Half Past the Witching Hour (Paranormal Personnel Saga #3) (12 page)

‘Possibly. I don’t want to speculate over this. My daughter always gets herself into trouble. I have a murder case on my back, new shifters are terrorising London, and the Superintendent demands arrests,’ Dad said, raising his voice with his usual frown. They had their backs turned to me, and they didn’t even realise that I was wide awake.

‘I heard what happened in La Caz Corporation, Mr. Taylor. My assistant mentioned that a mermaid was killed with a kitchen knife. I normally don’t listen to such a gossip, but my assistant was friends with someone who worked on the production line,’ Quentin said.

I was amazed with how well he was interacting with Dad. I had no idea how long I’d been out, but Dad surprised me yet again, talking to my boyfriend like a normal human being. At least he wasn’t threatening him.

‘This is off the record, Mr. Van Rooyen. A witness from that night mentioned that a blond woman was seen on the crime scene right around the time when the murder had been committed.’

My heart started pounding in my chest.

God, I’m the killer. I’m the one that my father is looking for.

He has to go back to Geneva; otherwise I’m going to turn into a serial killer.

‘Oh God,’ I said loudly.

‘Julia, you are awake,’ Quentin hissed, turning around. I cursed, forgetting for a moment that they stood near my bed. My heart raced, but the pressure in my chest was still there making my breathing shallow. I wanted to feel magic running through me, knowing deep down that I was still sane.

‘What is going on? Why am I in the hospital?’

I was scared to know the truth, and even though my head seemed blank I had that drilling gut feeling that I’d done something bad. Dad shrugged his shoulder, but he had a blank expression on his face. Exactly the kind he used when he wanted to hide the truth from me.

‘Your mum went to get coffee. She has been here since they brought you in,’ he said, sounding tired. ‘Ella’s mother found both of you in her kitchen. You were both unconscious. It looked like someone had used a rare charm. She called an—’

Fear hit me so hard in the gut me that I lost my ability to breathe. I felt like I was falling down, moving fast through a thick fog of darkness. I awakened a demon inside me and it crawled away, hurting people. The realisation of another blackout came crashing down and I was ready to throw up.

Ella, no, no, no, she must be okay. I couldn’t have hurt her.

‘
Is Ella all right? Is she okay?’ I shouted, trying to get up. Quentin and Dad got to me, pushing me down to the bed.

‘Julia, slow down. You are really pale. Ella is unconscious. She is in another ward and her mother is with her,’ Dad said, angry, trying to keep me steady.

A nurse came running and then she whispered a spell. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I couldn’t stay in bed. I tried to push Dad away.

‘Julia, please lie down …”

My lids became heavy, and all of a sudden I felt exhausted and I wanted to sleep. Fighting against my heavy tiredness, I drifted off.

I regained my consciousness a few hours later. My neck was stiff and my head pounded, but I felt better and much stronger. Mum was sitting beside my bed talking to Quentin. They were both laughing as I struggled to get up.

‘How is Ella? Please tell me that she is conscious now?’ I asked, biting my lip hard.

‘Julia, you shouldn’t move. The nurse mentioned that you were in shock.’

‘Mum, answer my question. How is Ella?’ I hissed.

‘She hasn’t woken up yet, the doctors don’t know what’s wrong with her.’

I sank back to my bed, feeling like someone sliced my chest and poured boiling guilt inside. This was all my fault that Ella was lying somewhere in the hospital, hurt and spellbound. I must have blacked out and turned on her; there wasn’t any other explanation. I had to find Dad as soon as possible and tell him that he should lock me up, because I was too dangerous to be around people. I had to tell him the truth. My magic was out of control and my own family was in danger.

‘I want to see her, please tell him… I mean the doctor that I’m okay to get up.’ I tried to get up, but Mum pushed me back to the bed.

‘You’re not going anywhere, Julia. You are dehydrated and you need to stay in bed. Mr. Van Rooyen, please tell my daughter that she is unreasonable.’

‘But—’

‘Julia, your Dad is going to kill me if I let you leave this bed in that state. Do you really want to see your boyfriend strangled?’ Quentin asked. He was beside my mother, who was pulling the covers over me.

I wanted to scream, letting them know that it didn’t matter how I felt. This was all about Ella and the fact that I was the one that caused this. I slumped back on the bed trying to think about a spell that could help her, but the guilt was spreading in my body like cancer.

Quentin and Mum stayed with me for another hour. Around nine o’clock in the evening the healer asked them to leave as the visiting hours were over. Mum was trying to talk to me, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what I had done, so I kept ignoring her. Quentin kissed me while Mum commented on how well he was looking after me, before she threw some lame joke about meeting all my boyfriends in the hospital.

Once they left I was relieved, although I couldn’t pull myself together. I had gone to see Ella with good intentions. Now she was here hurt and no one knew if she was going to wake up. Around ten o’clock a nurse came in to give me another set of charms. Physically I felt that I could leave, but the nurse didn’t even want to hear it. Apparently the doctors wanted to keep me for observation.

‘My human friend is in another ward. Please, can you find out how is she?’ I kept asking the nurse, who looked fed up with my lack of cooperation.

She had a kind face and, like most giants, she was taller than most humans.

‘Julia, I told you already. She is stable but unconscious. Healers are dealing with her. I’ll let you know as soon as she wakes up. Now get some rest,’ she muttered.

When she finally left I was ready to sneak out of my room to see Ella. The doctors were probably taking orders from Dad to keep me in bed. My system was empty, my magic wasn’t there anymore. I hated being so hopeless. It was like someone had emptied me out and only left my humanity, removing all my magical genes.

I couldn’t get out of bed. A healer placed a spell on me forcing me to stay in one place. I shouted at another nurse when she came in, but she refused to lift the spell, knowing that Dad ordered hospital staff to keep me in my room.

I didn’t touch the supper and kept staring at the door praying for Ella to wake up. I tried to sleep, but I kept tossing and turning, worried, my mind bringing up the fire in my parents’ home. I’d hurt my best friend, and it was clear that I could hurt Mum as well.

Finally, a nurse came to give me some sleeping pills. But the pills didn’t work for long. I woke up later, probably around four in the morning, close to dawn. When my eyes got used to the darkness I thought I was hallucinating seeing someone standing by my bed.

I rubbed my eyes a few times, but whoever it was, he was still there.

‘Calm down, Julia. It’s only me.’

I laughed, not quite believing that Tron was in my room in the middle of the night.

Yawning, I put the light on next to my bed. Tron had cheek to show up in my room outside visiting hours. I guessed that I should have expected it. He seemed like a paranormal that didn’t follow many rules. I was angry that he could find me so easily, but when I needed him he was always out of reach.

‘You were with the Dhampir. He triggered your source again. That’s why you had another blackout.’

I dropped my head onto my clenched fists, angry at myself that I didn’t tell Nathaniel to go to hell.

‘But that was weeks ago. Nothing has happened since then. You didn’t mention this at our last practise,’ I protested, feeling like a little girl being reprimanded by a teacher. ‘Besides I tried to find you, but your phone was out of order.’

‘He only added oil to the fire. After a few sessions your magic obeyed you, but when you visited Ella you hadn’t shielded your emotions,’ he said, ignoring my last sentence, like it wasn’t important at all.

I tried to think about what he was saying. Digging deep down, I recalled all the events from the past couple weeks. I’d seemed to make progress on my last training session. Then I went to that shifter packs meeting with Kelsie. Everything went from bad to worse after that. Nathaniel showed up, letting me know that his whole engagement was in shambles.

As soon as I had his image in front of me, I felt a tingle of energy running down my spine.

He has to go back to Geneva; otherwise I’m going to turn into a serial killer.

Tron was watching me closely, but I didn’t want to show him that he was right about everything.

‘I took some control of my power when Kelsie’s ex-boyfriend attacked me, but my spell was weak.’

‘Julia. I know that it’s hard to keep your emotions at bay, but your blackouts will only get worse. We need to intensify our visits even more now. Your darkness is getting out of control. I thought that my lessons would help a little, but it looks like you source is sending you a clear signal to start using more magic than you can handle. From what you told me, for years you didn’t believe that you could use it right and now you’re at that point where your magic is harming people. It’s hard to predict what could happen next; that’s why you should stay away from Ella for now until we figure out what to do. Your friend is going to recover, but you obviously cannot restrain your emotions around her.’

My stomach made a small contraction and my memory brought a dream from that night when Craig attacked Kelsie. I felt terrible. I was a killer and now my own friend was in a coma because of me.

Finally I managed to swallow my tears and said, “I had another vision about my mother and the fire. I remember being in a car with a man. It was like he had a full control over me,” I started explaining, hoping that maybe everything wasn’t lost yet. Ella was my best friend but I was prepared to stay away to make sure that she was going to be all right.

“It’s dark magic. Either you have someone who wants you to see this or your better side is giving you a warning. Think, is there anyone that wants to harm you?”

That was a good question. Caleb McGregor would have been the first person, apart from the fact that he was already dead. Fiorillo, he dealt with the rival agency for paranormals. Last year Kate and I used a spell on him to find out if he knew anything about Rufus’s disappearance, but Kate’s spell was strong, so he couldn’t remember it.

“I don’t know,” I said to him.

“Don’t give up on your memories. Think. I’ll give you a potion that you need to drink in order to keep your power at bay. I don’t know if it will do what it is supposed to as it’s an old family formula, but it’s worth a shot.”

I agreed because at that point I was desperate to do anything to stop blacking out and hurting people. Tron was right. I avoided magic most of my life and now my own energy was turning against me.

I had many more questions for Tron, but the rest of the night went blurry. I woke up in the morning aware that he shot me up with a sleeping spell and left. Too many people wanted to manipulate me. At least once I wanted to show others that my own charms weren’t useless. I was lucky that Tron agreed to train me and I was eagerly waiting for his potion.

A nurse showed up in my room early in the morning to check my temperature. I told her that I felt much better, but I had to wait for the main healer to get discharged. An hour later I was ready to sneak out of my room to check on Ella, but my plans were shattered when Dad arrived earlier than I anticipated.

‘And where do you think you are going?’ he asked, folding his bulky arms together.

‘To check on Ella.’

‘Hun, stop being so stubborn; sit down and listen to me. I’ve got something important to tell you,’ Dad said in an unusual tone of voice. Then I remembered his conversation with Quentin and felt like I was going to be sick again. Was he here to tell me that he discovered the truth? Was he here to arrest me?

‘What it is Dad?’ I asked quietly. My life seemed like a total mess.

‘Jennifer was the one that broke into your apartment.’

‘What?’

In the course of recent events, the burglary didn’t seem important anymore, but this news was unbelievably shocking. Dad’s sixth sense was working amazingly well.

‘Jennifer Griffiths?’ I asked, just to be sure. ‘The one that was found murdered in La Caz Corporation?’

‘Yes, the same one. A few of my guys found my mother’s magical artifacts in her apartment. She kept them under the bed.’

My stomach turned upside down. Jennifer had worked for McGregor, so maybe this made sense. She probably broke into my apartment to find something that could help him with my kidnapping. On the other hand McGregor knew what he was doing. Getting his hands on some magical artifacts that weren’t even important didn’t add up.

‘I don’t get it. Why would she need Grandma’s old artifacts?’

‘I was hoping that you would tell me. When she got fired from Paranormal Personnel, she got the job with that other agency called Spell or something—’

‘StaffSpell? She got a job with StaffSpell?’ I hissed, feeling the oxygen sapped from my lungs.

‘Yeah, that’s the name. I meant to write it down,’ Dad muttered, taking out his notepad.

‘I sent Stewart to have a chat with a couple of guys from there, but they all said that Miss. Griffiths was quiet and she never got herself in any trouble. She was hired straight after Rufus got rid of her.’

‘What? Jennifer wasn’t quiet. And as soon as Rufus fires her StaffSpell takes her on? They’re all covering someone up in that agency.’

Dad agreed with me. I wanted to ask him a few more questions, but he took a phone call and vanished shortly after that. There was one positive outcome of his absence. I could now leave the hospital as soon as the morning rounds were over.

‘Surprise! We all thought it was time to see how our dear friend is doing!’

Kelsie, Nicky, and Kate barged into my room unexpectedly. At first I was gobsmacked seeing the girls in my hospital room. Mum probably called Nicky and Quentin no doubt told Kelsie and Kate that I wasn’t doing so well. As soon as they closed the door, I burst into tears. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, the tears just started pouring out of me. The girls surrounded me, looking startled.

‘Julia, pull yourself together, you silly mare, and tell us what is going on.”

Kelsie was right, but I couldn’t stop sobbing, howling like someone was tearing me apart. There was so much I wanted to tell them.

‘So I guess that you all met?’ I asked, blowing my nose. They nodded.

Nicky eyed me suspiciously. ‘I dreamed last night about you being in the hospital. You had a stranger around your bed and you seemed very upset. I woke up and I tried your mobile, but it went straight to voicemail. Then I spoke to your mother and got here as soon as I could.”

There was no point in dragging this on any longer. I had to tell my friends that my life had turned over one hundred and eighty degrees and I wasn’t sure what to do anymore. I started right from the moment when I blacked out with Quentin. I had to come clean. Kel, Kate, and Nicky were my friends. I couldn’t keep this away from people who cared about me. They had to know that it wasn’t safe for them to be around me. The curse was real and my magic was lethal. I had to get that potion from Tron as soon as possible.