Dominion (23 page)

Iona shook her head. “I wouldn’t be here if I did. I realized, after we’d left San Diego, that I could still feel some of the energy of the veiled place. I think I must have absorbed some of its magic when I did the spell to send the demon back. I’m planning on channeling that magic.”

“Okay,” Serenity said slowly. “So what can I do to help?”

“I’m going to need some space. A floor I can draw on.”

“Draw on—” Serenity started, but then decided not to question her. Years of telling Elizabeth not to draw on the walls or furniture were about to go out the window. “We can go into the living room,” she said.
“And what about Sebastian?”

“We’ll need him with us too.”

Serenity went through to the living room and rolled the big Persian rug off the polished, dark wood floor. “How’s this?” she asked Iona.

The sorceress smiled. “Perfect.”

Together, they went back into the kitchen, Elizabeth standing by, watching with big, worried eyes. Serenity opened the cellar door and the two of them half dragged, half wrestled Sebastian across the kitchen and hallway, into the living room.

“So what’s the plan?” Serenity asked.

“I’m going to send you to Dominion to find him.”

Serenity’s stomach dropped. “What?”

“He’s lost
his
connection with this world. You need to find him and bring him home again.”

“How can I do that?”

“I’ll use magic to put you into a kind of trance. I’ll use the small amount of power from the veiled place that I absorbed to open up a slip of space and send you through.”

Serenity took a deep breath. “Will it work?”

“I hope so. I’m only going to be able to keep this connection open for an hour at the most. You need to find him and bring him back within that time or you may end up lost there as well.

Serenity glanced anxiously at Elizabeth. Her daughter smiled back. “
It’s
okay, Mommy. You’ll come back.”

“Do you know that, Elizabeth? Have you seen it?”

She shook her head. “No, but I trust you.”

Serenity turned to Iona. “If something goes wrong, I have a friend—James Bently. His name is in my address book on the hall console near the front door. Call him and explain. He’ll take care of Elizabeth. He’ll understand.”

“I hope it won’t come to that,” she said. “If I feel time is running out, I’ll pull you out of there.”

“But what if I haven’t found Sebastian yet?”

“Then you’ll have to choose between him and your daughter.”

She
’d
never choose anyone—not even Sebastian—above Elizabeth.

She nodded. “Okay.”

Sebastian lay on the floor. Serenity had positioned him as he normally slept, on his back with his hands rested on his chest. His eyes were closed, his dark lashes resting upon pale cheeks. She bent down and kissed his smooth, cold lips, trying not to think about the fact that his mouth had also stolen Bridget’s life. “I’m coming to find you,” she told him. “Watch out for me.”

Iona put her hand out to Elizabeth. “I need your help.”

Immediately, Serenity tensed. “Wait! Why do you need Elizabeth?”

“She’s going to be my connection to you both. I already know she has the power to link to other minds, I experienced that for myself before I’d even met you.”

Serenity looked at her daughter. Elizabeth’s dark eyes stared back, such innocence in her young face.

“That’s right. You did speak with Iona before we
’d reached
her site. How did you know who she even was?”

Elizabeth shrugged. “I don’t know. Everything else just kind of grayed out and seemed real far away—like I wasn’t part of the real world anymore—and then Iona was standing in front of me, asking me who I was.”

“And you were able to talk to her, the same way you and I are talking now?”

“Kind of,” she said, her forehead crumpling in a frown. “Only, I know it’s not real talking. It feels like I’m opening my mouth and words are coming out, but I know it’s not happening in the real world.”

“So, it’s like you’re on another level—another layer to the world—a bit like where Daddy is?”

She nodded again. “Yes, only my level goes up.
Where Sebastian goes is definitely heading down.”

A shiver ran through Serenity and she reached out and grabbed her daughter, pulling her into a tight squeeze.

“You amaze me,” she said into Elizabeth’s soft hair. “Never forget that.”

The little girl pulled away and gave an exaggerated sigh, rolling her eyes. Serenity had embarrassed her in front of the older girl. “I won’t, Mom.”

Elizabeth was growing up far too fast. Would she ever realize how remarkable what she could do was, Serenity wondered. Would she hit her teenage years and understand how
much her abilities
and what she was differentiated her from others? Growing up was hard enough to do without adding vampire genetics and pre-cognitive abilities into the mix.

She remembered Demitri’s prediction about Elizabeth’s powers getting stronger once she hit puberty, about how her vampire side would strengthen.

A dread settled over Serenity’s heart. She had only ever wanted a normal life for Elizabeth, something that seemed to be becoming harder and harder. She prayed Elizabeth’s vampire side would never subject her to a need for blood. Just the possibility made her want to cry for her child.

She realized both Elizabeth and Iona were staring at her. She shook her head, bringing herself back to the moment.

“Sorry,” she said to Iona. “What else will you need to do?”

Iona smiled awkwardly, embarrassed for intruding on their moment. “I’m going to need four candles and some chalk. Do you have them in the house?”

“I’ve got chalk on my easel, Mommy,” chirped Elizabeth.

“That’s right, you do. Be a good girl and get it for me.”

Elizabeth hopped up and ran up the stairs to her room, where her art easel was located.

“I’ve got candles somewhere in the kitchen,” Serenity said, heading to the other room. “I keep them for when we lose power during storms.”

Within a minute, she returned to the living room, four stubby church candles clutched awkwardly against her body. Elizabeth came bounding back into the room behind her, a box of chalk in her hands.

“Got them!” the girl declared, showing no nervousness at what was about to happen.

Iona took the chalk from her. She opened the lid and removed a white stick covered in multicolored dust from the mixed box of chalks. The young sorceress spoke Latin in low tones and place
d
the tip of the chalk against the dark wood floor to the left of Sebastian’s head. She closed her eyes briefly and demanded, “
A
perire
!”

Her eyes flicked open again and she began to draw a rectangle around Sebastian’s body. Then she took the candles and placed one on each corner of the shape she’d drawn. She held her hand above the wick of each candle. With a click of her fingers, the wicks fizzed and burst to life.

Serenity had seen a similar trick performed by Bridget, but the older woman had needed longer to perform the spell, it hadn’t happened as instantly as Iona’s magic had. Serenity’s heart contracted with pain at the thought of the other woman—pain for the loss of not only Bridget, but for the act that had caused her death.

“You need to sit in the doorway with him.”

Serenity looked at Iona in confusion.

“Inside the chalk box,” the sorceress confirmed. “It’s your way into the other world. I absorbed enough of the veil’s energy to create something similar here, but not for long. You’ll be able to cross, find your vampire and bring him home again, but I’ll only be able to keep the doorway open for a short time.”

With her heart in her throat, Serenity stepped over the chalk line and knelt at Sebastian’s head. She sat back on her heels and lifted his head into her lap. Outside of the box, Iona kneeled on one side of his body and nodded for Elizabeth to sit opposite. She reached out and took the younger girl’s hands so their arms stretched across his broad chest.

“Now, your mom is going to look like she’s sleeping while she’s in this other place,” she told Elizabeth. “But it’s nothing to worry about, okay?”

Elizabeth gave a brave smile, “I’m ready.”

Chapter Twenty-three

Serenity barely heard the words
Iona s
poke. She bent her head and closed her eyes, concentrating on the weight of Sebastian’s head in her lap, trying to connect to him somehow. The heat from the candles warmed her skin as they flared higher in response to Iona’s spell, the scent of wax smoldering on the air.

This i
sn’t going to work,
she thought, the whole set up similar to someone being hypnotized.
I don’t even feel any different.
What am I going to do if the spell
doesn’t
work
? How am I going t
o live with Sebastian just
…
?

Her thoughts trailed off as she realized the weight of Sebastian’s head in her lap had vanished. A light breeze touched her face and her eyes snapped open. No longer was she sitting on her living room floor. Instead, she stood outside, in the grounds of her house.

She staggered around in a circle, her mouth hanging open. She was on their property, but this place was different. A sky like none she’d even seen before boiled and raced above her head. Swollen purple clouds rippled and swirled, like a post-apocalyptic oil painting put into motion. No stars blinked in the sky, though she knew night had long fallen in her own world.

Both the old Toyota and Bridget’s
Prius
had vanished from the driveway. The tall walls and gate surrounding the house loomed, inky shapes in the darkness. But not everything was dark. Bright, yellow light poured from every window in the house.

Elizabeth!

Despite knowing she’d been brought here to find Sebastian, she couldn’t help her daughter being at the front of her mind. She raced to the living room window. Would she see herself kneeling on the floor with Iona and Elizabeth either side?

Her fingers hooked the window ledge and she leaned forward, her face pressed against the glass. Though every light in the room—the overhead chandelier and three lamps—was on, the space where she’d been only moments before remained empty.

“But not in the real world,” she said out loud, her voice sounding strange in this new place—too hollow. “In the real world, we’re all still there.”

A shiver trembled over her shoulders. How creepy to think in another place they were all kneeling on the floor. She was like a ghost now. Or perhaps they were.

Serenity turned from the window. She needed to find Sebastian and didn’t have much time. She wished she’d worn a watch, though she wondered if it would have worked here anyway. Nevertheless, time was short and she’d struggle to judge the passage of time with no moon or sun in the sky. Iona said she’d only be able to keep the gateway open for an hour at the most. If it took any longer for her to find Sebastian, she may find herself trapped her
e
with him, leaving Elizabeth with no parents to take care of her.

That was the last thing Serenity wanted. Even if it meant leaving Sebastian here—something she desperately didn’t want to do—she couldn’t risk losing track of time and Elizabeth ending up alone.

Setting off at a jog, she ran to the gates. Normally, they were locked electronically, but when she wrapped her hand around one of the metal bars and tugged, the big gate swung open easily.

Where would Sebastian be?

She paused and closed her eyes, trying to get a sense of him. But the effect of his blood had been overridden by her taking Vincent’s and she got no pull toward him. She couldn’t even be sure if he was in the city, though she didn’t know where else he would go. This was his home. Would he have reached Los Angeles already and be heading for the house or would he still be traveling from Iona’s trailer?

She stepped out onto the road. Every house in the street was ablaze with light.

Who put the lights on
?
Did people live in the homes?

Somehow, she doubted it. Nothing human resided in this place.

Another shiver ran down her spine. Nervous, her head darted one way and then the other as she ran down the road. The patches of darkness—a contrast to the floods of synthetic light—seemed too dark, as though she could step on them and fall into an endless hole.

Something darted just out of her line of vision, scampering between two spots of darkness between the property’s wall and the street lamp. She spun around, her heart thumping.

What the hell was that?

Her head told her it had been some kind of animal, but her heart said something else.

This
was
a place of childhood night terrors
,
she realized.
A place where the dark really did hide the creatures of your nightmares.

Something lay in the middle of the road up ahead. Serenity’s eyes narrowed. Something was familiar about the shape, though she couldn’t place it. She broke into a run and stopped beside the item. She bent and picked it up, her breath catching.

Sebastian’s jacket.

She gave a low moan and buried her face in the material, breathing in his heady, masculine scent. Her heart ached for him. But at least the jacket told her two things:  he was here and somewhere nearby.

“Sebastian!” she yelled, lifting her face to the portentous sky. “Where are you?”

This was crazy. Did she really think he’d hear her?

Clutching his jacket to her chest, Serenity ran through the streets, heading downtown. Over and over again, she called out his name—a solitary voice in this silent world—praying with all her heart that he would hear her.

On the outskirts of downtown
Los Angeles, Sebastian drew to a stop and frowned. Had he heard something? Something had caught his attention …

No, I must be imaging things,
he decided. The acoustics of this place w
ere
strange.

Since being attacked by the humanoid creatures …
demons,
he corrected himself,
all the things here were demons in one form or another
… he’d concentrated on putting distance between himself and the house. He didn’t think it a coincidence that his home was the place where they’d chosen to attack him. The demons had been waiting for him the whole time—waiting for him to get close enough to his home—before jumping him. Their attempts to grab him in the desert had failed. This time, they’d not taken any chances, but they’d clearly underestimated him.

But what did they want from him? The only thing that came to mind had to do with his family.
More precisely, Elizabeth.
He worried that, somehow, the house and him being inside it would help them connect back to his daughter in the real world.

The thought filled him with fear. Light and dark—the two contrasts of this place.
Also the thing that connected Elizabeth.
The girl was also two contrasting halves—half human-half vampire, half light-half dark.

Natasha had been able to make a deal with this place to have the demon enter his body. That deal had been about delivering Elizabeth. Just because Natasha was out of the equation, he assumed, didn’t mean this place had given up on what it wanted.

Something else troubled him—a repressed memory of blood and violence. He’d hurt someone, he was sure, he just couldn’t remember who. Fresh blood pumped through his veins and the connection gave him a hint of what the person he’d fed from experienced as they died—shock, disbelief,
fear
.

Someone who’d known him.

He couldn’t shake the conviction he’d done something terrible.

Sebastian continued to run, wanting to put more distance between
himself
, the house, and the demons waiting for him, but the sound came again, the faintest echo of a cry.

His heart hitched.

Serenity?

No, it couldn’t be. Serenity didn’t belong in this place, she belonged in the light.
With Elizabeth.

But then, why did he feel so certain he’d heard her calling his name? After the empty silence of this place, he was sure he hadn’t imagined things.

Sebastian paused, uncertainty rippling through him. With his sensitive hearing, he picked up the sound again, coming from the direction he’d just left—toward the house.

Perhaps it was a trick? The bizarre creatures of this place mimicking her voice in order to lure him back? But what if it wasn’t? What if Serenity had somehow found her way here and she needed him now? Could he take that risk?

Not pausing any longer, Sebastian turned on his heels and took off at a run again, heading back toward the sound.

Serenity ran down the middle
of the road. She had no concern for traffic. So far she’d seen no sign of any vehicles. She’d slipped Sebastian’s jacket on, the sleeves swallowing her arms, the material flapped behind her as she ran. She took comfort in wearing something of his, as though it offered her protection against the strange world she ran through, or perhaps drew him closer.

She didn’t think she imagined the black creatures running alongside her, hiding in patches of darkness and slipping briefly into the light before disappearing again. When she turned her head to see them directly, they vanished, as though deliberately trying to hide. She couldn’t pretend the shadowy things didn’t terrify her. They reminded her too much of the demon she’d seen in Sebastian’s face.

She couldn’t let them distract her. If she allowed her fear to take over, she’d never find him.

Serenity paused for breath and took in a lungful of air before yelling, “Sebastian!”

The shadows moved around her. Above her head, something in one of the tall palm trees rustled.

Not allowing herself to pause any longer, she set off again, rounding a corner.

Sebastian’s solid, indomitable form stood in the middle of the street.

“Sebastian!” Her heart swelled with joy to see him standing there.

But a frown marked his face and he made no attempt to move toward her.

“Serenity?”
The reality of seeing her seemed to sink in and panic blanched his already pale features.

She started toward him, but he lifted a hand, halting her.

“No, Serenity. What are you doing here? Where’s Elizabeth?” His eyes widened. “She’s not here, is she? Please don’t say she’s here.”

Serenity shook her head.
“No, of course not!”

She took a couple of steps forward.

“Stop!”
He stepped back. “You shouldn’t be here. I did something terrible, Serenity. I can’t remember what, but I know something happened.”

“It’s all right.” She lifted a hand toward him, pleading. “Come with me. I can get you home.”

“No, you need to leave me here. Forget about me!”

“What? Why are you speaking like this?”

“I’m a danger to you both. You need to go home, Serenity.”

“I’m not going anywhere without you.”

Dark shapes flitted around her, snatching her attention. What was going on?

“Please, Serenity. Go before it’s too late.”

“No.
You’re my best friend. You’re the love of my life
. How am I supposed to give you
up?”

“They’re coming, Serenity.” His head darted either side. “I think they want to use me somehow to get to Elizabeth. They’ll use you too if they can!”

She ignored his warnings. “Iona is holding a gateway open for me to bring you home. She can’t keep it open for long. We need to hurry.”

His eyes widened in horror.
“A gateway?
No! That’s the last thing that should exist. Can’t you see, Serenity? This isn’t about me or you;
it’s
Elizabeth they want. Holding a doorway open between our two worlds will only make it easier for them to reach her.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“The creatures
who
live here, the demons. They’re trying to use us.”

“Then hurry up and come with me,” she demanded. “The sooner we go back, the sooner Iona can close the doorway.”

He shook his head. “You need to leave me here. I’m only a danger to you. At least if I’m here, you and Elizabeth will be safe.
From me and this place.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “No! I won’t leave you here. I won’t!”

Though part of Sebastian wanted
nothing more than to race to Serenity’s side and pull her into his arms, the other part of him was horrified to find her here.

She didn’t belong in this place. What if the same thing happened and one of the demons who resided in this world used her to break through to their own world
?
He knew without a doubt that their focus would be on Elizabeth, on opening a permanent doorway between the two worlds. The longer Serenity spent in this place, the harder it would for her to get back. The idea of her being trapped here too terrified him.