Bloodlines: The Occultist

Chapter 5

Ebony looked at her sister, confused. "You know her?" Amoret's lip was twitching and she was grinding her teeth. You could practically see the fumes coming out of her ears. "I thought her name was Gemma. She was the girl Delilah and I talked to outside of Ashby's house." She growled. It's times like this Pandora and Ebony wished they could control people's emotions so that they could calm Amoret down. Amoret doesn't lose her temper easily, but when she does, it's terrifying and her sisters have been known to duck under or behind the nearest thing possible. "Surprise. My name really is Gemma, though." Gemma said in a sing songy voice. "I promised to help you, I felt sorry for you! I felt anger for you!" Amoret growled even louder. "All part of the plan, love. If I had just gone with him. I can't believe Holland is gone." She mock cried. "Don't worry. You still get to keep your promise of helping me." "And why the hell would we help you?" Ebony said, fearing that if Amoret spoke again all hell would break loose. "Because one more big dose of animal blood and your precious baby sister is dead!" Barda shouted and took a step towards them. "Barda!" Gemma glared at him and he stopped, glared at her, then went back next to Delilah. "Ebony, Amoret, Pandora. What we need is really not unreasonable. You found a piece of jewelry inside Satan's Palace and we would simply like it back." Ebony put her hand on the back pocket where she stowed the necklace. "The locket? Why would you want that?" Amoret asked, confused. Gemma sighed, rolled her eyes and said "listen, we couldn't care less about it. However, the boss is determined that no one ever sees what's inside it. We don't know why, we just do what we're told." "The boss being Lucifer?" Pandora asked, wondering what on earth was happening. Since she had left by the time she found it, she had no idea what Gemma and Amoret were referring to. "10 points to Pandora." Barda mocked. What the hell is she talking about? Pandora asked the girls. Amoret and Ebony didn't know what to do. If they don't give up the locket, Delilah dies. But, if they do give it up, they'll never find out why it contained a picture of them and their mother. "How can we know that if we give it to you, you won't kill all of us anyway?" Ebony challenged. "Lucifer gave us strict instructions not to kill you. I don't know why. Frankly, I would love to rip and flay your skin off piece by piece." Barda said. Gemma glared at him, he rolled his eyes but shut up anyways. "And this is why he puts me in charge. Barda has some serious anger issues. He is right, however, in the sense that Lucifer made it very clear what would happen to us if we killed you. "You mean you don't want to kill us?" Pandora asked. Gemma shrugged. "I don't feel you're worth the effort." The 3 sisters looked at each other, unsure whether they should feel offended or angry. "Thanks?" Amoret said. "Wait. Do you know where Lucifer is?" Ebony asked. If they could get Lucifer here and hand off the locket to him personally, they could know the mystery of the locket. "No. He doesn't normally like to do field work. The last time he walked the earth was 3 years ago." Gemma smirked at Ebony, and Ebony felt fire burning her from the inside out. So, Lucifer hasn't been topside since he tore Ebony's world apart and changed her for the worst forever? What a coward! "Tell Lucifer that we'll only give it to him. If he's so powerful, he should meet us face to face. Look into the eyes of the girl whose life he destroyed!" Ebony shouted. Amoret didn't want to calm Ebony down at this point; she was going to need all of that pent up anger if they had a shot at winning this battle. "You're not in charge here. You don't get to make demands." Barda said. "Either we hand it off to Lucifer personally or the deal is off." Pandora said, all 3 of them standing up straight as possible and standing their ground. Pandora wasn't sure why the other 2 did not want to let go of some stupid necklace, but she was going to stand by them regardless. Barda snarled, walked over to a bag, grabbed another syringe of blood and jammed it into Delilah's neck. "No!" The girls screamed. Delilah groaned and lifted her head up so slowly that it looked as though she had a metal weight on her neck. "Ebony?" She said weakly. "I'm right here, sweetheart. So is Amoret. We're gonna get you out of this mess, okay?" "No. You can't, you can't give into him." She barely had any strength to her body or voice. "There, she's awake. Now give us the locket or you will regret it." Barda said. "We said we'd only give it to Lucifer." Amoret said. Barda jammed the other syringe into Delilah's neck and she screamed in agonizing pain, it was blood curdling and heart shattering. Then her whole body went limp again, and it was over. Before they knew it, they were down one sister, the one sister they all vowed to protect with their lives. "Barda! Do you realize what's going to happen to us now?" Gemma shouted. "Who cares, Gemma? If that locket is so important to Lucifer, it must be the most powerful object in existence! I say we take out the other 3, grab it and run." "You'll regret that, you literal devil's spawn." Pandora was now in an uproar of fury, and she was going to take Barda out like she did Terrowin and like it. She sprinted towards him, but before she could make it, she felt a burning pain in her back and she hit the ground. Her head was swimming, her vision blurry and any sound around her felt like she was underwater. Gemma had thrown a knife soaked in animal blood at her right in the center of her back. Her body quickly began to feel heavy. It felt as though weights had been tied around her wrists and ankles. Her eyelids became droopy, and she felt the life leave her body. "That's it! Now you're not getting the locket, whether Lucifer comes or not. What you're getting is a death so slow and painful you'll wish you were back in hell." Ebony ran up to Gemma and tackled her to the ground. She threw a punch at Gemma's face and you could hear her jaw break throughout the whole building. When Ebony felt her jaw break under her fist, she felt powerful, she felt good. She threw another punch and broke Gemma's nose. Every time she felt a bone break, more and more power surged through her. She didn't know why she felt this way. Suddenly, she felt evil enter her body. And it didn't scare her, she loved it. She thirsted first more. She craved more as if it were the most addicting drug on the planet. "Ebony, stop. This isn't you, my love." Came the voice. "Who says?" She said out loud to the voice only she could hear. Gemma moved her jaw around and it cracked back into place. "Who says what? Who the hell are you talking to?" She asked. "Shut up. You don't get to talk." Ebony growled. She raised her fist for one more punch when she felt hands on her shoulders and she was thrown off of Gemma. She did a sort of somersault and found her way back to her feet. Amoret ran to her twin and knew it was time to calm her down, but she needed to do it quickly. So she grabbed the locket out of Ebony's pocket and made sure they were both touching it. They both felt the same warmth and happiness enter their body as the first time they touched it. Gemma stood up and her and Barda both stared at the locket with hunger and greed. "Hand over the locket before anyone else gets killed." Gemma said in an unsettlingly calm voice. "If we give it to you, do you promise Ebony and I will get to walk out of here? And will you let us take Pandora and Delilah home?" Amoret asked, tears threatening to erupt. "We don't care about you guys! We only care about getting the locket to our boss. We tried to tell you that, but you vampires never listen, do you? Your mother certainly didn't." Barda said. Ebony and Amoret glared and their bodies began to tremble in anger. Could it be that they were staring into the face of their mother's killers? Was their mother after this locket? Did she somehow draw Ebony to this case, hoping that they would find the locket and take it back with them? Was one of the biggest mysteries of the Nash sister's lives about to be solved? "What does that mean?" Ebony asked, attempting to keep her voice level. Before she took them out, she was going to finally, after over 200 years, find out what happened to their mother. "Did mommy dearest never tell her own daughters how she died?" Barda taunted. "Now that is just rude." Gemma taunted. "Dear Aldiytha was after the very same locket. We came to recover it, but, by the time we had gotten to her. She had hidden it. And we couldn't let that go without punishment." Barda said. "Now, Barda. You make us sound sadistic and unreasonable. We did give her the chance to give up the location of the locket and we made the consequences perfectly clear." Gemma said. Ebony and Amoret both stumbled backwards, barely processing what they had just heard. They hoped that once they found out what had happened, they would feel at ease, it would bring closure and all of their questions would have finally been answered. But now that they know the truth, all it brought was more anger and way more questions. What on earth was the deal with this locket? What on earth was the deal with their family and Lucifer? He wasn't their father, he couldn't be. Aldythia told the girls their father was a warlock who was ashamed to have daughters who didn't have any of his abilities. "You'll have to pry this locket from our even more dead, even colder hands." Ebony said. Barda and Gemma looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders and threw two more knives covered in animal blood at the sisters. They fell to the ground, feeling the same pain that Pandora and Delilah felt. Ebony's vision was blurred, but she saw a third set of feet, heard some yelling, two bodies hit the ground, and then death closed her eyes. And when her eyes opened, she was in the middle of a dark forest, the damp soil soaking the front of her body. She felt dazed and confused, unable to move for a time. Her head was pounding so bad she wanted nothing more than for it to be disconnected from her neck. "Ebony?" She heard someone call her name, though her hearing sounded as though she was underwater. She tried to sit herself up, but she was weaker than she had ever been and she went right back down. She thought she'd feel better once death took over but, she felt worse. She saw someone kneel in front of her, felt them pet her head and kiss her forehead. "My darling. How I have missed you." She looked up at the face of Draven. She felt like she could simply fly. She felt a light enter her body that gave her the strength to sit up. "Draven. Is it really you?" She asked. She put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed, ran a hand through his hair; he was tangible. His platinum blonde hair, his golden eyes that had once made her feel loved and safe when she otherwise would've felt lost and hurt, his muscled, tan body that had once constantly wrapped her in peace and security. She was looking at it all again with her own eyes. "It's me." He assured her, caressing her cheek. "Sweetheart, I told you you would die. Why didn't you listen to me?" Tears filled his eyes, his voice was shaking, and his whole face showed sadness that pained her. "I. I thought I was going crazy." She admitted. So, she was seeing and hearing him. But, how? "Love, how? You're dead. You have been for a long time." "Let's not discuss that right now. I'm just grateful you're not." Ebony straightened herself a little. How could she not be dead? She felt the animal blood enter her body and torture her with the worse pain she had ever felt, she felt death enter her body and the life drain from her. "What do you mean, I'm not dead?" Draven took in a deep breath, stood Ebony up and held her hands to his chest. "You saw what would happen if you helped Holland. Though, to be fair, I told the boss he should've never sent Barda and Gemma. Pathetic wannabes is all they are." Ebony's head was now spinning worse than ever. She felt as though she had found out in the past 12 hours that she had been living a lie. If her and the others really were still alive, she was grabbing them and getting the hell out of Dodge. "Where are my sisters, then? Can I see them?" "Of course you can. They're all back at the house, under a harmless trance. When they're pulled out of it, it will be as if no time has passed. I just needed a moment with you." He brushed a piece of hair behind her ear and they stared longingly into each other's eyes. She never wanted this to end; she never wanted to stop staring into her husband's eyes. She wanted to drown in them and never come back up. She wanted to be in his arms forever. She didn't want to go back; she wanted to be dead. "Draven, why didn't you let me die? Don't you want to be with me?" She said as she cried. "I want to be with you more than anything. And our time will come. But the earth still needs you, Ebony Nash. I promise you will still catch glimpses of me, I will still whisper to you. That is, assuming you'll listen to me, this time. Though, listening to me was never your strong suit." He smiled at her, and her heart sang and broke at the same time, because she knew he was right. "You have one more shot to get it right this time. And please, get it right this time." He begged. She didn't even have to ask what he was talking about. This time, when "Holland" came crawling out to them, begging for help, he was going down. "I will. I promise." Draven handed her a glass vial, and she looked at him in confusion. "Just in case you wanted to keep Barda alive for a bit longer. For answers." "Wait. Where is your summoning spell? I want more than glimpses and whispers." She said. Draven looked disappointed and ashamed of himself. "I didn't leave one." Ebony felt herself deflate. "What do you mean you didn't-" "Darling, I promise every single question you have will be answered very shortly. I just need you to trust me. Do you?" As angry as she was that he left her no way to summon him, she did trust him. With her life she trusted him and she had over and over again when he was alive. "I do." He then pressed his lips to hers in a passionate, fiery kiss. His lips were soft and felt like silk. She felt electricity surge through her body, the same electricity she felt every time they touched. She felt on top of the world, and a new determination to take everything head on. A new want to love and live life to the fullest. They broke apart and their foreheads were touching. "I love you, Ebony. To the end of time and back a thousand times." "I love you, Draven. To the end of time and back a thousand and one times."