The Fallen One (Sons of the Dark Mother, Book One) (22 page)

Jes shuddered at the thought. They
didn’t sound like anything she’d like to meet any time
soon.

Amar apparently saw her shudder.
“Well, they haven’t been around in more than three hundred years
now—or so everyone thought.” She came around the table, her dark
hair framing her face. Her wise, old eyes were bright with what she
was about to reveal.

She looks like something out of a
gothic movie
, Jes thought.

Amar turned her sharp gaze on
her.

Jes nearly jumped. She was really
going to have to get the hang of reading people’s minds, she
thought, not for the first time.

“
These creatures require the
Sisters of Three to bring them down,” Amar announced.

“
Then we will need our sister,”
Mira commented.

“
Exactly,”

“
When do we get to meet her?” Jes
asked.

“
Soon.” Amar turned toward the
door. “Keep practicing.” She stopped and turned around. “Once, my
sisters and I took down powerful beings as these.” She pointed at
the sisters. “Now, it will be up to you two—and your sister.
Hopefully she hasn’t been too damaged from the vamps.”

So Amar did have some concern, Jes
thought, in spite of the brave face she’d put on for
them.

After Amar had left, Jes glanced at
Mira in some alarm. Her sister knew a lot more about being a Jaguar
Witch than she did, but they were all pretty new at this—certainly
they did not have the hundreds of years of experience that Amar had
had. How would they ever be ready to take on such an
enemy?

Mira looked up at Jes.

“
Don’t tell me that you can read
minds too?” Jes growled under her breath.

“
No,” Mira grinned. “But I’m
pretty empathic—as you are. I can sense your fear.”

“
Aren’t you afraid?”

“
Of course. Who wouldn’t be?” Mira
said. “But any man or woman who goes into battle and is not afraid
is either crazy—or a fool.”

Jes nodded. She thought as much,
too. But it didn’t make her feel any better about going up against
something that could only be destroyed by the Sisters of
Three—while being mere babes in their craft. That bordered very
much on foolish, too—at least in her own mind.

“
We will just have to work
hard—and trust in the Goddess always,” Mira told her, coming over
to put her arm around Jes.

Jes nodded and met her sister’s
worried gaze. “And fight like there’s no tomorrow when the time
comes, because if we don’t—between the factions of rogue vamps and
these bat-like beings—there just might not be a tomorrow—at least
not one we will recognize.”

Mira went back to work on the
potion. Jes went to read the Book of Shadows. They were going to
have to spend more time than ever studying.

They needed to ready themselves to
do their part for when the time came. If they failed, everyone they
loved would be placed in much more danger.

Including Justice.

She knew that the humans were
oblivious to the many things around them that existed. Once they
had known this, but they had since forgotten. They only allowed
themselves to play around with the idea in books and
movies.

But this wasn’t a joke—and it
wasn’t a movie. The power of three had been around for thousands of
years. Jes had always heard the expression
by the power of three times three
.
Now she was beginning to understand what that meant—and what power
it drew into the universe when it was used. The blood they carried
helped them to tap that power.

Only a witch can beget a witch,
Amar had told her.

Her blood was the blood of the
Goddess—and the Goddess enabled them to tap into the kind of power
it would take to go up against a being that had not surfaced for
over three hundred years—or so everyone had thought.

Isn’t that what Amar had said?
Jes’s head throbbed—and she rubbed her head.

The power of three—and the love of
the Goddess, she thought, would be the only thing that would take
them down.

In fact, that love was key, and
perhaps one of the greatest reasons the sisters could tap into
their power—their love for the Goddess—and their love as
sisters.

Without them, they didn’t stand a
chance against these beings. Without the power of three—the Sisters
of Three—the power of three times three—none of them
did.

It was a heavy
responsibility.

Chapter
Twenty-One

Jes and Justice

Jes couldn’t wait to get Justice
alone
that evening. She had so much she
wanted to ask him. She was pacing, waiting. He had so many things
he was responsible for, and it seemed as though she couldn’t get
five minutes alone with him anymore.

She was frustrated by the time he
did show. Frustrated like she’d been standing in a line that never
seemed to move. Frustrated like she was sitting in the car, waiting
for someone to come out of the store, watching the minutes ticking
by.

Why did time always seem to drag
when you were waiting?

And as soon as she knew they were
alone, she bombarded him with an onslaught of questions.

Where
exactly
was her sister? Why was she
with Dracon—and not home where she should be—with her family?
And
why
had he
kept this from her?

“
Jes—,” he said.

“
Apparently that is not even my
name!” she shot back. “And yet, I can’t seem to get anyone to tell
me what
it is
.
Then—tonight—Amar brings up a name I’ve never heard
before—or
have
heard before—since I recognize it—but I don’t know
from
where
—
as usual.
Just like the rest of my life,” she muttered this
last.

“
Machelaean?”

“
Yes, although
Amar
might have your head if
you
tell me what she
refused to.”

Justice grinned at this and pulled
her close to him. Jes went willingly. It felt too good. She just
needed to allow him to hold her for a while.

In fact, she couldn’t imagine her
world without him.

Their whole world—as they knew it
anyway—could change if they failed in what they were trying to do.
They didn’t have room, or time, for the simple things most allowed
to interfere with living. And Jes wasn’t going to waste precious
time.

They might live a long
time.

But they might not.

She could lose Justice in this war.
And she wasn’t going to live with regrets if she did. Regrets of
wishing she would have let them have their chance—while she’d had
the opportunity to do so.

She cuddled up to him, and he held
her close. Within minutes they were both sound asleep.

Jes found herself out in the yard.
She looked around. She saw herself, playing with a toy. She was
sitting on the ground. She was very young, perhaps four. Her sister
Mira appeared almost two years older, and Dara seemed about ten.
The woman Jes had grown up thinking was her mother, Sandra, was
standing at the gate. She was excited to see her fiancé. He was the
reason they had all snuck out into the yard.

The nanny came out the door and was
scolding them for sneaking outside. She started across the yard
toward the younger version of Jes.

Jes felt panic as she did so, and
she had the sudden urge to scream, to warn her. She opened her
mouth, but nothing would come out. She kept letting out a horrible,
silent scream that was more of a moan than anything
else.

With rising panic, she watched as
the vamps came. There were two of them. The larger one immediately
took down the nanny, and then started for her. She rolled under the
porch and out of his reach.

Sandra’s fiancé, the man she came
to know as her father, immediately shifted into his jaguar form.
The vamp decided he didn’t want to tangle with him, and backed
away. He said something about being tricked into coming here to his
partner.

By that time the guards were all
over them.

The little girl was staring at the
bat-like beings who watched it all from the shadows of the
trees.

Jes met the gaze of her smaller
form, from where she watched her from under the porch. There were
tears running down her little face, and she seemed reach out to
her, the older version of her, as though she was begging her to fix
what had just taken place—to take it all back. The little girl
could actually see her! And she wanted her to change everything
that was about to take place.

Jes realized that she knew her
whole life was about to change—that she was about to lose her
sisters. She knew that they all sensed what was about to take
place—like parts of a play about to unfold—and no one could stop
the actors, though everyone watching knew what was happening and
wanted to warn them—to run….

Her sister, Sandra, came to get her
and cuddled both her and Mira. She called to Dara, and Dara came to
place her arms around them too, as much as she could get her arms
around the three of them. Poor, brave Dara. She was the protector
of the bunch. She had run at the vamps as much as the guards had.
One of the guards had thrown her clear of them.

The four sisters were crying. They
held each other tightly. It was as if they all knew just how badly
things were about to go for them.

Jes stared at them. The younger
version of herself was still staring at her. She felt as if she was
strangling.

She woke to find Justice gently
shaking her.

“
You’re having a nightmare,” he
was saying. “Jes, wake up!”

She opened her eyes and as soon as
her head cleared enough to realize who she was looking at, she
threw her arms around him, sobbing.

He soothed her, running his hands
down her hair while she cried her heart out. He reached over to the
small table and handed her a box of tissues as she told him about
the dream through her tears.

When she was done, she just sat
there staring at the wall while he continued to run his hand down
her hair in a soothing gesture, whispering words of comfort in her
ear. After a while, she finally calmed down. And when she did, she
turned and began to kiss him.

Chapter
Twenty-Two

Jes

Jes stood before a
cauldron,
making a potion. She dropped a
small piece of mandrake in, being careful not to allow it to touch
her skin. She stirred the pot. She had aligned this spell with the
pull of the full moon, the day of the week—which was Monday—and the
hour. All to make the strength of her spell come through that much
clearer.

She was working within a large
circle, around a large, round table. She had five candles burning.
Four were at the four directions, and one was in the place of
spirit. For added effect, she had placed a large turtle in the
center of the table, which sat in the center of the room, bringing
in the Shaman element of the medicine wheel. Something Mira was
familiar with.

She didn’t need any of these things
to work her spell, but doing so impacted her psyche, making her
spell all the more powerful for it.

She was a fast learner—and she was
quickly becoming good at this. It was as if she’d been born to
it.

Now that was a thought.

Because she had been.

She smiled at her own thoughts and
dipped a turkey baster into the liquid, drawing up some of the
precious fluid. She injected it into a spell bottle and capped
it.

Mira beamed at her. “That was
perfect.”

“
Are we going to try it
out?”

“
No, I can feel the power of it.
You did an excellent job.”

“
Okay. And who is it
for?”

Mira lifted the large Book of
Shadows from the table and set it upon a smaller table by the sofa.
Jes joined her on the sofa and watched as Mira turned the pages.
The book was large, and Mira explained as she turned the pages that
the book had been passed down through generations, which was
considerable information considering the advanced age so which the
Jaguar People lived.

They both sat there like that,
looking through the book. As was always the case, they got snagged
for several long minutes over several of the things they saw in the
book while searching for the page Mira had spotted at one time and
was trying to find again.

“
One or more of our ancestors sure
did some painstaking work with the drawings,” Jes mused.

“
Didn’t they though,” Mira agreed.
“I couldn’t believe it when I first saw this book. It was the most
amazing book I’d ever seen. I could sit here all day reading it.
And the spells are amazing.”