Half Past the Witching Hour (Paranormal Personnel Saga #3) (23 page)

I was officially a coward, a girl that couldn’t even confess to her best friend that she cheated on her boyfriend with her ex.

My workday didn’t get any better later on. Kate had a date with her perfect boyfriend. I made a final decision to speak to Ella tonight. Tron told me to be careful. I missed her like crazy and I didn’t want to keep her in the dark any longer. Maybe I was taking a risk but my friend needed an explanation. It took me an hour and a half to get to Ella’s home. In my mind I was going over and over what to say to her, in the end I voted for the whole truth. There was no point hiding from her that I was the cause of her coma. She was probably going to hate me, but I promised myself that I was going to be completely honest with her.

Mrs. Jenkins wasn’t at home when Ella let me in. My best friend looked more like herself again.

‘I was wondering when you were going to show up.’

‘I kept my distance for a reason,’ I said, going straight to the point. ‘Besides, you didn’t make it any easier for me.’

She looked away knowing that I was right. We had known each other for years, but at our last meeting she behaved like I was stranger to her. There was no point dragging this out any longer, so I started talking, going back to my first blackout. Ella pretended like she wasn’t listening at first, but when I started talking about how I blacked out when I came to visit her, I had her full attention.

It took me a while to finish my tale, Ella’s hard expression softened a little, and once I got to the part where I nearly died she was beside me, looking worried.

‘How are you feeling about all this, Ella? I know you were probably in shock and—’

‘Julia, stop talking for a second,’ she said, cutting me off. ‘I have to tell you something.’

I was silent, staring at her with curiosity, wondering what she was planning to say. We still hadn’t found out who in her family was magical.

She bit her lips before she looked at me and said, ‘Okay, I was jealous of you, Julia. When you told me that you weren’t human, I was angry that you kept it from me but also jealous because I thought that I was going to be ordinary for the rest of my life.’

‘Oh, Ella.’

‘No, let me finish. Yeah, I was always plain and boring. I knew that you were different, but after some time I kept ignoring all this supernatural stuff that kept happening around you. Then you and Nicky revealed that my friends, whom I trusted all my life, weren’t humans. It was too much for me too handle. I didn’t believe that I could be like you and Nicky. This didn’t make sense, so I blocked your crazy idea that I was partly magical. What I’m trying to say is that I’m sorry. When I think about what you had to go through in the past few weeks, I feel like an idiot.’

‘No, Ella, don’t be silly. I don’t care that you were confused or even jealous. Let’s put this behind us.’

‘I would like that,’ she whispered. I smiled and hugged her before this got too awkward.

‘So this guy Tron, he is helping you with your magic? Does he know why you’re hurting people?’

‘He has some idea, but these terrible visions about my mother’s death are making me very anxious. I was fine until three months ago, but then I had my first blackout and then I saw my mother was dying,’ I explained with a heavy sigh, looking at Ella, who all of a sudden wasn’t my silly friend anymore.

‘Oh my God. I can’t believe that I’ve been so selfish. If it weren’t for you I think I’d never know who I was. Besides, your life had already been complicated enough Julia. I’m sorry again.’

‘No, it’s fine. I was the one that had been lying to you for years. Let’s forget about this and move on.’

‘All right, let’s start fresh. I miss you, Julia, and I don’t care about the blackouts. I’m sorry for how I behaved when you told me who you were.’

‘And I’m sorry that I lied to you,’ I said, swallowing my tears and hugging her again. ‘Let’s go out for dinner and quiet drink.’

Our differences were all behind us, but I wasn’t too sure if Ella wanted to start searching her paranormal family. She obviously had to keep this away from her mother and brother. I had no idea what the future held for both of us, but soon I was going to find out.

Jasper, I need Jasper, he would know what to do.

Ella and I chose the restaurant for late dinner. Despite my turmoil during lunch, I was relieved that I didn’t have to deal with Nathaniel for at least few days. He wasn’t the kind of man to just give up, and I knew that I would see him again sooner or later. And I had to be ready. There was still some tension between Ella and me, but I felt that I could now talk to her without worrying about what I knew.

It was just after seven when Ella left, and I decided to see Quentin. I was surprised when I walked into his home and Gomez was by the door, sniffing the walls.

‘Hey, sexy, what are you doing here?’ he asked.

‘Looking for my boyfriend,’ I said, but his living room looked messy. Clothes were everywhere and a few small take away boxes littered the table.

‘Queni is out of town. He got a phone call about an auction,’ Gomez explained, shadowing my every movement. ‘How about we play poker? Whoever loses will have to take something off.’

‘Out of town, but where? He didn’t tell me that he was going away,’ I said, ignoring his inappropriate suggestion.

‘Do not know. Got home twenty minutes ago and left as soon as he answered the phone. So what are you stripping off or what?’

‘No, I’m not stripping. I’m leaving,’ I said.

Gomez whined for a bit, but I didn’t have time to deal with him, so I left. Quentin didn’t say anything about going away. He had been busy recently with new pieces that he purchased, and I kept my distance, hoping to make him a special dinner today.

Mum left me couple more messages on my phone. After seeing Nathaniel this morning my excess magic rolling its heat over my body let me know that it was time for another practise session. I didn’t want to see Tron, and I needed to see Quentin. When I got to the tube station I was glad to secure a seat. The rush was over, although the tube was packed. I dozed off in the train, jumping straight into another dream.

I was in my parents’ home, standing by the door. My mother was tied up to the chair in the living room. Her cheek was red and bruised.

‘Julia, what are you doing, hun?’ she kept asking. There was a large green petrol container in the middle of the living room. I walked up to it and picked it up. I started moving around the house. The voice in my head was giving me orders, ordering me to spread the petrol even over the furniture, my parents beautiful rugs, walls and floors.

My mother’s screams were heard around the house, and I wanted to stop, but the voice ordered me to carry on. The silence was making me nauseous. There were two other people standing by my mother, but I couldn’t see their faces. They were blurred out, like from the nightmare. My mother was crying, rocking back and forth on her chair, telling me to release her. When I took the matches, she howled, screaming.

‘It’s all right, calm down,’ said the voice. I shut my eyes, realising that I was the one that kept screaming, moving on the seat, still in the tube that kept moving fast through the underground.

‘What happened?’ I asked the woman that had her hand on my arm. She was a human, in her late forties. Other people kept glancing at me, like they were expecting me to have another seizure. I was shivering, sweat running down my spine.

‘You fell asleep, and I think you had a nightmare,’ the woman replied.

‘Sorry, I’m really sorry,’ I blurted and stood up when the train stopped, running out as quickly as I could. This wasn’t my station, but I didn’t care. I had to get some fresh air. My mind was racing and that nightmare clouded me, making me aware that I was still a threat. My hands were shaking when I pulled out my phone. I was in central London and I had to get home, but the tube was out of the question. My first instinct told me to call Tron and explain what happened, but I stopped and took a deep breath. Tron was a paranormal, but he had no idea how to prevent these visions from happening. I needed someone else, an expert in black magic.

The nightmare from the tube had been hunting me down ever since the blackouts began. My mother, my family, meant everything to me, and I would never forgive myself if anything happened to them. I could’t bare the fact that I didn’t know how to prevent it from happening. Maybe someone was seeding this image in my head to let me slip, to make a mistake. I had no idea. I told Nathaniel earlier on to go to hell, and I was too proud to ask for his help. I needed someone who understood dark spells, gloomy, lethal magic, because this is what I was dealing with.

Jasper. I need Jasper. He would know what to do.

For some bizarre reason, I’d kept his number, but I had no idea if it was still active. If he changed, as he was trying to convince me earlier on, then now he had a chance to prove it. I wanted to scream with happiness when it rang and he picked up.

‘Where are you? We need to meet.’

‘Julia, nice to hear your voice again,’ he said.

‘I haven’t got time to chitchat. I need to see you right now. I’m in Oxford Street, can you pick me up?’ I asked.

There was a silence on the other side of the phone for some time before he agreed. I was gambling with my own life, pulling him into this mess. He had saved me from McGregor and now I needed his help again. He had been studying dark magic since I’d known him, and he wouldn’t hesitate to present what he was capable of. Right now he could be the only person that could figure out how to stop the blackouts.

He arrived an hour later as darkness was settling over busy Oxford Street. The lights from the shops were alive, illuminating the roads.

‘I thought that you didn’t want to see me?’ he asked, when I got into his car.

‘I wasn’t planning to, but you said you changed, and if you mean it then you can help me with something.’

I thought Jasper was still in love with me, and he hoped that maybe I would give us a fair shot one day. I couldn’t think about that, but I needed him now, despite how much he wanted to deny his connection to illegal spells and contacts with the most vicious individuals within the magic environment.

‘Are you in trouble or something? Don’t tell me, you want me to get rid of that leech for you?’ he asked laughing.

‘Actually, I took care of him myself. Besides, it doesn’t matter with whom I’m sleeping now,’ I said. ‘My power is getting out of control. I’ve been having blackouts. Some people got hurt. Ella had been in coma for a few days. Now I keep dreaming that I’m going to burn my parents’ home and someone believes it’s the future.’

There was no point to milking Jasper with some crap about my power. When we were dating he’d said he felt that my magic was more advanced than I realised. He listened and was silent until he stopped the car at an unknown street.

‘How long has this been going on?’ he asked in a serious tone, looking directly into my eyes.

‘Three months maybe. The last blackout was recent. I woke up next to the dead body,’ I explained. Jasper’s eyes widened and he gripped the steering wheel tighter.

‘I had a feeling that you inherited strong power from your father, although I never actually experienced anything like that when we were together,’ he observed. ‘Why didn’t you come to me earlier? Why now?’

I bit my lips, wondering if I should mention Tron, but I knew I couldn’t reveal all my secrets to Jasper, who was hungry for power.

‘Whatever I was doing before, doesn’t seem to be working. We both know that you specialised in dark magic, lethal like mine. All those trips abroad and rumours. I know what you’ve been up to.’ Seeing he was getting anxious about my facts, I didn’t go any further. I’d learned when to stop talking, having experienced his bad temper before.

‘I don’t talk about it, if I can help it. How do I know that you won’t call your father and get me arrested?’

I laughed.

‘I had that chance, but I helped you, didn’t I?’ I asked. ‘Now I need your knowledge and experience.’

It seemed that I gave Jasper something to think about. We had been together a short while, but I learned that he had strong connections and he was always educating himself, studying books and old journals. When we broke up he went abroad. Jasper should have been the last person that I’d ask for help, but I knew that my time was running out and Tron wasn’t making much progress.

‘If you promise me something, first, then I’ll help you,’ he stated, glaring at me when we stopped at the traffic light. I had a bad feeling about this, but then I thought about my mother and cringed.

‘We are not getting back together,’ I stated, perfectly clear that I wasn’t interested in him that way.

‘Maybe not, but you’re going to be friends with me again. I guess you owe me, cause I saved your virtue.’

‘We are kind of even, cause you were the one that used me for McGregor,’ I said. ‘He used you, only hoping to ruin Nathaniel and you went along with his plan.’

‘It wasn’t just about your leech,’ Jasper muttered. ‘He introduced me to a few powerful vampires, gave me access to unlimited magical blood.’

‘But he is dead now, and the police are on your arse,’ I said.

‘Yeah, I’m kind of glad that he is,’ he admitted. ‘What about your powerful grandmother? Why don’t you ask her for help?’

‘Let’s just not go there, but I agree to your conditions. I’ll forget about your naughty past, consider being friends with you again, and you help me to gain control of my magic to prevent a blood spill. I won’t ask any questions in return.’

‘Fine, but we need to go somewhere first. Your genes are complicated enough. Magic as powerful as yours has to be handled right. We might have to take some serious steps in order to help you,’

‘Like?’

‘Magic thieves, their lives are all about survival. They have skills that other paranormals don’t. No one believes that they should be alive, but they can be useful. If that fails, then I’ll step in. We will locate those toxic genes and try to remove them.’

‘Wow, what? Magic thieves? What bad genes? We can’t trust them, they will feed on our magic.’

He laughed then and parked his car in some obscure dark street. We were still in a good location, somewhere in South East London. My thoughts railed to the time when I met Gordon. He talked about magic thieves like he understood them. I’d never met any of them, but now I was curious.

‘You need to come with me first. I need to see if I have what I need in my lab,’ he informed me, opening the door for me to a small terrace house in the middle of the quiet street. I was pushing this. Jasper was unstable and now I was going with him to his illegal lab so he could experiment on me. I was either desperate or crazy. Maybe both.

What hit me at first was this fresh, antiseptic smell with a wave of heat coming from upstairs. Jasper put all the lights on and I found myself in a completely bare home. On our right there was a living room, with an old green dirty sofa.

‘This is your lab? Are you kidding me?’ I asked, looking around in disbelief.

‘Easy to hide, plus no one disturbs me here. Come on,’ he encouraged me to follow him. In what was supposed to be a dining room, I was taken back straight away by the large table that stood in the middle of the room. On top there were various flasks, jars and the scent changed, turning into a raw and heavy metallic odour of blood. The air was soaked with magic and my energy started whipping through me again, lifting my hair up, sending prickling through my skin.

‘What exactly do you do here?’

Jasper was going through a few books that were on the shelves. He wasn’t listening to me, muttering to himself something about formulas.

‘I always knew what you were capable of, but you dismissed it. You have that part of yourself, that dark part, and I want to see if I can get it out of you.’

‘Wow, hold on, what do you want to get out of me?’

He stopped reading and looked at me; his eyes were shimmering with challenge and mischief.

‘The darkness starts controlling you and I need it for my research, so there is a spell that we could perform, that splits your magic in pieces.’

My mouth went dry and in front of my eyes I saw myself again, burning my mother alive, being without control.

‘Okay, do whatever you can. When can we start?’ I asked, rubbing my sweaty plans together.

‘We need someone, a magic thief. Best if it’s hungry and unstable.’

‘Jasper, sorry but you’re confusing me,’ I said, laughing. My ex-boyfriend narrowed his eyes, putting black gloves on. His magic wand was next to him.

‘This is dark, lethal magic, Julia, that you’re carrying, and we need a person that lost control of his or her mind to split the pieces. Magic thieves are more powerful that you can imagine; they feed on all the emotions and fear. Some of them to the point where they go crazy. We need this person to touch your soul. I can only do so much.’

I didn’t like the sound of that at all, especially the part where we had to use another human being to prevent the blood spill. Magic thieves had enough on their plate already. They were outcast from all the populated streets and alleys, settling in old, abandoned buildings. Most of them lived on the streets selling whatever they had to have that magical connection.

Every part of me wanted not to trust Jasper, but then there was my mother. Dad would probably lock me up if I told him that Mum was going to die. My visions were powerful and when it came to magic I had to expect the worst.

Jasper was still looking through books as I ran my fingers over flasks, inhaling the herbs and that metal smell in the air. There were stains of blood on the table and I started asking myself, how long Jasper had been doing this. Some wizards were obsessed with the darkest, most forgotten magic. In our modern times no one was paying much attention to the ancient spells.

Jasper worked for himself. I always thought that he had enough money, but it was his ambition of becoming the greatest that was pushing him forward. His spells were more advanced than spells of many other wizards. He travelled a lot, made connections with all sorts of creatures. I still hadn’t discovered the purpose of all these, but now I kept wondering if I was doing the right thing.