Eighth Note (Fire Ballad Book 1) Page 16

  Terrified of the finality of the moment, I only nodded, letting him wipe away my tears. Clarity was slowly creeping away, and I could feel the uncertain darkness taking over once more.

  Without warning, my father moved into the room with purpose, Cole following. “Will,” he began, and I could hear West’s thoughts before he could speak them.

  Electricity.

  “Electricity,” he urged, and Will listened in confusion. “As early as the 1930’s, electroshock therapy was used to treat schizophrenia. A grand mal seizure could change the current in her brain, separating her mind from this thing. Giving her time to speak to it, to fight it,” he was nearly to my side, and I could feel my pulse racing through my veins.

  “The pain you will cause her, West Perry, will be your punishment for infinite years,” I bit, my voice replaced now by the demon within. I didn’t need my tongue to make sound; my mouth opened in a wide O, and the words sounded through the room in a haunting echo.

  My father’s eyes were already changing, and I could see that he was trying to summon magic. Snarling, I wrenched one leg free, and Will flew away from the bed, watching West.

  “Can you make electricity, like she can?” He asked, and West shook his head.

  “I haven’t yet, but I’m going to try,” he began.

  “Wait,” Cole interrupted, moving toward West. “What about immortals? We die, we’re injured, we heal, fine- but changing a current in her brain? What the fuck will that do to her… long term?”

  “I don’t know,” West admitted, and Will balked.

  “We will not chance leaving her without her thoughts. Catatonic, void of her fire,” Will warned, pointing in my direction. “We will find another way!”

  Cole shook his head. “If she flies over the fuckin’ cuckoo’s nest, then we’re dealing with a demon and crazy Eva- which is fuckin’ worse, right?” He demanded.

  West shook his head. “We’re running out of options-…,”

  I felt myself slipping away as I tried to tear away from my restraints.

  I blinked.

  Weightless, I stared down at my feet, my hair surrounding my face like a shroud. Suspended at least three feet in midair, I faced the wall in the corner of the room.

  Digging.

  My fingers scratched against the wall, and I watched as blood smeared over the drywall paper. Grating, fingernails breaking and bleeding.

  Escape.

  Men screaming at me.

  Focus.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The next time I woke from the nightmare in my mind, the room was dark.

  I turned my head on the pillow, cringing at the pain. Everything hurt, everywhere. From my hair to my toes the ache saturated my bones, and I wondered what was taking me so long to heal.

  “Hey, kid.”

  The voice was distinctly Cole’s. I turned my face to him, breathing slowly.

  “Hey. What did I do?” I managed, feeling for tears. When they wouldn’t come, the pain in my head increased to a throb. My tongue; I can feel my tongue. Uttering a tiny, thankful cry, I ran my tongue over my teeth, met with a parched stickiness.

  “You’re dehydrated. Will has been in here non-stop, trying to get fluid into you.”

  I shifted my eyes to the door. “Where is he?”

  “Sleeping. Finally. It’s been three days.”

  “Three days?” I tried to sit up, but the chains kept me locked to the bed. The clanking sound drew my attention, and I realized that the wooden headboard and footboard had been replaced by metal bars.

  “We had to improvise. You destroyed the bed.”

  “It wasn’t me,” I managed.

  “No, I know. Sorry, honey.”

  “Where are you going?” I cried, watching him stand from the chair across the room.

  “To get your husband. He asked that I get him as soon as you woke up… if you did.”

  “Cole, wait.”

  He paused at the door, running his fingers through his hair anxiously.

  “What?”

  “What have I done?”

  He hesitated, and I gripped the chain on my hand. “Eva…,”

  “Please.”

  He raised his eyes. “It can’t harness your magic. You’ve become weak, and your powers are strained. It’s angry, and your dad thought it might give you back to us again. To allow you to get stronger, physically. Looks like he was right.”

  I tried for my magic, just a tiny flame in my palm, and nothing. Before Cole could leave, the door burst open, and Will was at my side.

  “Eva?”

  “I’m here,” I whispered. He pulled at the chains on my wrists, yelling for West, and my dad followed him in.

  “Eva, look at me.” My dad’s fingers pinched my chin, turning me toward him. I narrowed my eyes, moaning.

  “I’m aching. Everywhere. Why?” I begged. He sighed deeply, holding his open palm over the chains. Will threw them aside, pulling me into his arms.

  “You must drink, love. Please,” Will begged, but my dad was already at my side with a bag of fluid.

  “I’m putting an IV in her. For as long as she’ll leave it in,” he added. I barely felt the needle in my arm, fatigue already pulling at me.

  “I don’t remember anything… for three days? Where am I going?” I cried, feeling the cool rush of the IV fluid in my veins.

  “Rest, Eva,” my dad responded.

  “But if I do, then my powers return, and this thing will take over me…,”

  “I was wrong,” Will pressed my face into his shoulder. “You must be strong to fight it. You must be able to use your powers.”

  “Have the deaths stopped, Will? The suicides?”

  “Yes. It ended with you. Nina’s song has leaked onto the web once more, and has been widely distributed to the public. There have been no more victims.”

  “What does this thing want from me?” I turned to my father. “Dad?”

  He brushed his hand over my hair, bending to kiss my forehead. “It wants your magic. Do you remember, Eva? To open people’s subconscious and leave them vulnerable. Cole talked to me about the binaural beats, and frequency. Do you know what you’ve been dealing with here?” He gripped my fingers in his. “Ancient religion. Older than me. Older than the beginning of time. Angels and demons predate our kind, Eva. They predate the governing laws of magic.”

  “I thought… that if I listened to that song…,”

  “Calm, now, love. West, give her peace. Do not upset her.” Will took my other hand and brought it to his mouth. I cringed at my bloody fingertips, uttering a tiny cry as I realized that my fingernails were completely gone.

  “My hands,” I moaned, and Will only held my fingers tighter.

  “They will heal.”

  “So how do we stop this?” I demanded, fiery anger replacing fatigue with every drop from the IV. “Do I need an exorcism? What?”

  My dad crossed his arms, lowering his eyes to the floor. “Kellan says no, an excorcism will not work on an immortal. Not any more than killing you will, again and again.” He took a steadying breath. “I’m working on a way. Using electricity. But I needed for you to wake up again, so we could plan.”

  “Plan?” I repeated, just so fucking thankful to have my tongue in my mouth again.

  Cole stepped forward. “It’s been following you for a long time, trying to find a way in. Waiting for you to weaken. Influencing you,” he added. “I was only a means to bring you to it.”

  “Will,” I gripped his hand with mine, searching his eyes. He smiled lovingly, cupping my face with his palm.

  “So green. I love when your eyes are this shade,” he whispered. I let a tear slip from the corner, and he caught the moisture on his fingers.

  “Tell Perry that I love her. And that she made me better. That she was the best magic I could have ever asked for,” I cried, turning into his arms.

  “You’ll tell her yourself when we get you home.”

  My mother’s soft voice instant
ly warmed my heart.

  Will pulled away, and I turned to the doorway, watching Roam smile at me. Fear clawed through my body, and I widened my eyes. “Mom? No! You can’t be here, I’ll hurt you, you have to go!”

  “Eva,” she moved toward the bed, accepting a hug from my father before coming to me. “You need me. I’m here. You’re my daughter, and I waited too long for you to let this thing win. West,” she lifted her gaze to my father’s, raising her eyebrows. “I need you to help her. I think I have a way to trap this thing, but she needs to be strong enough to play her music. Keep the IV in her,” she added, and my father nodded.

  “We’re trying. But when it comes back…,”

  “It doesn’t want to come back right now,” Roam’s careful, confident voice eased the tension in the room instantly. My mother had no supernatural powers, but her ability to calm those around her was a quality that was almost magical. “Come here, sweetheart.”

  She wrapped her arms around me, and I squeezed my eyes closed, pressing my face to her shoulder. “Mom,” I managed, and she hushed me with gentle words, her fingertips moving over my ear, tracing, soothing.

  “West,” she began, “I’ve been reading about brainwaves and frequency, music, and the demon that we’re dealing with. If we can trap this thing within the overlapping frequency, it may stop it.”

  “Creating sub hertz,” I added, sniffing and wiping my face with my arm. They all turned to me, and Will shook his head.

  “I do not understand,” he began.

  “Two overlapping frequencies.” I said, and Cole interrupted with a groan.

  “You were talking about this on the way here,” he realized. “The different brain waves. The auto-tuning, the frequencies. You’ve had the answer all along.”

  Roam nodded. “This is a demon. We acknowledge that,” she added, turning to me. “And it has made a deal that has to be fulfilled. But not with my daughter’s life,” she added. “It will be with Fayette.”

  “So what should I do? Just create a unique frequency- a binaural beat- and hope it, what, jumps in? I don’t get it. How can I trap something that is inside of me?” I coughed, twice, and watched everyone in the room stiffen. The coughing. It’s a precursor to the thing taking over. “Lock me up… it’s coming…,”

  “Eva,” my mother turned to me, holding my face gently. “Trust yourself. Trust your mind. Even without magic, you are extraordinary. Your abilities, your strength, your will… believe in yourself, and know you can do this. Lead him to the sound. Make it happen. You’ve put magic in my life from the moment you were born. I know you will find a way to do this,” she urged, and her voice was growing further away by the second.

  “Roam,” West’s warning tone frightened me as he wrapped the chains around my wrists. Tears filled my mother’s eyes, and her voice wavered.

  “Do it, Eva. You control music. You control sound. Control it,” she urged, brushing at her tears. “Separate yourself from the demon.”

  “Mom? Mom…,”

  My father moved in front of her, and his hands locked on either side of my head.

  I could feel the electricity for only a moment, coursing through me, and my muscles jerked in response.

  Silence.

  Darkness.

  The woods.

  I stood in the creek again, staring up at the window. Gasping, I bent over, digging my hands into the water, nearly crying as I searched for Will.

  “You are strong.”

  I spun, slipping in the mud and falling to my knees.

  The thing behind me towered, nearly nine feet tall. He wore a crimson and black uniform covered in strange, orange medals, his shirt extending his wide shoulders with tassels. His face was human; long and bony, and his wide eyes were void of pupils.

  Completely black.

  A vulture hovered between us in the air, hissing in my direction before landing on the demon’s shoulder.

  “Where is my family?” I demanded, thankful to sound like myself again. My dad was right; the electric shock, it worked. I can feel myself separated from this thing.

  “They are not your family. I am your family.”

  Fisting a clump of cold mud, I felt my anger surge at the magic lingering in the back of my head. Talk to it. Negotiate. “You made a deal with Fayette.”

  He nodded once, solemn, tilting his head to the side slightly. “Your abilities compliment mine. You require a control equal to my own. Give yourself over, Eva. Do not make me take from you any longer.”

  “So we can do what?” I demanded, rising to my feet on shaking legs.

  “Your powers will influence. Control. You will wade through a pool of inadequate candidates, finding the strongest soldiers for Hell’s legion.”

  “No,” I stated, so weary, dropping to the embankment. “No, I respectfully decline. Move the fuck along.”

  “You’ve not been given a choice.”

  “Do you know what I’m capable of?” I tried to threaten, but ended up sounding like a bratty kid.

  “Of course I do. I’ve been watching you for a very long time. Waiting for you to let me in.”

  The bird on his shoulder turned and pecked directly into his eyeball.

  I moaned, covering my mouth and gagging.

  He stared forward with his good eye, nonplussed. “There are benefits to what I offer. You will have whatever you wish for. A life of lavishness. Luxury. You crave extravagance, Eva, and that is not a sin. You were given everything that you had ever asked for as a child. You were a queen. How can you be expected to accept a mediocre life? You have earned so much more.”

  “So, you’re trying to bribe me with money?” I asked, shrinking under his penetrating gaze.

  “Not money. Not simply monetary needs.” He took a step toward me, and I stiffened, my breath catching in my throat. “Physical needs. Ecstasy. Bliss. With your husband… or whomever you choose.”

  “Will’s all I need.”

  “Oh?”

  The image of Cole came so swiftly, I fell back to the muddy ground. A series of feelings and vibrating sensations poured over me. His mouth, his tongue, his hands… I moaned, throwing my head back and fighting the screaming pleasure coursing through my veins. When I thought I couldn’t possibly take another moment, satisfaction tore through me in the most explosive orgasm I’d ever felt. Flames rose all around us from the ground up, and the demon smiled, nodding appreciatively.

  “What if your husband… accepted? That you have so many needs, Eva?”

  Will was next, and my mind switched to his body. Writhing against the ground, I moaned as his mouth moved over my skin. This time, the circle of flames rose even higher, the inferno blasting my skin with heat. Screaming, I nearly came apart. “Stop! Stop this,” I begged, pressing my thighs together at the promise of another wave of pure pleasure.

  “Luxury… pleasure… beauty unsurpassed.”

  I finally caught my breath, staring up at the sky as the flames extinguished. The clouds became a mirror, and I watched my beaten body transform. My skin was clear and flawless, my hair a silken, crimson halo of curls, my body curved in the perfect pre-pregnancy shape.

  “You love what you see,” he coaxed, grinning. “And that is just fine, Eva. Humans are encouraged to feel shame for vanity, and pleasure, and wealth. Why? You know that it is society, and religion that berates these attributes. You are more intelligent than the masses. You know that what I offer you is fair, in exchange for ridding the world of the weak, soulless scum. Hell’s minions, servants with no higher power.”

  “I can’t judge who belongs in hell,” I argued, so entranced by my own reflection that I could barely look away. “Neither can you!”

  “No?” He laughed. “You killed a king. That was the moment I first took notice of your incredible power.”

  I remembered pressing my hand to Troy’s chest, over his heart, and burning him from the inside out.

  Sending him straight to hell.

  “You have given immortality to a hum
an, Eva. You have taken immortality away. You possess a power that is greater than your father’s, or your brother’s. What if you, yourself, took Perry’s immortality away?”

  At the mention of my daughter’s name, the mirror over my head smashed, and I closed my eyes, turning away from the falling shards of glass. They found me, one by one, stabbing me as they fell to the ground. I screamed at the pain, skewered to the ground by the sharp edges through my wrists and feet.

  “What if she was made of simply… flesh and bone?”

  The rage inside of me took over. My father’s temper lit me up, and though my hands were pinned to the ground, I pulled from the back of my mind and filled the woods with a haunting melody.

  It laughed with satisfaction, walking across the stream in a jerking, accelerated motion to loom over me. He waved his thin, gray hands like a conductor, listening intently. “Beautiful. Original. What shall we call this?”

  “I’m not finished.” I exhaled and choked, realizing the glass had impaled my throat and blood was filling my mouth. With every last bit of strength, I forced all of the glass out of my body, climbing to my feet. Blood poured from my open wounds, and I stood before him, my knees shaking. “Give me everything that you said you would, and I’ll give you the song that you want so badly. The ballad that will open all of these people to you. They’ll be yours for the picking. Give me my beauty, and my strength, and everything you promised. But don’t say my daughter’s name ever again.”

  He grinned, nodding. His half-eaten eyeball hung against his cheekbone. “Eva, do you understand this deal? I will take everything from you if you cross me.”

  “I give you this song. You travel with it, taking only the hell-bound assholes in this world, and in exchange you give me everything I want for the rest of my immortal life. It doesn’t sound that bad, actually,” I admitted.

  The vulture clacked and shrieked, and the demon continued to smile.

  “I’ve made my case well, Eva. I am glad we’ve come to an understanding.”

  I felt the change within me.