Nikki frowned at the sound of the phone being put down. The hair on her arms stiffened at the sound of her mother's energy crackling in it.
`We are protected now. None must hear this.'
`Hear what?'
`The truth of our past. About the day my father was slain.'
`He died fighting Agnes off? He killed her—'
`No. She was too strong, more powerful than any other Bloodells priestess has ever been. Almost immortal.'
`Then how? What happened?' Nikki lay down on the couch; the sense of a great change coming grew in her. This story had been legendary among her kind. But it was a lie?
`Father had felt her presence in the great forest not far from our home one morning. We ran. We did not know why he was so frightened, or understand why Agnes wanted to hurt us. Only that our father had never been afraid of anyone before.'
`Wasn't Grandfather the strongest Darkells Magi? That's how he killed Agnes?'
`He was, but Agnes had taken blood, making her stronger. But it was the dark energy she wanted — Bemeon's energy, the Bloodells' god. And he blessed her with it, more than any other ever has.
`Bemeon saw how strong she was and knew Agnes could break the seals to let him come here, to cross him over.'
`Then how?'
`Agnes surprised us in the forest. She teleported using Bemeon's energy. Father died not even seeing her or knowing that he was lost. He just exploded before us.'
`Shit! Sorry, go on.' Nikki found herself hot and clammy from her mother's words. Some of her mother's energy seeped from the phone into her.
`It was terrifying. Michelle and I were still children, ungifted, and Agnes used that to her advantage. She took Michelle from me. I couldn't stop Agnes or even make her bleed. She made me watch as she,' she sighed. `As she turned Michelle into a Bloodells. Stabbed my sister in the heart and forced her own blood into Michelle.
`The sound a child makes when poisoned by a Bloodells is something I still hear in my dreams.'
`Ma,' Nikki wiped her eyes. Tears fell as the pain her mother felt seeped through her. `You've never told anyone this, have you?'
`No.'
Nikki took a deep breath, sharing her mother's pain but wanting to hear more. `Who killed Agnes, then?'
`Agnes sent Michelle away with her followers and she stayed in the forest with me for a day. Trying to break my spirit. To make me hers. She could not. I was stronger than my sister. Agnes told me she had to kill me if I wasn't hers. I would be a threat if I lived.
`All I wanted was to kill her. It kept me alive but it mattered not when Agnes held me by the neck. For a second I thought I saw a moment of weakness in her eyes, but it was gone. I accepted my death as she crushed my throat.'
`No!' Nikki leapt from the couch, her body alive with the gift, and the sensation of hands tight around her throat. `Don't say that. You didn't die!'
`Aye, child, I did. My life fled and I was in darkness, neither here nor in our goddess's arms. It was a cold nothingness and I screamed for her. I screamed for Darla to save me, to take me into her arms.'
Nikki struggled to breathe. The room shrank as she paced. `What are you telling me? This is insane. How?'
`A voice pulled me back to the agony that was my body. The pain was better than the cold. Hands touched me with great care. It was a man. A man covered in blood, kneeling beside me, brown eyes full of compassion as he kept asking me to come back. Tears shed for me streaked his face.'
`A Darkells? Where was Agnes?'
`Agnes was dead, clove in two by a woodsman's axe. He showed me her head and heart torn from her body.'
`Wh, what happened? I mean, what happened next? Did he tell you how he did it?'
`Nay. He spoke very little to me, just took me to his home, cared for me and treated me like his own kin. It took me months to recover.'
`A human, a man with an axe, did what none other could?'
`Aye, daughter. A simple but loving man who lived in the great forest killed Agnes. A man at one with Gaia.'
`Did he know he was like this?'
`No. To him the forest was his kin, his family. Agnes was a cancer.'
`Did you stay with him? I mean after you turned?'
`I left one day when he was out in the forest not long before I turned. It hurt too much knowing I would have to watch him die as I lived on.'
`So, what happened to him? Did you ever see him again?'
`I went back a year later, I had turned by then. It was hard. When I left I was a child and now returned as a woman. I found him where Agnes had died. He remembered the day he had found me and returned to the spot each year.'
`He celebrated that day? The day he found you?'
`Yes. He had planted flowers and herbs there. He was there, tending to them. I nearly didn't speak to him. I didn't trust myself to be strong enough to leave.'
Nikki sipped some water. `But you did?'
`He knew it was me — even as an adult woman he knew who I was. All he wanted to know was if he had done something wrong to make me leave. I told him no, and that I could not stay. He went quiet and I felt his heart burn for me. He would not speak the words but I knew he would love me, the child he saved in the great forest, all his days.'
`And you just left him there?' Nikki didn't hold back; her heart pounded, the image of her mother and the woodsman burning in her mind.
`I had to. He knew what I was and he loved me, but to stay would have been selfish.'
`Mother, I don't really understand this. Why tell me this now?'
`Ah, yes. You see, I didn't just leave him with nothing, daughter. Once I had turned, I took my revenge on the followers of Agnes. I don't know why I thought tons of precious stones and gold would make the woodsman happy.'
`Wait. You gave him what? How?'
`I had raided every temple and house that had followed Agnes. So when I returned to see the woodsman I brought all I had plundered. Our, his, home was built against a hill; a cave his storage area.'
`Okay. Right.' Nikki paced again, hand on her forehead. `I still don't see what this has to do with today?'
`His name was Hael Dubhghlas.'
Nikki struggled for a moment. The name…
`No way. You mean?'
`Yes, daughter. Say it.'
`Hael Douglas. He was Mason Douglas's—'
`Even so.'
