Taking Back Sunday Read Online Free PDF

blew it out. She was in her room in Columbia, not a stone basement beneath Bernadette’s once-sprawling Washington estate. She ran to the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face.
    “When will this be over?” she muttered to her reflection.
    Black and blue bags tugged at her bloodshot eyes, and worry lined her forehead. Hair mussed and tangled from tossing relentlessly in bed stood at all ends.
    Half a decade earlier, nightmares like the one last night had been the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. They had tipped Sunday off to the world hidden behind the veil of Bernadette’s sorcery. Until that time, Sunday couldn’t remember anything before her life at the right hand of the powerful witch. She didn’t even remember thinking that there was a time before then.
    Her first real memory, at the time, had been waking as an amnesiac to the first thirteen years of her life. Through slits for eyes, Sunday made out the blurred shape of a man carrying her down a dim hallway. He radiated heat. Cradled in his arms, Sunday remembered thinking that she had never felt so warm in her life. Teeth chattering and freezing, her body shook uncontrollably against his chest. When her body jerked, he tightened his arms around her and held her closer. Her head fell against his chest, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Mind as blank as a newborn’s, Sunday had known no comfort in her life but this. As she closed her eyes again, she fell asleep.
    For the first few weeks, her body healed. Open wounds turned to scabs and later scarred. Bruises turned green, and then yellow until they disappeared. During the weeks of her recovery, Bernadette visited Sunday regularly. She sat on the edge of Sunday’s bed and lay the girl’s head on her lap.
    “My little girl,” she cooed as she petted Sunday’s head and caressed her gently. “I will teach you all the ways of the Incarnate, and you will shine as a star shines, only brighter. Yours will be the light of the sun, and we will be strong together.”
    Under the witch’s hand, Sunday’s spirit relinquished itself and its authority to Bernadette. The witch had burned her, but the witch had saved her. Between sobs, Sunday thanked Bernadette, and Bernadette lowered her face onto Sunday’s brow and kissed her as a grandmother would kiss her sick, beloved granddaughter.
    “I will show you the world that most do not see because they cannot see. I will show you of our kind’s dominion over the world of man and the world of magic. I will teach you of your power and of the power we hold over all that we can see, all that we can touch, which is so much more than that which other men can see, be they human or beast.”
    As Bernadette lulled her to sleep, every cell in Sunday’s body tingled. Little by little, her life before the witch drifted further and further away until it all but disappeared. There was nothing then, nothing but Bernadette.
    Adopting the Incarnate was no small boon for Bernadette. Over the years, Bernadette rose to power over the preternatural sects. Vampire royalty and werewolf Alphas sought her counsel and deferred to her authority. Power hungry mundanes called on her for favors. Anyone who crossed her allies met the strong arm of the Incarnate. Nests of vampires burned, covens saw their witches plucked out one-by-one, and whole families of mundanes died under mysterious circumstances. Bernadette amassed a fortune and her infamy was widespread. All the while, Sunday stood at her side, desperate to earn the respect of the closest thing to a mother she had ever known.
    On her twenty-first birthday, memories that had dissipated in the act of her rebirth began to trickle through the threads of Bernadette’s intricate sorcery. That’s when the nightmares began, nightmares too vivid to disregard as falsehood or fantasy. The dreams carried over into Sunday’s waking life. In the days before the storm, phantom bruises formed on her body. Her skin would spontaneously break