4. Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Ailin

S eb rushed forward, but I put my arm out to stop him. He opened his mouth to yell at me, but I said, “Hold on a sec. We need to figure out a way to safely remove it. Don’t touch it. You might make it worse.”

He was pissed—I could feel it—but he wasn’t pissed at me. He was pissed at whoever had made these toys and Christmas decorations attack people. And I was right there with him.

On the floor of the living room, a man lay completely still, wrapped up in Christmas garland. It was so tight, I could tell it was constricting his breathing, and the guy was so pale he almost looked like a dead body. I was pretty sure the paleness was from all the life essence being sucked out of him.

How long had this man been in this position to look like that?

“How do we get it off, A?”

“I… I don’t know.”

Seb glanced around for a moment, then said, “Fuck it,” and rushed out of the room before I could stop him.

I ran after him, but by the time I reached the dining room, he was already rushing out of the kitchen with a huge pair of scissors in his hand.

“Oh.” Well, I suppose that might work, even though I’d been trying to find a magical way to help. I used my magic for pretty much everything, so sometimes I didn’t think of the simple things, like using scissors. I was an idiot.

Seb knelt beside the guy and grabbed hold of the garland while Zamm and Sera stood on either side of him. Zamm was growling at the garland, and Sera was licking the guy’s face, trying to wake him up.

The garland reacted to Seb’s touch, twisting and turning its disgusting teeth on my viramore while the poor guy on the ground moaned in pain.

“Sorry, buddy, but I’m trying to get it off of you. Give me a sec.” Seb slid the scissors under part of the garland while dodging the end that was flapping around and trying to smack him in the face. “Ow, you fucker.”

He shook his hand out, and the moment I saw a drop of blood on his palm, I saw red.

I knelt opposite my viramore and grabbed hold of the garland with both hands, pulling as hard as I could. I ignored the sharp bites of pain and used every ounce of strength I had to yank that damn thing apart. I would not allow anyone or anything to hurt my viramore. I ripped at it, tearing pieces off with my bare hands while Seb continued cutting.

In only a couple of minutes, we had the damn thing in pieces on the floor, although it was still trying to attack us. With a grunt of annoyance, I used a bit of wind magic to sweep all the pieces into a pile, then gathered them into a ball and wrapped a shield around them. The pieces continued going nuts, but there was zero chance of them getting out, especially because I wasn’t letting it anywhere near my viramore again. Fucking asshole Christmas garland.

“There. It’s not getting out anytime soon.” I turned to my viramore. “Let me see your hand.”

Seb actually rolled his eyes at me, which made me frown. “For fuck’s sake, A, I’m fine. But this guy on the floor, looking like death, isn’t. Help him.”

Oh. Right. “Right.” I glanced down at the guy, then reached into my pocket and found a vial of healing tonic—the BCA had been supplying us with vials all night so we could help anyone we came across. “Sit him up some.”

Seb lifted the guy’s head, and I pushed on his chin to open his mouth, then I poured the healing tonic in. We made sure he swallowed it, and the guy coughed a little but settled when Seb put a couch pillow under his head.

“He’ll be fine in a few hours. We need to check the rest of the house.”

Seb stuffed the scissors in his back pocket with a shrug. “Might need them again or something.”

“Right.” I glanced at his hand. “You sure I can’t look at your hand?”

“It’s fine, Ailin. I’m not going to bleed to death from a tiny bite mark, for fuck’s sake.”

“You sure?”

“Oh my god, yes. Stop. We have more important things to do. The info packet said there was a man, a woman, and two kids in this house.”

I grimaced, both at his lack of concern over his hand and the fact that there might be other people in this house. “If this guy is down here, hurt this badly, and alone, we can only assume the others are in similar predicaments.”

Seb winced, stood, and hauled me to my feet. He quickly pressed his lips to mine and whispered, “I’m fine, A. You can put away your magic and calm down. I promise you I’m fine.”

I blinked at that, then glanced around and realized I had a small windstorm of green magic floating around myself. I huffed and reined it in. When I became a little… overprotective of my viramore, my magic sometimes had a mind of its own.

Seb rolled his eyes and muttered as he walked away, “A little overprotective, my ass.”

I ignored that because there really was nothing I could say to it since I knew he was right, and I followed him to the stairs. To Sera and Zamm, I said, “Protect him and let us know if anyone or anything else comes in here.”

Sera sent back an affirmation. Since she didn’t speak in the same way we did, she often communicated with me through pictures of things, feelings, and intent. It had taken some getting used to when I was a teenager, but it was second nature now, and I never had trouble understanding her.

It was eerily quiet up on the second floor, and I had a bad feeling about what we were going to find.

Please let them be alive. Please, please, please let them be alive.

Seb rushed into the first bedroom we came across with a shield in front of himself, but the second he walked inside, he dropped his shield and ran over to the body on the floor.

This one was a woman with long blonde hair with blood caked in it. Shit .

Since my viramore was checking on her, I scanned the room, looking for the culprit of the injuries. It only took me a few seconds to see a doll, probably eighteen inches tall, smashing itself against a… pillow beside the dresser over and over again. What the hell was it doing? Why was it attacking a pillow? Did the pillow… smell like a person or something? Did these things even have working noses?

And then I heard a small squeak of fear, and I rushed over to the doll.

As if it heard me coming, the thing’s head turned around so it was facing backward—creepy as fuck—and looked at me… I mean, assuming the thing’s eyes worked? Who knew? But it turned toward me, and all I could see on the creepiest face I’d ever seen was blood dripping from its mouth and splattered on its head.

I stopped in my tracks, a little freaked out, if I was being honest.

And then the thing came running at me. Its legs moved as if on the strings of a puppet, and it moved faster than expected. As it zoomed right for me, I let out a small shout, scooting backward as fast as I could.

Seb leapt over the woman lying on the floor to land beside me, and my viramore wrapped a shield around the doll in an expert move so quick, I hardly had time to blink. Then he turned to me and put his hand on my forehead as if checking for a fever.

“You okay, A?”

I blinked at him. “What?”

“You panicked there for a minute.”

“It turned its head to look at me.”

That only made him more concerned, and he stared at me for a few long seconds. “Are you… I can’t believe I’m asking you this, but are you actually afraid of something?”

I wrinkled my nose. “No. Of course not.”

That made him grin. “Holy shit! Ailin Ellwood, the great and powerful, is afraid of a little dolly.”

“That thing isn’t a fucking dolly, it’s a monster.”

He chuckled. “It’s okay, A, I’ll protect you from the little dolly.”

The dolly in question growled, and I wrinkled my nose and took a step back.

And that made Seb crack up. “Holy shit, I can’t wait to tell the kids.”

“No. You’re not telling them anything.”

“You’re scared of something—something that I’m not even scared of—and I love it.”

That made me laugh a little. “When the hell did you become the asshole?”

“Always have been. You’re just so much worse, you never noticed.”

I gave him a playful smack to the chest. “Not true.”

He smirked, waved me off, and gestured to the woman on the ground. “I gave her a healing tonic. She’s covered in bite marks and has a big gash on the head, but I think that’s from falling down and hitting it on the dresser.”

I glanced at the dresser, noticing some blood on the edge, then startled. “Oh shit. I forgot.”

“What?”

Scooting around the doll, I walked over to the dresser and knelt down beside the pillow the creepy doll had been attacking. Slowly, I moved the pillow out of the way and found a little girl, probably about six or seven, curled up behind the dresser.

“Hi, kiddo. We’re here to help you. It’s safe now.”

When she saw me, she launched herself into my arms, crying and weeping into my shoulder.

“Shhh. It’s okay. We’ve got you. You’re safe now.” She kept crying. “What’s your name, sweetie?”

“Tabia.”

“Hi, Tabia. My name’s Ailin, and that’s Seb over there.” I rubbed her back soothingly. “We’re here to help, but can you tell me what happened?”

“Mommy… she… hid… me, and it… it… it attacked… her.”

“Shhh, shh, shh. It’s okay. Your mommy’s going to be just fine.”

“She is?”

“Yes, sweetie. She’s going to be alright. Seb there gave her a magical healing tonic, so she’ll be back to normal in no time.”

That made her cry a little more even as she said, “Thank you.” After a few more sniffles, she said, “My brother… he’s… he’s in his room.”

I caught Seb’s gaze, and my viramore headed for the door. But I didn’t want him going alone, and I didn’t want to leave the little girl, especially since she was clinging to me like a spider monkey.

So I stood, hugged Tabia to me, and wrapped a shield around the both of us. I threw a shield over the top of the mom too, just in case. Then I skirted past the creepy doll, trying my best not to even look at the gross thing, and followed Seb down the hallway.

“Keep your head down, sweetie. I have a shield over top of us, so nothing can hurt you, okay? But I want to keep an eye on my viramore.”

“Your… vitamin?”

Seb paused mid-step, turned, and pointed at me. “See? I’m not the only one.”

I rolled my eyes but was amused. How anyone in the world could mistake the word viramore for vitamin , I’d never know. But apparently, Sebastian had all those years ago, and now, so had this little girl. If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought he’d told Tabia to say it.

To her, I said, “No, my viramore. My soulmate.”

“Soulmates are real?”

“They sure are, and even little humans like you can have one.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

Seb entered another bedroom, and when I saw a teenage boy with the cord from his video game console wrapped around his neck, I sucked in a huge breath. But luckily for the kid, my viramore was on it. He pulled the scissors from his pocket and went to work cutting the kid loose.

To distract Tabia from what we were doing, I asked, “What’s your brother’s name?”

“Pietro.”

“That’s a nice name. What grade are you in?”

“First.”

“Wow, that’s awesome. Do you like school?”

She hesitated for a few seconds. “Most of the time.”

That made me smile a little. At least she was honest.

It only took a few seconds for Seb to cut the teen free, and Pietro started coughing up a storm. But he was conscious, unlike his parents.

Tabia wanted to get down, so after Seb had the console in a shield and the young teen had drunk down a healing tonic, I set her down and let her run to her big brother. He grunted in pain when she slammed into him, but he didn’t hesitate to hug her back and reassure her that they’d be okay. I could tell he was protective of her, so I knew she was in good hands with him.

I put the two of them in a shield and said, “We got the garland, the doll, and the video game. Was there anything else in the house that was attacking you?”

The kids shook their heads, and Pietro said, “That’s it.” His voice was hoarse, but the tonic should help with that shortly.

“Good.”

Seb asked, “Do you happen to know where you got the toys and garland from?”

Pietro coughed a little, then answered. “From the mall. We went to some Christmas event earlier—or was that technically yesterday? I have no idea what time it is.”

Seb gave the kid an apologetic shrug. “After midnight.”

“Yesterday, then.”

“Fuck,” I breathed out. “That’s the same answer we’ve gotten from everyone we’ve asked so far.”

Seb looked at me. “At least we know where to start.” In my head, Seb said, “I can’t believe that nice event we saw at the mall turned into this. What the fuck is wrong with people?”

“I don’t know, baby.” I gave him a grimace, then put a call in to Alec. “Hey, Al, we need an ambulance or two. Both parents are unconscious, but they’ll be okay once the healing tonics do their thing. We also have a teenage boy here that needs to be looked at. He’s already had a tonic, but someone needs to make sure he’s okay.”

Pietro didn’t look particularly happy about that, but he also didn’t argue with me, so I took it as a win.

Alec said, “I’ll have two ambulances sent straight to you.”

“Thanks.” I hung up, then squatted in front of the kids so I could ask them questions and keep them distracted while the EMTs got here and helped their parents.

It took a while, but the kids were loaded up in the ambulance with their mom, who’d woken up a tiny bit. They were taken to the hospital with their dad in an ambulance right behind them.

Once they were gone, we did a thorough search of the house, looking for any other magic or anything off, and luckily, we didn’t find anything. So we pushed the shielded murderous holiday objects out onto the lawn.

As I stared at the creepy doll, I sighed and put my hand on Seb’s wrist to stop him from blasting the damn things. “As much as I don’t want to say this, I think we need to keep these guys.”

Seb’s eyebrows rose. “We do?”

“Yes. These three things were especially violent. Is that because they were actively attacking people for longer? Did they gain strength? Do they become increasingly violent as time goes on? Or is it because the person behind this upped their game when they realized we were shutting everything down? But we need to be sure so we can prepare for next time.”

“Do you really think there’ll be a next time?”

I blew out a long breath. “Unfortunately, yes. Because as far as I can tell, whoever’s behind this didn’t get what they wanted. We can only assume they wanted the life essence, but that’s all… floating around in the air or something.”

He grimaced. “True.” He stared down at the toys and decor. “Are you sure you want to keep the doll?”

“No. But I think we have to.”

I glanced at the thing again and gave a shiver. “Gross.”

Seb snorted. “Alright, let’s get these back to the others we collected throughout the day. Then we can head home, get some rest, and see what we can find.”

I gave a nod of agreement. Then I called on Sera, who was walking around the house with Zamm. Both of them were double-checking our work and making sure we didn’t miss anything. Using my bond with her, I asked her to bring Zamm here so we could all ride on her back on the way to our car. That would be so much more fun than walking back for ten miles… or however far away we were.