Jen Pretty
Page 9
bring the wraith back to the living.
In a quick motion, and before I could second guess it,
I slit my arm and let the blood run across my skin to build
into a drip that fell, splashing onto the dirt.
“Help me!” The woman screamed.
I dropped the knife and covered my ears, but the crow
cawed and the woman stopped again, her features
returning to passive. I watched her for a long moment.
“My name is Selena,” I said, removing my hands from
my ears.
“I am Delaney. Thank you for coming to me.”
“Have you been following me?” I asked trying to force
my tense muscles to relax.
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“Yes, you have to stop him. You are the only one who
can.”
“How can I stop him?” I asked, not yet ready to ask
who he was. If she screamed again, I would bleed on the
earth and send her away.
“You are the gatekeeper. The keeper of all magic. He
was too strong for us.”
I shook my head. I had no idea what she was talking
about.
“Please! You must stop him before he kills every
witch.”
“OK, who is he?” I asked.
“Black eyes,” she whispered as she began to fade.
The last of my magic leaked into the earth. I raised my
arm to squeeze a few more drops out, but the skin was
clean and healed. I found the blade. It was dirty, but I used
the edge to slit open my skin again and as the drops fell,
the last sign of magic and the wraith disappeared. The sun
warmed my skin as I sat in the dirt of the grave, the crow
abandoned his search for worms and hopped over to me.
His feathers sleek and glossy, looked unreal, like bits of
painted steel laid together to form the bird. He stood so
still; I allowed myself the moment and raised my hand to
touch his feathers, stopping an inch away. I expected him
to fly away like a wild bird, but he didn’t move. Just before
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my fingers touched down on his ruffled back, he snapped
at my hand, making me jerk back. He took to the sky with
a noisy caw and soared above my head. I looked up to
follow the bird's path through the sky but the sun was high,
and it stung tears to my eyes.
Niri cleared his throat, and I dropped my eyes to look
at him. His face creased into a smile and the lines around
his eyes deepened making his eyes twinkle in the shadow
of his brow.
“What is the Black Crow?” I asked, rising and dusting
the dirt from my knees. It was no use. Mud caked the
material.
“The keeper of the dead and the most powerful
necromancer of all time,” he said. “It would seem the
reason you couldn’t handle our Sanctuary is that you don’t
require sanctuary.”
“So, what? I’m invincible?”
He smiled and rested his hand on my shoulder. A quick
spinning motion and we were back in the hotel room, but
this time we brought along a crow. He cawed loudly and
then took up residence on the top of the flat screen TV,
using it as a perch.
“I’m afraid I must go, young people,” Niri said as
everyone stood and gawked at the bird. “Selena, Colvin
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asked me to say hello for you and that he hopes to see you
again soon.” With that, Niri vanished.
“What happened?” Nick asked, looking from the bird
to me and back again.
“So, this bird made me barf and followed me home,” I
said. Everyone stared at me. I explained about the murder
victim and what she said, but everyone continued their
staring. I shrugged my shoulders then turned and rooted
through my bag, hoping for some clean clothes. The magic
I unloaded in the graveyard had left me feeling drunk but
also dirty. I wanted to wipe away the day and sleep till the
New Year.
All the clothes in my bag were dirty. I huffed and
grabbed the cleanest of my dirty clothes and turned
towards the shower. The guys were still watching my bird
who had nestled down, his head pulled in to his feathers
like a turtle and his eyes closed.
I locked the bathroom door and did a double take as I
caught my reflection in the mirror. My hair was stark white
and in the middle of my forehead was a glowing blue
feather. “Shit,” I whispered as I reached up and touched
the blue feather. It was intricate like a tattoo with fine
detail, but would definitely be noticeable as I walked down
the street. I ran my finger over it. It felt like normal skin.
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Nobody said anything about it when I was in the main
room.
I stuck my head out the bathroom door where the guys
were feeding my crow bits of a croissant left over from
breakfast. He was grabbing the small pieces and then
tipping his head back and swallowing them down.
“Hey, guys,” I said, getting their attention. “Do you see
this?” I pointed to my forehead.
“Your face?” Nick asked.
“Is there a blue feather right here?” I tapped the place
I had seen it.
Nick looked at me like I was crazy. “Nope, I mean, you
have dirt smeared right…” he pointed to his cheek.
Fabulous.
I shut the door and turned on the shower. Waiting for
it to warm up, I stared at my reflection again. At least it
wasn’t visible to other people. I kind of liked it. It looked
like my magic.
Freshly showered, I took my tiny comb and sat on the
bed to go through my hair. The guys were in the adjacent
room discussing something, so I was alone with the crow.
He hopped off the TV and bounced across the bed to
stand in front of me, bobbing his head.
“What?” I asked. He just blinked at me.
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I finished with my hair and pulled up the hood on my
sweater then leaned back and thought about the woman in
the graveyard. Black eyes.
The crow jumped up onto the headboard and peered
down at me from above.
“You need a name,” I said. I had a pet mouse when I
was a child. It had fallen into a deep bucket and couldn’t
hop back out, so I made it a home in there with leaves,
gave it some water in a small dish and fed it crackers. It
lived in my room for a week before Dorothy found out.
She set it free outside.
“How about Corvus?” I asked, and he cawed loudly. “I
don’t know if that is a yes or no,” I told him. He ruffled his
feathers and shook his head. “Ok, I will take that as a no.”
He hopped down off the headboard and onto my knee.
“How about inky?” I asked, staring at his glossy black
feathers. He shook again, and I wrinkled my nose at him.
“Well, I will have to think on it then, unless you want me
to call you crow.” I laughed, but he bobbed his head up
and down. “Oh.” Well, that was a boring name, but who
was I to judge? “All right, Crow it is.”
He cawed again, and
the door from the adjoining room
swung open.
“Hey. How are you feeling?” Nick asked.
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“I’m fine,” I replied. Crow hopped back up onto the
headboard above me.
“Ok, so Kai and Peran have gone back to the police
station to help in the hunt for the killer.”
“Do they know anything about black eyes?”
“No, but we can probably find out. The vampires in
this city have a large archive of magic history and folklore.
Not all of it is very kind to the warlocks and witches,” he
said snickering.
“What is with you vampires and the warlocks?” I
asked, remembering how he spoke of warlocks in the
nightclub.
“I think it’s because we are opposite. Vampires have
magic, but can't use it and warlocks can use it but can’t
keep it. We have a natural hatred for them.”
“You seem OK with Kai,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, Kai is different.”
“How so?” I asked, sliding off the bed.
“Vampires raised him.”
I didn’t understand the significance, but we were
walking out the door, so I let it go. As we reached the
elevator, Nick took out his cell phone and called for a cab,
seeing his phone reminded me I hadn't heard from
Georgia. I would have to try her again when we had a
minute.
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We climbed into the cab when it rolled up, and Nick
gave him an address. The city swirled by out the window,
tall buildings gave way to smaller ones and then we were in
a subdivision of expensive houses set back on large lots
with gates blocking them off from the road.
The cab pulled up to a house and stopped at the gate.
Nick got out and walked up to the small box beside the
driveway, he pressed a button and spoke a few words
before returning to the car.
“Is this it?” I asked, but the gates slid open, allowing us
access, so the car pulled up to the mansion beyond. Nick
paid the driver. We got out and walked up the steps as the
cab drove away. The eerie silence rose goosebumps on my
arms and the hair on the back of my neck. A deafening caw
made me jump and spin around to find Crow standing
behind me. Little shit. I pulled my magic that had spilled
out on the steps back in and scowled at the bird. He
bobbed his head like he was laughing at me.
The door ahead of us slipped open a few inches on
squeaky hinges, completing the creepy scene but Nick just
walked forward and opened the door like he lived here.
“Francis!” he called into the silence. I followed close
behind him, Crow hot on my heels.
The door behind us slowly slid closed making the same
horror movie squeak. I stopped walking for a moment,
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wanting to turn and run, but Nick’s back was disappearing
into the darkness, and I didn't want to be alone either, so I
hurried and caught up.
Nick took out his phone and flicked on the flashlight.
It did little to illuminate the space but cast shadows
everywhere. Hanging tapestries looked like monsters ready
to jump out and grab me and the glass chandelier reflected
like glowing eyes glaring at me from above.
“Francis!” Nick yelled again up a set of wide stairs.
“Have you been here before?” I whispered.
“A few times, let’s check the library,” he said as he
turned to head down a pitch-black hall. Our feet tapped on
the wooden floor. I could almost hear my heart racing in
my chest.
Nick shoved open a door and light flooded out into the
hall from within. As soon as my eyes adjusted, I stopped
dumbfounded by the sight before me. A man was dancing
around the room with a mop. I could see his headphones,
sitting upon his head, the cord disappearing into his
pocket, but he was using supernatural powers to leap from
balcony to balcony and spin through the air like he was on
a trapeze. Nick had jumped unnaturally a few times, but it
was nothing like this. This was like a super-powered
ballerina.
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He leapt again, still holding his mop in his arm. His
toes pointed like the dancers of the Nutcracker and one
arm out in a graceful motion that made it look like he was
all arms and legs. It was beautiful and hilarious.
I tried to hold in the snort of laughter, but as soon as
it escaped, Nick joined me, and I lost all hope. He and I
were laughing raucously when the dancing vampire finally
noticed us and leapt down to the main floor, dropping his
partner and pushing his headphones off his head with a
shocked look on his face.
“Oh dear, pardon me,” the vampire said in a thick
British accent.
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CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Francis, I would like to introduce you to Selena,” Nick
said when he got control of himself.
“Yes, very nice to meet you, dear, sorry about… you
know,” he hooked his thumb over his shoulder towards
the mop.
“Good to meet you too,” I said, biting my lip, so I
didn’t burst out laughing again. My magic swirled as it
always did when I approached a vampire, but it wasn’t as
eager as it had been before. It was more like it was looking
at the vampire.
“We wanted to get some information,” Nick said. I
looked around the huge library. On the main level were
some comfortable armchairs set in pairs with a table
between them. Around the perimeter of the expansive,
gothic-styled room were narrow passageways between tall
bookshelves. A balcony around the top of the room
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doubled the number of shelves and books, making the
quantity completely mind-boggling. The library in my
hometown wasn’t this large.
“What are you looking for information about?” The
vampire librarian asked. He pulled a pair of glasses out of
his pocket and set them on his face. His features were
sharp and narrow, making him look like Crow.
That thought made me turn to see if he was still behind
me, but he wasn’t I scanned the room, but didn’t see him
until he cawed loudly. I turned around, and my eyes shot
up to find he was sitting on the head of a carved gargoyle
that hung over the door we had entered through.
He bobbed his head and cawed again.
“Oh, my dear God,” the librarian whispered behind
me. I turned back and almost made myself dizzy spinning
around so fast. The vampire's mouth was hanging open in
a blatant stare. He reached up and pulled his glasses off,
still eying me with wonder. “You are the Black Crow.” His
words trembled, the last one squeaking out.
“Yeah, that's what they say,” I replied.
His eyes slid to Crow then back to me.
“Francis, we are looking for some information,” Nick
repeated, breaking the vampire out of his shock.
“Yes, of course, you are!” He said, resetting his glasses
and smoothing out his shirt. “Uhmm, yes, follow me.”
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He led the way to the back of the room and pulled on
a book in the bookcase. It didn’t come off the shelf though.
Instead, a groan filled the room, and the wall along the
back of the row began to move. It slid back a few inches
and then rolled sideways to display a dark hallway.
“I thought this sort of thing was just in movies,” I said,
straining my eyes to see beyond into the darkness.
Francis smiled at me, and when the door stopped
moving, he returned the book to its place and reached in.
The sound of a light switch flicking proceeded the
illumination of the passageway.
As he moved forward, we followed into the narrow
stone tunnel. There were a set of stairs leading down. The
stone appeared worn like so many feet had walked over it;
it was almost smooth. The ceiling was low, and both
vampires had to duck to avoid hitting their heads. Feathers
flapped past me as Crow whizzed by. His wing slapped
Francis, and the vampire swore, ducking his head further.
At the bottom of the steps, Francis flicked another
light switch and row after row of fluorescent light fixtures
hummed to life, displaying a vast warehouse-sized space.
The narrow aisle between the cramped bookshelves made
me feel claustrophobic as we walked on shuffling feet
along the uneven stone floor.
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“So, we have a row dedicated to the Black Crow,”
Francis said, ushering us down towards a bookshelf
halfway down the room. Crow's caw caught my attention,
and I tried to peer over Francis’ shoulder to see where the
bird had gone.
“We came for information. Anything you have on
black eyes,” Nick said.
“I want information on the Black Crow too,” I added.
“Black eyes?” Francis asked, a look of surprise on his
face.
Crow cawed again from further down the room. I
slipped past Francis and moved towards the noisy bird. His
feathered head bobbed as I approached and he flapped
down from the top of the bookshelf, using his talons, he
pulled a book off and dropped it to the hard floor.
I picked it up. Its worn leather cover had tattered
edges, but the pages were still readable though
handwritten.
‘Some warlocks turn evil. Their ability to siphon magic