Bereft: Foretold

15 | A Killing Grace

Saule groaned and kicked at the dash in frustration. The digital clock set in the console waned and flickered, the mechanism controlling it damaged by the mage assault. "Why?" the witch demanded, her face lined with pain. "Why won't you listen?" 

I said nothing. Onward the road wound through the sprawling county, its borders clustered with so many different cities. They flashed by on road signs, their size signified only by the number of exits provided for them and the number of suburbs encumbering the hills.

I had little experience with extensive driving, but I'd reviewed numerous maps while hunting the Exordium and the Baal's weapon, and the tenacious nature of my memory remembered the turns and highways that would lead me eastward. Currently on the southbound interstate, I would need to double-back and head north-east, cross the basin, find a pass through the mountains, and traverse the desert.

It would take days to reach the eastern seaboard.

I spotted a connecting highway that swung northward toward my desired passage and went to turn onto it—when the witch suddenly grabbed the wheel, throwing the car from the exit. Horns blared and tires squealed, but we somehow managed to avoid a collision.

"I should fling you from the nearest cliff!" I snapped as I took control of the vehicle again, snatching her cramped hand from the wheel. "Best pray the fall kills you, because if I got my hands on you twice—!" 

"Why?" Saule's voice was firmer than I'd thought possible with her egregious trembling. "You're dead-set on going to Itheria, but I would bet my best cauldron you don't give two figs about the Mistress! You don't care about anyone but yourself! So why go to Itheria? What's there for you, demon?"

"Does it matter?" I shifted in my seat, discomfited by her proximity with that infectious lightning burning in her veins. "I only wish to get there, and your presence is convenient. The moment it stops being convenient, I will dump you at the next fuel station and be done with this farce!"

The witch was silent, but only for a moment, her outburst building like pressure waiting to snap a bone. I kept my attention on the road but could sense the general shifting of her calculated thoughts. The witch came off as flighty and dimwitted, what with her off-kilter jargon and her aggravating habit of stuttering when scared or confused, but behind that unreliable façade was a crafty, perceptive priestess who saw and understood more than she let on.

"Sara would be disappointed in you."

Her blow struck true, riling my ire like nothing else could. "Don't you dare think to use her against me!" 

"It's the truth!" she shouted in reply, throwing herself back against the door when I whipped around to face her. I would rip her bloody head off! "Coven-clad truth! She w-would have thought you're a jackass!"

"I don't care what Sara would have thought! Sara is dead!"

The words rung through my ears and seem to cut through the wind itself, hanging above my head like a talisman, as if saying so had made it true. I wanted to take the words back, to rip them from the air and devour each syllable, to swallow the poison I had unintentionally spewed. Sara is dead! Yes, Sara was dead, but I refused to let her remain so. That infuriating creature had much to answer for.

By the Pit, I'd never been so conflicted before. I craved simplicity. I wanted to kill something, someone, and to feel with certainty the difference between life and death, to touch the tactile flutter of a waning pulse and to know I had control over it.

What a twisted thing I was. 

I struck the steering wheel once, twice, and then a third time, savoring the answering pain that swept through my reddened palms. "Where," I fumed, the word more a statement than a question. "Where."