With You In Spirit (The Bassinville Witches Series) (11 page)

“You two know Catherine and this town…you have to tell me where there are places someone could hide around here…they won’t have taken her far.”

“Who won’t have taken her far
? Has something happened to Catherine?” Shawna was immediately on the defensive, her face tight with worry. She glared at Caden, and grabbed his shirt, bunching it in her fist. “I swear if you’ve done anything to that girl-“

“Relax, I haven’t.” Caden removed her hand from his shirt, placing it back by her side. “But if we don’t move fast, someone wil
l. She’s been kidnapped by the R
-err…by the ones who left her the note. They’ll have taken her somewhere nearby here; their magic was weakened.”

Jackson raised an eyebrow, and scoffed. “
Okay,
and we’re supposed to believe you? You’re probably going to take us out back and beat the crap out of us. No thanks.”

Caden’s temper snapped. He grabbed Jackson by the collar, and lifted him into the air, leaving his feet
dangling. Shawna shouted, and began beating at his arm to make him drop Jackson, but he ignored it, letting her carry on. Glaring into Jackson’s terrified eyes, he snarled, “Now listen. I know you care about Catherine as much as I do, and you would not want her harmed. Now we
must
find out where they are taking her, or they’re going to kill her!”

Jackson’s eyes opened wider in alarm. “Kill her?” he whispered, his face growing cold with worry. Caden growled, and let him drop to the ground, landing uneasily on his feet. Jackson rubbed at his neck, and gasped for air, coughing. Looking back up at Caden’s face, he could see that his expression was serious. He was telling him the truth.

Thinking for a moment, he looked across at Shawna. “There’s only one place I can think of.
There’s a small cave out near the swamps…no-one goes there, but it really is the only place someone could hide out around here.” Shawna nodded vehemently at Caden.

He ran his hands through his hair, beckoning at both of them. “Come on then.
Show where this cave is,
QUICKLY
!”

********

The swamp sang with noise and life. Flies buzzed around fat-bellied frogs, who bounced away as soon as the three figures walked by them. Cicadas
chirruped to one another, hiding somewhere in the long, lanky grass surrounding the brown water. Tall trees, throbbing with life, but a greeny-yellow colour surrounded the water, stretching up into the cloudy sky above. The heavens had burst open, and raindrops trickled off leaves and branches, collecting in small puddles.

Caden led the group, storming along towards the centre of the swamp, where Shawna and Jackson had assured him the cave sat. Closing his eyes, he could feel their magic drumming through the air. It was like a knife, spiking through the trees, dark and shadowy, a sly swipe at whoever might come near it. Growling, he ran
towards the energy, Shawna and Jackson bringing up the rear, watching this mysterious man as he seemed to be able to sense where he was going.

The cave suddenly came into view. It wasn’
t really a proper cave;
it was simply a large recess that had been shaped within the rocks of the swamp. Loud chanting could be heard from within
, that sent a chill down the spines of the group. Caden growled, and moved to go towards it, but Jackson caught his shoulder, and spun him around. He cast Jackson a sharp look.

Jackson flinched, but didn’t move. “Look, I ain’t letting you go in there on your own. If someone is going to try and hurt Catherine, I’m going to kick their asses too.”

“And me. Ain’t no way I’m letting you guys show me up.”

Caden looked uneasily from Shawna’s determined face back to Jackson’s angry one. He shook his head. “No. It’s far too dangerous. You have no idea what these guys are like. I don’t have time to give you the life-story right now, but they are the same people who killed her father.”

Shawna’s jaw dropped open, but she folded her arms across her chest. “Uh-uh. I don’t care if there’s a dragon waiting in
there,
I
am
helping my best friend, Mr Rouquette.”

Jackson glanced quickly into the cave, and then back at Caden’s eyes, now reflecting the sky above. “Wait-how do you know all this?”

Caden held his gaze as lightening suddenly flashed overhead, lighting the swamp up with brilliant explosions of white. He looked
upwards,
and then back at them, letting his fangs slide out. “Because…I have been her protector
since she was born.”

A
searing pain was drumming a steady pattern into her head. Catherine felt as though she had been hit by a train-an express train on top of that. Reaching out for her sheets, she felt around, meeting only thin air. And why was her bed so uncomfortable? Then the memories of what happened in the police station flooded back to her-Caden, Susan’s protective flames, the guy in the bubble, everything.

The man in the bubble! He had grabbed her, and then…then…then everything was a blank. Catherine blearily tried to open her eyes, the movement feeling like she was trying to lift a ton weight with each eyelid. She blinked a couple of times,
while everything slipped back into focus.

The first thing that met her gaze was a pair of highly-polished, Italian leather shoes. Her brow creased in confusion, as she tried to work out what they were doing there, at the same time as she tried to push herself off the floor, feeling cool, rough stone beneath her palms. 
Pushing herself up, she winced as the pain spiked through her head again, making her close her eyes.

“Ah, we wondered when you were going to wake up.” A cool, sharp English accent met her ears, making her look up at the voice. A tall, smartly dressed man met her gaze, the same man from the police station. His eyes were a startling white colour, and his thin lips were curled in the same cruel way as they had been before. He was sitting on a large rock, leaning forwards with his hands pressed together.

Catherine scrambled to her feet, backing away from him. He simply watched as she hit the cool, wet rock behind her, and then shook his head. “I’m afraid you’re not leaving here,
we have to use you as we used your father.”

Her eyes opened wider at that, and her face set into a cold, hard gaze. “
You
killed my father?” she whispered. The colour drained from her face, and her hands curled into fists, her nails digging into her palms.

The man nodded, and leaned back on the stone, seeming to enjoy her agonised reaction. “Yes, we did. Well,
I
did personally, actually. He screamed like a little girl.”

Screaming with rage, Catherine flung herself towards him, and launched her fist towards him, wanting it to connect with his face. To her horror, just before her hand hit him, he simply waved his hand, and an unseen wind knocking her flying, sending her skidding along the stone floor. Seething with rage, she got to her feet again, correcting herself.

He sighed, shaking his head patronisingly. “What a shame you are not as good as your father…he had more control over his powers and himself. You haven’t bothered to learn, so you’re weak as a kitten. But never mind, I can live with killing you despite not being able to fight me back.”

Gritting her teeth, Catherine asked, “What the hell do you want to kill me for?”

“Hmm?
Oh, I suppose your mother never told you the full story, did she? The orb your father was after; is one of twelve that created back in ancient times. Several witches created them to hold
the elements and other powers that we
use. The person who possesses them has a huge amount of control and power with them. We are unable to use the spirit orb, however, as none of us are spirit elementals. But if we held all of the orbs, it would mean we can manipulate their power to spread to us.”

Holding back to urge to try and hit him again, Catherine thought of something. “Just who
are
you? Where are the other orbs?”

He chuckled. “I suppose there is no harm in telling you now. My name is Marcus, and I am the head of this coven. We are part of a larger organisation called Ravensworth.  For centuries we have been looking for the orbs. So far, we have found three other orbs, and our coven holds
the one your father was after.”

“I don’t understand, you still haven’t explained why you needed to kill my father, you bastard.” Catherine began pacing about,
her blood boiling inside her.

Marcus stood up, gracefully bending as he did so. He watched her pacing about like a tiger trapped in a cage, shrugging. “We killed him because otherwise he would have killed us. He knew we were dangerous, and tried to kill us using the orb. Unfortunately, his power wasn’t strong enough, and the orb didn’t work for him.”

“Wait, so…you’re not Wiccans?”

Another cold laugh.
“Did I at any point say we were? I said we were witches, not Wiccans. We follow no god or
goddess
,
we follow ourselves and our own powers. We answer only to our Elders.”

Catherine’s jaw ticked. “Whatever. It makes no difference to me. All I
know,
is that I’m going to finish what my father started.”

Marcus’s smile dropped, and his face seemed to take on a sharper edge, as he tilted his head towards her. “Oh? Are you now?
And just how you planning to do that?”

A loud noise from further up in the cave suddenly interrupted him. A sound like people being thrown against walls and screams sounded out, making Marcus turn and frown. Twisting his face to Catherine, he hissed, “Stay here.” He then ran from the room, the strange crackling sound of his energy firing up.

As soon as he had left, Catherine followed his shadow out of the room, sticking to the walls.
Do
es telling someone to stay somewhere
after threatening to kill them EVER actually work
?...

********

Caden threw another one of the coven witches against the wall, hearing their spine smashing against the stone. Where the hell was Marcus? He was going to rip his skin off for him for daring to hurt Catherine. Shawna and Jackson had surprised him; easily disposing of the coven witches as he was.

Shawna clearly used earth, and she was using her powers to lift some of the huge rocks in the cave, flinging them towards the witches, before they even got a chance to use their own. Caden was fairly certain
that most of them were still training, which meant Marcus didn’t have much of a foothold here. Jackson was using air, whipping small gusts of wind into spinning eddies, picking up speed and force as they whipped around the cave, until they became small tornados. They were ripping into the coven witches with dizzying speed, smashing them against rocks and the walls, knocking most of them out. But both of them were tiring; he could see that with the sweat dripping of their brows.

Caden
roared and grabbed another witch, who
uselessly flung a small ball of black light towards him. He ripped into the feeble creature’s neck, blood pouring out
in a gush as he drank, closing his eyes at the delicious taste, metallic and sweet. Snapping his eyes open, he flung their limp body to the floor, and grabbed another from behind, tearing into his back, pulling his heart out.

And then Marcus entered. When Marcus saw Caden, even he looked a little startled-and with good reason. The six-foot-two vampire looked like a demon sent from hell itself. He was stood up straight, her eyes burning like molten silver
, blood covering his lower face and torso. As soon as he locked eyes with Marcus, he grinned, crooking his fingers towards him.

Marcus sneered at him, and began to glide towards him, flicking his hands out as black light emanated from them, turning them threateningly towards Caden…

********

Catherine kept close to the edges of the cave tunnels, feeling her way along them with her fingers. Further down the tunnels, she could hear the fight continuing, but she could also hear a strange humming noise filtering through from somewhere else. She tilted her head towards the sounds of the fight, and decided to find out what the humming sound was.

Creeping along, Catherine went further and further into
one of the tunnels, disappearing into black, until suddenly a soft light began to shine from the ceiling. A single candle-lit lantern showed the way through into a small room. Catherine gasped as she saw the single most beautiful object she had ever seen in her life.

A small orb, about the side of an apple, floated above a stone pedestal. The humming sound was coming straight from it, eerie and angelic. It was a mixture of grey and whites, all swirling around together inside it, like paints inside a glass ball. It glowed with power; Catherine could feel it even from where she stood, throbbing and warm. Entranced by it, she slowly walked over to it, holding her hand out.

She stopped just before she touched it, closing her eyes at the tingling rush that danced along her fingers. The more she listened to the humming, the more
she thought she could voices within it, calling to her, singing her name. Sparks began to flicker within the orb as her hand drew near. Something about being so close to it felt like…home. Like how she had felt when she had drank Caden’s blood from him.