by E. M. Moore
Ren stood, pushing us all back. He swallowed as he noticed all the bodies on the floor, but then he moved around the room, looking at things and under strewn pillows and broken glass while clutching his side. Finally, he turned. He stood up straight, or as straight as he could get, his hand outstretched holding a piece of lined paper. “The spell you need to get the familiar off him.”
I ran forward, tearing the paper out of his grip. “You got it? From the book?”
He nodded. “Turns out Dean wants to do business with me and was all too willing to give me this spell from his father’s book. You never would’ve gotten into the room, star baby. It has a familial lock on it. Only Reid’s can access it. I just played it off like one of the girls was so cracked out she thought she had a familiar on her and wanted to prank her about getting it off. He thought it was funny. Even led me down to the room to get this. The book is old, dark. The room itself is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It gave me the creeps just being in it.” Goosebumps spread out over his body as he told us the story. “That guy, Dupre, he doesn’t need that familiar. If he gets it, he’ll be too powerful to take out.” Ren looked over, his scowl etching further into his skin as he found Cassie’s body. “And he needs to suffer like they did.”
I couldn’t agree more. He’d killed enough people.
Gabe took the spell from me and read it over. Travis stepped forward and told Ren to clear out of the house and go somewhere else for a while until they could get the house picked up. It was one of the jobs of the Order. We’d probably have to call in Walter and the other superiors to take a look. I peeked at Ren. He’d probably gathered by now that I was more than just Randy’s girlfriend. If he brought me up in front of the superiors, they were going to ask questions.
Gabe pulled on my hand and we left the house, stepping our way over trash and dead bodies. It made me sick to my stomach to see the way these people died and in these gross conditions too. Dupre was a special brand of fucked up. He needed to be taken out, so he didn’t hurt the people, or witches, of Salem anymore.
Despite not knowing where to find Liam, we all picked up the pace toward the Jeep. Travis connected with Seth Hartle but shook his head afterward. Whatever Dupre had going on, Seth Hartle wasn’t involved with it anymore. He’d dropped his goon and went on to more disgusting things.
“Liam wouldn’t have gone very far,” Randy said. “He’d stay in Salem. I know it. Let’s go back there and see what we can find.”
Gabe and I both buckled our seatbelts, preparing for Travis’s death-defying driving. We needed to find Liam before Dupre did. However, there was no chance of that happening because Dupre already knew where he was, and we hadn’t a Goddamn clue.
“Listen,” I said, “Granny said we were stronger now that Travis and I…”
“Fucked?” Randy suggested.
“Yes,” I said matter-of-factly. “Let’s just do a locator spell again. Throw everything you have into it. If we don’t get to Liam…” I trailed off. No reason to beat the implications of not finding him over their heads. We’d all heard Ren and knew what was at stake.
“We should go to headquarters and do one on the pentagram,” Travis said. “We’ll be stronger there and we could use every bit of magical help we can get.”
Now that he had a destination, I sat back, watching the world pass by as if nothing else was wrong with the world. The trees still swayed in the wind, the clouds still rolled in. Nothing could change nature. No matter what was going on outside it, it didn’t relent. Just because a piece of my world was falling apart, didn’t mean the actual world was slipping through the cracks. It seemed so contradictory. So wrong. If Liam really was in danger, wouldn’t something in the world be going wrong? Maybe the sun wouldn’t come up tomorrow. Or maybe the birds wouldn’t sing. It was only fair that some other jaw-dropping thing would happen alongside it. If someone like Liam died, the world should feel it.
But no, I couldn’t think like that. Liam would be fine. We would all be fine.
Gabe leaned over and pressed a kiss to my ear before whispering. “Ren knows too much. When we call in the Order…”
I nodded, understanding what he was saying. Liam wasn’t here, but we’d procrastinated too long. Gabe interlaced his fingers with mine. I sat forward, clearing my throat. Randy twisted in his seat and Travis caught my eye in the rearview mirror. “I know this isn’t the best time to bring this up, but Gabe and I have been keeping something from you guys. Something we haven’t been able to figure out an answer to, and now that we’re most certainly going to have to come out as a coven now, it’s going to affect everyone.”
Shadows moved in under Randy’s eyes. He glared at Gabe first, then me. “And?”
“Gabe’s grandfather—”
Gabe squeezed my fingers, and I stopped talking. He gave me a small smile and then stared down Travis and Randy. “You can be pissed at me. It was my idea not to say anything. Norah didn’t like it from the start. I have talked to my grandfather about a girl being the fifth. He said it would never happen again, that it would throw the balance of magic off. He said it happened before, back in the day, and that the coven ended up self-imploding.” He shrugged as if that was that. Much like how I wouldn’t apologize for putting myself at risk with the Reid’s, Gabe was unapologetic about this. It was what it was.
“So, this is why we aren’t telling Walter about Norah?” Travis said, his voice hard.
“That and the feelings we all have,” Gabe answered. “You can’t deny you also didn’t have those same feelings or else you would’ve been the first one to say something to them.”
“Me?” Travis asked, his voice incredulous. “You’re the one who is all up on Order business. It’s in your family.”
“Don’t fight,” I begged. We really needed to be a team at the moment.
Gabe ignored me. “If I’m the one who should’ve thought it a bad idea to lie to them, which obviously I didn’t, then we shouldn’t even be having this conversation. It’s better that the Order didn’t know about her, and it’s still better they continue not to know about her.”
“Do you think there’s truth to it?” Randy asked, staring at me. “Norah’s being here will affect us in that way.”
I swallowed. “Granny said I was exactly where I was supposed to be even though it wasn’t the best place for me.”
“And Walter himself has said the pull doesn’t pull the wrong person in.”
“Which is why I don’t understand why we can’t just tell him Norah’s the fifth,” Travis said.
Randy crooked a finger at me and I moved forward. He pressed a soft kiss to my lips. “It doesn’t matter to me what happened in the past or what happens now. Norah’s here to stay. They can’t break us up. She got the pull, and even if they tried to do that. It’s not like we would let it happen.”
“Agreed,” Travis said.
I looked up, smiling at him in the mirror.
“I’m glad you said that,” Gabe started. “Because you were the main reason why we weren’t saying anything. You weren’t on board the Norah train yet, and I was worried you would’ve turned us all in if you thought we were going to implode.”
Travis’s eyebrows furrowed. “You guys thought I would do that to you?”
I needled my finger into his shoulder. “You have been known to be a dick.”
He ignored my teasing, his mouth slightly open as he tried to catch Gabe’s eyes in the mirror. “I just thought you guys knew it’s always been about the coven for me. Majority rules. Even if I’d never hopped on board the Norah train, that wouldn’t mean I would’ve turned you guys in for it. That’s not who I am.”
“Can we stop using train as an analogy for me?”
“What should we use?” Gabe asked.
“Sweet ass?” Randy suggested.
I glared at him and shook my head.
Travis chuckled. “If I’d never hopped on Norah’s sweet ass, I still wouldn’t have turned you guys in for it.”
The vehicle erupted into ridiculous laughter. At the same time my heart leaped, it came crashing down. We were missing one very specific, one very important piece. I needed Liam here, so he could blush at the ‘jumping on Norah’s sweet ass’ comment. I missed him. Holy fuck, it was like a hole to the heart.
The Jeep silenced in an instant as the heavy dose of reality hit us over the heads. “We’ll be there soon,” Travis said.
Right now wouldn’t be soon enough for me.
21
As soon as we entered the city of Salem, my stomach clenched. I hissed, trying to breathe through the pain. Travis lost control of the car for a second and then twisted the wheel to get it back on track. I looked up. “You felt it too.”
He cringed. “It’s back to normal. Damn. I don’t know why I was ever mad I was missing out on this. I forgot how bad it sucked.”
“Me too,” Gabe said. He rubbed his abdominal area. “More powerful than before. I guessed you getting with Travis has everything right back on track.”
Travis smirked. “Who knew my dick could change lives?”
My mouth dropped, then I laughed. Loud. I pushed his shoulder. “Just follow the fucking pull. I bet it’s going to take us right to Liam and Dupre.”
Travis’s gaze narrowed at the road in front of him. He blew past yellow lights and rolled through stop signs. It became obvious we were being pulled toward the wharf area of Salem.
“Hopefully this means we’re not too late,” Gabe said.
“We’re not too late,” Randy said, his voice terse.
I moved forward and put my hand on his shoulder. He reached behind and covered mine with his big mitts. Heat flowed off him. He was burning up.
We were getting closer. The pull was at its peak, and that could only mean we were almost at our destination. “No fucking way,” Gabe said.
“What?” I asked, peering through the windshield.
“We fucking checked here,” Randy said.
I looked up at a big building, stone, and ancient, sat against a backdrop of the ocean. “What is this place?” I asked.
Travis maneuvered the Jeep to the side of the road and slammed on the brakes. He sat back in his seat as he jammed the shifter into Park. “This is where we stripped Jax. We haven’t used it since.”
“Another headquarters?”
“Kind of,” Gabe explained, pulling me out of the car. “It’s not our secret headquarters. This is official Order business offices. The witches around Salem know about it and come here when they think they need us. We haven’t really used it much after Jax.”
We all stood outside the Jeep, staring up at the building. For them, this all meant something deeper. Travis’s face was pale when I looked at him. I stood up on my tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “You couldn’t save Jax, but we can save Liam.”
His gaze hardened, and we all strode forward. A blast of fresh rain aroma hit me in the face as Gabe did the visibility spell to see what we had going on inside. Sure enough, Liam and Dupre were there, locked in a magic battle. We started to run, Randy barging in through the door and leading us all to an enormous room. A huge painting that reminded me of the Last Supper adorned one wall above a row of chairs. In the middle of the floor where Dupre and Liam currently fought was an enormous pentagram.
“And here they are,” Dupre said. He sent a zap of magic toward Liam that knocked him on his ass.
I gasped. Liam. Poor Liam. He looked like absolute shit. He had bruises and cuts all over his body. His usually short hair had grown out and was wild around his face. His glasses hung crookedly on his nose. I ran toward him. “Liam!”
Travis pulled me back. The serpent familiar on Liam coiled in and around his skin. Liam sat up, eyeing us, but there wasn’t anything recognizable in his features. His eyes were hard, his gaze was cold. My heart split jaggedly as if ripped apart. He looked as if he’d barely recognized me.
“Look, Liam, they’re here to save you,” Dupre prodded.
He laughed darkly. “Save me?” He shot to his feet and smirked. His eyes glinted red as he pulled on his magic, forming a fire ball in his palm. “I’m perfect. I’m strong, I’m powerful. Look what I can do now.” The flames rose upward toward the ceiling in a quick burst. It heated my face, and we all stumbled back. I tripped over my own feet, as my body surged, some of the magic leaving me and flowing into Liam’s trick. He raised his eyes to the ceiling in awe. No doubt it had never been that big before.
“I’m going to need that familiar back now,” Dupre said.
Liam matched his disdainful tone. “That’s not going to happen. We’ve bonded. We understand one another.”
Randy stalked forward. “Don’t say that. You’re not like that familiar. You’re good.”
Liam’s gaze narrowed at Randy. “You just want to keep me the shy, unimportant piece of shit I was, so you could have all the girls to yourself. You’re just trying to keep me down.”
“You have Norah.”
Liam’s gaze flicked to me. “And you still involved yourself in what we had. She wouldn’t even want me if you weren’t there either.”
“That’s not true,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s not true at all. Is that what the familiar is telling you? It’s a lie, Liam.”
“No, it’s not. The Liam before didn’t get girls like you. I’m just a charity case. I’m a member of the coven, so you have to be with me too. Well, I’m not just the shy, smart one anymore.” His eyes glittered as he threw the flames to the side of the room where they exploded and made a charcoaled dent in the wall. “I can do things now other than recall information and look stuff up on the computer. I’m not going to be the guy who just sits around and waits for you all anymore. I’m not going to be the outsider again. The weak one. The one everyone takes pity on.”
Gabe moved forward, his hands outstretched. “You were never that person.”
“What would you know?” Liam asked. “You were never the one who accompanied you guys to parties and had the girls look at you like you were the odd one out. Scrawny, ugly.”
My temper flared. “That’s bullshit,” I said. I stepped forward, but Travis held me back.
Liam never missed anything. His stare found where Travis and I connected. His eyebrows flew in the air. “Ah, so I see we’ve finally managed to get Travis, too. Come on, Norah, you can’t really think you would’ve kept stringing me along now that you have him. You would’ve dropped me.”
I pushed Travis off and ran forward. I took Liam’s hands. They flared so hot they burned, but I kept them there, anyway. “You know that’s not true.” I looked him deep in his dark eyes. “You know me, Liam. We have a connection separate from them. I want to help you. I want to take the familiar off, so you can go back to who you were. Who we were.”
Liam laughed in my face and tore his hands away from mine. “I don’t want to go back.”
“This is all very touching,” Dupre said. He flicked his gaze toward the second floor of the room where other chairs sat looking over the railing. “But I don’t have time for this. You can join me, Liam, if you want, but I’m going to need you to take Norah, too. I still have a promise to uphold.”
I turned toward him. “Go fuck yourself. Liam would never join you.”
Liam scratched his chin, his head dropping to the side as he regarded Dupre. “What’s in it for me?”
My eyes bugged out of my head. I turned toward Liam, who openly looked at Dupre curiously. He really wanted to know.
“Liam,” Travis said, his voice hard. “What the hell is wrong with you? This isn’t you.” He swallowed, no doubt seeing Jax in front of him. We were in the same building, probably in this very same room. The seating, the pentagram. It was the witch equivalent to a courtroom. “Did you…” He stopped, taking a deep breath before he started again. “Did you hurt those witches, Liam? Did you drain them?”
Liam blinked, and my heart soared whe
n he was repulsed by the idea. Thank God. He hadn’t gone as bad as we thought he had. Or at least didn’t let ourselves believe he had.
“No,” Dupre said. “That was all me. I just followed Liam around after I sensed the familiar one day. He led me to a bunch of witches, so I just went right back after him, soaking up all the witches’ magic.” An evil grin crossed his face. “I’m more powerful than you now, with or without the familiar.”
He shot his hands forward. A tangle of white magic exploded from them. I tried to block it, but Liam’s fire stunt had me weakened. The tangle of white fell over me. I tripped to the ground. The magic secured my wrists and feet and then dragged me toward Dupre.
I slid over the hard ground, coming to rest right next to his feet. Dupre smiled down triumphantly. “I knew I’d get you sooner or later.” He peeked up into the balcony again. “Jay will be so happy.”
A gust of wind knocked Dupre into the wall behind us. I looked up to find Travis’s hands glowing red as he used his magic to control Dupre. I twisted and turned, but I couldn’t get out of the magical restraints.
Liam diverted Travis’s magic until it was pushing on me. I slid back into the concrete wall, hitting my head off it. For a second, I couldn’t breathe with all the air rushing at me, but Travis immediately stopped the spell, and I gulped in a few breaths.
“I want to listen to him,” Liam said, flicking his hand out at Travis. He sent Travis flying into the air, landing hard on the ground. Randy bent over to help him to his feet, and Gabe rushed toward them, the paper with the familiar spell on it in his hand.
With the two not paying attention, the guys pulled together. They closed their eyes, trying to get the restraints off me, but all it ended up doing was taking some of my magic, and nothing happened. I pushed and pulled against the white magic-like ropes, but they wouldn’t budge.
“The more you struggle, the worse it is for you,” Dupre said, smiling. “Jay came up with the spell himself.”
“Well, good for fucking Jay.”
