Something Witchy (Mystics & Mayhem) (25 page)

I had been walking for about twenty minutes when I finally snapped out of it and realized I was wandering around lost.  I might have known those woods when I was a kid, but that had been years before.  As I stopped and looked around me, I had to face up to the fact that I had no idea where I was or how to get back to Grams’ house.  And, to make matters worse, I was lost in the
dark
.  Seriously, I couldn’t see a damn thing.   

I immediately froze in place, my overactive imagination conjuring up images of hungry bears and wolves.  Unfortunately, those horrifying little daydreams didn’t help much.  Thanks to them, I was not only lost and miserable; I was lost, miserable, and terrified. 

Turn right.

I turned around, expecting to see Nathan standing right behind me, but I was still alone.  I frowned.  I had heard him.  I knew I had. 

Just turn right, Ember.  You’re not that far from Shea’s house.

There it was
again
.  Maybe I had finally fallen off the ledge of sanity I had been tiptoeing along.  Great.  Impending insanity was the perfect end to my less than perfect week.

You’re not crazy.  I’m talking to you using telepathy.  When I marked you it formed a connection between the two of us that makes it possible for us to communicate, even over great distances.  And keeping my distance right now seems like a good idea.  It’s obvious you don’t want me anywhere near you, so this was the only way I could think of to guide you home.  Now, turn right and you’ll come out at your grandmother’s garden. 

I heaved a deep sigh and did what the voice in my head told me to do.  If that wasn’t the definition of crazy, I didn’t know what was.  After about fifteen minutes of following the directions the voice was giving me, I walked out into Grams’ garden and saw that every light in the house was blazing bright, a beacon to call me home. 

Only, I wasn’t home.  I was stuck in the middle of a really bad dream that I couldn’t get out of.

I heard Nathan walk toward me because he wanted me to hear him.  When he was a couple of feet from me, he stopped, and I closed my eyes against the desire to turn and look at him.  He didn’t move any closer, and I realized he was waiting to see what I would do. 

“If you don’t mind, I need a ride to the airport.”  I was both surprised and pleased to hear how steady and calm my voice was when my mind and heart and body were in such a terrible state.  “I know I told you to go away, but it’s only fair that you get me out of here before you disappear.”

“Please don’t do this, Ember.  Stay.  If you don’t want to let Shea help you, then let
me
help you.”

He sounded so sad that I nearly changed my mind about leaving.  It was close, but then I realized it was all probably just a ploy.  He was using the fact that I liked him to get me to do what they wanted. 

“That’s okay, I think I’d be safer taking my chances with Jack.  Better than getting my heart stomped on by you.”  My voice was colder than the autumn wind that was howling around me, whipping my hair into tangles and chilling me to the bone.  “Now, are you going to take me to the airport or not?”

“Take the car,” he said, sounding totally defeated.  I knew the feeling.  I jumped a little when he slipped a credit card into my hand, his smooth fingers lingering against my skin, and then had to beat back another wave of tears. 

“For your ticket,” he said quietly when I looked up at him. “Just leave the car in the departure lot and I’ll pick it up tomorrow.  I’ll stay here and distract Shea so she doesn’t follow you.”

I didn’t waste any time.  I was already backing out when Grams came running down the steps and hurried toward me.  Nathan stopped her before she could get to me, and I saw her throw him a filthy look before I turned my concentration back to getting the hell out of there.

I was on the highway when it all hit me at once and the tears blinded me.  I pulled over onto the shoulder and laid my head against the steering wheel.  It wasn’t only tears but painful sobs that tore from my chest and filled the car with sounds that resembled those of a wounded animal.  I hadn’t cried like that in years, and the intensity of my feelings of sadness and despair frightened me more than everything else that had happened put together.

When my tears finally ran their course, I leaned my head back and stared at the winding road before me with a desolate feeling.  I tried not to see the glaring truth, but there was no help for it.  I was in over my head.  I might have said I didn’t need help, but I was wrong.  I didn’t even know where to start. 

I didn’t know how I was supposed to explain my three day, fear-filled vacation to my parents.  I didn’t know what a bandraoi was or if that was a good thing or a bad thing.  I didn’t know what to do the next time I saw Jack—or the next time he tracked me down in my dreams or visions or whatever.  I didn’t know anything about demons or how to fight them, or if such a thing was even possible.  There was just so much I…didn’t know.

I sat there, though, staring out the windshield at nothing, until a semi blew past me doing at least eighty and rocked the little car violently, effectively snapping me out of my trance.  With a sinking feeling in my stomach, I started the car and made a U-turn, retracing my path back to the only source of help I had.

∞§∞§∞§∞

I would like to say everything looked better in the morning, but I would be telling a lie big enough to land me a first class ticket to Hell.  If anything, I felt worse than I had ever believed I
could
feel.

Grams hadn’t said a single word when I arrived back at the house.  She simply led me to my old room at the top of the stairs and found me something to wear to bed.  Then, with a long, sad look, she left me to figure things out for myself.  But figuring things out hadn’t been going so well for me, so I didn’t bother trying.   

Too wiped out to care about demons or vampires or witches anymore, I went to bed and prayed no disembodied voices would decide to have a chat—be they ghost or the telepathic undead.  I shouldn’t have bothered, though.  Nathan had been gone when I got back and I didn’t expect any further contact from him.  I was with Grams.  I was safe.  He was off the hook, just like he’d wanted.

When I stumbled into the kitchen looking like death warmed over, Grams continued her reign of silence and slid a cup of coffee across the table to me with a tentative smile.  I tried to return it, but the expression stretching my features felt more like a grimace than anything that might remotely resemble a smile.  I settled for staring out the window at the pale blue, cloudless sky.  The sunshine didn’t exactly compliment my mood.  A thunderstorm—or a hurricane—would have been a much better indication of what was going on inside me.

“Are you all right, sweetheart?”  Grams sounded so upset that I felt a twinge of guilt knowing I was the cause.  “If you want to talk about it, I’ll listen.”

“Talk about what, Grams?”  I had a bad feeling I knew what she was getting at and no, I didn’t want to talk about it.  “There’s nothing to say.  I guess what we actually need to talk about is what I’m supposed to do now.”

“You go home, go back to your normal routine.”  

Go back to Moonlight?  With Jack lurking around waiting to roast me again?  That was her brilliant advice?  And as for my normal routine, I thought it was safe to say that had gone straight down the crapper.  I was supposedly a witch, the only guy in the world I wanted was a vampire who wanted nothing to do with me, and I was being stalked by a demon.  That did not equate to normal in any way, shape, or form. 

“What do I do about Jack?” I asked, turning back to the window. 

And what do I do about Nathan?
I asked myself silently, staring at the cherry tree beyond the glass.  As scared as I was of Demon Jack, it was Nathan who was breaking me.  All the demons in the world couldn’t have been more destructive to my peace of mind than my own personal vampire.

“I spent last night trying to come up with a plan,” Grams said, leaning back in her chair with a tired sigh.  “It’s going to be difficult seeing as you’ve had no training, but I think I may know how to take care of the problem.  You’re going to trap him.”

“What?” I gasped, my eyes snapping back to her face.  I couldn’t have heard that right.  Had she really just told me
I
was going to trap a demon?  Was she
crazy
?  “You mean
you
are going to banish him, right?”

“No, sweetheart,
you
are,” she said, getting up and walking over to the counter. 

When she turned back around, she was holding an old, leather-bound book.  As I watched, she opened it to a spot about midway, then carried it back over to lay it on the table in front of me.  I stared down at the illustration on the page and felt a chill sweep through me as I gazed at the image of a monstrous creature. 

It looked shriveled and deformed, but there was nothing deformed about the fangs I could see in its open mouth or the six inch claws on its fingers.  There was nothing deformed about the giant, leathery-looking wings on its back that looked like something straight out of a horror story, either.  It was its eyes that really terrified me, though—soulless and black and evil.

Was that what I had seen in Jack’s eyes on the road that afternoon, the shadow of what lay behind the pretty face?  And those wings were looking kind of familiar.  I had seen a pair disturbingly similar to them outlined against the spotlight in my waking nightmare right before Jack set me on fire. 

I flipped the book closed so I wouldn’t have to look at it anymore and shoved it away with shaking hands.  I suddenly felt sick.  I had kissed that thing!  Okay, it was only once—and it definitely hadn’t been willingly—but still!  Ugh!  I was going to have to gargle with bleach!

“There are several ways to trap a demon,” Grams said as she resumed her seat, sounding like she was telling me how to plant tomatoes or something.  “You’re nowhere near ready for banishing rituals, of course, but I believe I can teach you to trap him.  We’re going to use a sacred object, one with a direct link to the soul he wants, as a portal to imprison him.  Done correctly, we may be able to trap him indefinitely.”

“Done
correctly
?” I repeated sharply.  “I don’t know how to
do
any of this, Grams!  The only thing I know how to do is talk to ghosts, damn it!  And that doesn’t make me a witch, by the way, it makes me a
freak
!”

For a long moment, the only sound in the room was the ticking of the clock hanging over the door.  I knew I should be ashamed, but I just couldn’t seem to dredge up any remorse.  She had stolen something from me, something far more valuable than memories.  Time.  Time to learn.  Time to accept what I was.  And now she expected me to say, “Awesome!  I’m a witch!  Teach me, Obi-wan!”

Unrealistic much?

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am, Ember, for everything.”  I heard the tears in Grams’ voice and when I looked up they were trickling down her cheeks.  “I lost the time I needed with you because I gave your mother more credit than I should have.  I bound you and messed with your memories, something I had no right to do.  Then I sent Nate to you without any thought to the effect it might have on you both because I thought I knew what was best.  And now I don’t know how to make you understand any of it.  Not what you face.  Not who you are.  None of it.”

I couldn’t stand to see her so sad.  I was angry at her, but I loved her and she was hurting.  I got up from the chair and threw myself into her arms.  Her tears were contagious, and we sat there that way, crying together, for what seemed like a very long time. 

Grams regained her composure first and then just held me, stroking my hair while my tears continued to come.  I hadn’t cried that much since I was a kid, and I couldn’t say I was particularly happy about it.  Was this some weird side effect of being near a vampire, even temporarily, this insane crying?

“Sweetheart, we have to talk about Nate.”

I drew away from her with my eyes narrowed in suspicion and brushed the tears from my cheeks.  How had she known I was just thinking about vampires?  Her expression was smooth and unreadable, giving nothing away.

“What about Nathan?” I asked, getting to my feet.  I turned and walked away from her and stood at the very window where she had stood the night before, staring out at the beautiful fall landscape I couldn’t really appreciate.  “There’s nothing to talk about, Grams.  I think he would agree.  He sure didn’t waste any time escaping last night, did he?”

“I sent him away,” Grams said softly.  I heard her chair scrape against the tiled floor as she rose, and it wasn’t a few seconds later that I sensed her standing very close behind me.  “I knew you would come back.  You’re smart, Ember.  I knew you would come to the realization that you needed my help.  He wanted to stay and wait for you, but I thought it might be best if we talked about all of this without his rather distracting presence.”

“Sure he did,” I sneered, giving her a sideways glance over my shoulder.  “He didn’t want to be here at all, Grams.  Why would he suddenly change his mind?”

“Because he cares about you—and he knows something you don’t,” she answered, holding my gaze.  “Yes, he wanted to run.  If you knew what he knows, you’d want to run, too.  Don’t judge him too harshly, Ember.  He is the most honorable of his kind I’ve ever met.”

I snorted in disbelief.  Yeah, he was a real gentleman.  I’m sure all honorable vampires were fans of playing with the emotions of the women they met.  Somehow, I didn’t think kidnapping and branding me with his teeth in the middle of the night were signs of chivalry.

I wondered what he knew that I didn’t, but then decided that was probably a lot.  Then, there was so much about Nathan that I didn’t know.  Figuring out what
he
knew would take me a lifetime and then some, and I was pretty sure he wouldn’t help me out there.  He could have probably told me all kinds of awesome things, but he wouldn’t.  He would either ignore me or growl at me that what he knew was none of my business.  And he would be right, it
wasn’t
my business.