Nightwish (An Echoes of Eternity Novel Book 1) (10 page)

“Just what we need,” Kendall said. “Someone who needs to stroke his guitar on stage as much as he chokes his chicken in private. But I’d rather talk about the craziness in Serena’s life.” She turned to me. “Can you do spells and stuff? Could you turn cats into dogs and that sort of thing?”

“You’re told that witches and magic exists, and the first thing you want to see is cats turn into dogs?”

“Well,” she said, giving that deeper thought, “I guess I’d like to see you put a hex on Brandon to be monogamous. Maybe that way, he’ll finally be able to write a power ballad.” She turned to him and her contempt vanished. “Behind the player, I sense you’ve got a romantic soul.”

He met her contemplative stare. “I’m playing the field now for my future wife. That way, I’ll be faithful to her.” He turned his attention to his empty mug, remaining silent for a while, appearing wistful, even excited. “That way, it’ll be a real romance. I’ll never have to say…please forgive me.” He nodded. “Never tear us apart. Forever. Nothing else matters.”

Kendall, chin firmly planted in her palm, looked at him with a dreamy expression. “Well done. Using song titles from Bryan Adams, INXS, Kiss, and Metallica to act like you have real feelings.”

“We’ll have three or four kids,” he continued with complete sincerity, ignoring her. “A white-picket fence. Two story home. There’ll be baseball and football games. The girls will have cheerleading and ballet or soccer and basketball, that sort of thing. There’ll be barbecues, birthday get-togethers, and big family gatherings. And imagine the fun it’ll be on Halloween and Christmas!” He looked off to the side as though seeing his future. His grin remained fixed in place.

I had no idea Brandon wanted such a traditional future. I figured with an out of work, alcoholic father and a bipolar mother who worked odd jobs to support the family, Brandon would have been too screwed up to even contemplate that a stable household could flourish for decades on end. It might have been the booze talking, but the hopeful expression on Brandon’s face told me that he’d given great thought to this type of future.

I looked over to find Kendall’s eyes shimmering with tears. After all, she’d grown up in a two-story house, surrounded by that white picket fence. She had a large family, where they had big gatherings. She knew the life Brandon wanted, but when he imagined his future, he just didn’t see Kendall standing there beside him.

I felt awful for listening in on such intimate dreams, spoken or otherwise.

“But who knows,” Brandon said, waving away his heartfelt feelings, his expression losing every trace of introspection. “Maybe I’ll never meet her.”

Rather than allow Kendall to chime in with support, which had happened a few times before and never got her any closer to a relationship with Brandon, I decided to change the subject. “I may be a witch, but I don’t know anything about spells or charms or—”

“You don’t need to,” Brandon said. “Just find a spell book. That way you can do anything, right?”

“Apparently. But I don’t know anything about magic. It would be like giving a machine gun to an eight-year-old.” Besides, chanting a few words and expecting a grand payoff seemed too easy. And using magic could get me into something I didn’t know how to get out of. “But there’s something I didn’t tell you because…well, it’s because I didn’t want to think about it. Grams is not herself.”

“We know,” Kendall said, scooting closer and putting a hand around my forearm. “Grams is as much our family as yours. Whatever she needs, we’ll be there for her and you!”

Tears came to my eyes, but what I had to tell them made them disappear almost instantaneously. “It’s not the Alzheimer’s. It’s worse. The disease made her susceptible to outside influence. I think another witch has taken control of her body.”

“What?” Kendall shouted, getting to her feet. Seeing patrons from the nearest five tables eyeing her, she calmed herself by exhaling slowly and sitting back down. “What does this witch want?”

“To rule the world,” I said.

“Of course,” she said, nodding. “Why imagine anything less?”

“How can we help Grams?” Brandon asked.

“Yeah,” Kendall said. “What can we do?”

“I don’t know.” Recalling my conversation with Grams, I suspected that she planned to give Celestina the grimoire.

The guitarist on stage let loose with a blistering solo, catching the attention of all three of us. Until this moment, we hadn’t even heard his instrument, which meant he’d done a fantastic job as a fellow band-member. Either that or we’d been too troubled about Grams and my newfound paranormal abilities to notice he’d stepped on stage, along with the singer. But we now centered our attention on the lead guitarist.

While the band backed him up with a rhythmic beat, the dirty-blond-haired guitarist wearing reflective glasses jumped onto the concrete below and began navigating the rectangular tables…paying more attention to the emotions he elicited with his guitar than anything or anyone around him. If he had looked up, he would have noticed that practically every woman in attendance gawked at him in awe.

He wore a black leather vest that clung to his muscular frame, and when he flung his neck back, his shaggy hair brushed against defined deltoids, making it difficult for anyone to see his face. All the while, his fingers kept tapping the guitar strings in a bluesy melody that made it difficult for listeners not to tap their feet against the concrete floor. More than that, he moved his guitar along with his hips, making every gesture sexual, primal.

When I looked up at the crowd, I saw that three-quarters of the crowd were drumming their shoes against the ground, tapping their fingers against the tables, or bobbing their heads to the drumbeat. But more importantly, I noticed how
every
single woman in the crowd had locked her eyes on the guitarist with a sultry (or explicitly sexual) gaze. The guitarist had such presence.

It may have had something to do with the way he gyrated his hips or the way he made his guitar talk in quick yet slow rhythms that reminded me of a private, late night conversation, but I didn’t want anyone else to look at him. I felt an ownership over him that felt inappropriate and undeserved. But no matter how hard I tried to look away, my stare returned to him.

“Do you hear this guy?” Brandon asked Kendall. “Our wait is over.” He turned to me. “His name’s Nolan Hart, and if we don’t make him our guitarist, I’m quitting the band!” Brandon looked at his forearms. “Jesus, I’ve got fucking goosebumps.”

“Yeah, not bad,” I said. In truth, Nolan’s virtuosity and attitude made me hyper-aware that this man had the makings of a rock star. He had that unmistakable, intangible charisma that made men want to be him and women want to sleep with him. The longer I stared at him, the warmer my neck and cheeks became, which surely meant they were bright red by now. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

“
Not bad
?” asked Kendall with a chuckle. “Give it up. You’re practically salivating.”

“I am not. I’m just admiring...”

A few tables away, Nolan threw his glasses into the crowd and now stood before an empty chair. He placed a scuffed, black boot onto the chair, hoisted himself on it, and used it as a stepping stone to the table. He closed his eyes while an overhead fan pushed a breeze through his hair, making his vest flap patter against his chiseled chest. His enormous ego shouldn’t have shocked me, but he seemed to have an entitlement toward everything and everyone in the facility. He seemed so unafraid of everything that he practically begged for someone or something to challenge him, so he could prove his ability to back up his attitude.

Nolan ended his solo. He opened his eyes and locked them on mine.

Caught with an approving gaze, even more heat flooded into my face, now certainly making it beet red. I turned my head to the side, only my eyes refused to follow. Still, he wouldn’t release his gaze from mine, so I didn’t look away.

A tiny smile started to form at the edge of his mouth then disappeared. Then he jumped onto the ground and strode toward me with an intense look, full of heat and passion. Undeterred, he made his way toward our table, ignoring the wanton looks from every other woman, curling his shoulders inward as he made his guitar squeal in ferocious fashion. When he finally released the chord, he slid his fingers along the entire fret board, eliciting sounds reminiscent of a lust-filled night of naughty sex.

Through the entire session, I stared at Nolan, giving nothing away, unwilling to admit that he had the stage presence and technical skills our band needed. On a personal level, however, I wanted to look away, but it felt like an invisible force field linked our gazes, making it impossible to redirect my attention. Such an intense connection caused a chemical reaction inside me: heat flared through my chest and up my neck. My lips went dry. My face flushed. I’d experienced mutual attraction before, but the chemistry Nolan and I shared tapped a passion and longing inside my core, sparking heat to surge through my entire body.

I curled a finger toward him, and all the heat inside me shot into my arm. It traveled across my elbow, through my hand, and…An orange ball of fire spread from the tips of my fingers, shot across the floor, and ignited upon contact with Nolan’s right thigh at the exact moment he’d shut his eyes.

I glanced around, eyes wide in shock at what had just occurred. The raging heat that felt like it had exited my fingers once more infiltrated my body. Had flames really blazed from my hand and set another person on fire?

My pulse raced to the tune of my heart. My chest tightened. I glanced around at the crowd, all of whom rocked back in their seats with fright then laughed or clapped…because Nolan hadn’t even acknowledged the flames raging across his thigh.

Brandon leaned back in his chair and smirked with pride. “He lit himself up!” he shouted. “Was that awesome or what? A total spectacle, right?” He turned to Kendall. “Huh? Am I right?”

Kendall’s mouth dropped open. She shook her head at the guitarist, turned to me and blinked a few times to offset her confusion, and returned her attention to Nolan. “Did that really happen?”

“What?” I asked with a tremor in my voice. I couldn’t tell if she’d asked whether the flames shot from my hand or if, like Brandon, she questioned whether Nolan had lit himself on fire as a theatrical trick. I scanned the room, trying to determine if anyone suspected me of possessing magical abilities.

In every direction, all eyes were on Nolan.

It seemed unlikely that, in a crowd of sixty people, only Kendall noticed anything out of ordinary from our corner of the room. Besides, wouldn’t people have seen a burst of light or felt a trail of heat passing their neck or face? Nevertheless, I felt guilty that I may have caused the fire. Heat stretched up my neck and into my face, making it feel as warm as the flames…that didn’t scorch Nolan’s leg! They hadn’t abated or even stretched across his body, yet they burned high and bright, as though someone had just doused his thigh with lighter fluid.

“Hey!” Kendall shouted at me.

But how could I respond when I didn’t even know how that happened? So I deflected her attention by pointing at Nolan, and the feverish temperature inside me once more rushed into my arm as though recharging and preparing for…what exactly? Another bolt of fire erupted from my hand, blazed across the room, and lit up Nolan’s other leg.

All the while, the guitarist, so lost in the melody with his eyes closed, had no idea that black plumes of smoke kicked up around him.

The crowd erupted with applause and couldn’t tear their eyes away from the man treating them to a spectacular guitar solo. This time, however, a handful of crowd members glanced around, suspecting that the flames had originated from my direction. Still, everyone seemed confused except…

Kendall jumped to her feet. “What the hell!” she shouted at me, startled. “How…what…?”

I stared at my fingers as heat once more spread throughout my body. It seemed that getting flushed had started that chemical reaction, and I was petrified that it might happen again without any warning.

Nolan cringed as though smelling something unexpected.
Like fire
! His eyes snapped open and widened upon seeing his legs ablaze. He looked surprised then flattened his lips, as though playing guitar without missing a note (he didn’t) was more important than the flames raging across his thighs.

Brandon was right: Nolan was not only a spectacular guitarist, but also a theatrical one that could draw a crowd. It seemed that he’d intended to set his thighs on fire, only I had started the flame – not him, which explained his brief confusion upon seeing the flames, before probably assuming that he’d lit the fire, but just didn’t remember doing so. It also meant that he’d applied some sort of protective coating on his pants…one that prevented the flames from spreading. He’d no doubt experimented with pyrotechnics until he felt safe lighting his thighs aflame.

Nolan settled his gaze on mine once more. One side of his lip lifted.

In order to overlook the fact that flames raged less than one-foot from his hands, Nolan had to enjoy living life on the edge. That thought frightened me, but it also excited me. I’d always lived a very structured life. I liked having an agenda for each day and couldn’t fall asleep every night until I’d planned the next day in advance.

Through the crowd noise, I heard Kendall shout my name again, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Nolan: the flickering light made his blue eyes appear wicked and wise as he strolled through the crowd, his gaze still holding mine in place.