the amount of blood on the wrap. “What happened? Cole?”

  He lifted his eyes to Will, and then to me. “You… broke… my arm.”

  “What?” I tried again to sit up, but Will shook his head, his fingers encircling my wrist.

  “It is healing. You were not yourself, love. Please, stay with me,” he soothed, continuing to touch me in all the ways I was so familiar with. His fingertip drew along my neck, tracing my jaw before he tucked my hair behind my ear.

  I love you. Stay awake. You need to be exhausted. Rest only increases your power, and your magic, and it will use your magic.

  “I should stay awake?” I repeated. He looked at me in surprise, and I heard Cole curse from across the room.

  In his mind.

  “Are you reading our minds?” Cole blurted, shooting to his feet to grip his arm. “She can hear me think.”

  “But if I’m exhausted, it can overpower me,” I argued with Will’s thoughts, and he gripped my hand in his.

  “It has already overpowered you, love. We must not allow it to take your magic. Then, we are defenseless. You are defenseless.”

  “Where’s Perry?” I asked suddenly, terrified that she was there in the cabin with us.

  “She is safe. She is with your mother. Eva,” his gentle caress moved to a firm hold as he locked my face in his. “Stay with me. Please.”

  “Will?” I managed, but with every blink, he was fading, further and further away.

  When I found consciousness again, I was standing in the rain.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Lightening cracked overhead, and the birch trees swayed, protesting the strong winds. The stream that I could see from the cabin window ran past my feet, muddy and cool. Giant, black birds- vultures- surrounded me, hissing, crying in raspy breaths.

  Waiting.

  They were hungry.

  I could feel their famine in their gaze as they inched closer, eyeing me, worshipping me, craving what I inherently felt that I could give them.

  Hungry.

  “Hungry,” I read their minds, and they roared and warbled, their sounds grinding into my ears. They needed me; I had neglected them, and they relied on me to feed them.

  Squatting, I thrust my hands into the muddy water, pulling the body from below the rushing stream.

  I stumbled and fell to my knees when I recognized his face.

  “Will,” I moaned, choking on a sob, realizing his face was ashen. Pulling him into a sitting position with all of my strength, I cradled him to my chest. “Get out of here!” I screamed at the vultures, wiping the mud away from my husband’s eyes, his face, his mouth. “Oh, God! Help me! Someone help me! Will,” I dragged him to the bank of the stream, rolling him to his side and beating against his back. “Please breathe! Will, please! You’re immortal, wake up, please!”

  “Eva.”

  I turned, lightening streaking through the sky to illuminate the person standing near the forest.

  “Cole?”

  He remained perfectly still, gesturing toward Will. “You’re doing the right thing. Clean out his airways, kid. Come on, you can do this.”

  “Help me!” I begged, but he shook his head.

  “I can’t come over there, Eva. Those vultures want him. They’re hungry. If you slip away again, you’ll kill me, too.”

  “I did this?” My hand shot to my mouth, and I succumbed to compulsive gagging. “I killed him? Will?”

  “You held him under. Hurry. Fuckin’ hurry, Eva. It’s coming back for you. Help him. That’s it, get the mud out of his airways. He’ll start breathing again. Help him.”

  Cole’s monotonous voice was calming, and I nodded, forcing my finger into Will’s mouth and wiping away the mud inside. After what seemed like an eternity of the rain pelting our faces, and the vultures moving sideways toward us, hissing, Will finally opened his eyes and began to choke.

  Lightening hung in the sky for a long minute, followed by an enormous crack of thunder. As Will’s sky blue eyes focused on me, he backed away.

  Fear.

  I could feel it radiating from him; I could hear his thoughts, see his memories, and experience the pain of drowning in that shallow, muddy stream.

  Of me holding him under the water.

  “Kill me,” I turned to Cole, shaking my head, letting the scalding tears slip down my cheeks with the rain. “You promised you would. Before I could hurt Will.”

  “I don’t keep my promises, either, kid. But I will slow you down for a while.”

  He pulled the Glock from behind his back, and the bullet moving through my heart finally took away the pain of what I’d just done to the only man that I loved.

  The next thing I heard was Live.

  “…kind of new wave, then more of a modern rock until Throwing Copper, which gave them more mainstream success. That was… ’94? Yeah, because Violet was just a baby, and Lightning Crashes was-…,”

  “Dad?”

  He lifted his dar
k blue eyes from his music app on his phone, smiling as he scooted closer to my side. “There you are.” His voice took me right back to my childhood, reminding me that no matter how terrible things ever seemed, a hug from my dad would usually solve half of my problems.

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Almost a day. When Will told me what was happening, I flew in. Mom is with Perry.”

  “You shouldn’t be here. I’m… sick. I hurt Will,” I began, but he was gathering me into his arms, pressing my face to his shoulder.

  “Eva, there’s nowhere else I should be. You’re my daughter. I’ve fought for your every breath for almost seven hundred years. I won’t let some demon take you away from me.”

  “Then you know,” I gripped his strong arms, inhaling deeply. He always smelled like fabric softener, and books, and home, and my olfactory senses seemed to calm my entire body down. “It’s already inside of me. This demon-…,”

  West nodded, kissing the top of my curls. “I know. I’ve been reading about it. The more that I learn, the more I believe that we’re not working with something evil here, Eva. Just misunderstood. I think we should help it, gain its trust.”

  “Help it?” I cried, realizing that I was back upstairs in that haunted-ass room where Rebecca had hung herself. “Dad, I don’t want to stay in here. I hate this room.”

  “Just calm down, Eva. Let’s work together, okay?”

  I nodded, taking a deep breath and laying back against the pillow. “What should I do?”

  “Well,” he shifted slightly on the bed, shrugging. “Like I said, we should help it. You need to listen to it, find out what it wants, and do it. Earn its trust.”

  “It made me kill my husband. I almost fed him to a bunch of fucking vultures!” I cried.

  The rotting smell burned my nose suddenly, that same smell that wafted out of the hellholes in the bathtub and the kitchen downstairs. “Eva, remember, be calm.”

  “Why do you keep saying my name all creepy like that?” I snapped, inching away from him.

  He grabbed his tie and pulled it left and right, loosening it like I’d seen him do a thousand times.

  But this time, when he opened his mouth to speak, I realized that he had no teeth.

  “Eeee….,”

  No teeth, no lips… his entire face began to erode from his mouth, his skin peeling. I watched my father’s face blacken, rot, decompose, clumping and falling to the sheet next to me.

  “Will! Will!”

  “I am here,” he sounded through the darkness. “Ah, Eva.”

  I knew his tone. I’d heard it when we first made love, and when Perry was born, and I recognized the level of emotion in his voice. Trying desperately to hold back my tears, I looked around, thankful to realize that I was in Cole’s room downstairs instead of Rebecca’s room.

  “My dad was here, but it wasn’t him,” I rambled, my throat hoarse and dry. “Was it? Is he here?”

  “No, he is not, but I have called him. His flight arrives within the hour.”

  “Will, no,” I broke down then, turning my face into the pillow. “Look what I did to you. What I’m capable of. I could destroy you all,” I coughed, and he moved a glass to my lips.

  “It caught me quite by surprise last time, my love. Not again. I know when you are you, and when you are not. I will not be tricked again.”

  “What does it want from me?”

  “When Cole killed you, we suspect that it left. We cannot be certain, hence the binds on your hands and feet. But you’ve been sleeping quite peacefully… until a few moments ago.”

  “My dad- or whatever it was- was telling me to help it, to gain its trust. Help the demon,” I laughed, sipping the water. The liquid was cool and soothing on my damaged throat. “I should have known it wasn’t my dad.”

  My stomach rumbled, and I bit down, crunching into the glass.

  Will flew backwards, on his feet before I could continue.

  “Where is Cole? I need him, Will, not you. Not you,” I fired through a mouthful of glass, tasting the coppery blood between my teeth. “I need him to turn me around and pull my hair while he fucks me. You’re boring. I don’t want to go slow anymore. I want to set the bed on fire while Cole fucks me.”

  “Holy shit,” Cole stilled in the doorway, choosing that exact moment to walk into the room.

  “Leave her,” Will thundered, raising his arm and swiping the glass right out of my hand. I grinned at him, knowing my teeth were dripping with blood.

  “Or?” I laughed, spitting a mouthful of blood and glass in his direction. “You are just like your father. Sick. Twisted. Perverted. Rapist. Torturer. Murderer-…,”

  “Stop,” he hissed, fists clenched at his sides. Cole inched forward. I swung my face in his direction, lapping at the blood on my lips.

  “Fuck me here, in front of him. He wants to watch. You want to watch,” I growled at Will, my throat refusing to carry my own voice any longer. Several octaves lower and warped, words escaped from my throat in a malevolent slur. “You want to play. Let me go. I own her now. I’ve come for her. She is mine. Shoot her. Drown her. Torture and rape her. Just like your father. Just like Troy. Blood runs thick, William Reed. You are your father’s son-…,”

  I had one hand free. Raising it above my head, Will caught my wrist, slamming it to the pillow over my head before I could enact my magic.

  Bucking against him, I swallowed a mouthful of glass, batting my eyes. “Make love to me, Will, please,” I begged, in my own voice now, still a bystander to my own words and actions. I could comprehend nothing but the moment, feel nothing but the strength of Will’s body on my chest. “Oh, Will, please, make love to me, please,” I begged, writhing beneath him.

  “I cannot do it,” he shouted at Cole, and I heard something clatter to the hardwood floor. Cole bent and retrieved what I finally realized was my Glock, pressing it to my temple.

  “Move, Will,” he shouted.

  “Not my pretty head,” I roared, spitting blood and glass into Cole’s face.

  Darkness.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “If you shoot her again, I’ll kill you.”

  This time, there was no mistaking my father’s voice. West Perry’s baritone completely commanded the room, taking charge with every word. I moved slightly, my entire body aching.

  “I didn’t know what else to do.” Cole began, and West cut him off with one look.

  Will’s frustrated tone drew my attention. “We cannot control her, West. It. Him. Not my wife. Not Eva. She’s trapped in there, and stopping her heart has given her body rest. He is destroying her.”

  “Dad?”

  He was at my side in an instant, his hands hovering over the leather belts and snapping them in two. His powers were stronger than I remembered them, more controlled, and I guessed that he’d been practicing. Gathering me into his arms, I knew, with absolutely certainty, that he was my dad. When he went into action, he rarely spoke, often just moving or doing. As he carried me out of the bedroom and to the couch, I could hear Cole’s protests and slew of curse words.

  “Dad, don’t. Don’t leave me out here, untied. Tie me back up-…,”

  “Be quiet, Eva.” His soft kiss on my forehead chased my words away. I stayed silent as he lowered me to the couch. “I’ll stop you when I need to. Will, bring her water.”

  “Plastic,” I managed with a weak smile. He froze, startled by my poor attempt at humor.

  “You remember?” He asked, looking at Cole and then back to me.

  “I was… watching. It was like I was there, observing, listening. I’m so sorry, Will. The things that I said, I-…,”

  “It wasn’t you,” my dad assured me, sending Will and Cole both a menacing glare. “It’s okay, babe.”

  “Demons are immortal, like we are,” Cole rushed into the room suddenly, and I tried to sit up, curling into Will’s arms as my dad opened the bottle of water.

  “Mathison, just keep stating the obvious. Very he
lpful.” The three men snapped their eyes in my direction as I sipped the water. “What, I can’t be myself?”

  “As long as it’s you, love,” Will assured me, tightening his hold on me.

  “What I’m getting at is… immortality. There are very few ways to kill an immortal.” Cole went on.

  “Like feeding them to vultures.” I answered, shuddering.

  Will kissed the back of my hand, and Cole nodded. “Right. But can they be trapped?”

  West nodded slowly, standing and pacing back and forth across the barren living room. “Yes. You’re right… how can we trap it, though? You said this man Kellan mentioned a bargain- a deal. If Fayette doesn’t follow through with his end, and the demon doesn’t take Eva, he takes Fayette instead.”

  “How do we trap him?” I asked softly, squirming at the nausea in my stomach.

  My dad shook his head. “From what I’ve read, a demon is dark energy. It feeds on electromagnetic vibrations as it moves. It travels, leaving behind a sulfuric kind of smell. A residue.”

  “I’ve smelled something like that when weird things would happen,” I admitted, turning anxiously to Will.

  “This demon is a philosopher. Murmur is said to be coercive, suggestive, and uses logic to get what he wants.” West added, continuing to pace.

  “How do you know all that?” I asked, and he spun his wedding band on his finger.

  “I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours reading. Had I known my daughter had decided to go off and fight demons, I would have been here days ago.”

  He shot Will an accusing look, and I rolled my eyes.

  “Dad, I’m not here to fight demons, I’m here to make sure no one else dies because of this demon. And it ends with me.”

  “You’re not a martyr, Eva. You’ve suffered for lifetimes because of Troy’s vengeance. I didn’t try so hard to bring you into this world for you to throw your life away to some fucking demon.”

  The temperature in the room dropped suddenly.

  I was losing my ability to think clearly, and my mouth began moving.

  “You are very self-righteous. As though you played no part in my death, or my mother’s death. You failed. You failed over and over again, life after life, and then you killed my own mother, didn’t you? You crushed her neck in your hands.”