I bunch my hands into fists to try and stop myself shaking. Only Lee seems to be able to hit my 'rage' switch so easily lately.
God knows how this argument started, but he's only been home for ten minutes. He's still in his hospital uniform, his black hair tousled slightly where he's run his hands through it. He looks exhausted. Not that I care. He thinks I've been sat on my arse all day while he's off saving the world one patient at a time.
Maybe that's why we fight all the time lately. Because of the secrets.
Not that I could tell him even if I wanted to - hell I did want to. We were best friends, not just flatmates, we shared everything - always had. But if I tell him what I've been doing day and night he'd probably disown me. I couldn't take the thought of that look of disgust, so I put up with the friction. The constant undertones of being called a lay about. The complaints about not answering the phone, about crying all the time, about keeping him awake in the middle of the night...
But how do you tell your best friend that you joined a coven accidentally and have been dragged into dealing with demons, and a rival coven who literally wanted to kill us all?
I mean, he's a witch too - but I'm not dragging him into the middle of this stupid war over ley lines! He had a life, he did important things in the real world, he was training to be a doctor. He used his extra sensory powers to help him diagnose and heal people (whether he admitted it to others or not. Lets face it, no one wants magic when they're paying for medicine)
"For God sake Lilly! You're gonna kill yourself with this stupid shut-in attitude!"
"Don't you ever say that!" I yell at him, suddenly on my feet. After my brother killed himself I've always been touchy about suicide and death. "Don't you dare talk about death! You don't know anything about it!"
Okay, so I was a little more touchy about it recently. But when you're being hunted down by a gang of unruly witches, attacked by demons, and loosing members of a coven you have been drafted into like a family member - when they're dying in your arms because you're new and un-initiated and can't do a blasted thing to help; when they die trying to protect you... yeah, I had reason to be touchy.
"Fuck! I don't know about death??" He's shaking now, shouting "I haven't lost family, sure - but shit! How do you think it feels to have people die in your arms - literally! And not being able to help them? How useless, how guilty, how bad you feel. Not relatives; but real people, with families, and partners, and little kids - " his voice breaks and I realise he must have lost a patient today. He's not crying, but I recognise that feeling.
He's still mad at me, but my anger has melted away now. I'm half kicking myself for not noticing earlier, and just want to comfort him.
I take a breath and move towards him slowly.
"I know you deal with that stuff. I admire you for it - you know I do." The sincerity in my voice doesn't calm the look he's giving me. I take a deep breath, and find that my anger isn't all gone. Half of me wants to comfort him, but the other part is dying to scream 'You chose this! I didn't!'... not that he'd understand even if I did.
The breath comes out in a sigh and I turn from him slightly.
"Forget it." I sigh. Let him hold onto his anger to fight that hole in his chest. Goddess knows it's how I've been dealing with it myself.
He makes a guttural frustrated noise behind me and grabs my arm. If I had enough rage left in me I'd have turned and planted my fist square in his jaw. As it was I stopped and hung my head limply. I'd given up the fight when I turned, and there was nothing left in me. I'd been washing blood off in the shower for an hour before he came back - that was after Dan and I set more defences around the house. I was whacked. Let me tell you, keeping up a 'see-me-not' spell so no-one notices you, while casting a circle around a house that you can't walk all the way around, is not easy. Still, there hadn't been time to wash the shifters blood off before hand. Not if we wanted to be safe.
Everyone had been upping defences lately, but I was the only one who'd had to start from scratch. Not to mention having to add extra lines to the spells to allow Lee to practice and come and go freely, adding extra layers to cloak him from whoever or whatever was coming while not letting on to the coven that my flatmate was a ridiculous power conduit. They'd jump at the opportunity to drag him in. I was not letting that happen.
"Lilly..." his voice was gruff with emotion. He was so angry, upset, frustrated... the power crackled on his skin. Funny how I could see and feel it now that I was being trained in the arts. Raw power was rare in the coven, and I felt the urge to start a defensive spell. It was becoming second nature when I felt any power buildup. It had saved my life too many times now to call it paranoia. But it was Lee - and the beginnings of the spell was disbanded before he'd noticed what I was doing. Best not to send him flying just for being in contact with me. The first part was all internal anyway, he hadn't noticed anything. I stood and waited, unwilling to turn and face him.
"The last time you said 'forget it' to me you were hiding your boyfriends death threats from me..." shit, he was cottoning on. Not just angry. Smart, powerful witch. "What the hell is going on?" he sounded like a kid again. We were 15 again, stood at the bridge with him kicking a stone asking 'Can we be friends again?'
I sighed at my feet, knowing that I couldn't lie to him. I'd never been able to lie to him. I'm not big on lying anyway... but sometimes it's necessary to mask the truth. Ignorance, I've been told, is bliss. I wouldn't know.
He was still waiting for an answer. "Is it to do with the weird things I found written on the door?"
My head comes up with a jerk. Damn! No one was supposed to be able to see that. I'd forgotten how much of a natural he was. Definitely had to keep him out of this.
I turn slowly and face him. I don't do it fast, because I need time to think. There's lies popping in my head, but I can't tell them. The truth. Short enough to keep him out of it, not so brief as to make him think I'm hiding something.
"Lilith, talk to me. " It's a command, he's good at those. I've never been good at taking them, but there's enough guilt in my own head to back it up this time.
Looking up into his eyes feels like the hardest thing in the world. Look at me - new found Demon slayer, natural born killer, able to stare down the darkest of creatures - unable to meet my best friends eyes. Irony's a bitch.
"I... found a coven." My voice falters, the enthusiasm sounds tiny in the void of his response. He knows there's volumes I'm not saying, and all I can find in his eyes is cold steel - the blue almost slate grey - the concern is only a flicker behind his mask of concentration.
I swallow, the lump almost too big.
"They figured I needed to put some protection on the house..." I trail off pathetically. I haven't explained anything.
He's still staring into my eyes.
"Why is there blood under your fingernails?" he asks sternly.
I feel the heat rush to my face. No way - I'd scrubbed it all away! I look down at my hands reflexively to check. No, I had gotten it all.
"There isn't!" I sound shocked, it doesn't help my case.
"There was though." He smiles. My reaction had been enough to tell him I'd had my hands in blood.
The blush deepens, and I feel myself go beetroot red. I suppose I was a little paranoid... after all, an hour was far too much time to spend washing blood off - even when you had to scrub it out of your hair. I'd checked that every part of me was perfectly clean earlier. I'd known there was no blood under my nails. Getting the blood off was the only way to get me to stop shaking. I'd learnt that now. Once you were alone, covered in a friend (or enemies) blood, the only way to get rid of the shakes was to shower till the tears were gone, along with every drop of pink and red.
"What have you been sacrificing?" his voice is like quite thunder. The anger is there, deep down, ground in. He's not vegetarian, but he doesn't like the idea of killing things. Chickens are used in lots of dark magic rituals, goats for really bad ones... I had the feeling he wasn't talking about either of them though. There's something about human blood that makes your skin tingle - could he feel it on me?
I can't keep the shock out of my face though. Shock and outrage build up in me - how dare he imply I would perform a dark ritual!? Though, it would have been a good cover story... too late for that now. There was too much in my eyes for him to believe that bluff if I gave it. Something was loosening in his own. He finally broke eye contact, though only briefly.
Yeah - you crossed a line. You'd better bloody look away I thought acidly.
"I'm not that kinda girl Lee." I spit the words out at him, and pull my arm harshly out of his still gentle grip. But I can't keep a grip on the anger, it's slipping away.
"So this is what you think of me?" I ask, fighting the tears as I back away from him.
He frowns. Yes, it was what he'd thought. My chest feels ready to colapse in on itself
"I spend all day trying to protect you from this shit and you turn round and accuse me of human fucking sacrifice? Thanks. Thanks a lot" I'm at the stairs now. I'm not sure how being upset gives you the same fuel as anger, but it does. It makes you just as irrational too.
His mouth opens and closes. He's about to deny it. True, he didn't say that, but it's what he meant and we both know it. The 'what' may as well have been a 'who'.
He reaches out to me slightly and I shake my head.
"Lilly... what were you trying to protect me from?" he sounds a little scared. Good.
I stand for a moment at the foot of the stairs, looking at him. There's contempt in me now, now that he understands and has to swallow his words. Even if only a little bit.
"Death." I reply, and run up the stairs, not waiting for his response.
So much for not telling him the truth.
Damn, his day had probably been as long as mine now.
Bree's face flashed in my mind as she plunged her psiball into the shifter, its jaw coming down on her shoulder; my hands still prickle from the feel of fur over hard muscles, jaws snapping at my neck. The burn on my arm from their priestess's spell still aches slightly, and I shake my head. Nope - mine had definitely been longer.
If she lived the night I'd thank Bree for teaching me that emergency healing spell. Kali had said when she got there that it had given her a good chance of healing her properly...
I needed chocolate and a lot of R&R. No one was supposed to cast as much as we had today, especially not untrained, uninitiated little witches like me. I was burned out. The argument with Lee had finished me off.
Upstairs I collapse on my bed, letting tears run into my pillow.
I wanted to be like Kali, I wanted to be strong and brave - but this was too new for me. I wasn't used to fighting, and death, and monsters. I couldn't just shut off my heart. Hell, if I could I'd probably not be able to call on the powers I'd managed today to pull off that spell. You have to really care about people to pull on your reserves like that.
My hand reached over for my alien teddy, pulling him close. He always made me feel better.
"How long has this been going on?" a soft voice at my door asked.
Without turning I could tell he had a his arm resting on the door jam with his hand on his face. His 'stressed' pose. I heard his hand run over the top of head and rest on his neck.
Good old Lee - always running himself into the ground for others.
I could deal with this on my own. I just needed to cry about it before going to sleep. He'd never understand that. Men don't. If you're crying you can't deal - that's what guys think. It's not true.
I shrugged on my bed, trying to remember when it all started. "Two months?" I guessed.
His breathing was heavy.
I want to yell at him to either go away or come cuddle me. I can't be stared at right now - I need to be held or left alone. But I can't muster the courage to say it. Not to mention I don't want to admit not being able to handle something. Not right now.
"What exactly has been happening?" he asks. His voice is a mask, holding back his emotions. I hated that he could do that. I used to envy it, but now it seemed just cold and wrong. I wanted to know what he was feeling - how was I supposed to do that if he was hiding?
Feeling like he needs to hide... that's all I can tell... fun.
"Too much to explain." I tell my pillow. I'm too tired to explain. My body is dragging me into an exhausted sleep now that I've given it a chance.
He hesitates then pushes away from the door frame.
I hear his feet pad down the hallway, and I feel the hint of disappointment as his bedroom door opens. Must still be pissed at me.
I wake up moments later with his hands gently pulling the quilt out from beneath me. His jogging bottoms and wet hair tell me he's had a shower after getting rid of his uniform.
His hands gently pull the quilt over me and he lays down next to me on his side. His hand propping his head up as he looks down at me.
"Do you hate me?" I ask, my voice sounding so young and vulnerable that I want to kick myself.
His free hand strokes my hair out of my eyes and he smiles sadly, his head shaking as he closes his eyes.
"I couldn't hate you Lilly." he says quietly, still stroking my hair.
The tears haven't stopped yet, but that doesn't seem to matter. I snuggle closer to him and feel his arm encircle me as I begin to fall irrevocably into that abyss people call the land of Nodd.
"I'm sorry..." I manage to whisper. It's the last thought I have before slipping into a blissfully dreamless sleep.
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