An hour later, Lisa arrived at the Cahill mansion. It was an arrogant four-storey situated a few miles away from Boston Common and she had been lucky enough to hitch a ride from a friendly married couple returning from one of their routine Saturday night dinners.
She pressed the buzzer, and the tall and arched entrance door pulled open. The last person she wanted to see had answered.
Damien stared blankly at her.
At least he had survived.
Before coming home, she filled the towing company in on the car wreck. She didn't just know how to break the news eventually. He had a thing for convertibles and landed frequent changes on monthly intervals. This one was a week old and Damien had a short temper. She imagined his rage doubling already.
Lisa stood behind the threshold and held his gaze with apprehension, but then, she had found an intensity in them she didn't expect. Those earthy hues took all of her in. They were the colour of the soil after rain and when emotions swirled in them, they could be mistaken for a unique shade of black; that was it now.
He didn't ooze of anger. He didn't seem like he wanted to strangle the life out of her. Damien had his brows drawn together like he had been worrying himself for minutes.
Her breath caught in her throat when she watched his gaze drop. It was a tortuous second. His eyes went on a journey down her face till they stopped above her chest. He was looking for something.
Damien met her with certainty, closing the tiny space between them, and she froze like the ocean in winter.
Lisa had known him since she was five. They had been family for a long time and it had always felt normal from the start, nothing forced. He looked out for her like an older brother should and they related well. But, of recent, she couldn't define their relationship anymore; that night in New York had changed things more than they both realised.
His fingers pushed the jacket lapel away. He saw the torn neckline of her dress and Lisa noticed the mood swing. His eyes darkened and a vein at the side of his forehead bulged as he witnessed the mark. He was standing so close that she forgot how to breathe.
Stranger still, Damien knew. She understood then that she hadn't experienced hell alone.
The feel of his touch on the marked area of her skin resurrected fire, but a different kind. It warmed her cheeks to red, and she felt mortified at her body's reactions to him. It was a crucial moment and instead of reason; she created wrong ideas in her head. He could annoy her till boiling point and still turn her to a puddle.
She wouldn't give in. Never again.
Lisa cleared her throat softly, eased his hand off and walked into the grand house. She had heard the door close behind her when his voice came, roughened by anger.
"Someone is messing with us, Lisa. I think that there's something going on that we don't know about."
"What do you think the numbers mean?" She turned to him.
That was another wrong move.
He had removed his grey tee, and came to stand bare-chested in her face. The mark was what she was supposed to be seeing and not those big, muscular arms and mouth-watering abs.
Damien shrugged in response, eyes focused on the skin below his collarbone for a long minute.
"Rule got it too," he said, bringing her back into the moment. "I went crazy knowing I couldn't protect the both of you."
She blinked twice and mentally smacked herself for thinking otherwise. The worry he felt was because he cared for her—they were family, after all. He was her brother and nothing would ever change that.
The mark on his skin was a different shade. It was fiery red like a sunset in a summer evening and she dreaded what it could mean; the difference.
"The poor kid must have been scared to death. Where is he?" She asked, searching around and beyond the yawning foyer.
"The arsenal. Dad's in there too."
Damien didn't wait any longer. He put his tee back on and moved first. She followed, arms folded in thought. The puzzle of what happened an hour ago was yet to be solved.
...
The father of the Cahill kids was a family man. Severe and unbending in his rules, but it was for the best. He put his family before everything else and challenged any threat with all of his might. He was a protector who shaped his children into the people they were today.
Damien was his strongest, but Marcus Cahill had always feared that his firstborn didn't have it in him to lead life they lived. He feared Damien had a passion for worldly things and couldn't be confined to a lifetime of altruism. His second son, Rule, had a sharp sixth sense and was very useful in their investigations. He remained the tie binding their family together, but he had a lot to learn.
Lisa, his daughter, was as dauntless as a falcon. She was a fighter that would bend her will for no one, defending her belief at any price. Marcus cherished her deeply. Lisa was his prized possession. He would never regret taking her in thirty years ago.
Marcus sat on the head chair of the long table that spanned across the room. On each side of the narrow space, a glass shelf covered every angle. Weapons—some as old as a thousand years—housed inside these shelves. Arms folded to his chest, he didn't smile. His expression was void as he waited.
Rule sat far away from him on the right-hand side. He held an ice bag to his collarbone; face squeezed as if the pain from before was still fresh in his mind.
The wall facing Marcus at the other end moved. It steered inside and in a few seconds; it closed back as a bookshelf, bringing Damien and Lisa inside. He remembered the bookshelf as a part of his study. It was the room standing behind this hidden one. The Cahill arsenal had existed for centuries long. There was a time when he would sit on the second head chair—where Damien was now—staring into the eyes of his own father, anticipating a command.
This was a war room and war had broken out. A war his carelessness had caused.
"I have not been completely honest with all of you," Marcus said, and their looks changed.
Lisa raised her head from where she had been bending down, comforting her younger brother. She stood supine and narrowed her eyes at him. It was the last thing they expected to hear from a man who taught them that living by sincerity was the only way to preserve their hearts from rot. Lying in the Cahill house could send you to the wall for about five days, depending on the consequences of your action.
"Dad, what are you saying?" Damien spoke first.
"The truth behind our very existence." He started and rose to his feet. "Take a sit, Lisa. This would last awhile."
Marcus approached the only shelf bearing books inside the room. He found the biggest book in the top row and picked it up. Feeling the cover's hard thickness brought back memories from his childhood. Marcus was old now, but he could vividly remember the first day he held the book of all evils.
It was not something that just anyone could wield. It was an heirloom that held ancient secrets and deadly skeletons buried in the past. He had sworn on his father's grave that none of his children would ever learn of its existence and he did everything he could to protect them from the truth. There was no running for him anymore. Today, they would know.
"Ghosts and demons do not roam this world alone. There are greater evils out there," he said, turning away from the shelf.
Marcus dropped the big book on the side of the table at Damien's front, feeling as helpless as a dying man. His son feasted on it without delay. Damien struggled to understand what the end point of his father's insincerity could be.
But Lisa, who sat to the left of her brother, didn't look excited.
She only took a disinterested cursory glance at the book and said, "You made us read and believe the words of every single book concerning our family's legacy. I have never seen this one before."
"That is because I destroyed it all. Research work of a thousand years, books, journals and articles—everything that had to do with supernatural beings except the demons and ghosts we hunt today."
The frown on his daughter's face deepened, "Why?"
Damien still flipped through the pages of the most cruel book in history. His eyes took in its contents hungrily. Each turn made him more curious.
"Where you trying to hide something from the world or from us?" Rule asked this time, his voice small against the stiff silence.
"I thought I had the power to change our family's fate. I wanted to secure a different future for all of us, but I was wrong." Marcus returned to his seat and plopped his elbows on the table, linking his fingers together. A mix of agony and regret played on his features.
"I can't find the connection. What does the book of all evils have to do with the appearance of a strange woman and the mark?" A particular page hypnotised Damien.
Marcus imagined him staring presently at the picture of the beastly king Lycaon or the wicked view of bloodsucking animals under a blood moon.
He sucked in a long breath and said on the exhale, "The strange woman's name is Adeline Snow. She is the witch queen and ruler of the old craft. Thirty years ago, I struck a bargain with the witches. They agreed to cast a magical veil over the city and drive all changelings out in exchange for a five-year-old girl."
He was gazing at Lisa and she gazed back, wide eyes searching like binoculars. There was no going back.