"Very little. I get the feeling he's still sore with me."
Helena nodded.
"It was hard on all of us when you left, Julian."
He looked up, surprised.
"I was under the impression that most of the coven preferred that I leave."
"Not Oliver and not me. It hurt to see you go. It hurt even more when we didn't hear from you."
Julian's eyes softened and he looked at Helena with regret.
"I missed you too, Helena. I hated to leave, but I couldn't stay. I was haunted. Even now it's hard."
Helena looked at her hands. They trembled as they often did since the attack on Ula. She shoved them into the folds of her colorful patchwork skirt.
She gazed at him steadily, stared into his nearly transparent blue eyes and wished that she could read his mind. She had loved him when he'd left. She wondered if she loved him still.
"I am truly sorry, Helena, from the bottom of my heart. If I could have stayed, if I could have made it work, I would have."
"But you did stay, Julian. After Miranda—" She paused, her voice caught on the name. "After Miranda passed, you stayed for decades. And then suddenly you left."
"Murdered," Julian corrected her. "Miranda did not pass," he closed his eyes as he said the word, "peacefully in her sleep. She woke to chaos and violence. Tobias killed her without a thought, without a purpose."
Julian's eyes had grown distant with the memory. Helena could sense the dormant rage just beneath the surface of his pain.
She nodded stiffly and returned to the journals. Her eyes grew tired after only a few pages. She closed them and leaned her head back in her chair.
"This is interesting," Julian said suddenly.
He held up an old journal entry. The paper looked yellow and stained.
"It's a map," he said.
Helena stood and went to his chair, balancing on the armrest.
The map, clearly drawn by a novice, showed a shoreline and scribbled trees. The blank space beyond the shore was labeled Lake Michigan. Within the trees a small x and the word "body" were crudely marked.
"Well that's useful. It could be anywhere," Helena said.
"No, look." Julian pointed at a single, tiny word in the upper right corner of the page. "Trager."
****
As Sebastian maneuvered the van down the long paved driveway that led to their home, Abby sighed and rested her head against the seat. The drive had taken them twenty hours. No one wanted to rent a hotel. All of the witches and Sebastian preferred to put as much distance between them and the L'Obscurite as possible.
"I'm beat," Oliver groaned, pulling open the back door and stepping out. He dropped into several squats and stretched his arms overhead.
"Me too," Lydie mumbled.
"Bed sounds good," Kendra agreed, rubbing her temples and blinking a few times. Since her journey into Ethel's dreams, she had complained of a constant headache.
Sebastian offered to make breakfast, but the witches opted for bed.
In their bedroom, Sebastian pulled the comforter over Abby and lit a fire.
"Come lie with me," she said when he finished.
He looked alert, despite the long drive, but nodded and climbed into bed. She pushed her back into him and he wrapped his arms and legs around her, breathing her in.
"You're experiencing powers, aren't you?" she asked. She had felt them during the ritual in New Orleans. Though he was not in the circle, his presence hovered around them like a shield.
"I think so," he admitted. "I haven't turned into a wolf at the full moon yet, so that's rather disappointing."
She laughed and wiggled her butt against him.
"Earth, I think. That's only a guess though. You just feel so solid lately. Sometimes I notice that around Oliver. Like he has roots growing out of his feet."
Sebastian stiffened slightly.
"He likes you," Sebastian said.
"We're friends."
"He likes you as more than a friend. I know that you know, so let's not act, okay? There's enough confusion in this life without the pretense."
"Okay," she sighed. "Yes, I'm sure that's true, but those aren't my feelings. He's not a threat to you, not ever. I love you, Sebastian. I love you in a way that I didn't even know existed. A thousand lifetimes kind of love."
He pulled her tighter and began to kiss the back of her neck. She felt her body grow warmer.
"I love you too," he murmured into the bare flesh of her back. "And I want you."
He stripped her clothes off slowly. She lay beneath him and watched as he took his own shirt off. She traced the muscles of his chest down to the v shape that tapered into his pants.
Abby longed to draw him into her completely, to somehow make a single person from their two bodies. Afterward, he wound his body around her and they slept.
****
"I thought we could stay here for a couple more days and then Lydie and I will make the trip back to Ula to fill them in on New Orleans," Oliver told Abby the following morning.
Kendra and Victor had woken early to return to Chicago.
"Of course. Are you okay with waiting?"
"Yeah. Lydie's worn out. I think she wants to read books and play with your cat and pretend she's not a witch for a little while."
Abby laughed.
"I think I'll join her."
"You and me both," he said. "But I figure two days max and then we need to leave. I want to get this information to Faustine, especially the book pages. If he could track down that book, maybe..."
"Maybe we'd have another five hundred pages of stuff to sift through," Abby sighed. "Seriously, how are we ever going to get through the journals and the information from the Asemaa?"
"Victor set up a pretty stellar system in the vault and everyone at Ula is reading. We have a lot of eyes on that stuff."
"A lot less eyes while we were road tripping south."
"Still, we needed to go," Oliver said. "I think this is important."
"It's scary is what it is. Possession? I don't even want to go to sleep at night."
"You have plenty of protective spells around this place, Abby. No spirits are coming in unless you invite them."
Abby nodded, but she thought back to the presence in the nursery two weeks before. She had only mentioned the experience to Victor, preferring not to alarm the others.
"We made an enemy out of that witch Ethel and didn't even get any useful information," Abby continued.
"I get the feeling she has a lot of enemies. I doubt we're at the top of the list, and we did get useful information. Kanti wanted us to live. She stopped Ethel from burning the house down."
"Yeah, but why?"
Oliver shrugged.
"I'm afraid that's where my vast knowledge comes to an end, but still, it's good to know, right?"
Abby bit her lip.
"I wish I knew."
"So, not to change the subject, and I don't want to step on toes, but is everything okay with Sebastian?"
Abby looked away, struggling to meet Oliver's questioning gaze.
"Yeah, of course," she lied. "He's just edgy. Who wouldn't be, right?"
"You can talk to me, Abby; you know that, don't you? About anything?"
She thought of the secrets that she currently harbored. The baby growing inside of her. Sebastian's burgeoning anger coupled with a darkness that came over him. As a human she might not have noticed it, but as a witch, she sensed energy in a wholly different way. When he lapsed into his moods, the light seemed to drain from the space around him.
"I do know, Oliver, and I appreciate it, truly. I think everyone is going to be a little off until..."
"Yeah exactly, until. From where I'm sitting, I don't see an end in sight. And this possession stuff that Ethel kept back, she did that for a reason."
The kitchen door swung open and Abby's black-and-white kitty Baboon strutted in with Lydie on his heels.
"I just gave him a good brush and rubdown ,
" she told them. "And now I want to bake cookies."
Oliver laughed and hopped off his stool. He squatted down to pet the cat, who purred and rubbed against him.
"Be careful, too much petting and he'll bite you," Lydie warned.
As if on cue, the cat turned his head and snapped at Oliver's outstretched fingers.
"Ouch, little fur devil."
"That's my angel you're insulting," Abby joked. "What kind of cookies do you want to make, Lydie? I can definitely get on board with cookies."
"Me too," Oliver said, pushing Baboon onto the floor and rubbing his belly. The cat playfully batted Oliver away.
"My mom used to make snowdrop cookies. I've been thinking about those lately," Lydie admitted, wistfully.
"Seems appropriate." Oliver tilted his head toward the window where snow had begun to fall.
"Any clue what the recipe is?" Abby asked.
"We're witches," Oliver said.
"We'll improvise," Lydie finished.
****
Oliver, Helena, Elda and Julian stood in the castle's oratory. Oliver and Lydie had returned to Ula that morning after two days of cookies, movies and pretending that they were not witches.
Sun shone through the stained-glass windows and cast rainbows of light on the scarred wooden desk they hunched over.
"I don't recognize the writing," Elda admitted, studying the torn pages that Oliver had brought from New Orleans.
"Nor do I," Julian agreed. "Although something in the tone is familiar."
"It's the content that is disturbing to me," Helena added, pulling over a chair and sinking into it. Weakness continued to plague her, and standing for more than a few minutes at a time fatigued her. "It speaks of spirit possession."
"Through bloodlines," Elda finished.
Oliver pointed to a passage.
"The writer says that possession is short-lived. Hours at most. So what would be the purpose?"
"To have a body," Julian said simply. "It's one thing to manipulate through the mind, through dreaming and visions. It's quite another to pick up a knife and stab somebody with it."
"You think she wants to kill someone?" Helena asked, trembling. She grasped the edge of the desk to steady her quaking hands.
"I think she's had several hundred years to build this rage. I don't believe that she even found the strength to communicate until recently. Look at the history. We find traces of the curse, but no evidence of her as an actual participatory entity until the last twenty years. Victor started receiving visions of her. Abby is having dreams. She's clearly working with the Vepars, but before that? Nothing."
"So what happened? Who opened the gate for her to come through?"
"That's the million-dollar question, I think," Julian replied.
"And she appeared in New Orleans and stopped this witch Ethel?" Elda asked, frowning.
Oliver knew Elda had been angry when he admitted that he and Lydie and the other witches had gone to New Orleans, but she was biting her tongue.
"Yes. Abby saw her. She described her as phantom-like, so she doesn't have a body yet."
"But Dafne is still missing," Helena murmured.
Chapter 16
"It's so good to see you." Gwen moved forward and gave Abby a fierce hug. "And to meet you officially, Sebastian."
Gwen hugged Sebastian and then gestured them toward a cozy booth in the back of the restaurant.
They passed a case of croissants and Abby's stomach growled. They had eaten breakfast, but Abby noticed that breakfast barely satisfied her these days.
"Which one do you want?" Sebastian asked, grabbing her hand.
"The almond are amazing, and the chocolate," Gwen told them, winking at Abby.
"One of each," Sebastian declared and returned to the counter to order.
Abby slid into the booth next to Gwen.
"I appreciate you coming all this way," Gwen told her.
Abby and Sebastian had driven to Detroit to meet Gwen, who had been an integral part of the Asemaa and the first person to enlighten Abby about the curse. Gwen and her daughter Ebony had fled to Detroit after several members of the Asemaa vanished. Though Gwen offered to come to them, Abby thought it best if she remain outside of Trager until they had a better grasp of the Vepar's intentions. Oliver had told Abby about seeing Stephen in the Vepar's lair, which meant that Gwen was right about the danger their group was in. She had not told Gwen about Stephen's death and dreaded the prospect.
"We were happy to come," Abby assured her. "And we're actually taking a little trip to Ohio, Sebastian's hometown, so this was on our way."
"Oh good, it gives me hope to see you together. Sydney would have been over the moon."
"How's Ebony?" Abby asked, wanting to avoid a conversation about Sydney. Her pregnancy created too many turbulent emotions, and great sadness might result in the bathroom flooding or a sprinkler system going off.
"She's happy. I've done my best to keep her in the dark—she is only four, after all. Four going on twenty." Gwen shook her head and smiled. "She's home with me so we have a lot of fun."
"How about your other friends? The ones who originally took Ebony?"
"They're okay. Everyone is okay, as far as I know. I reconnected with Lorna. Though I haven't seen her, just a few quick phone calls. She's in Canada, but Stephen, still nothing from him."
Sebastien returned with their croissants and a tray of coffees. He slid next to Abby.
"I have news about Stephen," Abby told her, taking Gwen's hand.
Gwen studied her face and then her eyes began to fill with tears.
"He's dead?"
Abby nodded.
"I'm so sorry, Gwen. I dreaded this moment. Oliver," she dropped her voice, "another of the Ula witches, recognized his body in a Vepar's lair."
Gwen inhaled sharply and clenched her eyes shut.
"A lair?" She said it out loud as if that might make it more true. "But why? Because of the Asemaa?"
"I don't know, but probably, yes. We've been going through the information and, frankly, it's overwhelming. One thing we know is that the Vepars are strongly connected with the curse, and we're pretty sure they know more than us."
"Maybe not," Sebastian interrupted. "They seem to have a direct connection to the creator of the curse, but I get the feeling they're in the dark. I think she's playing them."
"She?" Gwen asked.
"Kanti," Abby told her. "We believe that she created the curse, although even that, we're not sure of."
Gwen pressed her palms into her eyes and shook her head.
"I don't know if I should hear this." She looked up, afraid. "What if they come after my child? Is this information going to sign our death sentences?"
Sebastian glanced at Abby.
"I don't think so, Gwen, but I get it. If you don't want to know, you don't have to."
"If they believe you have information, I don't think claiming ignorance will save you," Sebastian added.
Abby shot him a warning look.
"It's true," he told her unapologetically. "These aren't people to be reasoned with; they're not even people. I don't know how much you're aware of, Gwen, but if you have even a sense of what Vepars are, then you know better than to think they'll leave you alone if they believe you're valuable to them."
Gwen shot a distressed look at the door as if a Vepar might stroll in at any moment.
"I never would have joined the Asemaa had I known. I love Sydney, but I want out of this. I can't put Ebony in danger."
"They followed me to France. They took the woman I was staying with and killed her too. You can run from them, but like I said—" Sebastian continued.
Abby put a hand on Sebastian's arm to stop him from saying more.
"I would be scared too, I am scared, but Sebastian is right. Still, they didn't attack you in Trager, and it may be that they're not as invested in the Asemaa as we think. Maybe Stephen went to them."
"You think he confronted a Vepar?" Gwen asked, incredul
ous. "He was impulsive, but not stupid."
"You never know, Gwen. They look like you and me. One of the detectives working Devin's case was a Vepar."
"What?"
"Yes," Abby confirmed. "Alva was his name. He's a major player in their world and yet he's involved in the investigation of a witch they'd killed. It's strange."
"But why? Why do they even bother?"
"We think it has to do with Trager specifically," Sebastian chimed in.
Abby looked at him questioningly.
"I was talking with Oliver about it," he told her. "Oliver couldn't think of another time he'd seen a Vepar place himself within an investigation, but Trager seems to break all the rules."
"What about Claire?"
"He was there," Sebastian admitted. "But on the sidelines. A bystander watching the chaos unfold."
"Do you think you could find out what Stephen discovered in Texas?" Abby asked.
Gwen had told Abby that just before he disappeared, Stephen told her he intended to meet someone in Texas who had information about the curse.
"I doubt it," Gwen sighed. "But Lorna might know. Like I said before, she was a lot more involved than me. She took the whole thing really seriously."
"She fled to Canada?" Sebastian asked.
"Yeah, she has friends there. I think she's been moving from place to place."
"Is she being followed?"
"She doesn't think so, but she's suspicious by nature."
"Can you call her?" Abby asked.
"No, she'll call me. She uses disposable phones and then throws them away."
"Do you know when she'll call?"
"Probably in a few days."
"Can you set up a meeting?"
"Yeah, I think she'd like that. She asks me if I've had contact with you every time she calls."
"Does she say that she has information?"
Gwen shrugged and wrapped her hands around her cup of coffee.
"Not really. She tries to keep the calls neutral. I think she's afraid, but she doesn't admit it."
"Set it up then," Abby told her. "We need to talk to her."
****
Abby scooted across the seat and leaned her head on Sebastian's shoulder. He took a hand from the wheel and squeezed her leg. His knuckles were pale and clenched. As they got closer to his hometown, he seemed to grow more nervous. She saw it in the set of his jaw and his incessant need to thrum or tap on something. When he stopped doing that, he scratched absently at the dark stubble on his chin. He changed the radio station to alternative music and then classic rock. Frustrated with the radio, he asked Abby to hook up his new iPod. He scrolled through ten songs before finally landing on Bob Marley.
Kanti (Born of Shadows Book 3) Page 15
