“Mommy,” Reg whispered, her throat tight, realizing she was going to have to lose Norma Jean again, and this time it would be her own choice.
She grasped Corvin’s arm, drawing strength from him. “We have to stop this. He can’t be allowed to change everything.”
At first, he tried to pull out of her grasp, then he let her hang on to him. “I don’t know how you do that,” he muttered.
“What?” Reg was focused on Weston, not Corvin, trying to figure out how best to deter him.
“Draw on my powers.”
“If we work together, we can defeat him, can’t we?” Reg asked desperately. She looked at Harrison. “Tell me we can.”
Harrison shrugged. He looked interested, but not overly concerned.
“That’s why you brought us here. You said that Corvin could balance out his power.”
“If he can control his powers,” Harrison said, doubt in his tone.
Reg tightened her grip on Corvin’s arm, seeking the warmth and energy he held, drawing on it. “Weston! Put the girl down! You need to leave them alone.”
Her voice didn’t come out nearly as authoritatively as she wanted it to, but it was the best she could do, with her throat constricted and her knees shaking. Weston didn’t even look at her, still talking to Norma Jean and tickling the little girl under the chin like a cat.
“Weston!”
He turned and looked at her, then glanced over at Harrison and raised his eyebrows. “There is no need to bring so many people to this family reunion. It is just my dear one and me and the child.”
“You can’t have her. You aren’t allowed to do this. That’s why you were bound.”
“I have served my exile and been released. You cannot punish me a second time.” He gave a little laugh. “You could not punish me anyway.”
“We have the power of the Witch Doctor—of Destine!” Reg told him shakily. “You can’t just do whatever you want without consequence.”
“Indeed.” Weston studied Corvin move closely, taking a step toward them. “How could this spirit-drinker best Samyr Destine? Unless it was his time. Did he grow careless? Or had he run his course?” he mused, not directing the question at any of them.
“Let the little girl go,” Corvin commanded, his voice sounding much more commanding than Reg’s. “You are not allowed to be here.”
“I am not allowed? I am immortal; I go where I like. There is nothing to stop me from being here.”
“You are not supposed to have contact with the woman or the child. You broke the rules. I am here to stop you.”
Corvin was bluffing pretty well, considering how little he knew. But he probably had a little more background knowledge on the immortals than he would disclose. He had pretended only to have a general understanding of them, but he seemed to be up-to-date on the rules on not having children with the mortals. Or had Reg told him that?
Her head was hurting like it was going to split right down the middle. If she were anywhere else, she would have lain down to go to sleep. Her brain was shutting down with the pain and the confusion over what she was supposed to do and how she could possibly influence what had happened in her past. Or maybe it was just a side effect of traveling through time.
Maybe she was having a stroke, and none of it was happening after all. It was just a very vivid dream caused by the damage spreading through her brain. She would be seeing the light at the end of a tunnel soon and meeting all of her loved ones who had gone on before.
Or maybe Norma Jean was the only one she would ever meet. The only one she had ever loved, in spite of the way Norma Jean had treated her.
“I am,” Weston said thunderously. “You have no control over me. The others have no control over me. I have paid the price and I can now choose my own path without retribution.”
“No!” Reg insisted. She lunged at Weston, letting go of Corvin, her source of strength. “Not if I have anything to say about it!”
Weston was startled by her attack, merely buffeting her with the back of his arm to keep her away from him, not casting any spell or using his immortal powers. Reg immediately renewed her attack. She needed to stop him. To get the child away from him and prevent him from changing everything. The child could not stay with Norma Jean. Weston could not protect the two of them. The results would be disastrous. She grabbed ahold of Weston this time, not letting him simply smack her back again. She grabbed his fingers and bent them back, attempting to pry the little girl away from him.
“Let her go! Her fate isn’t yours to choose. You already made your decision; you can’t go back and change it now. She has to grow up like I did.”
The little girl was cowering away from Reg. She hid her face against the strange man in an attempt to escape the scary, screaming, wild-eyed woman. She was starting to sob, but held back, trying to keep them from seeing her tears. How many times had she been punished for crying?
Weston attempted to shove Reg back again, but she threw up the wall around herself so that he couldn’t touch her. She yelled, an incoherent war-cry. She was the protector of this child. She had to keep him from messing everything up. If he did what he planned, he would only hurt her more. Reg drew on the powers that Corvin held. They were no longer touching physically, but she had left a path open to him, and when she directed her thoughts back to him, there was an immediate connection. They worked together in sync as if they had practiced this scene a thousand times. Each knew what the other was going to do the instant before it happened.
Reg tried to force the child from Weston’s arms. To begin with, he only resisted physically. Perhaps his powers were rusty after all of his time in the closet. Or maybe he didn’t believe that she could hold any power that would challenge him.
But as he struggled with her, he started to put up a magical resistance as well. Reg had to work harder and harder to keep her hands on the little girl and to even stand in front of the immortal. He tried to hit or push her, but the wall that she had put up protected her from physical harm. He started attacking her psychic forces, the power that she was drawing from Corvin.
She felt him stirring inside her mind and tried to fight back and push him out. How could it be so easy for him to get behind her defenses? He stirred up old memories.
Reg, cuddling in Norma Jean’s arms as her mother rocked her, sitting in a rocking chair in a hospital or shelter somewhere, not in the dirty little apartment. Little Reg was warm and felt protected. She didn’t understand the words of the song that her mother sang to her as she relaxed and tried to find a peaceful sleep without dreams. She didn’t have any idea, as the Reg of older years did, that rather than a lullaby, it was a drinking song, normally raucous and rowdy.
Then she felt Harrison’s warm protection spell as she hid in the cupboard, but then the terror of watching her mother being tortured.
And then the horrible sense of being alone in the world, ricocheting from one place to another as they searched for a home that could manage her, promising that she would have a forever family who would take care of her and keep her safe forever if she would just be good—knowing that she never could be.
Reg could barely hold on to consciousness, faltering in her attempts to fight back against Weston. He picked and chose the memories that would weaken her, that would best convince her to leave the child with him and Norma Jean. Together, they could be the perfect little family. He could protect her from every negative force in the world. He could keep her safe at all times. He could be the loving father she’d never had. He would see to it that she had food to eat and was warm and safely tucked into bed each night.
“Regina!” Corvin tried to shake her from her stupor. “Reg, fight! Don’t let him get to you. You don’t want him to protect you. He never will, anyway. You know what these immortals are like. They have great ideas, how they’re going to change the world and make it a better place, and instead, they end up destroying civilizations or leading countries into war and then wandering off when they get bored with it. He wouldn’t have stayed with you. He would have taken off after the next shiny new idea.”
It was true. Reg renewed her attempts to fight against him and against the memories he endeavored to drown her with. She could not let him lull her into a sense of security. Those warm fuzzy feelings weren’t true. He hadn’t been there her whole life, and even if he intended to protect the child, he would never follow through. He would always be chasing after a new woman, idea, or treasure. The immortals were fickle.
Even Harrison, her trusty, helpful Uncle Harrison, who had promised he would always be there to help and protect her had disappeared more times than she could count. Had he stayed near her to ensure that the Witch Doctor could never harm her? On the contrary, time after time, he had left her alone, making her vulnerable.
And when he had known that she was getting close to opening the closet and releasing Weston from his imprisonment, he hadn’t warned her. He’d just stood by and let it happen.
“You get out of my head and out of my life forever!” Reg shouted so loudly it hurt. “She is not yours!”
“She is mine,” Weston argued, sounding angry and dangerous for the first time. “She is my blood! I gave her to Norma Jean. She will always be mine.”
“No. You gave that up when you abandoned her. You cannot have her!”
“Her power is my power,” Weston’s voice was low and gravelly. “Your power is my power. You have nothing you can use against me because I am the source!”
Reg was shaken, but she continued to fight back against him. She didn’t just have her own gifts to draw on. She was also using Corvin’s. And his came from the Witch Doctor, not from Weston. Destine held the power that had counterbalanced Weston for years. Maybe for epochs. They could continue to fight him all day long; Weston couldn’t get the upper hand. There was a balance of forces.
Reg held him off, but she couldn’t make any progress.
Maybe she could go no farther. Her power combined with Corvin’s was not enough to get the upper hand. Reg stared at the little girl. She had to do it for her younger self. She had to do it to protect the little girl from all that would happen to her if Weston succeeded in changing the course of her life.
That little girl was her, and that little girl had the powers that Reg would eventually wield. It didn’t make any sense that together they could hold any more than Reg did by herself, but nothing was working the way she thought it should after years of watching Star Trek.
“Look at me, Reg,” she said softly, trying to meet her eyes and to smile at her encouragingly. “I know what to do. You can help me. You can help me to protect you.”
The little girl looked away, frightened. Reg swallowed. The little girl had never been told she could do anything. How could Reg explain to her what powers she had? Powers that she wouldn’t understand for years. Reg was still trying to wrap her mind around them.
Reg’s hands were still on the little girl, trying to pull her away from Weston. She relaxed her grip to make sure it didn’t hurt. To convey a sense of concern to the girl so she wouldn’t be scared. She reached out with her mind and attempted to touch the little girl’s inner self. It wasn’t truly an invasion of her mind if it was into her own head.
There was a blast of brilliance like she had never experienced before. The little girl’s mind was so bright and alive with light and color it just about knocked Reg over. She let out her breath in a puff like she’d been punched in the stomach.
“Whoa!”
The little version of herself looked back with guileless innocence. She cocked her head to the side slightly, trying to figure out who Reg was and what she was doing. Reg couldn’t explain, but she tried to show her how to push back against Weston, how to resist him and to build a wall around herself, Reg, and Corvin. She drew on Corvin’s strength and funneled it toward the little girl. Corvin sensed what she was doing, and after an initial tug of resistance, he did the best he could to help. But Reg could feel his reluctance. He had battled with an immortal before, and when he had done that, he had been able to pull powers from him. He was hungering again, tugging here and there like a dog on a leash, drawn toward the powers Weston wielded.
“Don’t,” Reg told him. “Last time, you had just filled up with power from the artifacts. It’s different this time.”
Corvin spoke through gritted teeth. “I can. I am strong enough.”
“Harrison said you don’t have control yet.”
“He’s wrong. I can do this. I did it before without his help.”
Reg was losing her grip on the little girl’s mind and had to refocus her attention. “Come on, honey. You can do this. You’re strong. Wow, all of that power inside of you, you’re like a magical princess!”
The little girl’s face lit up at this suggestion and, in spite of the dirt on her face and the hollowness of her cheeks, she glowed, exuding light, her power flow amping up noticeably.
Weston’s physical grip on the little girl slackened. Reg was able to tug her out of his hands. She held the waif against her body, the desire to protect her welling up even more strongly inside her. She wanted to hold this little girl and protect her from all of the trouble that was going to come to her. But she wasn’t going to be there for her.
Or she was, but not with the knowledge and power that she would gain later in life. The little girl could rely only on what was inside her as a four-year-old. Reg kissed her cheek and tried to pump her up as much as she could inside her mind. She told her how brave and strong she was and that she was beautiful and smart no matter what anyone else told her. And there would be people there for her. Uncle Harrison sometimes, and social workers and doctors and foster parents who really did care and wanted to do the best for her. The bad times would only be temporary. She would be able to get through them.
The girl clung to her neck. Reg turned her attention back to Weston and built a spell against him.
“You can’t have her. She is not yours; she is her own person. You stay away from her.”
“She is my blood!”
“It doesn’t matter. That doesn’t mean you possess her. Humans are independent. You leave her alone.”
“I can make her great. I can build her powers, teach her how to use her gifts and talents properly. By the time she is grown, she will be a sorceress beyond description. Think of having that kind of power. Think of how different your life would be.”
It was a temptation, as Weston knew it would be. She had always struggled for control. She hadn’t cared so much about having power over other people as just having the right to make her own choices and not have her life run by all of the adults.
But that was what had made her the person she was.
“No. That’s not what she needs.”
“Of course she does. It’s what you always wanted. Do you think I can’t see that?”
In wrestling with him, however much she had tried to build a wall with him, she had allowed some glimpses into her mind. But wanting a thing and knowing what was right for her was not the same. She had to give the little girl the same life as she’d had if she were going to survive. Or as close to it as she could manage under the circumstances, strange as they were.
“No. You leave her alone.”