The Four Horsemen(9)

I shake my head and an idea hits. I grab his hand and drag him to the picture. I press the star and instantly we are there. He cries out like a baby then.

“What the hell?”

I turn, searching for her. She is in the garden in the corner. I run over, “Excuse me, ma’am.”

She turns to look at me, making my heart stop. She isn’t the lady from the picture before. She is Willow. I drop to my knees, tears streaming my cheeks. I can’t reach the agony inside of me, but I know it’s there. My body’s reaction is desperate and uncontrolled sobbing.

Wyatt comes running over, “Willow?”

She looks at us both, “What? How?”

I press my hands down into the earth, grabbing at the soil and crying. She is on me, instantly. “Nene, my precious Nene. You found me. I knew you would. I tried to leave you hints with the dead. I hoped they would tell you to come to me.”

Her warm softness surrounds me. She smells like patchouli and dirt. I cry harder, “Mom.”

She cries too, “My baby.”

“Wyatt, what are you doing here? Is that Rayne?” I hear Fitz, but I am so lost in my tears and the embrace of my mom that I can’t look.

She strokes my hair and kisses my head. “You came. I can’t believe you came.”

Wyatt hugs Fitz, “You’re alive?”

“No, son, I’m a ghost but I am held here by the magic of the earth witch I love.”

Wyatt shakes his head, “I don’t care. I’m just glad I can see you. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help you.”

Fitz laughs, “You are doing your job, trust me.”

“Uncle, we need to find the garden. I know you’re the only person who will know where it is.”

I look up at Willow, “Can you tell me if Mona’s mom is dead or alive?”

She nods, “Give me a minute.” She closes her eyes, and even I get a shiver from the thing she is doing. I can’t see anything different, but I can feel the electricity in the air. She opens her eyes, “Mona is an orphan.”

I wince, “Oh God.”

“She is with God. She made peace before she left. Mona’s father was worried and went to her when things got bad. They died together, holding each other.” She smiles down on me, “You have killed the devils, haven’t you?”

I nod. She winces, “Then it has started. Have the horsemen come?”

I nod again, “The world is in turmoil. People are dying everywhere and the horsemen are wrecking everything.”

Wyatt scowls, “You guys knew they would come?”

Fitz sighs, “We suspected they would. They are the only way to start the end of days and pit the lamb against the usurper.”

I shake my head, “What?”

Willow kisses my cheeks, “You have to kill the antichrist. The horsemen will tip the balance of good on the planet to a disastrous level so that he might be born. It is judgment day for the believers. God’s children are going home, and only the worst of the worst and the non-believers will remain. The children of light, the fae, will stay also. They do not belong in heaven.”

My stomach cramps. Willow looks at me, “Have you been eating properly? You look tired.” She looks at Wyatt, “No sex right, Nene?”

I sigh, “No.”

Wyatt shakes his head, “You guys are really open in this family.”

Fitz looks down, “You have no idea.”

I laugh, “Has she got you eating plant enzymes?”

He shakes his head, “The week she died it was colonics week, that was…fun.”

Willow laughs, “I wanted you to live forever.”

“Willow, my love. I was already going to live forever.” He looks at me, “Being dead together forever is better. No colonics and no enzymes. If I imagine it, it’s here and there are no repercussions to eating it. No gas and no colonics.” Fitz sighs but focuses back to the business at hand, “Why are you here? Why have you wasted time coming here? The nixie know the way.”

Wyatt shakes his head, “They won’t tell her.”

Willow gives me a look, “Tell them, Fitz.”

Fitz points at the small cottage, “Come in for a tea.” Willow helps me up and we walk arm in arm. I grip to her for dear life.

Inside of the cottage, I shake my head, “It looks just like our house did.”

Willow gives Wyatt a hateful look. He sighs, “I didn’t know you guys then.”

She sneers and sits on the couch, pulling me with her. We snuggle as Fitz makes tea.

“The garden is the least of your worries. The antichrist is clearly born. He is most likely your brother. We found texts that essentially said Lucifer and Lillith would make both. He is unaware of his mission in life.”

I swallow the lump in my throat, “He’s my brother?”

Willow kisses the top of my head, “I’m so sorry, Nene. We discovered it recently. He is most likely your brother and until the devil rises in him, he will not know what he is. He may even be frozen in a state of unconsciousness while he waits for it.”

I feel sick. “I have to kill him?”

She nods.

Wyatt shakes his head, “How do we find the garden?”

Fitz sits at the table, waiting for the kettle to boil, “It finds you.”

“What?”

He nods, “The garden gate will be there, somewhere random. Only a person looking for the garden for a pure purpose will find it. No one has ever recorded going in. People search for it because they want the healing and immortality of it. They want something from it. They don’t have a pure purpose. Only the purest of heart may enter too. I have heard of the gates opening for people but their feet are unable to cross into the garden. We sort of assume that being minus a soul you cannot enter.”

“Shit.”

Wyatt nods, “Double shit. How do we have a pure purpose when she wants to go there and kill Lillith?”

Fitz puts his hands out, “That’s why we hoped the nixie would tell you. They come and go; the last of the witches are able to come and go. They know how to get in there.”

I give Willow a skeptical look, “Why don’t you ask them?”

She swallows hard, “They don’t like me much. They think I was working with Lucifer. The week your father was to meet us at the house, I spelled it. I knew it was my best chance at keeping you safe. I had hidden you away at the school, the land is hallowed there. As long as you were on campus, Lucifer couldn’t get to you. It’s the only reason I even let you go. The devils couldn’t fill you there either. School was the safest place you could have gone. When it was time, Lucifer contacted me and told me that I was to bring you to the house and let him take you to fulfill your destiny. But I spelled the house. Whether you had been at the school or the house, he never would have found you. I couldn’t take you to the witches; they wouldn’t let you stay once it had hit. Once you ate the evil in someone that was it—the end of you being welcome there for any length of time.”

“How are the nixie and Lucifer tied together?”

She looks pained, like she is seeing something behind her eyes that she isn’t sharing, “Lillith. We think she might not have been who we thought she was. She sent Lucifer to me, knowing I had you. She sent word to me in a dream that you had to die once and for all and that she was grateful I had cared for you. She was the only one who knew where you were. I told the nixie this and they called me a traitor against Lillith. I never even told the other witches until it was clear to everyone who met you who you were. It’s why we lived separately. I told them I had a non-magical daughter with a mortal. You were an abomination to them.”

“But the nixie don’t seem to think I’m supposed to die.”

Willow smiles, again like she sees something she doesn’t share. “They don’t think it. They told me they don’t think it and that is why they will not tell you where the garden is. They want you to live. They want you to rid the world of Lucifer.”

“But that will take Lillith with him.”

Willow’s smile turns wicked, “They have been led to believe Lillith will be safe from you so long as the antichrist and Lucifer have been killed.”

Wyatt looks confused, “You have lied to them?”

She shakes her head, “Not me.”

He looks at Fitz, “You?”

He nods, “They will only help so long as they believe their precious Lillith will live.” He looks at me, “You must go to the air witches. They are the only ones who know how to kill the horsemen.”

I drop my head into my hands, “What about the friggin’ garden? How the hell do we get in there to get Lillith?”

He pours the tea, “The answer will come. God will not leave you helpless. The answer will come when it is time. God has not left you alone yet.”

I shudder, remembering being chained to the wall and tortured, “Well, let’s not get too overzealous. He hasn’t exactly been there for every step I’ve taken.”

Fitz looks like he might explode for a second, “He has carried you, Rayne. Make no mistake of that. Everything that is happening is meant to be. Find the air witches.” He passes me and Wyatt a tea. I sip and think. Willow hugs me, like it might be the last time. She whispers, “I know you can do this, Nene.”