Born of Shadows- Complete Series

by J. R. Erickson

  "Of course," Kendra chimed in quickly. "There's life in a coven and life on the outside."

  "Also known as freedom," Victor said seriously, contemplating Abby as he traced the rim of his wine glass with his finger.

  "How so?" she asked, but of course she already knew—freedom from Elda, Faustine and her other teachers, freedom from the heavy stone walls and the constant expectations and the learning that some days felt a bit like torture.

  "I don't think you need me to answer that Abby," Victor said.

  "Let's show her instead," Dante added, reaching a hand into one of his long black boots. He pulled out a silk cloth and unwrapped it slowly on the table in front of them. Inside lay a scattering of small bones. Dante's deft fingers swept the bones and Abby saw what looked like the skull and first several ribs of a fish with the bent points of wings emerging from its sides. He took a small silver pouch from his pocket and set it next to the bones.

  He closed his eyes, spoke too low for anyone to hear and then swept the bones into his champagne. He tilted the pouch above his glass and sprinkled a dusting of green flakes into the shimmering liquid. The other witches drained their glasses and then passed the empty ones to him.

  "You too, Abby," Victor nodded at her glass. "Join us."

  She looked at their expectant faces, swallowed the last of her wine and passed the crystal goblet to Dante.

  He twirled his glass and then poured a small sip of his champagne into each of their glasses, mindful that the bones did not slip out.

  When she took her glass back, she noticed that the champagne had turned darker, muddy almost.

  "Cheers," Kendra said, conspiratorially leaning in. The others followed her and their glasses met in the center of the table. Abby took a deep breath and clinked her own against the others. She closed her eyes and took a drink...

  ****

  Have you seen Abby?" Sebastian asked coming up behind Dafne who stood, staring moodily through one of the castle's windows.

  The witch gasped and stumbled back as if he had burned her.

  "Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," he said quickly backing away, but still looking at her.

  Her dark eyes looked stormy and glazed as if she'd had too much to drink, or something else entirely.

  "Hittin' the bottle pretty hard?" He meant it as a joke, but of course she only glared at him silently.

  "Never mind," he sighed, holding his hands up and backing away.

  ****

  It happened immediately, before she even tasted the acrid liquid in her glass. The room and the other witches fell away. She spun in a giant vortex seeing only blurred colors and shapes. And then all was still and Victor's dark eyes were close to hers.

  "She's here," Victor said. The other witches gazed at her, their expressions gleeful.

  She looked around and gasped, but the water that should have flooded her mouth did not. She sat on an ocean floor, her legs tucked beneath her, and the sand spread out in gentle ridges. The other witches sat as well, cross-legged, and they appeared to be more interested in her reaction than their own.

  "We're at the bottom of the Atlantic," Kendra told her, spreading her arms out to either side and laughing.

  Abby realized that no words were actually being spoken. Their conversation consisted entirely of their thoughts.

  "Probably two-hundred feet deep here," Dante thought.

  "The ocean?" Abby asked.

  The others laughed and Victor grabbed her hand.

  "Look." He pointed overhead where a school of stingray drifted along. Their white bellies turned and caught shafts of moonlight. As they crossed over the group, their shadows cast everyone in darkness.

  "How?" Abby asked, when her amazement had abated enough for words.

  "Magic," Dante said, moving from his knees and darting straight up into the water. Marcus followed, back flipping and then diving back to the sand.

  "Have we astral-traveled then?" she asked, feeling the sand which felt like sand. She could also feel the cold in the water, though less intense than it should have been.

  "Sort of," Victor told her. "We haven't exactly named it yet."

  "You discovered it then?"

  "We created it," Kendra corrected her.

  "Well, that's a little dramatic," Ezra interrupted, earning a scowl from Kendra. "There are a lot of witches who have discovered unheard of magic and never written of it, so we don't know..."

  "Oh, come on," Kendra snapped. "Let Dante have his victory."

  "Hush," Victor laughed, moving to his feet. He pulled Abby up. She could feel the great pressure of the water around her and above her. Her ears popped and Victor laughed at the look of horror that briefly crossed her face.

  "It's okay," he said, slipping a finger into his own ear. "Happens all the time." He stuck his tongue in his cheek and made a loud popping noise. "Shall we swim?"

  She followed him as he pushed off and her costume did not feel wet or heavy, but merely floated. They swam towards the surface, but then Victor broke to the side. He kicked his feet gently, barely parting the water and kept his hand in hers, gently pulling her along.

  She gazed at the seabed, dotted with gray shells and low slithering fish. The sand sloped down and then dropped away where below them an enormous shipwreck slid into view.

  She jerked her hand from Victors, shocked at the enormity of the ship , rising like a hulking corpse in the dark water. Its hull pointed up, but still it lay far beneath the surface.

  "Don't be afraid," Victor told her. "Nothing can hurt you here."

  She nodded, but her chest felt tight and she grasped his hand harder as they swam down into the dark cavity. It was like the pirates' ships she'd watched in childhood movies. The sails were long gone, but a few tattered ropes still clung to the mast.

  The ship seemed to undulate with the water, its presence feeling sinister and, when Abby began to kick her legs and propel herself back in the water, Victor grabbed her hand.

  "No, come on," he told her, leaving no room for resistance as he gripped her arm and swam down towards it.

  As they drew closer, she began to see small schools of silvery fish darting through the decayed portholes in the ships sides. The ship was tilted, its stern lost in the debris field scattered along the ocean floor.

  "It's amazing, isn't it?"

  "Spectacular," she thought, and this time did not resist when he pulled her towards the main deck.

  ****

  When she returned to her body, swooning with the secret of what she had just experienced, Abby felt desperate to find Sebastian. She wanted him to meet Victor and the other witches and she could barely wait to describe their ocean journey.

  She left her new friends and returned to the Great Hall, realizing that she needed a bathroom break before she hunted for her missing sidekick. Abby found the latrine, a vacuous space of stone and mirrors with giant sunken tubs adrift in rose petals.

  Her head swam and the champagne and the thousand new faces all masked and adorned in feathers and glitter only added to her light-headedness. She leaned her hands on the edges of a stone basin, breathing deeply the perfume of the space and sneaking glances at her own unfamiliar face. Her cheeks, flushed pink, made her brown eyes appear darker, sparkling beneath painted silvery black lashes and candlelight.

  She grinned and shook her head in disbelief at the good fortune of such an inspiring night. Never had she experienced anything like it and, as crystal glasses were thrust into her hand and handsome witches in strange costume whisked her onto the floor and twirled her beneath the dazzling night sky, she grew exuberant and tipsy. )Now, to top it all off, she'd met other witches who actually understood her and they lived in Chicago, a city that Abby loved.

  A toilet flushed and she spun around, unaware that she was not alone in the bathroom. Soft footsteps padded from behind a copper door strung with garlands of fresh flowers. The witch was young, strikingly beautiful and hauntingly familiar.

  Abby searched her f
ace. When had she met the young woman who stared at her now as if they were old friends?

  "Abby," she breathed, and took Abby's hands into her own very pale, very cold fingers. Abby studied the wide-set hazel eyes and small girlish mouth.

  "Do I know you?" Abby asked, but the face before her slid into place in a photograph that Abby had seen, a photograph of a young woman in a red dress standing in front of a wooden swing set.

  "Claire," the girl said before Abby could find her own voice.

  "Claire?" For a moment she still could not place her and then..."Wait, Sebastian's Claire? But how?"

  Claire laughed, high and strange, and then snapped her long slender fingers.

  "Magic, silly."

  Abby leaned heavily against the sink. The rush of the evening was moving in another direction and she had begun to feel dizzy, black dots sparkling in front of her.

  "No time for that now," Claire demanded, gripping Abby's forearms in her hands and squeezing hard.

  "We have to go to Sebastian," Abby said suddenly, realizing that she held his most coveted prize only inches away.

  Claire shook her head and her image twitched and faded. Her touch on Abby's arms lost its intensity.

  "Follow the smoke," Claire whispered, but as Abby watched, Claire's eyes grew wide with fear and she let out a tiny, guttural sound. Abby turned to the mirror where Claire's gaze had locked. In the back of the latrine, a witch dressed in a Native American costume stood watching them. Her thick, black hair fell in a heavy braid over her shoulder. She wore a long, deerskin dress with a heavy pelt wrapped around her neck, the dried feet of the thing, a fox, hanging by her waist.

  Abby spun around, but the woman and Claire had both vanished completely.

  ****

  Sebastian leaned against a golden column wreathed in bundles of purple flowers that smelled almost like cherry pie. His eyes swam from the booze and he took a bite from the sloppy sandwich that he held in his hand. It had been at least an hour since he'd seen Abby and figured that he should find her, though no urgency arrived at her absence. He knew that she could take care of herself and, more so, she needed time apart from him to connect with other witches. He did not want to be the albatross that denied her the full experience as a new witch.

  He watched a group of child witches conjuring phantom monsters. A girl costumed as Cleopatra pulled a handful of sparkly dust from her pocket and threw it into the air. A winged canine with human eyes emerged for an instant looking so real that Sebastian's arms slid off the column and he nearly fell onto his back. He caught himself as the dust broke apart and rained down on the young witches.

  "They're talented, aren't they?" the voice came from behind him.

  He turned to see a beautiful woman with long, flowing purple hair watching him playfully. A smile curved her dark, glossy lips. She wore a tight, black dress that hugged every curve and nook of her body, wrapping so tight across her chest that he could see the white slopes of her breasts.

  "Have another," she flirted, handing him a glass of champagne.

  He opened his mouth to decline, but instead took the glass and drained it in a single gulp. When he finished, he stared at it in wonder as if he couldn't understand where the flaxen liquid had gone.

  Down the hall, a large wooden door swung shut and the movement caught his eye. He saw her for only an instant. Her short, dark hair hung above her pale neck. It was her tiny shoulders that gave her away. Years of his life had been lost, or perhaps gained, tormenting Claire for those narrow shoulders.

  "Claire," he called out, but the girl did not turn. She disappeared into one of the many ballrooms.

  He started to lunge after her, noticing that his feet felt heavier and that the gold pillar seemed to hold the entirety of his weight.

  The purple-haired witch looked amused and lifted her soft fingers to his lips. She cupped his chin and looked deep into his face. He stood, riveted by her eyes that were the lightest green, almost without color. He pitched forward, but not with his body, only his mind, and fell into the crystal of her eyes. He surrendered to the darkness.

  ****

  Abby sat on the floor and shoved her head between her knees, sucking in breaths that didn't fill her chest, but got lost somewhere in her throat. As she breathed, the champagne's effect dulled and she began to regain some of her composure.

  She had foolishly believed that as she came into her power, panic and anxiety would simply disappear. She would blast it away with a geyser or something. Instead, she felt heightened by everything, including anxiety, and the black spots behind her eyes were like moon eclipses.

  When Lydie walked into the bathroom, talking merrily with another young witch, Abby could only stare at them, imagining how insane she looked, but unable to fake it.

  Lydie immediately ran to her, squatting down and pushing her hair back from her face.

  "What happened? What is it, Abby?" The smile drained from Lydie's mouth and Abby felt guilty. The other young witch, dressed as an insect of some sort, looked equally unhinged.

  Abby shook her head and frowned.

  "Have you seen Sebastian, Lydie? I really need to find him."

  "Only earlier when you two were dancing," she said, continuing to look concerned.

  Abby struggled to her feet and smoothed out her dress, avoiding Lydie's puzzled stare.

  "You looked so scared, though. I mean, are you sure there wasn't something else?" Lydie glanced around, studying the high, dark corners in the bathroom. Candlelight only made more sinister the unseen crevices and Abby understood that as much as Lydie loved All Hallow's Eve, it also terrified her.

  When she left the bathroom, Abby felt the first wave of panic wash over her. Ghoulish, masked faces leered at her as she stumbled down the hall. She stared into faces and at the backs of heads, seeking only one, but his familiar blue eyes did not meet hers in return. When she finally found Oliver, her panic was bordering hysteria.

  "Sebastian's missing!"

  Chapter 7

  Abby sat on the salmon-colored chaise beneath her window and stared numbly at the black storm moving across the water. There were tears, but they were far down, imbedded in the dark places too deep to dig free, so her eyes remained dry while her heart split again and again with no physical release. Sebastian was gone.

  Gone? But what did that even mean? She couldn't seem to reach the bottom of that thought, the place where it ceased to be a boiling stone in her stomach and turned into a facet of the mind—a logical piece of information that she could work with.

  How had they talked her into returning? She had wanted to stay and the witches at Sorciére had more than offered their assistance and their coven, but somehow the witches of Ula rallied around her and, before she could protest, Oliver practically carried her to the mirror and back to the suffocating isolation of Ula. They force-fed her calming tea and brainstormed their strategies as Abby watched in utter shock and disbelief. Faustine would track him from the tower, Oliver and Dafne would go on the hunt, they would contact other covens, but all for what? They had left him there. He could have merely wandered into a dungeon and gotten lost, but Abby knew better than that. Superior witches with powerful skills had searched the castle for him. He had vanished without a trace.

  Now she sat in her empty room and watched the white caps on the lake below. Every watery surge thrust into her like steel pokers jabbing at the soft flesh of her heart. Still she did not cry and when Helena brought her more tea, she did not drink it, but let it sit on the windowsill and grow cold in the approaching twilight.

  She slept in fits, waking again and again to the emptiness of her room, only to remember a much greater emptiness—Sebastian. The clock chimed and she knew that twenty-four hours had passed since she'd last touched him, last seen the candlelight flicker in his blue eyes while he whirled her around the Sorciére castle, looking happier than she had ever seen him.

  "You have to eat something, love," Oliver told her, pushing in her door with his hip. He ba
lanced a tray on a single hand and Abby smelled orange juice that made her stomach turn.

  "Were you a waiter in a previous life?" she asked dryly.

  "In this life actually, one of my many pre-witch talents."

  Abby sighed and leaned back into her pillows. It was nearly six pm and she could already see the sun in its gradual descent. She had not left her room since they had returned early that morning and Oliver had tried twice to coax her down, but each time she refused. This time, he brought the food to her.

  "Come on, spoonful of sugar?" he asked, pointing to a bowl of sugar next to a halved grapefruit.

  Her stomach rumbled a hallow cry, but she ignored it, feeling only a knot where hunger usually lived.

  "I'm genuinely not hungry, Oliver."

  "I know that." He propped the tray on the bed and sat down next to it. "But you still need to eat. You're skin and bones as it is, Abby."

  Not true exactly, though the healthy weight that Abby had gained when her powers initially surfaced had suddenly subsided. Stress was a mighty force and it had rendered her skeletal in hours.

  She picked up a piece of toast and lifted it to her lips, taking a tiny bite. It scraped the inside of her mouth and took several minutes to chew, but she finally swallowed it with scratchy reluctance.

  "There. Happy?" She knew that she sounded bratty, but she didn't care. She felt horrible and wanted to pay it forward to anyone insane enough to enter her space.

  "How could I have left him? How could we have left him?" she asked Oliver, not for the first time. He was the only one who really seemed to agree with her that they should have stayed.

  "He never should have been there," Abby added, shaking her head viciously. "Why did I ask him to go? Why did I convince Elda to conceal him?"

  "Things happen, Abby," he said. "There's a reason for all this. We don't know what it is, but have faith that it will work out."

  She bit her cheeks to refrain from snapping at him and stared out the window instead.