Of Blood & Magic: Blood Descent Book 1

by T. L. McDonald

  “You have no idea,” I whisper to myself.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” I need to sort this all out before I say anything because what if I’m wrong? Who’s to say there’s not another blue-eyed boy out there with a brown speck in his left eye? Or that it’s not all just in my head, my subconscious’ way of trying to make sense of things?

  He swipes the stool from under the desk then rolls across the small space. Ice pack in one hand, he uses the other to brush my bangs to the side. “The nurse instructed me to give you this ice pack to help with the massive goose egg forming on your forehead, but…” His eyes squint with a touch of confusion as his gaze roams over my face. He rubs his fingertips lightly over my skin. “It looks like you don’t need it anymore.” His fingers continue to slide down along the side of my face to my neck where they hesitate. “Even if you are a healer, with your abilities supposedly suppressed you shouldn’t be able to use your magic at all let alone be capable of this kind of rapid healing. Hell, even the witches who don’t have their abilities bound can’t heal at the rate you do.” He moves locks of my auburn hair I’ve been using to hide the wound I’m pretending is still there behind my shoulder, then rubs his thumb over the Band Aid on the side of my throat. “What about this, or the one at your back? Have those wounds healed too?” His eyes meet mine with the familiar weight of his ‘is she friend or is she foe’, chaser stare, holding me in place.

  My heart simultaneously skips and races under the weight of his gaze too afraid to beat, but too afraid to stop, while my tongue ties itself in knots over what I can safely say.

  He already knows I somehow healed him after a vampire took a bat to his head and how I also set said vampire on fire with nothing more than a thought. But there’s still so much he doesn’t know. Things that set me apart and make me more than just the witch he thinks I might be. Things that right now only Liv and Jack know about. Sebastian and I may have this connection between us, and it may scream I can trust him wholeheartedly, but fear is a fickle bitch constantly whispering doubts in my ear. Especially when combined with the way I remember him looking at me in the motel when he thought I could be a vampire, and the way he’s looking at me now. He wouldn’t have hesitated to do whatever he had to do if the outcome had been different that day and I can’t say for sure he would hesitate now.

  I don’t want him to look at me like that. I don’t want him to see me as the enemy. I don’t want to be something he’s sent to chase. And I definitely don’t want to find out what happens when he catches me. He never did explain that part. Then again, he hasn’t explained a lot of things.

  His eyes soften as though he can sense the turmoil raging inside me. He cups my jaw in his hand, his thumb gliding over my cheek. “I’d never hurt you Indi. I hope you know that. I can tell there’s something bothering you. Please know you can trust me. With anything.” His hand drops back to my throat, the tip of his fingernail sliding beneath the edge of the Band Aid. “Even this.” He pulls at it and I jump up from the bed so fast it pushes him and the stool halfway across the room. I slap my hand over my neck.

  “I should go to class. I-I don’t even know why I’m here.”

  “You’re here because I found you passed out in the library.”

  “Well, I feel fine now.”

  I dart through the door before he can stop me. He calls my name, but I ignore him the same way I ignore the nurse when she yells for me to come back. The bell rings when I reach the hallway, and I send up a silent prayer of thanks, as students fill the space. Getting lost in the crowd I head toward my locker, wondering what period it is and hoping it’s not one I share with Sebastian. I pass the library and come to a sudden stop.

  Sebastian said I’d passed out in the library. And while I remember being there, I remember being somewhere else too. A cold chill races up my arms as the memory of flying glass filters through my mind.

  Pushing against the crowd, I reverse my tracks and stop at the head of the hall leading toward the vending machines. The warning bell rings and half the students disappear into whatever class they’re meant to be in. Nobody pays me any attention. And then I’m alone. I suck in my breath, then put one foot in front of the other. My stomach flips over and my palms begin to sweat. I turn the corner into the vending machine alcove expecting to see damage, but it’s pristine. There’s no broken glass, no scattered snack packages or sodas littering the floor. No nothing. It’s like whatever I thought happened didn’t, and it was all in my head.

  Maybe it was. Maybe I’m losing my mind, because if I weren’t there would be a mess here and Sebastian wouldn’t have found me passed out in the library. Maybe I dreamt the whole thing.

  I take a step back when something catches my eye. I make my way to the vending machine on the far left. My hand shakes as I bring it up to the upper corner of the glass. I trail my finger over the edge of a very fine crack, zigzagging to the bottom corner.

  My heart skips a beat. Maybe I didn’t imagine it.

  But if I didn’t, then how did I end up back in the library when I would have been standing right here? And how did everything get cleaned up so fast? It doesn’t make any sense unless there’s some kind of magic involved. Could the Dark Heart coven already be here messing with me too? Or has this crack been here all along and I really am crazy?

  The start of a headache pricks incessantly behind my eyes at trying to figure it out. In the end I guess it doesn’t matter if it’s magic or the loss of my sanity because either way I’m screwed.

  Evan is waiting by my locker at the end of the day. “Sorry for getting you in trouble with Mr. Jackson earlier. I feel terrible about it. He’s such an ass.”

  “It wasn’t your fault. I would have been late to class, regardless.” I should have just skipped school this morning when I had the chance. At least then I wouldn’t have gotten a detention, had—whatever it was I experienced in the vending machine alcove—and passed out in the library. Of course I might not have discovered the reason for the connection Sebastian and I share either.

  “I can hang out here and wait for you to get out of detention so we can still do something, if you want me to,” Evan says, pulling me out of my thoughts.

  “Yo, Lewis. The guys are meeting up at The Diner. You coming?” Nate Andrews yells from halfway down the hall. The Diner has the best burgers and fries in town and is the go to place for all the football players. Half The Diner’s business comes from them and I can tell Evan wants to join in on the festivities with the rest of the team.

  “You should go,” I tell him.

  “You sure? ‘Cause I can wait. We haven’t seen each other all weekend and I don’t want you to feel like I’m blowing you off or anything.”

  “You’re not blowing me off because I’m telling you to go.” I poke him playfully in the chest. “We’ll do something tomorrow. Besides, it’s been a long day and I just kind of want to chill out for a while.”

  “You sure?” he asks again, his right eyebrow rising a teeny bit.

  “Yes, now go so you can catch up with all the other jocks.”

  He kisses me on the cheek. “You’re the best, you know that? I’ll call you later.”

  “Have fun,” I yell after him.

  I stuff things into my locker then take other things out to work on in detention. Mr. Jackson is a stickler for having something to do, specifically some kind of homework. Come empty handed and he’ll find the most hellacious thing he can think of to assign a five-page essay on, due by the end of class. The man is diabolical.

  I race down the hall, stop at the door to catch my breath, then enter the chemistry lab. Senora Sanchez is sitting at Mr. Jackson’s desk reading a paperback. She smiles as she looks up at me over the rims of her bifocals. I, on the other hand, can only muster up a confused expression. Mr. Jackson never misses a chance to lord over delinquents in detention. It’s like his Christmas.

  The legs of a chair scrape over the tiled floor and I look to the back of the classroom.
Sebastian pats the seat beside him at one of the lab stations near the windows. We’re the only two here, well, beside Senora Sanchez.

  I chew on the inside of my bottom lip and grip the straps of my backpack tighter than necessary. I cast my eyes to the ground, wishing there were other people here, so I’d have a reason to sit anywhere else. Things are weird and complicated, and so far completely out of my control, and I know Sebastian will want me to explain what happened in the nurse’s station… along with everything else.

  I drop my backpack onto the tabletop, scoot it away from the edge, and take my seat. Maybe I can take control of the narrative. Finally, get some answers about a few things before deciding whether I should spill all my deep dark secrets. “Who are the Venari? What exactly is a chaser? What kinds of beings do you chase? And what do you do with those you catch?” I blurt out so fast, four sentences sound like one. I glance up at the front of the room. Senora Sanchez still has her nose in a book. For all intents and purposes, she seems to be pretty much unaware of Sebastian and me. That or she doesn’t care. “And what happened to Mr. Jackson, and everyone else who should be in detention? Did you somehow cause their absence, so we’d be forced together?”

  Sebastian leans back in his chair with a look of amused contemplation playing out over his face. “You know, it would be a lot easier to answer your questions if you didn’t blurt them all out at once. But I’ll do my best. I’ll start with Mr. Jackson. He just so happened to have an untimely incident occur with his car.” He leans in, shielding his mouth as though it’s a secret he’s about to tell. “Someone let out all the air in his tires.” He winks then drops his hand. “As for the other detention detainees, I simply convinced Senora Sanchez they should go home. And yes, this is my way of ‘forcing us together’ since it seems to be the only way I can get you alone.”

  “And the rest,” I prompt, referring to my chaser related questions. “Also, how did you convince the Senora to let everyone else leave? You can’t be that charming.” Even though all the teachers and most of the raging hormonal teenagers at this school seems to think he is. It’s weird. “It’s magic,” I say out loud. “It’s magic, right?”

  “Ouch. Way to bruise the ego.” Sebastian twists his chair to the side, grabs a hold of mine, and then swivels it around so my knees are pressed against his seat and his legs are outside of mine. Leaning forward, he grips the edges of my chair near my hips, his face dangerously close to mine. He scrapes his bottom lip between his teeth, his eyes becoming smoldering pools of liquid blue. My mouth goes desert dry as my stomach takes a dip. I force myself—probably unsuccessfully—to not be affected by his stare. The smile forming on his face comes slowly. Seductively. His eyes flick to my mouth. My breaths come faster. I can’t help it. “Maybe I am that charming.” He leans in even closer and now I can’t breathe at all. “But you’re right,” he whispers. “Some of it is magic.”

  “Does…” My voice squeaks in an embarrassingly high-pitched fashion and I clear my throat. “Does that mean you’re a witch too?”

  “No.” He scoots back, finally giving me the space I need to breathe properly. “I’m just a regular guy with a few tricks up my sleeve.” He twists a black metallic ring around his pinky with his thumb. “This is one of them. It’s enchanted.” I take a closer look, finding something inscribed over the surface in another language. “When I invoke the words, people become sort of enthralled with me. It helps in what I do. It also only works on humans, which helps me identify those who are more than what they say.”

  “Is that how you knew I was more than human? Because I wasn’t enthralled with you?”

  “Aren’t you?” He hits me with the smoldering eyes again, sending things fluttering around in my stomach.

  “No.” It’s a straight up lie. There’s definitely something. I just don’t know what that something really is yet. Especially when I take into consideration the connection we have from when I brought him back from the clutches of death. Twice.

  “If you say so.” Another smile and a wink come my way. “But to answer your question. Yes, and no. The magic of my ring did help identify you as more than human, but it wasn’t the only thing. When I was younger, I was in an accident. I don’t remember the specifics, only that I fell out of a tree and hit my head pretty hard. Since then I’ve been able to see people for what they truly are. It’s like a sixth sense. I just know.”

  I keep my face impassive, but on the inside I’m one hundred percent freaking out. It was one thing to suspect who he might be, but to have it confirmed has me reeling. There’s no question now. He’s definitely the boy I’ve been dreaming about.

  No. Not dreaming. Remembering.

  “And you could sense me?” I ask.

  “I could sense you were different, but not entirely why. I knew you were a witch from the moment I saw you, but I could tell you were much more than that too. You’ve got all this… Light.”

  “Light?”

  “It’s the only thing I can think of to describe it.”

  “Can you see it?”

  “No. I feel it.”

  New questions pop into my head. Could I have somehow given Sebastian his sixth sense ability when I brought him back? Is that part of why we feel a connection to each other and why he has a hazy memory of the accident when he shouldn’t remember it all? Since I was there with him, Aunt Claudia and Uncle Caleb’s memory erasing spell should have made him forget the whole thing, but he hasn’t. Are his memories buried somewhere deep inside like mine, or are they really and truly permanently gone? And if they are just buried, will he remember them like I’m starting to with mine?

  “You’re staring.”

  “What?”

  “Yep. Enthralled.” He leans back, balancing himself on the chair’s back two legs as he crosses his arms over his chest. Head slightly tilted, he smiles knowingly. He tips his chin. “I knew you couldn’t resist for long.”

  “Can you get over yourself for like two minutes? I’m not enthralled with you. I was just thinking about stuff.”

  His eyebrow rises in interest. “What kind of stuff?” He places an emphasis on stuff, but I refuse to blush, despite the obvious innuendo.

  “Stuff about you being a chaser and how you still haven’t answered my questions about it. How did it happen? What made you become a chaser? Or is it something you were born into?”

  The flirty look to his eyes fades behind a flash of sadness. “How it happened is a longer story than we have time for in detention.” There’s a vulnerability underlying his voice. It speaks of loss. It breaks my heart. It’s not a side of him I’m used to seeing. “Maybe I’ll tell you about it someday.”

  “Can you at least tell me why Liv was afraid of you when you said you were a chaser back in the motel?” This is the question I want answered the most. It’s the deciding factor on whether I tell him about me.

  “Have you ever seen the show about the two brothers who travel around the country hunting supernatural things?”

  “So you’re saying you’re like the Winchesters?”

  “I’m way more awesome than the Winchesters, but for the sake of this analogy let’s say yes. Being a chaser is kind of like being a Winchester, except we’re a lot more organized. We have assignments, we investigate, and we do what’s necessary to keep the world safe.” The way he says we do what’s necessary, sends a shiver down my back.

  I bite the inside of my lip. “And that means sometimes…” I look back up at him, forcing myself to maintain eye contact because this is the most important part. This is the part that will tell me what kind of person he is and if I can truly trust him. “It’s necessary to kill the things you chase? Like vampires for instance.”

  “Yes,” he answers softly. I study his eyes, assessing the multitude of emotions churning within them. “There are some really bad things in the world Indi, things you can’t even imagine. Things you wouldn’t want to imagine. That’s where the Venari comes in. They’ve been around for a long time acting as
humanity’s protectors against the darker parts of the supernatural world. As a member, as a chaser, it’s my job to uphold their creed. Everything we do is to keep the world safe. We’re not bad guys, but we are feared.”

  “Why is it your job? You’re only…”

  “Seventeen. The long story I mentioned has a lot to do with why.” He watches me intently. “Are you ready to talk to me now about the things you’re hiding?”

  “How do you know I’m hiding things?” I want to bite my lip or stare at the table, but force myself to keep eye contact.

  “Sixth sense, remember? Plus, it’s written all over your face.” Half a smile graces his mouth before his expression becomes sincere. “Trust me when I say all I want to do is help you, Indi. So please let me. It’s what I do. I protect the innocent and you’re an innocent. If you’re afraid of me being a chaser, don’t be. I promise I’m not chasing you, and I’m not going to chase you. At least not in that way.” He winks and I crack a smile. Maybe it’s stupid on my part, and maybe it’ll come back to bite me in the butt one day, but for now, I believe him.

  I relax my shoulders and push my fears away. Starting from the beginning, I tell him almost everything. I tell him about the fire that took my mom and all the ways it changed my life. How my aunt and uncle suppressed my powers and memories to keep me hidden from angelic bounty hunters sent to kill me because of who my father is. All because they’re afraid of the powers a nephilim witch hybrid like me could hold over life, death, and the elements. How I set my robe on fire and nearly burned down the house, which seems to be a recurring theme with me according to Liv when it comes to my pyrokinetic nightmares. I tell him about Seth and the club and everything that happened there. About my fears of becoming the very same kind of monster when I noticed all my wounds had healed and how I was able to compel my aunt and uncle when they threatened to take my memories away again.