Time - Chapter 14
My feet stepped heavily on the way up to Veronica’s room as if concrete had filled my boots and hardened.
This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.
In the ashes of her past, she will rise up, and her death will save us all.
Lizzie ran from her past for ten years, zigzagging across the United States every few months, trying to outlast the prophesy that an oracle gave to her when she was just sixteen years old.
But nobody can run from their destiny forever.
After watching her friend brutally gunned down by a group of ruthless demons, she had no choice but to protect the woman’s child, and there was only one place where Lizzie knew the girl would be safe.
Bronard, Missouri.
Home.
She stayed away to protect her parents, but the girl needed mystical protection.
Her parents had taken in magical strays their whole lives, including Lizzie. If anyone could save the poor child’s life, it would be her mother and father.
But will returning to her home doom Lizzie even as she works to save the child she has vowed to defend?
My feet stepped heavily on the way up to Veronica’s room as if concrete had filled my boots and hardened. With great difficulty, I reached the top of the steps and inched open the door to her room. She had ripped all the posters off the wall and capsized the corner desk chair in a fit of anger, but now sat patiently on her bed next to the leather suitcase Dad had given her.
She acknowledged my presence by folding her hands in front of her and turning toward the wall. “Go away.” Her voice was measured and calm, but there was a weariness to it. Her eyes were red and puffy, and the glistening of her cheeks belied her tears.
“It’s time,” I said, trying to give my words an air of finality.
She snapped her head toward me. “Why did you even save me if all you were going to do was send me away?”
I sat down next to her. “Saving somebody and caring for them are two different things. I’m not much of a hero, but I’m even less of a mother. I thought maybe—maybe Mom and Dad could—but they are both old and sick. This is your best option for a happy life. Kimberly’s done this before, and she knows what she’s doing. I trust her.”
“I hate her,” Veronica scowled.
“I don’t like her, either.”
“I hate you, too.”
“Join the club, kid.” I held out my hand. “That’s not going to change anything. Hate me all you want right now, but soon enough, you’ll forget all about me.”
She wiped her cheek. “How do you know?”
“Cuz I’ve watched it happen a thousand times before.”
She grabbed my hand and pulled herself to stand. “I don’t think so, Lizzie. I think I’m going to remember this forever.”
There was nothing else to say, so I guided her toward the door, carrying the heavy leather suitcase that held the clothes and things I’d bought her—everything that she owned in the world. As we walked down the stairs, I realized that in our haste to leave Nevada, I hadn’t even grabbed a picture of Becky for Veronica to hold on to in her sadness.
That would not do.
The girl at least needed one memento of her mother. When we reached the bottom of the stairs, Carl and Kimberly stood in front of the door, waiting.
“Dad,” I said. “Can you watch Veronica for a moment? There’s something I need to do with Kimberly.”
“Oh, this should be lovely,” Kimberly replied. “One more thing to hold us up. You know I do have other things to do than wait at your beck and call.”
I pulled Kimberly into the other room, and after telling her what I needed, she begrudgingly agreed it was a good idea.
“Close your eyes and imagine the house, every detail that you can,” Kimberly said. “Make it real in your mind, down to the smallest detail.”
I did what she asked, filling in everything I remembered. When I had a clear picture of the house, my stomach fell out from me, and a cold shiver blew through me. For a moment, all hope drained from my body, and then, like a rubber band, my stomach snapped back into my throat with a jerk, and I opened my eyes to see Becky’s house in front of me, just as I remembered it.
“Let’s make this quick,” Kimberly said.
My steps toward the house were measured, made cautious by the memories of the death I’d witnessed there. Kimberly opened the door with her elbow and walked inside through rows of yellow police tape. Bullet holes riddled the walls of the living room and up the stairs, where a streak of blood led us up to the second floor.
“Take your pick,” Kimberly said to the pictures that lined the walls. Some of them were cracked with bullets or were only of Veronica, but at the top, I found a nice big one of the three of them—Veronica, Becky, and Rick, smiling in the grass, as if they would never have another care for the rest of their days.
“This is the one,” I said, grabbing it.
“Good,” she replied. “This place gives me the creeps.”
I stepped past her, led somehow by the bloodstains on the floor in the master bedroom—where Becky had bled out like a stuck pig. Anger rose in my throat when I thought about what monsters could take a mother from her daughter—and that they were still hunting Veronica.
I slammed my hand into the floorboards once, twice, three times, as the tears of rage and grief came, and then I felt Kimberly’s hand slip over my shoulder.
“How could they do this—” I blubbered. “She was such a good one—she didn’t deserve—”
“Monsters don’t care, Lizzie. Not if you’re a saint, or a nun, or a mother. I’ve seen it so many times before that sometimes I forget that most people don’t know that.” She knelt next to me. “I envy that you thought you could avoid your destiny. Even though it was a fool’s errand, you really thought that the gods would allow you peace in a world filled with monsters.”
“She’s not going to be okay, is she?” I asked through more tears.
“I don’t know. I found her a nice family and warded it, so she’s protected, but the rest of it is on her. If she’s like Anjelica, stubborn and foolhardy, they’ll find her in a minute, but if she’s careful—if she takes her protection seriously—maybe she can outrun it. It’s possible.”
“You’ve never seen it before, though, have you?” I asked.
“For the time being, she’ll be okay, but if demons are after her…they are relentless.”
I clenched my fists together. “We have to kill them.”
“I’m working on that. I have to find them first, though, and while I’m doing that, Veronica will be safest away from you, somewhere your prophecies can’t come true, either of them.”
I nodded. “I want to be there when you kill them. I want to watch them banished back to Hell where they belong.”
“I can make that happen.” She stood up. “But one thing at a time. For now, let’s get that picture back to Veronica, okay?”
I placed my hand in Kimberly’s, and we vanished again. For a moment, I was surrounded by black ichor as far as I could see in every direction. My stomach dropped to my knees, and then we were back in my old house, a plume of purple and pink smoke surrounding us.
Veronica jumped back with a stifled scream. It wasn’t every day you saw a pixie materialize in front of you, after all. She calmed after a moment, and I held the picture out for her.
“I wanted you to have something happy that you could look back on, so you don’t forget them.”
Veronica touched the picture, sliding her hand up to her mother’s laughing face. “This—we—I—” She broke down and fell to the floor, sobbing for a long while, while we all tried to comfort her. After a long while before she was calm, she clutched the picture tightly to her chest. “Thank you.”
“I wish I could do more.”
She smiled a sad smile at me. “Maybe you will.”
She held her hand out to me, and I wrapped my fingers around hers. She was so small. She needed protection, but from somebody else. I wasn’t equipped to give her what she needed, no matter how much I wanted to be that person for her.
“We should go,” Kimberly said. softly
I let go of Veronica’s hand, and she took Kimberly’s. “Maybe you’ll come visit,” Veronica said.
I smiled. “Maybe.”
I knew it wasn’t to be. Once she vanished, Kimberly would carry the secret of Veronica’s location to her grave and beyond. In a puff of smoke, they were gone, and a piece of my heart broke.
“Come on,” Dad said. “I have an aged bourbon that would be very appropriate for a shit situation like this.”
This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.