The COMPLETE Witching Pen Series, Boxed Set (3 page)

Karl had stopped moving; he'd almost stopped breathing. A feeling of dread had sunk into the pit of his stomach. “Do you always sleep with your notebook open?”

“Yes, it's easier for me to write down dreams and stuff when half asleep.”

“Did you write down
that
?”

Elena looked once again at the notebook and spotted what she had obviously missed before. A strangled cry escaped her lips.

The plane's final engine failed, and the passengers

screamed as it plummeted.

Chapter Three

“Oh, God, I didn't write that, I didn't...” But it was her handwriting staring back at her, down to the very last detail.

“What does it mean?”

Racing past Karl, she grabbed her clothes and ran downstairs. Throwing on her shirt, she opened her laptop and turned on the TV.

When Karl caught up with her, he had the pen and notebook in his hand.

“A plane's gone down … a plane full of people.”

“You don't know that, Elena.”

“Yes, I do! That's what happens when I write with the pen. What I write
happens
.”

“Yes, but
you
didn't write this.”

“I don't remember writing it, but what if I did? What if I did it while I was dreaming, like sleepwalking – what if he made me do it?”

The laptop was still loading and the TV was blaring at them. Elena skipped through the channels, landing on the News.

“Nothing … nothing about a plane crash.”

“Maybe it hasn't happened yet.”

She dropped the control and snatched the pen from him. “Of course! Maybe I can stop it.”

“Wait – what if it
has
happened … and then what you write undoes it. Isn't that detrimental to time, or space, or physics or something...?”

She stopped with the pen in mid-air and chewed her lip in thought. “I don't know. I don't know what happens, but if the plane hasn't crashed yet, the alternative is that all those people die, so I'm willing to take the risk.”

At the last minute, by some miracle,

the plane's engines rumbled to
—
 

“Elena, look...” He nodded at the telly.

The footage showed a video, home made and somewhat blurry, of an aeroplane, crashing into a field near some houses. A fireball went up around it. Residents ran from the disaster, fearing for their own lives, screaming in a language she recognised as Italian – this was happening in Italy. Tears blurred her vision and the pen shook in her trembling hand – she was too late.

“When?” Her knees felt weak.

“Looks recent. Maybe it's just a coincidence.”

“There's no such thing … Karl...” Her legs gave way.

“All right – I've got you.” Strong arms helped her to the couch.

“Karl … I've killed them.”

“Now, I knew you were going to say that … and you know what I'm going to say, right?”

“I did it – this is my writing – I wrote this.” The murderous words, scrawled in black ink, danced across her eyes and seemed to laugh at her.

“Elena, listen to me.
If
you wrote this, you didn't do it consciously, and I'll bet you anything your dream demon had everything to do with this. You said, he told you he was going to show you how to use the pen.”

“He said he was going to fill me with his world.”

His eyebrows knitted together in confusion. “What the hell does that mean?”

Elena felt the blood rush to her cheeks – she wasn't sure she wanted to hazard a guess. “That he's going to turn me into an evil witch? I don't know.”

With a sigh, Karl ran his hand through his hair, a mannerism he'd inherited from his father. Elena realised years back, that he did it every time he was trying to gather his thoughts.

“I think you should call your mum.”

“What? Why?”

“Self-explanatory, Elena. A whole bunch of people just died, probably because of that pen that you know nothing about, and some demon that you also know nothing about has the power to make you do things you don't want to do.”

Again, she felt herself blushing. Thankfully Karl didn't seem to notice.

“Your mum seems the most logical, immediate solution. Either that, or The Council.”

She grimaced. The Council? Only as the very last resort. Karl was right, her mother may have answers.

“All right. Pass me the phone.”

“Now? It's five o'clock in the morning.”

“If I don't do it now, I'll lose my nerve – pass me the phone.”

~*~

Elena sat, drumming her fingers on the breakfast table, her lukewarm coffee all but forgotten. The oven clock read 8:30am. Time was going too slow.

Having since learnt that there were no survivors of the plane crash, and having heard some of the passengers' last minute phone calls to their loved ones that were starting to stream into the News, Elena had broken down sobbing. Not even Karl had been able to take away the pain of the reality she had indirectly created. When her silence took over and numbness began to sink in, Karl had sat her down at the table and made her a steaming coffee, leaving her alone to drink it, for which she was grateful. Now the numbness had started to fade away, replaced by the edginess she always felt at seeing her mum.

She had been greeted with the usual stony silence when she'd told her over the phone about the dream … and about the pen. Every conversation she had with her mum was awkward and cold, ever since that day she'd healed the butterfly. Before that, she had vague recollections of warmth, kindness, laughter … Okay, so since then, she'd learnt that witches weren't allowed to meddle with life and death, but her mother's reaction had seemed too great for something she hadn't even known she could do at the time. Her eight year old self never really understood what she'd done wrong, her teenage self used to make up scenarios of what the issue might be, and her adult self had given up wanting to know, preferring to keep the peace than open a can of worms that would estrange her even further.

She shuffled in her seat and glanced once more at the clock. She had said that she would be here as soon as she could.

That was three hours ago – she only lives fifteen minutes away, for God's sake!

“Jesus, Elena, chill out. You'll wear a hole through your seat.”

“This was
your
idea, remember – I didn't want to call her.”

“And was I wrong? What's the alternative?”

Sitting back, she felt a sulk coming on – she couldn't think of an alternative.

“It'll be all right. Do you want me to make you another coffee?”

The doorbell rang. Nervously, Elena jumped up. She really was all over the place.

A warm hand on her shoulder encouraged her back down. “I'll get it – you try and relax a bit.”

Picking up the intercom, Karl buzzed her in and walked off through the lounge to open their front door. She heard her mother's heels echoing on the stone stairs outside, getting louder with every step. She heard Karl's warm, friendly hello greeting, and then her mother's voice, curt, crisp – a startling contrast to his – “Good morning, Karl. Still hanging around, are you?”

Elena bit back the anger that surged up her throat.
Just keep your cool. You only have to do this for maybe an hour, two at the most, and then she'll be gone.
 

Her footsteps made their way into the kitchen.

Elena rose from the table and turned around. “Hello, Mother.”

“Elena. So, where's the pen?”

Straight to business then. No 'how are you?', no peck on the cheek. Typical.

“Right here on the table.”

All three of them stared at it, as if waiting for it to announce itself. Of course, it did nothing.

“Goodness, it's so … unassuming.”

“Yes. Mum, do you know anything about it?”

“There's a fable about a 'witching pen' – it was always thought to be a fairy tale.”

“Any chance it's not?”

“Apparently so. But first, tell me about your demon.”

Elena baulked at the reference to the demon being hers. “I pretty much told you everything on the phone.”

“You didn't tell me what he looked like.”

“Oh, um … he … his eyes were green – a brilliant green, like emeralds shining in the sun. His skin was grey and looked like it was made of stone, and it was cracked, like a dry pavement – and hard, but only like leathered skin, not hard like stone.”

“You touched him?” Her mother's voice was tight, her lips drawn in. She looked disturbed.

“No. He – he touched me...”

Unbidden, her mind replayed his fingers trailing down her neck, how they felt on the tops of her breasts … she knew her face was an obvious shade of red. Out of the corner of her eye, Elena saw Karl fold his arms across his chest.
Shit!
 

Her mother was eyeing her suspiciously. “Were you attracted to him?”

“What? No!” She answered too quickly, and her face turned a shade darker.

Her mother's eyes narrowed. “I see.”

Karl was standing still as a statue and Elena desperately wanted to explain it wasn't what he thought … or at the very least for the ground to swallow her up.

“You met a Shanka demon.”

“You know about demons? What's a Shanka demon? Why have you never told me before? Why don't I know about demons?”

Ignoring most of her questions, as usual, her mother got straight to the point – as usual. “Demons rarely cross dimensions. Shanka demons are one of the few that do. They are a type of incubi, and their women, succubi – they connect with you through your dreams, often to seduce you so they can steal your sexual energy to feed their own strength, sometimes so they can impregnate you to ensure continuation of their bloodline in this dimension, and occasionally for some other, greater purpose that's not always known to us. As a tribe, they have exactly one goal and they are ruthless in attaining it: they want to rule over
our
dimension.”

“And … they're using the pen to help them do this?”

“I would say so – not just the pen, but you too.”

Elena's stomach sank. She felt sick. Her throat forced out the word that was eating away at her brain. “Impregnate?”

Her mother ignored her. “The plane crash was a demonstration. It was to show you what they are capable of and that they're serious about it.”

“Those words were in my handwriting.”

“Yes. Your demon wanted you to understand the power that he has over you.”

“Why? And he's not
my
demon.”

Her mother sighed. For a fraction of a second, something that looked like tenderness shone through her features and Elena remembered a moment when she was five, both of them laughing together, sitting on the swings in the park … then the softness was gone and her distant, cold mother stood before her once more.

“You're a thirteenth generation witch, Elena – and a virgin. He's come to claim you, and your magic, as his own.”

~*~

Karl's limbs were starting to hurt, because he was stiff as a board. He didn't dare move. If he moved, he may just lash out and hit something. Hearing that Elena was in any way drawn to the demon was enough to churn his blood, but hearing that he –
it
– wanted to claim her, had
violated
her through her dreams, had his blood boiling with an anger very few people had the misfortune to witness. He remembered the scream she'd let loose that had pierced the night. He'd touched her … he'd
touched
her.

What the hell was 'claiming' her supposed to mean anyway? Elena belonged to no one – she wasn't some kind of possession...

The thought of someone forcing himself upon her sickened him. But this wasn't someone, this was some
thing
. Once again, this was a
magical
incident – once again, he would be rendered useless and unable to do anything to help. Because he was not magical.

He gritted his teeth. If anyone thought he was about to lie down and just let Elena be seduced by some demon, they had another thing coming, magic or no magic.

Elena's pinched tone brought him out of his thoughts. “How do I stop him?”

“I don't know that you can.” A crack sounded in Mrs Green's voice. The woman's façade was breaking – twice he'd noticed this since she'd arrived and it was twice more than he'd have expected. Maybe he should be relieved that she wasn't a complete ice queen, but he was more worried about what it meant.

“Then … how do I stop more planes going down? How do I make sure he can't control what I write?”

“I'm not sure of that either. You'll have to try and fight him, or use a protection spell
before
you sleep; he can only reach you in your dreams – that's the only time he's corporeal. Any other time, he's just a shadow … maybe have Karl protect you...” She said this reluctantly, her disdain audible. He was used to it by now. He'd always assumed it was because she didn't want her daughter losing her powers to him – he was the ultimate threat to her and her lineage. Until now.

He spoke for the first time since she'd gotten here. “Maybe we should tell The Council.”

“Really, Karl … and what do
you
know of The Council?”

“Mum, stop it – you can't ask Karl to protect me one minute, then treat him like shit the next.”

Elena's voice was trembling. She didn't usually speak out against her mother.

I guess feeling responsible for a plane full of people dying will alter your priorities,
thought Karl, wryly.

Mrs Green exhaled sharply. “Fine. But we're not involving The Council. They'll turn your lives upside down to solve any problem.”

“If people are dying, is that really an issue?” asked Karl.

A smirk turned up the corner of the woman's mouth. “They'll interrogate you, leave no stone unturned and nothing you hold dear will belong to you any more, it will belong to them – you have no idea, boy.”

He bristled at the insult, but remained silent, refusing to let her push his button. He didn't know why, but he was sure something wasn't right. All the information Mrs Green had given them had been to the point and concise – too concise...