Damn it! I’d forgotten about him. If I fought, he would come to my defense and possibly die because of me. My grandmother might have asked him to watch my back, but my half brother, Forseti, had told me to bring him back to Asgard alive. I’d given him my word I would.
I let go of my mace and raised my hands. “Fine. Take me to the dungeon and do whatever you want. Just let Viggo go home.” Even as the last words left my lips, I remembered no one reasoned with my mother. Odin and Frigg had tried it to get my father back from her realm, and they’d both lost.
“My dear child,” she said. “Why would I give him up when he is the perfect leverage? For every day that you don’t cooperate, I’ll double his punishment. Take him to the west dungeon.” My mother smiled. It was the most calculating smile I’d ever seen on anyone. I shivered.
“Welcome home, Son.”
CHAPTER 2. THE HARBINGER OF DEATH
CELESTIA
“Ouch!” I opened my eyes and glared at Hayden Ferrand. “You pinch me again and I swear I’ll—”
She pressed her finger to her lips and jerked her head toward the front of the class. Cringing, I slowly turned to face the music. Ignoring the glowering students, I met Mr. Dupree’s eyes head-on. He didn’t look too happy.
“Crap,” I muttered when he got up and started for my desk. Here comes another detention. I seemed to have them once a month. So far, I hadn’t gone into a trance during calculus, but I was sure teachers compared and crosschecked their lists of trancers. Trancers. Using that word in a sentence, even though it was in my head, made me cringe even more.
Trancers. Noun. Clairvoyants who went into a trance in public and either astral projected or saw visions. It was actually cool to be a trancer, until you witnessed things that made your skin crawl or made you want to gouge your eyes. People were freaks. And I hated blood. Even my own.
Trancing. Verb. The act of standing, sitting, laying down, or falling flat on your face like an idiot as you go into a trance. I loved my powers, but the lack of warning was a bitch. One minute I’d be trying to impress a guy and hoping he’d overlook my crazy hair and the ugly skirt I’d pulled on in a hurry to avoid a tardy; the next I’d be sprinting along the hallway scared I’d humiliate myself. I’d trade a bad hair day to trancing on dates any day. Been there, done that. Twice. It was humiliating. No wonder I hadn’t had a date in over a year. The hangouts with my cousin and his jock friends didn’t count.
Tranced. Adjective. The woozy feeling one got after visiting the astral plane. It sounded like being wasted, juiced, or drugged. Luckily, my recovery was fast. I was down to a minute and a half. I planned to keep it under a minute by the time I graduated next year.
If one more teacher complained that I had gone into a trance during class, I could be suspended. The administration might understand that most students at Laveau Charter High School were Witches, but they still hated students disrupting their classes.
“I hope you were not sleeping in my class, Miss Devereaux,” Mr. Dupree said when he reached my desk at the back of the class.
Snickers from students followed.
“Trancing,” Phil Gilbert said under his breath while faking a cough. His buddy Ethan Reed snickered. I ignored them. They both belonged to the same coven. Clown Coven, Hayden called it.
“No, Mr. Dupree. I was only resting my eyes. I got new contacts.” I fluttered my eyelashes. “They’re supposed to make my eyes pop. So far the only things popping are tears. May I use the restroom?” I asked, standing and giving him an innocent smile.
“What is the school motto, Miss Devereaux?”
I sighed. “What?”
“The school motto. It’s written in both Latin and in English. What is it, Miss Devereaux?”
“No spells, no potions, no séances,” Phil whispered again.
“Mr. Gilbert, one more word from you and I’ll send you to the principal’s office,” Mr. Dupree warned, then cocked his eyebrow at me.
“‘The past is my heritage, the present my responsibility, the future my challenge’,” I said and glanced at the clock on the wall in front of the room. Time was ticking, and I had a life to save. “May I leave now? Please?”
“No, you may not. You know my policy about tests and restrooms. You must focus on your present responsibility to conquer the future. I assume you plan to attend some college or you would not be taking an advanced placement class.”
I glanced at my paper. The Cs in all the multiple-choice questions darkened. I thrust the paper under the teacher’s nose. “Done.”
Mr. Dupree’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. He’d already complained to my father during the last parent-teacher conference that I wasn’t applying myself. He didn’t understand my extracurricular activities. Dad did. Besides, calculus was kicking my ass, and I’d only taken it because Hayden promised to tutor me. My eyes went to the clock. I was running out of time.
Focusing on my grandmother’s face, tears filled my eyes. I wasn’t a crier, but thinking about Grams always did the trick.
“I really need to go, Mr. Dupree,” I said, wiping the tears from my cheeks. “I can’t see a thing.”
He didn’t cave.
“Let her go, Mr. D, or she’ll turn you into a toad,” came from the front of the class.
Once again, I ignored the speaker, even though I recognized the voice. Giselle Mouton—my annoying neighbor and part of the WAC—Weak-Ass Coven. That was my name for them. Hayden’s was even more insulting. Giselle had hated me ever since I had a vision of her and made the mistake of telling her in front of the class. We were kindergarteners when it happened, and I hadn’t known about Witches or premonitions. She’d never forgotten or forgiven me.
“Mr. D—”
“She got new contacts, Mr. Dupree,” Hayden said calmly and pulled out my glasses case. “She asked me to hold on to these in case the contacts bothered her eyes. Let her go. Please.” The “please” sounded like an afterthought because her “let her go” had sounded like an order.
The teacher was undecided for about a second, then he nodded. “Fine. Go, but come right back. I’ll hold on to your paper.”
Hayden had done it again. She had a way of making people see things her way that was both impressive and scary. I gave Mr. Dupree my paper and took the blue glasses case from Hayden.
“Thank you,” I mouthed and took off, grabbing the hall pass on my way out of the room. The hallways were empty, which was perfect. I couldn’t lock myself in the bathroom while a line of girls waited to use it. Our school wasn’t big. While we only had two hundred and forty students in ninth to twelfth grade, the two sets of restrooms for the entire student body weren’t enough.
I didn’t meet anyone until I entered the restroom. A girl was taking her time in front of the mirror. She caught my reflection and smiled.
“Hey, Celestia,” she said, turning to check her back one last time.
“Jade.”
“It’s all yours.” She started for the door and paused before opening it to ask, “Are you working at TC this evening?”
“Yes, why?”
“I need to replenish a few things, and I’d rather deal with you.”
“Sure. I’ll be there,” I said, but I was annoyed by her attitude. Hayden and her mother Tammy had worked hard the last four years to make their store, Tammy’s Cauldron, thrive. It was the only metaphysical store in Windfall, and people should be grateful they didn’t have to drive forty miles to New Orleans to buy crystals and stones for healing or alter items. Her mother even held group meditation lessons, healing sessions, and spiritual counseling, yet some people still treated them like outsiders because they were new in town. Most Witches in Windfall could trace their ancestry to prominent New Orleans families.
I waited until Jade left the room, then waved and the door locked.
People like Jade were dabblers. They had little knowledge of magic, but were religious users. They bought potions to smooth their complexion, charms to lure men, and spells for ever
ything. Half the time, the spells didn’t work because the casters were either fake or dabblers themselves. Real magic was not to be trifled with. Grams had drummed that into me. The majority of people in Windfall claimed to hate Witches, yet used magic in one form or another, or knew friends and family who practiced. The same haters were also the ones who came to Tammy’s Cauldron after hours through the back door.
Damn hypocrites!
I put my glasses by the faucet, gripped the edge of the sink, and stared into the mirror. I needed the reflective surface to solidify the vision from the bayou because it was fading fast. Usually, I could hold on to a vision and just visualize it, but Mr. Dupree had delayed me. The few times I’d tried to hold on to an image for too long, I’d ended up with a roaring headache and screwed up my clairvoyant abilities for days. Once I got a vision, I had to act fast or it faded.
A green aura appeared in the periphery of my eyes. Damn, I was cutting it close. The aura had glowed yellow earlier. Most Witches saw auras whenever they looked at someone. I didn’t. My auras were associated with my ability to astral project. Yellow auras came with future visions or premonitions, green auras with real time events, and red with past events. There were other auras, but I’d never seen them. My abilities were still emerging.
As the image became clearer, I trapped it in my head, sank to the floor with my back against the wall, and closed my eyes. Gah, my skirt offered little barrier against the cold from the tile floor. I wrapped the long skirt under me for more padding.
The admin should seriously consider investing in comfortable seats in the restrooms for people like me. Unfortunately, trancing was considered truancy. It didn’t matter that your body was present within the school compound. One of these days, I should stay in bed and send my astral image to school and see how they liked that.
My limbs grew heavy as I relaxed. Then the heaviness lifted the moment my astral form separated from my physical body. I was free floating. I willed myself to the bayou.
Whenever I practiced astral projection without a destination, I’d open my eyes and see my body, the people, and places as I moved away. It was pretty awesome. What wasn’t cool was the way an aura could appear while I was in the middle of something and force me to sprint to the nearest bathroom for privacy. Luckily, I wasn’t the only clairvoyant in my school, so seeing a student racing along the hallway was pretty normal. Some didn’t care and just dropped wherever they were. It all depended on their coven’s rules.
The scent of the bayou and the sound of an airboat had me opening my eyes. I lowered myself to the trees by the water and watched the airboat careen around the corner. Just like in my vision, the driver veered sharply to the right and miscalculated the distance between the boat and the land.
The boat flew over the water, cleared the bank, and stopped right by where I stood, or floated. My feet were on the ground without me feeling it, so I guess I was standing on the ground’s astral surface. The engine sputtered and died. The propellers whirred slowly and stopped.
The man turned the key in the ignition, but nothing happened. Cursing, he kicked the boat. Yeah, genius, that should do the trick. If I could touch or move things, I could find the problem in under a minute and fix the damn thing. Fixing things was one of the perks of being an only child to a man who liked to dismantle and reassemble things.
I whipped around at the sounds of rustling and breaking twigs. Two alligators ambled stealthily toward the boater, who was now on land, trying to fix his engine.
I’d forgotten about the gators. They were the reason I was here. I hated alligators. Hated their scaly bodies and slitted eyes. Hated that I could see their teeth when their mouths were closed. I couldn’t even explain when my hatred had begun. I just knew I’d always hated them and snakes and lizards and anything reptilian. While my friends’ idea of a horror movie was Poltergeist, mine was Jurassic Park.
Eyeing the creepers, I moved from my place by the tree and jumped in their path, heart pounding furiously and fear drying my mouth.
“Shoo,” I said, waving at them. “Leave him alone.”
The alligators stopped, sensing my essence. Animals were weird that way. The connection between them and Witches was so strong they felt us when more advanced humans couldn’t. My grandmother had been convinced they saw us, too.
“I mean it. Come any closer to him, and I will possess you, you slitty-eyed bastards,” I threatened the largest one when it tried to walk through me. I waved my arms like a lunatic and screamed, “Back off! I mean it. Go away.” They didn’t move. “Aaaaaah!” I screamed.
Of course, I would never possess the damn thing. The very thought turned my stomach. Not just because I was dealing with a reptile, but because my grandmother’s spirit might rise from the grave and strangle me. She’d drummed it into me what good Witches did and didn’t do. Possession was bad magic. Even if it was for a good cause, it was bad. It did things to a Witch’s magical powers.
“Hurry up,” I yelled at the guy on the boat between flapping and screaming at the alligators like a banshee. But like most non-magical people, he was deaf and blind to the spirit world.
I held the alligators back for as long as I could and was reaching my pissed-off-with-non-magical-people point when the engine coughed and sputtered to life. I turned around and watched the man maneuver the boat back into the water. He was safe. Laughing, I turned around and caught the gators glaring at me. I couldn’t explain how I knew they could see me. I just did. Then the big one barreled toward me.
There was nothing as scary or as terrifying as a full-blown gator running after prey. Even though I was in an energy form, I was being hunted, and adrenaline surged through me. Fear sent me hurtling back into my body.
My heart was racing when I opened my eyes. I jumped up and stared at my reflection. The strands of my hair stuck out as though I’d touched an electrostatic ball, and nausea and vertigo hit me. I grabbed the edge of the sink again and steadied myself.
Nausea and light-headedness were perfectly normal reactions after an astral projection, but the pounding heart and the sweat on my brow were new. Usually, I merrily went wherever my visions took me without worrying about getting hurt. This was the first time I’d physically responded to the fear.
Damn gators.
I peered closer at my reflection and cringed. My pupils were dilated, and my blue eyes had turned stormy, rivets of white crisscrossing them like lightning. I’d say they glowed, but that would mean I’d inherited something from the one person I’d tried so hard to forget.
My mother.
The image of the last time I’d seen her often snuck in to haunt me when I least expected it. The fear in her eyes as she’d stared at me. I’d gotten used to seeing her eyes glow after a vision. Gotten used to seeing them darken with hatred whenever she stared at me, but never filled with stark fear until that day. The day she’d walked out on us because of me. I’d only been seven, but on that day I’d learned that words could hurt more than actions.
“She is evil, a harbinger of death,” she’d whispered, glowing eyes darting from Dad to Grams before settling on me. “Death and monsters are all I see in your future. I should have killed you before you were born. Now, something is protecting you. You escaped the fire. The drowning. The falls. I’ve left you in the bayou so many times…”
My world had shattered as I’d listened to her list ways she’d tried to kill me and failed. A fire had gutted our house when I was about four, but I had miraculously escaped. I still couldn’t remember how, except Dad had found me by the trees near our house. My memories of who’d rescued me were hazy. Sometimes I dreamed it was a woman lifting me and carrying me to safety. Other times, I heard more than one voice.
Nightmares about drowning had spawned my fear of water. And the trips to the bayou must have happened when I was a baby because I couldn’t remember them, but they might explain my fear of gators and snakes and everything scaly.
Ten years had passed, but I still remembered her word
s and the rage in Dad’s eyes. My father, a decorated officer of the law, would have killed my mother with his bare hands if Grams hadn’t stopped him. Grams. Tears filled my eyes as I thought about her.
“Snap out of it, Celestia. You are more than what people see and stronger than you believe.”
I lifted my chin and blinked rapidly until I stopped the tears from falling. The white streaks in my eyes disappeared. A smile lifted the corner of my lips, and dimples flashed on my cheeks as Grams’ mantra echoed in my head.
You are more than what people see and stronger than you believe.
It had taken me a long time to see that. Because of Grams, I’d risen above hurtful things people said and did. Because of her, I’d embraced who I was. She’d even explained away my mother’s actions. It had taken years for her words to sink in, but I now understood that Mom had gone mad with magic. Magic madness was real. It affected Witches when they misinterpreted their visions. I had no idea what premonitions Mom had seen to believe I was a harbinger of death.
“I help people, Mama,” I said to my reflection. “I save lives. When you come back, you’ll see just how wrong you were.”
Feeling ridiculous for talking to myself, I splashed water on my face, grabbed paper towels from the dispenser, and dried my skin. My mother was never coming back, so there was no proving to her that I was a good Witch. She’d probably found a coven that would accept her interpretations of visions and had a new life. A happy life, away from me.
Sighing, I grabbed my glasses, waved my hand, and unlocked the door. I almost bumped into Hayden when I stepped outside. Somehow I knew she’d be waiting for me. Hayden was like my guardian angel.
“Saved another soul?” she asked.
“Yep.” The hallway was still empty. Time in the astral plane moved at a different pace from real time. I couldn’t have been gone for longer than five minutes, yet the time in the bayou had felt like an eternity. “You shouldn’t have followed me.”
Demons (Eirik Book 1) Page 3
