Chapter 42
The gunshot wounds in my chest shriek with pain. I fall to the floor—as if in slow motion—with a thud, and though Anthony lunges toward me, trying to break my fall, he doesn’t reach me in time.
“Sonia!” My mom runs to my side, her face bent in agonizing expressions.
Just then, Olaf enters the foyer. “Kill them all!” He’s holding a machine gun in each arm and fires them into the ceiling, some of the bullets hitting the chandelier above my head and making the gigantic lamp jingle.
“Now the gift of Cherubo dies with Sonia!” Maureen yells.
“Cherubo?” My mom’s face, already gray, goes white.
Again, I wonder what the gift of Cherubo is, but the pain in my chest overwhelms me so that I have a difficult time thinking of anything else.
Then, unexpected to all, the front doors swing open and Skuld, Mani and Ross enter, and behind them there are nine Huldras. They look like a professional female SWAT team with their assault weapons aimed and ready to fire at anyone who dares move. Their faces are painted with black and red rune symbols and they’re all wearing green camouflage attire, except for Skuld who’s in white and Ross and Mani who are in black.
Skuld, Ross and Mani immediately go after Maureen and Olaf, who are firing aggressively at the newcomers. I think the Huldras and Lightálfars might be wearing bulletproof vests underneath their clothes, because none of them fall to the floor when they’re hit.
The room has been transformed to a whirlwind of splintering wood, smoke and screaming, harsh voices. I see heavy objects go flying through the air—the baby grand piano, vases, tables, and chairs. The Lightálfars are using their anti-gravity powers. I see beasts from the corner of my eye, ones I’ve never seen before. They resemble werewolves and chimeras with lion heads and snake-tails. The Darkálfars are shape-shifting.
This isn’t exactly how I envisioned I’d die—lying down while everyone is fighting around me. I look into Anthony’s eyes, but all I can feel is a burning, throbbing pain in my chest and I capture from the expressions in Anthony’s face that he fears for my life. The room sounds like a full battlefront now with shots going off, fights in full force, and the sound of glass breaking, but I only see Anthony and I believe he only sees me.
“Anthony! Don’t let me die!” I realize I’ll never get to be with Anthony, never get to see where our relationship might lead, and I’ll leave my mom all alone. Now she’ll have no one, and my Huldra gift? I’ll never receive that; it will be lost to the world.
Anthony caresses my face. “Don’t leave me, Sonia, please don’t leave me.” I see a desperate man in front of me, one who cares for me and will do anything in his power not to lose me. “You can have my life, Sonia,” Anthony says. “I’ll give you my life so you can live.”
“No,” I say softly, my breath staggering. “That would be worse than me dying.” I cough, my chest burning with each jolt. My face twists because of the intense pain and though I try to resist my body from convulsing, there’s nothing I can do to control it. “Anthony, Mom—” Tears fill my eyes; fear floods my heart.
“I wanted to tell you—” Anthony says.
“What?” I say. “What? Anthony—?” I cough something up—blood. Death is but an exhale away from where I am.
“I loved you—from the moment I met you,” he says.
“No,” I cough. “Don’t say it.” Dying will only be so much worse.
“Sonia, Sonia, don’t you die on me, don’t you do this to me!” My mom’s hands fumble across my body. I hear the same panicking tone in my mom’s voice as when my dad died that horrible day on the highway when we had all been there. It’s like reliving my worst nightmare, but this time, I’m the one to die. I’m the victim. I’ll be the one my mom mourns for years to come.
“Can someone turn back time? Turn back the time, Skuld! Before she dies!” Anthony rises to his feet and clutches Skuld’s white collar. Her gun drops to the floor as he shakes her roughly.
Skuld cradles Anthony’s face between her hands and looks compassionately into his eyes. He calms down when she nods. “Let’s do it now, before any more time passes.”
Suddenly a flash of light blinds me and we’re back to the quiet before the Huldras and the Lightálfars entered. I’m alive and well and when I check my chest, there’s no blood or wound at all. Anthony is holding his ring up to show Layla and in an instant I remember what happened and what comes next so I need to act quickly before I get shot. The others certainly remember what happened too—even Maureen, Layla and Olaf.
“Shoot!” Maureen yells. When Layla doesn’t shoot, Maureen grabs the gun from Layla, but this time Layla punches Maureen in the face before she’s able to fire. The gun tumbles to the floor, several feet away. A Darkálfar picks it up and aims it toward us and we lift our hands up in surrender.
Just then Olaf enters the foyer. “Here we are again. What great fun to be able to kill Sonia twice! Thank you for the gift, Skuld! Now, like I said before, kill them all!” His machine guns shoot at random into the ceiling and chandelier and a slew of Darkálfars stream into the foyer, coming from behind him. It looks like they had a better chance to plan the second time.
Anthony pulls me to him and we hunch to the floor. He envelops my body in his, protecting me from the rain of bullets.
“Cease fire!” Maureen yells standing up. “Don’t kill Sonia! She has the gift of Cherubo, and we must take it from her before she dies.”
“I’ll never give you my gift!” I spew.
“You don’t have to give it to me anymore. I’ve found a way to extract it,” Maureen says.
I look at Anthony and then my mom to see their reaction, but they look just as surprised as I am. Could it be true that she can extract my gift?
Just then the doors to the foyer fling open and the Huldras and Lightálfars storm in, just like they did before. The Darkálfars immediately open fire at the newcomers, but, again, none of them fall to the floor when they’re hit.
Maureen grabs my hair, pulling me with her. “Olaf, give me a gun and follow me. You, too, Lars and Morten.” Olaf throws Maureen a gun and she catches it and points it to the back of my skull. Aiming their weapons toward the Huldras, my mom, Layla and Anthony, Olaf and the two Darkálfars come after Maureen, preventing anyone from following. While Maureen drags me up the stairs, I try to look for Anthony through all the smoke and flying debris, but I don’t see him anywhere. Maureen forces me up all the way to the third floor. Even up here, I hear shots going off and large objects being flung across the room, landing with a crash.
Maureen opens a French door situated to the left, pulling me with her. The room is large and square with three floral couches placed in the shape of a U around an almond-colored ottoman. The large fireplace is made of limestone and has twin dragonheads facing inward, and there are also a few tables and chairs placed throughout the room. The ceiling moldings look like vine and serpents intertwined, and the closed hunter green curtains keep the sunlight out.
Once inside with the Darkálfars, Olaf bars the door shut with a steel beam. Maureen flings me down to the marble floor, opens a copper chest, and lifts out a crystal vial containing clear liquid. Olaf points his machine guns at me, smiling triumphantly, as if he’s already won the battle.
“Bring her here,” Maureen demands.
The two Darkálfars each grab one of my arms and pull me to my feet. My arms burn where my wounds are and I grimace in pain.
“The elixir of death,” Maureen says. “Once you drink this, you’ll die, and as you die, you’ll go through a phase where you’re nothing but a human again, susceptible to all manner of appropriations.” She smiles maliciously.
“Before Olaf died, he tried to steal my gift,” I blurt out, hoping I can start an argument between them.
Olaf squeezes his lips together and looks at me, his eyeballs oozing hatred. If Maureen weren’t here, I’d be worrying about him killing me right at this moment.
But
Maureen doesn’t even bat an eyelash. “I’m not so gullible to believe such nonsense. You’ll never understand the loyalty that exists between us, for you’ve never experienced it. Olaf will be loyal to the end, and I’ll reward him handsomely.”
Olaf nods to Maureen as if he agrees with her statement.
“The gift isn’t rightfully yours,” I say. “It’s my gift.”
“I never received my fifth Huldra gift, and the gift of Cherubo was supposed to come to me, not you!”
“You are evil, and you were after my gift the whole time.”
“No! You are after my gift! That’s the truth!” Maureen yells.
Suddenly, I hear a loud banging noise coming from the door, and then there is a series of gunshots. “Sonia, we’re coming for you!” Anthony shouts.
“Anthony!” I yell, looking in the direction of the exit.
Maureen walks over to me and squeezes my cheeks together so my lips part, trying to force the elixir down my throat. Before she does, I pull my head back and bash it against hers, right on her head wound from where my mom bashed her with the vase. Maureen screams in agony and drops the crystal vial so it shatters into hundreds of pieces on the marble floor. Red smoke rises from the fluid and smells like a mixture of smoke and blood.
“I can just end the poor Huldra’s life, if it pleases you,” Olaf says, eyeing Maureen.
“You should know better than to bring up such a foolish suggestion,” Maureen replies, blood streaming down her face. Olaf hands her a napkin and she presses it against her wound.
“Anthony will come for me,” I say.
“This door here and these walls here,” Maureen points to them without taking her eyes off me, “are bullet-proof, hurricane-safe, and are reinforced with elven steel, the strongest steel in all the nine realms. Your chances of escaping are zero, so you might as well accept that you’ll die today. The less you resist, the less painful it will be for you. Lay her on the couch,” she instructs the Darkálfars. They throw me onto one of the couches and I scream as they pin me down, feeling my wounds reopen and blood running down my arms.
“Anthony will find a way,” I say, but inwardly I panic, thinking he won’t get to me soon enough.
Maureen approaches me again with a new vial in hand and pops off the crystal lid. “I had plenty of these made, just in case I needed to do this again. Initially, I didn’t want to kill you, Sonia, because you could be such a great asset to me, but when I saw how ignorant and stubborn you were, I realized you could never become one of us. It’s probably for the better that you die, so you don’t need to live out your life without a Huldra gift of your own. I know how painful it can be, and to live without your father, and soon, without your mother, that would just be torture, wouldn’t it?”
She presses the vial up against my lips, and just as she’s about to tip it up to empty the elixir into my mouth, I hear a loud crash by one of the windows. Though I try to look, I can’t see who has entered because they’re still holding me down.
“Get him!” Maureen yells to Olaf. The distraction gives me just enough of a leeway to kick one of the Darkálfars in the chest and onto the floor. I grab the vial from Maureen with my one free hand and throw the elixir into the other Darkálfar’s face, some of it splashing into his mouth. He screams, grabbing his eyes and lips as if the liquid is burning them, and he tumbles to the floor, transforming into a cloud of black smoke. When I see Anthony, relief washes over me. Anthony shoots Olaf in the leg and I sit up, grab around the back of Maureen’s head and slam her head into my knee, causing her to fall to the floor unconscious.
The second Olaf falls to the floor, Anthony runs over and takes Olaf’s gun from him, pointing the gun at the Darkálfar. But before Anthony can shoot, the Darkálfar vanishes into a puff of smoke. Anthony ties Olaf’s hands behind his back.
Trembling, I hobble toward Anthony. Without lowering his weapon, his eyes glued on Maureen and Olaf, Anthony moves toward me. Gently, I lay my head on Anthony’s chest while I wrap an aching, bleeding arm around him, careful not to touch his wounded shoulder. He takes my other hand in his and our fingers interlace, and for a moment I close my eyes and exhale slowly. His lips press against my temple and my eyes are drowned in tears.
“Thank you,” I croak.
“You are my life; how could I not come for you?” he whispers while lifting his arm to wrap it around me ever so gently.
“I gave you life, wretched boy!” Maureen’s voice rings through the room. Horrified, I open my eyes and see Maureen standing up, completely bald, having lost her wig, pointing a machine gun toward us. Her hands and clothes are covered with blood, and half her face is smeared with it. “This is how you reward your mother for all she has done? What made me deserve your betrayal?”
“Mother,” Anthony says, releasing me, his gun quickly aimed at her head. “It’s finished. Drop the weapon.”
“It’s not finished until I say it’s finished!” she screams. “Why did you have to be such a disappointment? I gave you everything, and you turned against me!”
Anthony blinks fleetingly. “You didn’t give me everything, Mother. You didn’t give me love,” he whispers, his voice breaking.
Her face expresses revulsion. “Love,” she spews, and then she laughs. “You never did anything to earn my love.”
“Love doesn’t need to be earned!” I exclaim, disgusted by her comment, my heart pounding in my entire body, fearful of what damage she could cause Anthony or me.
“The lovesick fool speaks on behalf of her lover—how touching, but how tragic that Anthony never was man enough to speak for himself.”
I wonder how a mother can be so cruel.
“I will not shoot you, Mother, no matter what you say, so just drop your weapon so we can—”
Maureen interrupts him before he finishes speaking. “Always so self-sacrificing. You may not have the guts that a man needs to shoot his enemy, but I don’t share your weakness.” She shoots several rounds into Anthony’s abdomen and he falls to his knees.