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CHARLIE
Elizabeth didn’t need to say anything for me to know I was right. The magic-stealing man turned dragon of Norse mythology was my great-great-grandaddy.
Jesus Christ.
What does that make me? Am I part dragon? Will I start stealing magic and building hoards? Do dragons even make hoards?
I needed to know more, and I needed to get out of the frigging ropes.
Elizabeth spoke as though continuing, “So you see, I can’t let you leave here alive.” She stood abruptly, and I jerked away, tipping my chair over.
I grunted as I hit the ground and landed on my arms. “Woah, slow down! I don’t see that at all.”
Something sharp stabbed into my hand, and I felt blindly to identify it. Gathering it into my hands, despite the pain, I could feel the smooth surfaces and the sharp serrated edges. Glass. The glass I knocked from the cabinet.
Thank you, Christ.
“You will be controlled by him when you emerge. You’ll take the magic of your family and friends and help his cause,” Elizabeth continued as she took quiet, heavy, and deliberate steps toward me.
She pushed on my thighs to tilt my chair upright again but didn’t move away. She stared into my eyes as she said, “So you understand why I need to kill you.”
Panic stirring in my gut, I began rubbing the edge of the glass against the ropes that tied me to the chair.
“I won’t kill my friends, because killing them means killing myself,” I told her, trying to stall. “Not to mention, they are our best hope of stopping Fafnir, so you really shouldn’t kill me either.”
She paused and leaned away from me. “You are life bonded to your friends? Why do you think they can stop Fafnir when the protector couldn’t?”
“This is a long story, so settle in.” I wriggled in my ties, pretending to get comfortable but really testing my ropes. They were noticeably looser.
Glass shard to the rescue.
I told Elizabeth about the otherworlders who’d come looking for Clawdia. How Savida went missing and how Clawdia, the familiar next door, turned human and we chased the witches, Winnie and Mary, to Sweden. I explained that Lydia told me I was a witch and introduced me to Simon. And then how we eventually stopped the witches from using their stockpile of fire to raise the protector, but that Mary killed Winnie to kill Clawdia and slow us down.
Elizabeth interrupted suddenly. “This Mary, do you know her last name?”
“What? No.”
Elizabeth stood and walked to a bookshelf behind her. She picked out a photo album and came to sit next to me as she flicked through photos. I stiffened, aware that she was close enough to feel my movement if I were to continue to saw my way out of the ropes.
I directed my attention to the pictures. Girl after girl after girl. Men were rarely pictured. She stopped at a group photo of Elizabeth holding a fifty balloon surrounded by other women. I didn’t know why she was showing me this picture until I noticed another familiar face standing at the back on a chair. She was smiling in a joyfully innocent way that betrayed her youth, but I recognized the bitch.
Mary.
“Who is she to me?” I growled.
“Your cousin.”
Fucking typical that I have a magic-stealing dragon for a great-great-grandad and a murderess for a cousin.
This is not the kind of shit I wanted to find out on this episode ofWho Do You Think You Are?
“I always knew she’d kill.” She stroked a finger down her face.
I choked out a disbelieving laugh. “You’re telling me I’m dangerous when I’ve never killed anyone, but a female in the family can run around killing their girlfriend and not be held accountable?”
“The family had an argument just after this picture was taken, and we were divided. We haven’t spoken since.” She continued to stare at the picture, looking intently at the faces.
“An argument about what?” I asked softly.
