Chapter 40 The Price of Vengeance
Elara's POV
"How?" Mia's hands trembled as she reached toward the vial then pulled back as if afraid to touch it. "How is that possible? It died. My baby died two years ago."
I set the vial carefully on the rickety wooden chair. "The abandoned hospital where you attempted suicide had a black magic circle hidden in its basement. That circle was designed to absorb death energy, to feed on the suffering and despair of everyone who died in that building."
I continued. "When your baby died, its soul should have moved on naturally but the magic circle caught it instead and pulled it down into the basement where the strongest concentration of dark energy was centered. The circle's core was a human skull carved with binding runes, and it wrapped your baby's infant spirit in layers of corrupted magic like a cocoon, feeding it hatred and rage and the collective anguish of everyone who had suffered in that hospital."
I paused to let that sink in. "The magic should have consumed the spirit completely and turned it into pure dark energy, but something stopped that from happening. Your baby's soul was too new, too pure, and even wrapped in all that darkness it retained some core of itself that refused to be destroyed. It became something caught between life and death, sustained by the very magic that should have annihilated it."
Mia's breathing had gone shallow and rapid. "And when I tried to kill myself..."
"You were already drowning in pain and grief and the kind of despair that wraith children can sense from miles away," I said quietly. "Your baby's spirit felt your suffering and it recognized you even through all the corruption that had twisted it, and it reached out across the dimensional barrier and tore a piece of your soul away because it wanted you close, wanted you to stay with it in that dark place where it had been trapped alone for so long."
"It took part of me," Mia whispered. "My own baby took part of my soul."
"Not to hurt you," I said firmly. "It was acting on instinct, on the basic need of any infant to have its mother close. But the wraith child was also feeding on your pain and using the fragment of your soul to anchor itself more firmly to this reality, and every time you felt fear or grief or rage it grew stronger because those emotions resonated with the dark energy that had created it."
Mia's mother looked like she might be sick. "But you got Mia's soul back. You put her back together. So that thing can't hurt her anymore, right?"
"The wraith child used the fragment of Mia's soul to track Vanessa," I explained, watching Mia's eyes widen with understanding. "It felt Mia's hatred for the woman who killed it, felt the desire for revenge that was buried in that soul fragment, and it locked onto Vanessa as a target for all its accumulated rage. It exists somewhere between physical manifestation and pure dark energy now, able to affect the material world but not fully bound by its rules."
"Good," Mia said suddenly, and her voice came out hard and vicious. "I hope it tears her apart. I hope it makes her suffer the way I suffered, the way my baby suffered because of what she did."
"Mia!" Her mother's voice was sharp with shock but Mia jerked away from her embrace and stood on shaking legs.
"Don't 'Mia' me! You weren't there! You didn't see the way she looked at me after she kicked me, like I was nothing, like my baby was nothing! She just walked away and left me bleeding and nobody did anything to stop her!"
I sat quietly and let her rage, let her finally express everything she'd been forced to swallow for two years. Her mother tried to reach for her again but Mia backed away until she hit the wall, her chest heaving and her face flushed with anger that had nowhere to go except inward.
"There's no other way, is there?" Mia's voice broke as she looked at me with desperate eyes. "No way to save it, to turn it back into what it should have been?"
I met her gaze steadily and gave her the truth. "A wraith that's been corrupted by that much dark energy, that's been feeding on hatred and suffering for two years, can't be saved. It's not your baby anymore, Mia. It's a vengeful spirit that only knows rage and pain, and the only way to give it peace is to purify it and let the infant spirit move on to where it should have gone two years ago."
The words hit Mia like physical blows and I watched her face crumble as she slid down the wall to sit on the floor with her knees pulled up to her chest. "There's really no other way?"
"No," I said gently. "I'm sorry."
Mia's mother crossed the small room and knelt beside her daughter, pulling her into an embrace. "You're the one who matters," she said fiercely. "You're the one I almost lost, and I won't lose you again."
But Mia had gone somewhere else in her head, and when she spoke again her voice was distant and hollow. "It was a mistake anyway. The baby, I mean. I was going to get rid of it even before Vanessa pushed me. But when my soul was scattered and I was trapped in that dark place with it, I felt it. I felt the way it clung to me, the way it needed me even though it was also angry and hurting. It was confused and scared and it just wanted someone to hold it, and I couldn't do that because I was broken too."
Tears streamed down her face. "My baby was supposed to either live or die, not get trapped in some horrible in-between where it turned into a monster. And now you're telling me the only way to help it is to destroy it completely."
Eventually Mia's sobs quieted and she wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. "Then do it. Purify the wraith and let my baby finally rest."
"Mia—" her mother started but Mia shook her head.
"It's okay, Mom. My baby deserves peace, not an eternity trapped in hatred and pain."
I stood and picked up the vial. "I'll make sure it doesn't suffer. The purification will be gentle."
I left the cottage and stood outside in the afternoon sunlight, pulling out my phone before looking back at the crystal vial. "Accidentally solved someone's problem," I murmured to myself. "Time to go collect my payment."
---
Vanessa's POV
The medical center room felt like a prison and I couldn't stop my hands from shaking as I lifted the coffee cup to my lips and drained the last bitter dregs. This was my third cup today and I'd lost count of how many I'd consumed over the past two days, but the number had to be close to twenty because I couldn't afford to sleep, couldn't risk closing my eyes and letting that thing come for me again.
My reflection in the darkened window showed someone I barely recognized—eyes sunken and ringed with deep purple shadows, skin gone sallow and waxy, cheekbones standing out sharp because I'd dropped at least ten pounds in forty-eight hours. Every time someone walked past my room I flinched hard enough to spill whatever I was holding.
"Vanessa, sweetheart, you can't keep going like this." Mom's voice pulled my attention away from the window and I turned to see her sitting beside my bed with her head wrapped in white gauze from where she'd somehow managed to trip and smash her face into the concrete steps yesterday.
"Did Dad find anyone yet? Did he find a magic user who can help me?"
Mom's expression softened. "He's still looking, but these things take time. You don't need to worry about that little bitch Elara."
Something inside me snapped and I grabbed the empty coffee cup and hurled it across the room, watching it shatter against the wall. "How?!" I screamed, my voice cracking with hysteria. "How are you going to help me?! I almost died! That thing tried to strangle me and if the nurse hadn't come in when she did I'd be dead right now!"
My hands flew to my throat where the bruises had faded to sickly yellow-green, and I could still feel the phantom sensation of those small cold fingers wrapped around my windpipe. "It was Mia," I whispered, and even saying her name made my whole body shake. "Mia's spirit came for me and you have no idea how terrifying that was."
Mom stood and tried to reach for me but I scrambled backward on the bed. "Don't touch me! Every time someone touches me something bad happens! You fell down the stairs, Dad's car got hit by that truck, the nurse who checked my vitals yesterday broke her wrist!"
"That's just coincidence," Mom said but her voice wavered.
"It's not coincidence! It's Mia! She's making everyone around me suffer because of what I did to her!"
"Why won't you take me to see Elara?!" I demanded, my voice breaking into sobs. "She has my necklace! She took it and that means she has to help me!"
If I could get close to Elara again, if I could be near her when Mia's wraith attacked, maybe it would go for her instead of me.
Mom grabbed my wrist to stop me from ripping the IV out. "Vanessa, stop it! You're going to hurt yourself!"
We struggled and I was crying and she was crying and everything was chaos and terror, and then the door opened and a voice I recognized cut through the noise.
"Heard you wanted to see me," Elara said from the doorway, standing there with her amber eyes bright with something that might have been amusement or cold calculation. "I'm here."
Relief hit me so intensely it made me dizzy, and I tried to lunge forward but pain exploded through my broken leg and twisted back and I screamed, my face contorting.
Mom positioned herself between me and Elara like a human shield, her expression hostile. "What are you doing here?"