Tobias scared her. Something sinister leaked from him, but also something familiar. She had sensed him before, in the woods when Devin died, in the grocery store–the man hidden behind the freezer. She was looking at her ghost, at the thing that had been stalking her. She recoiled when his dark tongue darted from his lips and almost lost the image. For a moment, the sea flickered before her, but she concentrated on the men, and the vision returned.
“Well, as luck would have it, Trager City appears to be a coven in itself. Just today I met another young witch, more pure than any I have seen in a long time.” Alva’s smile grew wider as he spoke.
“Yes, yes, I thought so,” Tobias said, leaning against the car, oblivious to the hot surface. “I’ve been following someone.”
“Of course, your senses are improving. Can you find her easily?” Alva asked.
“Yes.”
“Good, then do. The ritual will be stronger if you hold it in the same place.”
“And you? Do you need her, father?”
Alva lowered his eyes to his fingernails; they looked sharper than Abby remembered.
“No, I am full now. But do not consume her all yourself, save some for the collective.”
“Yes.”
Tobias slipped back into the trees, barely a rustle as he disappeared into the forest. Two more people waited for him, but they wore thick, black robes that concealed their faces. One of them lifted a hand, and Abby saw pale fingers. The middle finger, long and slender, was encircled with a simple silver band, in its center a fat, white pearl balanced on the precious metal.
As Abby watched, her view changed, it moved away from the three figures and sped across the forest. She watched trees and shrubs and roads rush by and then she was staring at herself asleep on the wooded floor, at her body curled into a ball, her hand thrust into her chopped hair and cradling her head.
* * * *
Abby woke with a jolt and scrambled to her feet, spinning and searching the woods around her. Tobias was not there, nor were the others. She stood alone, returned to the woods, her dreams receding. Her head no longer ached. Instead, her brain buzzed electrically, like she’d been plugged into an outlet and recharged. She flexed her hands and then bent her knees, grateful to have her body back, but terrified of the visions that followed her.
Why had she dreamt of the detective and the strange man that he called Tobias? Why had she returned to the cave only to be catapulted into the sea – as liquid as the water that surrounded her? Sebastian had mentioned the name Tobias. Were they all in it together?
“Something is happening to me,” she spoke out loud and a shiver ran along her spine. She thought of a lifetime of stories and books that revealed a secret world of fantasy and wondered if something much larger than murder was at work in her life.
A car roared by on the road. She moved to the edge of the woods and stared out. Her car remained in place, undamaged, and the road lay deserted except for the back of a white SUV disappearing around a curve. She heard another car approach and retreated to the woods, ducking behind a thick white birch. A small silver pickup truck passed and did not slow.
She remembered Tobias dipping into the woods to meet his friends. He had been following her. She felt sure of it. He had spoken with the detective of hunger and eating. Were they cannibals? The thought terrified her and she wrapped her arms over her chest.
“What if it’s real?” she asked out loud. A cricket chirped in response, and a grasshopper took flight near her feet, landing on a Black-Eyed Susan and tipping the flower beneath its weight.
She had to act, to move, but where? She dared not return to Sydney’s. Sebastian might be waiting. Maybe there was a whole group of murderers, a satanic cult or something. She also could not return to the police station and risk another encounter with Detective Alva. He had done something to her, hypnotized her maybe. That’s why her head ached so badly. She knew that leaving the city was her best plan. She could hit the freeway and drive to Lansing, but what if they sought her at home?
In her car, Abby felt safe. She turned on the heat despite the scorching day, and her body trembled beneath the blasts of hot air.
When she pulled into the library parking lot, she did not have a plan. She wanted to look up Devin and Aubrey Blake on the internet. She also wanted to search Sebastian, Alva and cannibals in northern Michigan. It seemed ridiculous to expose herself, but the library had always been a safe place to her growing up, and she deluded herself now into believing that it still was. She watched the library door, blinking dumbly as a young man walked out and two older women walked in. When nothing aroused her suspicions, she slipped out of her car and jogged to the door, pulling it too hard and slamming it loudly behind her.
A bird-like librarian sat behind the counter, her dark eyes narrowing as Abby entered. Training her eyes on the floor, Abby hurried by, feeling like a kid stealing candy. What was it about librarians that made you feel so criminal?
She sat down at a computer and began her search. She started with Devin Blake. Over six thousand hits came back and she slowly scrolled the pages, hoping for something that popped out. She clicked on a site called Velvet Night, because it not only mentioned the name Devin Blake, but also Trager City, Michigan. The introduction revealed that the site was dedicated to art from the dark side. The number two contributor was one Devin Blake. Abby eyed the list displayed beneath Devin's name: 'The Inferno', 'Bleeding Moon', 'Flight of Night' and 'Into The Cave.' Abby shuddered, sickened by the emotional torrent of a dead girl. She clicked on Devin's name, and a short bio appeared.
Hey, this is Devin, recently Blake, previously Kent - it's a long story and since you're here for art and not my life story, I'll skip it. My drawings come from a well inside of me, these images bubble up and I just draw them. Some are pretty dark and maybe a bit strange, but it's my therapy, my sanctuary and, quite frankly, my salvation. So keep your comments to yourself - I'm not here to please you - just to share.
The bio didn't reveal much, but Abby still read it twice more before returning to the drawings. It was Devin's voice in those words, her bit of self revealed. Abby clicked the image titled, 'Into The Cave' - it was dated only three weeks earlier. The image loaded slowly, tiny segments appearing like a puzzle. As more fragments emerged, Abby felt her pulse quicken. The picture revealed gray, craggy walls bending in a tight tunnel, a pinpoint at the end that opened wider. She leaned into the screen, the opening was drawn deep into the background, but Abby could see the speck of orange flecked by black, the fire and the cloaked figures. She shoved away from the computer as if Devin's face had popped from the sketch in a bloody grin.
Abby felt cold inside. She had been in that drawing - traveled the tunnels of clammy rock and seen the blaze. Her world tilted, but she clenched her eyes closed and gripped the chair's arms. The slow drum of the air conditioner, a meek cough from the stern librarian - she used these sounds to ground her. Opening her eyes slowly, she slid back to the computer, clicking other drawings, but nothing jarred her as the first. They were dark, as Devin had said, black shadows crouching in corners, several depicting massive fires filled with screaming faces. One more image was familiar. It was a single, glorious castle suspended above the water. Abby had seen something similar in the palm of one of the cloaked figures from the cave.
Perhaps she was overreacting. There were thousands of caves and castles in the world. Maybe Devin had gone to a bonfire in one that just happened to be strangely similar to her dream. But her head disagreed, it shook from side to side, and her thoughts could not change the truth. Something larger than coincidence was happening. Abby had slipped into a series of events that she could not escape from, down the rabbit hole – so to speak.
She typed in 'Aubrey Blake' and another long list of hits came back, mostly ads for writers, business owners and lawyers. She tried again, but this time added 'witch' after the name. This changed the sites dramatically. She went from normal to fantasy, filing through lists of websites devote
d to witches, black magic, love spells and other mystical creatures. The first several sites simply listed Aubrey and Blake among the varying names, no Aubrey Blake.
Frustration edged in. She clicked on a site called A History of Magic. The screen flashed black, and lines of falling stars wove down the page. Someone had put a lot of effort into the site. As the black faded, she saw an image emerge. It was a large group of women and men standing in an open field. Their clothes were old-fashioned, deep, drab grays, but their faces were luminous. Their arms were interlinked and in the background hung a massive, white moon. Abby leaned forward, noticing a familiar face, ringlets of hair sticking from beneath a hood. Aubrey, Devin’s ancestor who could have been her twin, stood in the group wearing a broad smile on her lips.
Abby grinned, knowing that she had finally found something. She began to scroll the page, searching for names, but, just as they appeared, each letter traveling slowly as if from the gravestones of their bearers, the screen went black. The library door swung in, bringing a burst of sweltering summer air. Abby, too distracted by the darkened screen to notice the incoming patrons, stared at the computer in disbelief. She had seen Aubrey in the photo and now it had died?
Crouching on the floor, she found the power button on the computer, pressing it repeatedly - no luck. The tower was dead. She started to wheel to the computer next to her and stopped - noticing for the first time the two people who'd entered the library. They were distinct, to say the least. Both had white blond hair, the girl’s long down her back, the boy's short and spiky. They were dressed in jeans and black t-shirts, their skin shock white against their dark clothing. The woman might have been a movie star; her cat-like charcoal eyes were thick and hooded. They moved through the library purposefully and stopped in front of a rack of DVDs. They did not speak, but when their eyes met, Abby felt icy fingers tickle her spine.
* * * *
Sebastian moved quickly, stuffing papers and journals into boxes and sprinting them in loads to the car he had rented. It was a Camaro, “fast,” the dealer said, and dark, so it could be concealed. His black curls stuck to his head, and he packed shirtless, sweating anyway. Abby still had not returned, and panic had given way to rage as he imagined her whereabouts. He had seen Detective Alva, followed him and watched his meeting with Tobias like a shocked bystander witnessing a car accident. He did not attack them like he wanted to, planned to. He only watched, shaking and nauseated as Tobias drifted back into the woods, a demon in disguise. Sebastian was a coward, and the reality of his choice, the choice not to kill, twisted inside his skull until he felt it would explode.
He had heard only bits of their conversation, the rest muffled by distance and wind. He'd had to conceal himself from them, which meant not only hiding, but also blocking their ability to sense him, which he had read in Claire’s journal was a faculty of very powerful Vepars. Mother Nature provided the best shield, and Claire had an entry that listed protection plants, two of which, ivy and fern, grew abundantly in Michigan. He had lain down on the forest ground, nestling into a thicket of ferns and straining to hear Alva when he spoke. He had not expected to hear the voice of Tobias, and when the empty sound reached him, he nearly cried out in shock. How could he have been so foolish? He should have known the moment that Abby found the body that the Vepars were near. But it had been two years since Claire’s death. Two years of futile searching with little or no result. He had started to wonder if he was insane or Claire was insane and the whole idea of witches had been some elaborate way to deal with their parents’ deaths.
On the lake, a sailboat drifted, its tall, white sails flaccid in the still air. He kept his ears perked for Abby but heard nothing. He had driven around for an hour after hearing Alva and Tobias, sure that he and Tobias searched for the same girl and that her life depended on his reaching her first. But he did not find her and began to convince himself that she had returned to Lansing, to her family, and maybe would be safe, at least for a little while.
He rented the Camaro and returned to Sydney’s to pack his stuff and plan his attack. If Abby returned, he would take her and they would run. If she didn’t, he would attempt to kill Tobias and Alva. He might die, he knew that, but the fear did not deter him. Death would be a welcome respite from his crusade for vengeance, so long as they went down first.
* * * *
Abby’s hands grew cold; her whole body grew cold, as if someone had just cranked up the air conditioner. As she stood, the girl shot a single glance in her direction, raking her eyes over Abby. Something was wrong. All of the flesh on Abby's body crawled, and she searched her brain for understanding, trying to get a sense of the irrational fears pummeling her. She could see that neither person was looking at the DVDs. Instead they both had their eyes trained downward, focused. She followed their gaze to the girl’s slender pale hand, to the middle finger where a white pearl shone from a familiar silver ring. As Abby watched, the pearl flashed black, white again and then stayed black. The pair’s eyes shot up instantly, locking on Abby.
She stumbled backwards, her legs hit the computer chair and it spun away, knocking gently against the desk. The ring from her dream, the ring on the hand of the cloaked figure who was with Tobias, was on the hand of the woman in front of her. The woman whose eyes looked dark, black, even; they were inhuman eyes.
Abby watched them, their set jaws, unmoving lips. They did not speak, but she heard them, only for a moment, as clear as if they'd whispered in her ear. "We must lure her out." It was the voice of the woman, low and throaty. The man, just a boy really, gave the smallest nod, almost nonexistent.
Chapter 13
Sebastian slammed the trunk and cast a final, fleeting glance at Sydney’s house. Would he ever return? He doubted it. Tonight he would kill Tobias, which made every sight more beautiful, more meaningful than it had ever been. Sydney’s house had been a place of joy for him and Claire as children. It would be a place of triumph and perhaps of death that night.
He intended to do a final search for Abby in the city and pick up a few, last minute, items at the store. He did not know how to kill a Vepar. In all of Claire’s journals, she did not have a single entry about this one, vitally important, subject. Claire’s guide, the witch Adora, had disappeared before Claire’s death and most likely had not had ample time to teach Claire to defend herself. Sebastian resented the witch for this single fatal error that might have saved his sister’s life.
He laid his gun on the seat beside him. It was loaded, but he did not feel adequately armed. He doubted that guns did much in the world of witches and Vepars.
* * * *
Abby jerked her head toward the librarian, who read a newspaper, obliviously. She straightened up, brushed a hand through her hair and hurried toward the door. They did not immediately move behind her, but she felt their eyes piercing her back.
She burst into the bright sunlight and broke into a run, wrenched her car door open and dived inside. She turned toward the library door, which was slowly swinging shut. She caught only a wisp of the girl's hair as they disappeared around the corner of the building. They were after her. She shoved her key in the ignition and turned - nothing. She tried again, pumping the gas pedal, but not even a growl emitted from the engine. The battery was dead. She'd left her car lights on often enough to know that lack of sound, but this time it wasn't her headlights that had killed the battery. She stayed low in her seat, peeking over the dash in search of her pursuers.
She could stay in the car, doors locked, and try to wait them out. But what if they lingered until darkness fell and there were no witnesses to stop them attacking her?
The police station was on the other side of town, too far and too risky with Detective Alva. The closest building housed a string of downtown boutiques. Surely, they would not attack her if people were around. She was separated from the building by an open parking lot. If she ran through it, they would have ample time to get her. Across the street stood the woods that snaked back to the lake. Of cours
e if they got her there, they'd have cover to do whatever they wanted. She felt that time was running out - she had to move. She opened her door, crouched low, and slipped onto the pavement, careful to keep her head below the windows. She had only to sprint across the street. She counted the steps it would take, twenty maybe.
With a final breath, she ran. Her sneakers smacked the pavement, hammering in her ears. She strained to hear movement behind her, but caught nothing. Running at full sprint, she darted into the woods, heading straight for a giant mess of bushes. She ducked behind them, burrowing deep into the branches for cover. At first, she thought that they weren't coming - that perhaps she had imagined the whole ordeal - paranoia at its finest. Then she saw her. The girl moved stealthily along the tree perimeter, her eyes scanning the forest. She stepped into the woods, the sun glinting off her blond hair. Abby could not see the boy. She held her breath, feeling the burn flowering in her chest, but fighting it. “I am not here - I am not here,” she repeated it in her mind until she almost believed it.
She gradually became aware of a rustling behind her, but dared not move. Praying that she'd adequately concealed herself, she watched in horror as the boy moved into her line of sight. He didn't appear to see her, but stood close enough that a single breath would not escape his attention. She clenched her eyes shut and imagined a game that she used to play as a child. It was called Statue. She and her neighbor, Cassi, would stand in front of the mirror, both of their eyes trained on the other. The first to move, even a twitch, lost. Abby lost a lot, her patience rarely spanned more than two minutes. Abby reopened her eyes as the boy moved closer to the road; the girl came to meet him.
"She's gone," the girl hissed, her venomous voice ringing in Abby's head.
Ula (Born of Shadows Book 1) Page 11
