Born of Shadows- Complete Series

by J. R. Erickson

  Abby listened, rapt. She had seen the Book of Shadows.

  "He lies," Vesta snarled, kneeling next to Abby. "But we can help him tell the truth."

  Vesta grasped Abby's head in her palm, sinking her fingernails into the flesh of Abby's scalp and forehead. A searing pain shot over her skin, and Abby howled in agony.

  "Stop!" Sebastian screamed.

  Vesta loosened her hold, but Abby felt the burning gouges. Tears rolled from her eyes and she turned away from the sight of Vesta, who smiled meanly above her.

  "The Book?" Tobias asked again.

  "It's at Sydney's house. I hid it there. I can show you where."

  "Liar," Vesta hissed and dug again, but Tobias interrupted her.

  "Stop, you fool," he snarled. "She's bleeding, you're wasting her."

  Vesta pulled her nails from Abby's skin, and she felt the warm blood trickle towards the back of her head, weaving through her hair.

  "You will take us after the ritual," Tobias said simply. "By then you will be ready to die."

  Tobias moved back to Abby, staring down at her, his head cocked to the side.

  "It is so sad, my dear, that you will never even get to feel it, not once, because it will all belong to me."

  He leaned down and licked the blood from her forehead. His tongue felt hot and bristly.

  Abby did not respond. She could barely feel him. Her ears had flooded with sound, and her head throbbed.

  Vesta laughed, throwing her blond mane back, her face tilted to the night sky. She looked evil, and Abby felt the magnetism of that thought. They were evil.

  A low wind picked up, washing over Abby and swirling her hair around her face. She could smell the lake water, could imagine the coolness against her face. She was so thirsty.

  "It's time." Tobias spoke softly. His eyes connected with Vesta and then Tane. They each nodded and moved out of Abby's line of sight. She could hear rustles, but no one spoke. Sebastian continued his struggle, but said nothing; a strange silence had fallen over the group.

  Tobias, Vesta and Tane encircled her. A thick grass rope snaked through their hands and they stretched it into a haphazard triangle as they spread out around her body. The rope looked old, bits of grass popping from the whole, deep charcoal and crimson stains embedded along it. The chants began low, just a murmur, their mouths moving in unison. Abby could not hear the words; they sounded like another language. The three trained their eyes on her, seeing, but not seeing, their pupils like smoky crystal balls. The forest was bathed in a silence so thick that it choked her.

  Her brain twisted in circles. How to get away... she tried to cling to those thoughts, but something was happening. Her skull felt as if it were being cracked open, sharp fingernails digging down into the bone and stretching it wide. Then a sensation like hot picks pierced the sensitive flesh all over her body. She pitched and twisted, wanting to rake her nails across her face, rip out her burning eyes, stop the images suddenly flooding her vision. Flashes of death assailed her. Blackened corpses strewn in fields of wildflowers, their flesh rank, stinking in her clothes, her hair and her mouth. In the forest, she turned and retched, but nothing came out. The visions continued, blood seeping from open wounds, the glint of a knife as it fell over and over. Abby saw Devin, her face a mask of terror, her arms and legs staked to the earth. Beneath it all, she saw the haze of her captors, their eyes gone from black to hot, red fire, faces of the dead dancing deep in their pupils.

  Tobias stood at her feet. His face grew starker in the moonlight, his features changed, his eyes sank deeper and his lips paled to a bleached white. The muscles in his neck elongated and tensed, then flexed into rope-like snakes beneath his engorged skin.

  Abby shook her head, but it only brought another surge of terrifying visions. She jerked her face to the right where she encountered the bloated face of Devin, her full lips parted, a teardrop of blood sliding from her mouth. She began to scream, but could not hear it. Only the chants of the three murderers rang in her head. They grew louder. Foreign slurs mixed with English, their voices blending into a single stream of loathing that wrapped erotically around their hunger.

  Tremors shook her body, everything vibrated, even her eyes. Fire leapt through her veins, singeing. She had once read a story about a man who was electrocuted; he described it as being burned from the inside out. They were burning her alive without a single flame touching her skin. She screeched, shook, fought, but could not reconnect with the circle and the woods. She was sure that her body was trying to shut down, some defense mechanism to knock her out and end the pain, but they would never get away then. More images slammed into her, but she forced them back.

  She searched for solace, some pillar of thought to cling to, and the cave from her dream flashed in her mind. She imagined Devin's drawing of the cave and used it to remember. She saw gray slabs of rock, an impenetrable force. That could be her, a solid wall - a dark, cool mass. She returned to her memory of that dream, a slow trudge, almost liquid air.

  She felt the pain subside, but was afraid to end her vision - she concentrated. The cave grew more real and the forest dissolved.

  In the tunnel a figure moved forward, Devin. Every surface of her body flickered with tiny glittering lights. She sailed towards Abby, a purple silk cloak billowing around her, fire-red hair flying like buoyant energy in the crammed space of the cave. Abby expected her to sail right through her with a single puff of air, but she slowed and stopped. It wasn't possible, Devin was dead, but none of that mattered.

  Am I dead? The thought nearly shocked Abby from the vision and back into the woods, but Devin reached out her hand. Abby felt the touch, fresh, clean, like pressed flour clinging to her fingers. Devin's eyes bore into her, they spoke to her, but her lips did not move.

  "What?" Abby wanted to scream, to force the urgent message from Devin's silence. Finally, Devin lifted her hand, her slender fingers opening. Abby stared into her palm; it was filled with water, a small pool cupped there like a precious stone. It glittered and undulated, reflected Abby's face in ribbons. She held her own hand out, thought, "Give it to me." Devin smiled, extending her arm forward.

  Liquid poured in. It was ice cold and thick. Abby opened her eyes to the woods, choking. Tobias knelt over her, a heavy glass bottle clutched in his hand. Spitting and hacking, she tasted the metallic blood as it spilled from her lips and over her chin into the crease of her neck. He was feeding her blood!

  The vacant look left Tobias's eyes as he watched the blood spew from her mouth - replaced with a storm of madness. His face warped and turned wolf-like. His lips shrank back, disappearing beneath a row of pointed teeth, and his eyes narrowed to two tiny black slits. For a second, Abby was sure that he was transforming into a monster - that he would bend forward and feast on her trembling flesh, but his features snapped back into place, the monster was a man again. He squeezed her nose, and the soft cartilage howled in protest as bright stars shot through her head. She gulped the blood, her gag reflex overcome by her empty lungs. He reluctantly pulled the bottle away, and she gasped, the fresh air only a minor relief. The acrid taste coated her lips and gums, the blood smeared over her teeth.

  She heard Sebastian's screams of protest, but they sounded far away as if she and the three killers had moved to a suspended plane and he had been left far below. Vesta and Tane were still standing around her, their hands tightly clutching the rope, their lips moving rhythmically.

  Abby felt her left palm opening and closing mechanically, her hand empty of the small glassy pool of water that Devin had held. Devin was gone, the cave was gone, but Abby felt a tug, an invisible tendon stretching out, not satisfied with the emptiness that it found. It wanted the lake - wanted to pull it inside of her.

  Tobias set the bottle aside, slipping a glinting silver dragon from his bag. The dragon, almost a foot long, flashed in the moonlight. Its head was reared back to reveal tiny ruby fangs. He pulled the tail, which separated from the dragon's torso, and a long, pointed blade em
erged. Abby's eyes fastened on the dragon. Its eye, a single black gem, throbbed viciously. Tobias clutched it, but it was as if the dragon held him, a force much larger than the palm-sized, jeweled beast. He placed the dragon on the ground, but held the dagger tightly, wetting his lips.

  Abby wanted to fight or scream, any response to the quivering blade lingering dangerously close to her neck, but she could muster none of these things. As she watched, the blade changed color, a subtle pink hue that shaded to a deeper red as he shifted it over her body. Centered above her, directly over the hollow of her rib cage, the blade flashed a brilliant red that momentarily blinded her. She closed her eyes, only for a second, snapping them back open as Tobias gripped her tank top and ripped it up the center, exposing her bare flesh.

  The red blade pulsed like a throbbing heart sucking and spurting blood. Tobias's hands shook as he held it tightly, poised over her. The invisible tendon in her palm snapped, her fingers closed on wet coolness, not blood, but water. Her arm jerked involuntarily, but the force was immense. It flew forward, ripping the leather stake from the earth. Her hand connected with the dagger, which sliced into the soft flesh below her thumb, but did not hurt.

  For Abby, time slowed, her body moved, but everything else traveled five seconds behind her. Tobias's face registered her free hand, but only as it reached back and ripped her other hand free. He dived towards her, his teeth bared, and she rolled. His face connected with the dirt. The dragon knife spun circles on the forest floor, dirt flying up in small plumes, like a mole tunneling underground.

  Abby kicked out, and the leather binds around her feet snapped like dental floss. Vesta dropped her piece of the rope, Tobias screamed in protest, but it was too late. The circle, the séance, whatever they had been doing, was broken. Tane looked confused, shaking his head and stumbling forward. Tobias jumped on top of the dragon, which was burrowing into the dirt away from him. The dagger lay on the ground, and Abby snatched it up, feeling it singe and melt into her skin. She jumped to her feet and wheeled around shoving the dagger out blindly. It ripped across Vesta's torso, cutting only fabric, but she reeled back and fell.

  A streak of air whipped by Abby's face, and she gasped, stumbling backwards into a wall of brush that barely held her. Tobias had an arrow in his back. He howled and reached behind him, trying to pull it free.

  Abby searched for the source, but saw only darkness in the trees beyond. Another arrow ripped into the clearing. It missed Vesta, just, and lodged in the tree beside her. Her eyes were wide and wild, but she did not hesitate, sprinting to Tobias and jerking the arrow from his back. Abby saw a spurt of black blood pour out from the wound.

  Abby ran to Sebastian, who had rubbed the ropes on his hands to frayed tethers that she easily sliced free. She knelt, cut the ties on his legs, wincing at the red, chafed skin on his shins.

  The dagger continued to burn, merging with her skin, and she started to cry out as the fire moved up her hand into her wrist. Sebastian grasped the dagger and ripped it free, leaving a welt of raw flesh on her palm.

  Behind her, another arrow whizzed by. It caught Tane in the leg, and he screamed for Vesta, who ran to him, looking shocked and scared. She grabbed the arrow and pulled it free, screaming and howling like a wounded animal.

  Across the clearing, a man dropped from a tree. His blond hair was disheveled, but his blue eyes seemed to laugh at the spectacle before him. He reached behind him, pulled another arrow and let it fly. It missed the fleeing Tobias, barely. The man cursed, immediately reaching for another. The leather strap that held his arrows swung violently as he raced into the forest behind Tobias.

  "Go!" Sebastian screamed in her ear.

  She hesitated. Hadn't help arrived? But Sebastian took hold of her wrist and pulled her blindly. They left the moonlight and dived into the shadows of the trees. She felt pickers rake across her clothing. Her lungs were strained, and she desperately wanted to glance behind her, but Sebastian made no allowances. She could hear his labored breathing, but he fought through it. At the beach edge, Abby began to turn towards Sydney's house, but Sebastian tugged her roughly in the other direction. They sprinted down the beach, and then he turned back into the woods, moving quickly to a destination that she could not see. They emerged in a small clearing, and she stared at a sleek navy-blue car parked along the wooded edge.

  It was not the car that Sebastian had returned in earlier that night, but he bent down, pulling the keys from a magnetic lockbox shoved under the back fender. He unlocked it and opened the passenger door, gently pressing Abby's head down as she slid inside. He climbed in and started the engine – it was surprisingly quiet.

  Abby shot a fearful glance toward the window, expecting cloaked figures to surround them, but no one came. He drove from the forest, and the car bounced over divots, its low body protesting the roots that grasped its undercarriage. Abby worried that they might bottom out and get trapped in the woods. Black trees flashed by, and she thought she saw the pale face of Vesta staring at her from the darkness, but then they hit the road with an audible bump and the tires caught pavement, rocketing them forward.

  Abby did not question Sebastian as he maneuvered the car onto the freeway, pushing the speedometer past 100. His eyes stayed fixed on the road, his tense face ready for any possible disruption.

  "What just happened?" Abby whispered, frightened by Sebastian's haunted features. He looked angry and exhausted, his mouth drooping in a grimace.

  "It's okay," he said aloud, perhaps for himself as much as her.

  She looked at the raw skin of her hand where a glossy heat radiated.

  "Should we have stayed? I mean he saved us. Right? Or was he one of them?" she stammered, twisting in her seat nervously. She didn't even know what one of them was.

  "They weren't human," she added, remembering.

  "No," Sebastian agreed, his eyes straight ahead, the white line a blur, as they fled into the night.

  "But what about the man with the arrows? Do you know him? Was he human?"

  Sebastian did not look at her and she saw something flash over his face, relief.

  A million thoughts rocketed around her head, all encased in a giant aching ball of migraine that had not yet hit full speed. Sebastian leaned forward and opened a small console. Several bottles of pills and a swathe of gauze tumbled out. He lifted a bottle and opened it quickly with his teeth, knocking two gray pills into his hand.

  "Here," he said gently, handing her the pills. "They'll help with the pain and a nap."

  She stared at the pills, strung between her desire for answers and the throbbing in every inch of her body. What if she took the pills and they were attacked? How would she defend herself?

  As if reading her mind, he turned to her, his eyes locking with hers before he turned back to the road. "You're okay, now. I promise."

  She took the pills dry and cast a final glance out the window. She thought she saw the man with the arrows sprinting along in the woods, but could not be sure. She shook her head and leaned back against the cool leather seat. The outside world rushed by, the highway void of late night traffic. The trees rose up like ghostly observers on either side of the car, or maybe something worse, much worse. The pills worked quickly, her head grew light and an impenetrable sleep descended.

  Chapter 15

  Sebastian gripped the wheel and willed his hands to stop shaking. He felt sick to his stomach and sipped from a bottle of water that had grown hot during the day. Abby snored beside him, and he fought his tiredness, knowing that sleep was not an option.

  He knew the way to Lake Superior. He had read Claire's account of the Coven of Ula and the secret island a hundred times in the previous two years. He had even considered trying to reach it, but knew that as a normal man he would never make it. Now he had Abby, a witch, and she would have to guide them there, even if she didn't know it.

  He replayed the scene in the woods over and over - a bad record that he couldn't take off. How had he lost control so completely?
They had nearly died, and if the stranger had not arrived, they probably would have. The stranger, the blond man with the arrows, bothered Sebastian. He wanted to be the one. He wanted to save Abby and avenge Claire. But how could he resent the man who injured Tobias and allowed them to see another dawn? He couldn't, but he did, and he hated the bitterness that tasted of bile on his tongue. He kept expecting the man to swoop down and land on the hood of his car and laugh at the weak human who tried to defeat a Vepar.

  Shame clouded his judgment and chased any lingering fear into the shadows. He would go to the island with Abby, and he would demand that they teach him as well. He would still avenge Claire.

  * * * *

  Abby woke gradually, her head leaning heavily on Sebastian's shoulder, his hand tenderly clasping her own. A thin line of drool had pooled on his shirt and she tried to nonchalantly wipe it away.

  "How did you sleep?" He yawned and stretched his legs in front of him.

  She stared out the windshield at a vast body of water. The smooth surface reflected the moon in its glassy face. The dashboard clock blinked three am.

  "I feel better." She spoke sluggishly and reached a hand to her forehead that no longer throbbed. Gusts of heat from the vents blew over her stomach, chilling her bare skin. She stared at the blood caked on her ripped shirt.

  "I dressed it," he told her quietly, nodding his head toward the small white bandage wrapped around her hand.

  "Thank you." She had questions, loads of them, but nothing wanted to come out.

  "What's happening, Sebastian?" She watched his face closely, but he did not react. He sighed and rubbed his thumb and forefinger across the bridge of his nose.

  "I know and I don't know," he murmured, turning his face to the glowing water. "I, I didn't know about you."

  "What does that mean? What about me?" She could not keep the edge from her voice.

  "I want to tell you." He pulled one of her hands into his own. "But I'm afraid that I shouldn't be the one. I know this makes no sense and you absolutely deserve to know the truth, but please trust me."