Ethan had been using the shed as his spare bedroom for the past two weeks, trying to figure out the language that garnished the pages of a journal he and Emma had found in their mother’s things. So far, he had no luck. Even Hilda, his boss at the book store didn’t know the odd language.
Ethan sat on a large red bean bag, his long legs pulled up into his chest and his eyes damp from crying. Emma was fine now and in her room resting. She had fainted.
Mason, on the other hand, was gone.
After he had helped Ethan carry Emma to her bedroom, he vanished without a word. But he left a note stating that he needed some time to himself and he had something to take care of. He also asked for them to stay in the house and not to leave under any circumstances.
Several hours had passed and Mason still had not returned. He had never left for that long and it was beginning to worry Ethan. Had Mason run off? Or had something happened to him? He was all they had.
Ethan had spent a few hours, researching spells that could help locate Mason but it seemed he had hid himself extremely well and there was nothing left to do… but wait for his return.
Ethan stared down at Katherine’s grimoire, looking preserved and ancient. Maybe there was something in there that could help him find Mason since the only spells he had were from Mason’s back up grimoire.
He didn’t know how well Emma would handle Mason’s departure, but he would do anything he could right now to bring him back.
Ethan stood up from the ground and caught a glimpse of a photo tacked to the cork board. It was of his mother, sister, himself, and a strange man Ethan had seen in a few other photos. Ethan had always wondered who he was, and suddenly, a thought came to mind.
Maybe, Ethan thought, this man could help them somehow, if he were still alive. Without a second thought, he retrieved his phone and called his sister. He coerced her into coming down to the shed, the place she hated most.
Waiting for Emma, he snatched the black crystal necklace that hung above a tacked bat wing, grabbed the photo from the cork board, and headed back over to the drawing desk.
Fixing the necklace so that it dangled from the built in lamp, Ethan stared down at the photo again. Just then he noticed something he hadn’t before. The man was wearing the star locket Emma adored. He swallowed hard. Why would that man be wearing a necklace that belonged to his mother?
Flooded with questions Ethan continued setting up the spell, even caressing the crystal with a vile of bat blood. He wiped the blood off on his pajama bottoms and jumped in surprise when the shed door swung open.
Emma stood in the dark doorway, glaring at Ethan.
“It stinks in here, like old books and sweat. What do you want; I don’t feel like messing with magic right now. I just want to go to sleep and deal with Mason—”
“—He’s gone, Emma.” Ethan pointed to the note that sat on the ground next to the bean bag he had just occupied.
Emma bolted over to the bag, snatched up the note and read it silently to herself. Ethan watched tears glide down her cheeks; she looked completely devastated.
“I can’t believe he just left like that, we need him.” Emma ripped up the note and threw it into the air. “Have you tried the locator spell?” she crossed the room with fury and grabbed Mason’s grimoire off of the desk.
“He’s hid himself. So, I’m trying someone else,” Ethan said.
Emma turned to him and slammed the grimoire to the ground; a few yellowed pages fell out from the binding.
“Who are you trying? We don’t know anybody else, Ethan. He never took us back to Elsmere so we have no one!” Emma kicked the wall and the cork board crashed to the ground, scattering the rest of the photographs and trinkets on the wood paneled floor.
Ethan had never seen Emma like this before. This was brand new to him.
“This man,” Ethan pointed down to the photo on the desk. Emma leaned over and looked down at the photo. It was black and white and it looked like a party or a carnival was happening in the background.
There stood her mother, Ethan, her, and an odd looking man she did not know… but he was wearing her locket and that made Emma uneasy. Had her locket belonged to this man before her mother got a hold of it? She didn’t understand. How come she never noticed it in the photo until now?
All of this was happening so quickly, and she just hoped that she wouldn’t pass out again. She needed to know what the hell was going on. She couldn’t stop thinking about Mason. Where was he?
“This man?” Emma pointed to the man in the photo.
“Yes,” Ethan said as Emma walked around the desk to the other side. She looked across into her brother’s eyes and nodded.
“Do it,” she commanded and held her hand out. Ethan exhaled in relief; he almost thought she wouldn’t go through with it. But he knew deep down she wanted to know everything just like him.
They needed to understand why everything was kept a secret, and why it was so important that they stayed in the mortal world and in the house.
Ethan reached across the desk and pricked Emma’s finger then his own with a safety pin. Both siblings squeezed a drop of blood onto the man’s face and began whispering the incantation until the crystal began swirling and the candles around them flickered and danced.
They felt their power surging through their veins like cool fire. Ethan felt his power burning to be let free, scratching beneath his skin like something demonic.
Something was different about his power, it was stronger and now that he knew they had dark blood, he couldn’t help but hold it responsible.
The fluorescent lamp bulb shattered with a pop and cast shadows upon Emma and Ethan’s face. The blood drops expanded, moving across the photo, growing in size and finally melting into the photograph like acid.
Soon a shimmering light appeared and an image formed in the blood. It was of a pale man, bald and burly, arguing with a boy across the room. They watched in curiosity as the man stood up from a chair.
The room seemed to be a lounge with a small fireplace roaring in the background. Emma could feel the heat bleeding from the photo onto her face.
The siblings figured that this was the man from the photo, now that they had been staring at him for a while as he yelled. His voice going in and out, making it difficult to understand what was being said.
He had beady luminous eyes, a small head, and his cheek bones were pointy like jagged rocks. His dark eyebrows were bushy and unkempt and he his lips were severely chapped.
The man’s voice grew louder and Ethan was growing annoyed. When was the location going to appear? They couldn’t do anything with a person; they needed a place to go.
Suddenly, the voices became crystal clear.
“Don’t you think it’s odd, dad?” the boy spoke, but Emma and Ethan still couldn’t see his face. He was in front of a large window, staring out into the night.
“No, I think it’s a bunch of bull. Those kids could not be living in the mortal world without being cloaked; they are too known for such carelessness. Besides that, they are supposed to be dead. I think you’ve got it wrong, it can’t be them.” The man’s voice was gruff.
He looked up from a glass of red wine he held in his hand and shook his head.
“They have the same names, stop trying to deny it.”
“If by chance it is them, you are going to stay away from them. They don’t remember you and they sure as hell don’t remember me,” the man snapped.
“I’ll do what I want.” The boy turned from the window. It was then that Emma and Ethan got a full look at the boy.
It was their new neighbor, Logan Hardwicke.
Emma’s hand flew to her mouth as she staggered backwards and nearly collided with the wall. Ethan snapped his fingers and the image disappeared, leaving behind a burnt black hole in the photograph.
He sat his elbows on the desk and raked his hands through his hair. He knew Logan wasn’t a regular human, and when he looked up to tell his sister that he was right,
he saw the stunned look on her face. Maybe now wasn’t the time for laughs. But now they knew where the man was.
He was right next door.
“Are you okay?” Ethan asked.
“I—I just can’t believe that all of this is happening right now. This isn’t what our summer was supposed to be like, Ethan. It was supposed to be fun and normal. Now, we’re stuck in the middle of something we don’t even understand.”
“And to top it all off, the man in that photo lives right next door. This is just too much… too much.” Emma, rattled, combed her hair over her head and rushed to the door.
Just as she was about to grab the knob, the shed door swung shut with a bang, shielding off her departure. She whirled around to Ethan.
“No. We are dealing with this right now, Emma. We are going to march over to our lovely new neighbors and see what we can get from that man. Maybe even Logan can help us, since we obviously used to know them,” Ethan explained.
Emma twisted her fingers anxiously and stared into her brother’s eyes. Mason had told them not to leave, but she wanted to know what was going on. She needed answers.
“Fine,” Emma snapped as she yanked open the shed door and made her way back inside the house, leaving Ethan alone in the middle of the darkened room.
Things were about to change enormously. He could feel it in his bones.
It was dark outside now and the full moon hung in the sky like an enormous eye, watching their every move. Ethan had suggested that they change, just in case they wouldn’t be coming right back home. And for some reason Ethan had a feeling they wouldn’t.
“Are you ready?” Emma asked, bringing Ethan back down to Earth.
“Yes I am,” Ethan replied and turned away from the back door of their house.
Emma began walking toward the back dirt pathway that was conveniently placed behind the eleven houses that filled their side of the street.
It was a neighborhood walking path that hadn’t been used much for a long time, and was now overgrown with vicious looking weeds and bramble.
Something rustled in the dark woods as they passed. Mason had recently outlined the entrance of the woods with cinnamon and raven’s heart, keeping various creatures from crossing into their yard.
Even though they were outside of Elsmere, magical creatures still found their way into the mortal world. Some portals were broken and often allowed anything through, even mortals, who almost never made it back alive, Mason had once explained.
Shivers ran down Emma’s spine, but she told herself that she was fine; nothing could cross… or could it? When had Mason redone the blocking spell? How recently was it?
Emma shook the unnerving thoughts from her head and kept on, just a minute more and they’d be at their neighbor’s back door.
Ethan kept his eyes on the woods, surveying them. Something was moving within the trees, watching. He could almost hear it breathing.
The last time he’d been in the woods, he had gathered ingredients for a simple attraction spell a few months back. He needed rowan and fresh sap from a tree. He’d nearly been slaughtered by a band of blood trees in the process.
He didn’t even know they grew in the mortal world, but indeed they did. Blood trees were vicious and carnivorous.
They feasted on unsuspecting forest wanderers, devouring the blood that flowed through their veins. They’re branches morphed into spiked claws and they could snatch someone by the throat within a second.
A branch snapped behind them and Ethan snatched Emma by her wrist and they tore the rest of the way to Logan’s house. They didn’t need to think, they just needed to remember what Mason had told them, if you ever hear something ominous, don’t second guess it, just run like hell.
And indeed something was gaining on them, breathing heavily, and growling. Emma didn’t dare turn; she didn’t want to know what was coming after them. She just wanted to get away.
“Faster!” Ethan pushed himself and Emma toward the back porch light behind a wooden fence.
The siblings rushed into the fence, climbed over, and collided with the damp ground of Logan’s back lawn.
They thought they were safe for a moment, but as they picked themselves up from the moist grass, a thunderous crash erupted behind them.
They spun around, frightened and breathing hard.
There were eight hellhounds, foaming at their mouths and digging their massive paws into the perfectly manicured lawn. Just then, the back door flew open and out stepped Logan’s father, Bennett Hardwicke, a large machine gun in his hands.
“Get inside. I’ll deal with them,” he commanded and before he could repeat himself, Ethan and Emma bolted through the back door and into the house. They threw themselves to the ground as a mass of gunshots stung the air.
A window shattered and Emma turned to see a hellhound on top of the kitchen table, staring directly at them.
“Crap, run!” Ethan scrambled off of the ground and ran down a photograph garnished hallway, Emma on his heels.
Logan stepped out from the dining room, a large black book cradled in his arms. He was sweating and shaking.
“Hi,” he said nervously as he rapidly turned the pages of the book. “I’m trying to find a banishing spell, but I can’t seem to—”
“Are you crazy?” Ethan spat. Emma turned to him.
“What?” Logan asked, looking puzzled.
“You can’t banish them. You have to physically disable them, it is common magic knowledge,” Logan sneered at Ethan and threw the book on a chair behind them. “Now, do you have something heavy and blunt, preferably a crowbar?”
The kitchen door behind them smashed to the ground and a hellhound growled, the sound raiding their eardrums.
The hellhound’s snout was long and black, while its gray fur looked ravaged and moist. On all fours it stood over five feet in height and smelt of rotten meat, sour and dead. Its eyes were a crimson red, and were narrowed to slits.
“So, you got that crowbar?” Ethan took a step back, shielding Emma.
Logan hurried over to a lone door, ripped it open, and brought a long silver spear out from what looked like a hallway closet.
“Will this work?” he yelled over the sound of his father’s machine gun. Ethan smiled and held his hand out. But Logan ran right past him and went for the hellhound on his own.
Ethan’s smile faded. What was this idiot doing? He thought.
Emma saw Logan’s face, fierce and bold. He was serious; he was really going to attempt killing a hellhound. She held onto the back of Ethan’s sweater with fear and closed one eye, expecting the worst.
“What are you doing? You didn’t even know how to kill one before I told you. You’re going to get yourself killed!” Ethan screamed.
“I can do this,” Logan snapped, but Ethan saw the uncertainty in his eyes.
Logan gripped the spear in his hand. Emma watched him with both eyes open now. He let out a deep breath, and ran, full force into the beast.
The hellhound knocked him to the ground like an annoying fly and Logan’s head met the tiled ground of his house. He was unconscious.
Emma screamed and felt anger rising within her. Logan laid still, the spear lying at the front paws of the hellhound.
The gunshots were still going and Ethan had finally had enough. He tore himself from his sister’s death grip and swiftly glided across the floor on his knees, nabbing the spear in his hand.
It was too difficult to use magic against them; it just angered the beasts more. So it was best to take care of them the old fashioned way.
Ethan rose from the ground, brandishing the spear, ready to plunge it into the hellhound’s heart.
The hellhound snickered loudly and cleared its throat.
“I come not to fight, but to warn.” The beast’s voice was rough and thick, Ethan heard a bit of a Russian accent but it was slightly shadowed by the hellhound’s deep tone.
He had nearly forgotten that higher rank hellhounds could speak. He wanted
to smack himself upside the head for forgetting an important fact like that.
Ethan just stared at the snout of the beast, trying desperately to avoid its eyes. He still held the spear, just in case it was tricking them.
Seeing that the hellhound was distracted, Emma ran to Logan’s aid and cradled his head in her arms; luckily there was only a small amount of blood. But at least he was still breathing.
“What do you want?” Emma snapped. The hellhound slightly turned to her, and before she could pull her eyes away, it glared into hers.
Wicked (The Drake Chronicles Book 1) Page 3
