Devil in Disguise (Kai Parker)

Chapter Twenty-Three: The Bennett and the Knife

Meg was watching the numbers tick down on her watch, bored out of her wits. The two had cooked a Thanksgiving dinner of spaghetti bolognaise, and sat down to eat it. Not a single word or hint had passed about any sort of plan. Meg had moved to the next room, and was watching from the top of the staircase. And now, Kai was smacking his lips exaggeratedly as he sliced off another miniscule piece from the string of spaghetti he had been eating for the last forty-seven minutes.

Bonnie finally spoke up. ‘Really?’ she asked with a raised eyebrow. ‘You’ve been eating that same piece for forty-five minutes.’

Forty-eight now, Bonnie, Meg reprimanded her dully.

‘Is it a crime to wanna savour a last meal?’ Kai asked, spearing another tiny piece on the end of his fork.

‘I had Thanksgiving dinner with you,’ Bonnie leaned forward, ‘Now, you keep up your end of the deal, and gimme your car keys.’

Kai let out a sigh, putting down his fork. He turned to the witch, ‘Look, I should probably teach you how the clutch works, it’s finicky –’

‘Quit stalling!’ she interrupted. ‘Gimme your keys.’

‘Fine! I’m stalling!’ he rolled his eyes, picked up his fork and had another piece of spaghetti. ‘But… don’t you wanna hear how my story ends?’ he added enigmatically.

‘I’ve read the newspaper, I’ve talked to Meg. You murdered your siblings. And the coven sent you to live in this prison world.’

‘My family,’ he corrected, ‘sent me to this prison world. My father, the great coven leader… treated me like crap for twenty-two years and then locked me in here.’ he took a deep breath. ‘It’s like… like his kids didn’t even matter. Coven always came first, no matter what.’

They fell into a brooding silence, and Meg found herself agreeing. Joshua’s main priority was the coven’s survival. The only two children he had cared about in the end was Lucas and Olivia – and that was only because they were the heirs. He had been grooming them to die.

‘Did I ever tell you, about how they tricked me into coming here?’ Kai broke the silence, along with the noise of a tap running and dishes being washed. Sounded like he’d finally downed that piece of spaghetti.

‘No, but I think you’re about to.’ Bonnie replied scathingly, and he laughed once.

‘I was looking for Olivia and Lucas. They’d gotten away, somehow, and the magic I stole from Meg was starting to fade. I just had enough to keep her pinned to the wall. And I came outside, and saw Jo, standing right there,’ he pointed out the window, at an old tree stump. The sound of running water stopped and footsteps sounded, creaking against the wraparound porch. Meg shied away, further behind the banister, but it was a very good hiding place. Neither of them saw her, concealed just a few metres away from them.

‘And she said,’ he continued, hopping down he peeling white steps. Meg tip-toed slowly into Harry’s old room and watched from the window, ignoring the blood splashed morbidly against the carpet. ‘She said she’d merge with me, if I didn’t hurt anyone else.’

‘So… Jo agreed to the merge?’ Bonnie followed a few feet behind him, hands stuck in her pockets. 

‘Well, we needed a celestial event, so the plan was to use the power of the eclipse happening the next day. She even… gathered our coven to help. They tricked me good,’ he drawled. ‘Instead of using the power of the eclipse to merge, my dad used it to send me here.’

Something was ticking at the back of Meg’s mind, but she didn’t know what it was.

They were both at the old, gnarled tree stump that Kai had pointed out before. It was full of leaves and rotting away, but Kai leant against it and rolled his eyes. ‘And where… where’d Jo’s magic go? I mean, it makes zero sense. Magic doesn’t just, like, disappear.’ he breathed in sharply, pointing at Bonnie with a look of triumph on his face. ‘But, then you made yours disappear, when you hid it in Miss Cuddles, and it hit me… My sneaky little twin sister… hid her magic…’ he groped around in the stump, rustling leaves and disturbing mice. Meg felt her breath catch in her throat as she realised. ‘In this.’

In Kai’s hand was a silver, black-handled hunting knife, the one that had taken out Jo’s spleen. He blew on it, scattering the dirt and dust, as his eyes flicked towards Bonnie menacingly.

She made an unimpressed noise in the back of her throat. ‘Still there.’

Kai examined the knife with interest. ‘Still here.’ he agreed. Then he added, coming around the stump to stand closer to Bonnie, ‘And still full of magic.’

With characteristic bravado, he held the weapon in his palm and closed his eyes, chanting under his breath. The blade glowed crimson for a moment, and when he steadily lowered his hand, the knife stayed suspended in mid-air.

‘Well, it was.’ he looked at Bonnie, and jerked his head towards the blade as if she could miss it, hovering blade of death as it was. ‘I just sucked it out.’

Kai caught the weapon with one hand and fingered its tapered edge, watching the still undaunted witch. ‘You have magic again. Good for you.’

‘I also have the Ascendant,’ he pointed out.

‘Doesn’t matter; you need a Bennett witch to do the spell.’

‘About that… I’ve watched you do the spell twice now.’ he took a step closer, and Meg’s brain started screaming alarm bells. ‘I don’t think I need a Bennett witch to do the spell. I think, all I actually need… is Bennett blood.’

With one hand he grabbed the witch by her shirt, dragging her forward before she could do anything but yelp. The knife plunged into her stomach, cutting through all the bandages she had put over her last Kai-induced wound and slicing right into her stomach. Her knees buckled and she collapsed to the floor, Kai standing above her with a smile in his eyes.

Meg crouched behind the wall, eyes wide as the maniac gazed at the body. He shrugged and started dragging the limp body over to the house, where there was a cellar she’d have quite a job getting out of. It was the place Joshua had stashed Meg when she was getting out of control and Kai was being awkward. It happened more often than you’d think. But the point was, once you were in there, not any amount of magic could get you out. And Bonnie didn’t even have any magic.

Those damn feelings rose up again, and she bit her lip. Kai had magic. He would spell the door like Joshua used to, so nobody could get in or out. That ruled off going back later. So… if she wanted to do the right thing… she’d have to stand up now and distract him.

She hovered, half-wanting to get up and half-wanting to shrink into the ground. Her teeth were gritted, but whatever she tried she couldn’t make herself stand up. The problem was simple; she was a self-proclaimed coward.

Kai was already at the door. She’d need to do something quick. Getting desperate, she looked around Harry’s room. There was a phone, a rarity but something she had adored, lying on the bed. Only partly sure what she was doing, she picked it up and paged ‘555-Hiya-Kai’ before remembering he’d gotten a new pager –

There was a buzz downstairs.