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I shook off my urge to vomit. “If you empowered these people to be collectors, you are responsible for the murders they committed.”
“They would have killed anyway. I merely took advantage of their natural inclinations.” Emily stood back and admired the new addition before waving her hand, signaling that the chandelier should rise. “And now I can turn their evil to a good purpose.”
“What good purpose could you possibly serve?”
An intricately carved mahogany Gothic throne materialized at her side. It was hideous, but in line with its surroundings. She sat and tapped the perfectly manicured nails of her right hand on the top of the lion’s head handrest. Joe came and sat at the throne’s clawed feet. He looked up at Emily, his face glowing with awe, and what else? Was it passion? The way he tilted his face up toward her was like a sunflower following the sun. She reached out and lovingly ran her fingers through his hair. “I told you before about how our teachers and guides have been deposed from their rightful place of honor and banished from this world,” she said. “I serve them in their desire to eradicate the evil that is the line.”
Filled with revulsion for Emily’s world, choking on my disappointment, and yes, hate, I lost patience. “I don’t believe the line is evil. I believe you are,” I said.
The hard look on her face softened, her eyes closed a little and lost focus, as if she were looking into her own soul. After a moment, she pursed her lips and looked up at me. “Evil? Maybe I am. But this is war. Yes, a war. Mercy, I know I’ve gone about this all wrong. I hadn’t intended to make an enemy out of you.”
“Then you shouldn’t have tried to collapse the world in on Jilo and me.”
Her eyebrows arched up. “I assume you don’t mean that poetically, but all the same I have no idea what you are talking about.”
I ignored her lie. “And you really shouldn’t have tried to kill my fiancé.”
“There are mother-in-laws who have done worse,” she said and smiled as if I would find any levity in her actions. “I was angry. I wasn’t thinking,” she continued. “His fairy blood ruined everything,” she said, more to herself than to me, then added, “We were so close when he came and interrupted us.”
“So close to what exactly?”
“To returning this world to its rightful owners, and to returning Maisie to us. The anchors and the witches who support the line will never allow her to return. You have to get that through your head. You want to talk about evil? The line has erased your sister from our very reality. Isn’t that evil enough for you? If not, think about the creature I sent to fetch you. I wanted you to see one of them up close. His kind are not of my making. No, they are a product of the witches who maintain the line. They developed the foul little beings to serve as spies among the humans, to keep tabs on them lest they seek to overthrow their masters as the witches did theirs. That little bit of history is one that’s never taught to the young witches. And so much of what is taught is a confection of half-truths and lies.”
“But bringing down the line will return us to the control of the demons.”
“Stop calling them demons. They are not demons. They are our creators. Our parents. Everything we have and everything we are, we got from them.”
“You are out of your mind.”
Emily’s head tilted to the side and her lips pulled back, revealing gritted teeth. She leaned violently forward, her hands white-knuckled and digging into the arms of her chair. My own muscles pulled taut, preparing themselves if she were to pounce. It may only have been Joe’s position at her feet that kept her from doing just that, but he proved barrier enough to slow Emily’s building rage. She sensed my body preparing to respond in kind to any violence, and she forced herself back against the chair, loosening her grip on its arms. “I am the sanest witch you have ever met. It is only your willfulness, your ignorance that makes you doubt me.” She regained control of herself, righting her head and relaxing her shoulders. “I brought you here to attempt to correct that ignorance.”
“All right,” I said, holding my hands out before me, palms down. “I’m sorry. I’m listening.”
“Thank you for the apology. I accept it,” she said, the final traces of tension disappearing from her face. She folded her hands and assumed a thoughtful pose. As she collected her thoughts, I stood in silence, calculating my odds of making it to Adam and sliding us out of here. “The old ones,” she said, interrupting my train of thought. “When they found our planet, no humans existed, leave alone witches. The small mammals from which we’ve descended were millions of years away from even developing prehensile thumbs on their own. We were tree-dwelling mice, doing our best to hide from the masters of this world, but our visitors saw potential in us, and they decided to make a long-term investment in our future. They claimed our world for us. They cleared the land for us.”
“You are saying they wiped out the dinosaurs?”
“Yes, they erased the dinosaurs, and everything that took their place until we were ready to rise to supremacy. They were always here to help us. Teach us. Protect us. Change us. Perfect us.”
“Enslave us. Even if what you say is true, even if they did play a nurturing role in our early development, they didn’t help us out of the kindness of their hearts. They engineered us to be their servants. Food, even. The witches rebelled to give us free will.”
“Free will to what? Kill each other in wars? Poison the planet with toxins? Gorge ourselves on chemical foods while millions starve? These are the products of your treasured free will. The old ones, our guides, would never have allowed such madness. There are six and a half billion humans on this planet, and that number is burgeoning by the minute. That’s six billion too many for the world to support. Humans are out of balance with nature. They are a virus, spreading, destroying. The human race is the ultimate ecological nightmare.”
“So you bring down the line. You let your old ones back in. Who decides who gets to live and which six billion people have to die?”
“You could. If you help them, I am sure they will let you determine who are the most worthy of life.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “I am not qualified to make that decision.”
“No? A nurse who dedicates her life to healing or a drug dealer who murdered his grandmother? Pick one.”
She stood, and pushing past Joe, she began to circle me, forcing me to turn. The movement combined with the blinking of the skull lights disoriented me. “That’s an extreme example. Life isn’t so simple,” I said. “It isn’t so black and white.”
“Oh, my dear girl, it will amaze you how quickly clarity comes to you. How soon you will realize that those shades of gray you worry about are such unnecessary complications.” She stopped and stood before me, the bruised light casting nightmarish shadows on her face.
“Those beings you want to help,” I said, “they want to enslave the human race.”
