She spread the map on the hood of the car and pulled out the lighter, flicking it several times.
"Come on," she grumbled in frustration, shaking the lighter as if that might elicit the connection to Vesta.
Her heart leapt when the tiny blue flame appeared, but then died. Two more flicks and the flame grew.
* * * *
Vesta moved swiftly down a long corridor, the stone walls on either side black and shiny, like the slick back of a snake. The ceiling was low, and Vesta's platinum hair flew out behind her, a blinding contrast to the surrounding darkness.
She strode into a large, round room. Several men stood huddled in tight circles, their backs to Vesta as she entered. One man whipped around to face her and she keeled backward, fear clouding her features, quickly replaced by defiance.
Tony, the Vepar whose hate for her boiled beneath his gaze like scorching tar. Their dislike was mutual, though hers was largely mingled with fear.
"Tony." She swallowed hard, but held his gaze.
"Ah, Vesta. Our newest … member," the man sneered, his eyes maliciously raking over Vesta's pointed features. Tony was a grotesque and foreboding figure. He might have stood seven foot tall, but his twisted frame was hunched. The bent posture placed his head below his neck, a giant version of Igor, Victor Frankenstein's loyal servant. Though Tony did not look like anyone's servant.
Vesta stood her ground, hips jutting forward, but Abby could see the slight tremor in her lips as she spoke, feel the terror buried deep in her core.
* * * *
Devin appeared, flushing the vision away. They were back in the woods, and Devin's spirit undulated thickly.
"You must destroy the lighter," she commanded, sending a small robin fluttering from a tree branch nearby.
"I can't. Devin, I could see Vesta. I have to see what's happening."
Abby ran her thumb over the bronze sword rapidly. Devin looked furious, which drained her energy. She disappeared for a second and then returned, surging towards Abby.
Abby stumbled back, her legs hitting the Camaro's grille, and nearly tumbling onto the hood.
"Destroy it," Devin hissed, and Abby felt a wave of cold mottle her skin as Devin brushed through her.
Abby shook her head, continuing to flick the lighter.
"Why are you doing this?" she cried as Devin forced through her again, causing a stream of goosebumps to appear on her arms. It did not hurt when Devin touched her, but the cold frightened her, and Devin's anger frightened her more. "I thought you wanted to help me."
"We help each other," Devin's voice was low, barely a whisper and then gone.
Abby stood alone, her breath coming in gasps and her lips purple with cold. Why was Devin angry? She wanted to take the black bottle and smash it against a tree. See how Devin acted then, but she knew that she wouldn’t.
The sun disappeared behind a mass of gray clouds, casting the forest in shadows.
The map that the Lourdes had provided showed a trail on foot. No roads, just miles of woods. Abby was not worried about the distance. Now that she could run and jump like a jungle cat, she figured long distances were not a problem, but getting lost, that was something else. A few markers were drawn in, but what if Abby missed one? And how could the Lourdes be sure that Vesta would not move her parents before Abby arrived?
These questions might have plagued her longer, but a long wail sliced through the forest. A gravelly cry filled with rage and mourning. Although the noise sounded more animal than human, Abby knew that the Lourdes had left her lair. She didn't wait to find out why.
* * * *
The first hour of running was exhilarating for Abby, and she grinned frequently despite the lump of fear growing in her stomach. The map showed a clear path that roughly followed the highway north, but stayed deep enough in the trees to avoid detection by passing motorists. She passed over a small stream, barely exerting herself in the jump, and landed in a marshy field thick with cattails. The ground squished beneath her, but she bounded over it in five leaps and found herself again in the woods. This time the forest consisted entirely of neat rows of dark pine trees, and she ran fast, bee-lining a straight path ahead.
In her haste, she nearly missed her next marker on the map. A dilapidated shack sat just outside of the last row of pines to the east. The mostly collapsed roof caught her eye, and she skidded to a halt, sliding nearly five feet along the slippery needles before stopping. The shack, hidden almost entirely by crawling green vines, appeared to have given in to the forest after some effort. A hole gaped from moss-covered boards that the weather had warped, leaving strange gaps in the shack’s walls. Abby moved toward it, leaving the cover of pine trees. The sky had grown a dark, green-gray, and thick, bulbous clouds raced overhead. Abby could smell the approaching rain.
The hovel had no visible door, but Abby could see the interior through several smashed windows. Vines had found their way in and crisscrossed the floor, twisting around a moldy red couch, coils sticking from its bed. She tried to peer in further, but the darkening sky added to the pockets of shadow inside the shack.
According to the map, she should turn east from the shack until she reached a small pond in the shape of an arrowhead.
Pausing, she decided to give the lighter another try, but no flame erupted. For a moment Devin’s form appeared next to her, eyes blazing, but before her lips parted, she vanished again. Devin looked angry, hateful even. Abby could not understand the sudden change. Devin had been her confidante only hours earlier.
As she ran on, leaving the shack behind, she thought of Sebastian. Was he in a panic at the castle? Was everyone wondering where she had gone? Maybe. Or maybe not.
Maybe they didn’t realize that she was missing; it had to be before noon, they might think that she was simply sleeping in. That thought both scared and calmed her. On the one hand, if no one knew that she was gone, there would be no help if trouble arose. What if she couldn’t handle Vesta on her own? But then if they knew that she was gone, Sebastian would probably risk himself to find her, and Abby surely did not want that.
Through several fields she sprinted, her legs pumping in rhythm with her steady breath. If she’d ever felt it, she might have claimed a runner’s high. Euphoria had stolen over her, and trees passed in a blur. The positive feelings began to drain from her gradually, replaced by a burning hunger. Her stomach growled, and above her a clap of thunder snapped her attention skyward. No rain yet, but it was coming.
She squinted at the ground around her. There had to be berries or some other edible plant. The problem was that she didn’t know squat about plants. She was liable to eat some poisonous fern and end up dead before she ever reached Vesta.
She walked a few paces deeper into the woods, scanning the ground and bushes. A few pink flowers poked from the brush, but beyond that lay only weeds and trees. She plucked one of the flowers and pressed it to her nose. A scent of bitter vanilla greeted her, and she might have taken a bite, but remembered once reading about bitter meaning poison, and dropped the flower back to the ground. Too hungry to give up entirely, she bent down, grabbing a handful of chickweed. It tasted a bit like dirt and stuck to her gums, but she forced down three handfuls before giving up. It was something. She couldn’t risk meeting Vesta with absolutely no energy.
Overhead, lightning streaked the sky, a loud and bright welcome to the avalanche of rain that poured down.
Chapter 28
The castle lay silent, except for the library, where the small congregation of witches had gathered.
Dafne stood angrily in front of the stone fireplace, her eyes narrowed and her hands waving in dramatic emphasis.
“I saw her go, she left the castle in the dead of night. We can NOT trust her,” she shouted as if the other witches were not standing mere feet away.
“Dafne,” Elda began, her tone measured. “Abby is a witch, she is part of our coven now. She may be the newest member, but as you know we do not place value according to longevity.�
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“And how about him?” Dafne hissed, stepping closer to the group and stabbing a single pointed finger at the ceiling above them. “Are we calling him a witch as well, Elda?”
“Dafne, stop,” Faustine’s voice rose amid the tension and silenced everyone. Even Lydie, who’d been indifferently braiding strands of her curly hair, looked up in surprise.
He moved into the center of their haphazard circle, his glare reserved for Dafne alone.
“I respect your opinion. However, there is a fine line between insight and paranoia. Sebastian is asleep in his room, and Abby is a new witch who has wandered into a dangerous place alone. You,” he said, pointing a finger squarely at her face, “know each of these things as well as I. You are allowing your emotions and your past to dictate your decisions, and it will not happen, not here and definitely not now.”
Dafne’s puffed, proud form deflated, and though her face remained a mask of outrage, she slumped into a chair in silence. The other witches carefully averted their eyes, focusing their stares at Faustine, who had taken control of the room.
“My connection to Abby is weak,” Faustine started. “But I will go to the tower and try to make contact. Bridget, I will need you to assemble a store of anti-venom that can travel if need be.”
Bridget nodded and exited immediately.
“Elda, Sebastian will rise soon. He must be kept distracted. Perhaps this would be a good time to gather more information about Claire. Max, you have your lessons with Lydie, and those may continue for now.”
The three left quickly, only Lydie daring to hazard a glance at Dafne.
“Helena,” Faustine commanded. “After I try to reach Abby, I will go on foot. I will need you in the tower. You must try to connect. I know that it may not be…”
He trailed off and Helena reddened. Despite all of her practice, she still had been unable to telepathically reach the others once they left the castle.
Dafne stood up. The straight-backed chair she’d occupied clattered to the floor.
“I will go for her, you stay in the tower,” Dafne told him, her request both a demand and a plea.
Faustine stared at her appraisingly, lifting his index finger to his upper lip and watching her as if seeking out the lie he feared was there.
Finally, he nodded.
“I will be in the tower until you return.”
“You mustn’t tell Oliver,” Dafne added, reaching back to slip her long black hair into a low ponytail. The hunter inside of her was clicking on.
“There is not time to prepare, Dafne,” Helena whispered with a smile, meant to be an apology for her unreliable mind reading.
“Fine,” Dafne shrugged. “I’m ready.”
Faustine and Helena watched as Dafne flung open a library window and dived from the high castle walls. They did not hear the soft splash as her body broke the water and began its hasty swim to shore. Faustine beckoned to Helena, and they left the library to the company of its books.
* * * *
Abby splashed through the rain puddled in the soft earth. Her sneakers were sodden and heavy, but she barely noticed, searching for the ramshackle hut through sheets of blinding rain. It pelted her from every direction, stinging her eyes and bare skin, drenching her hair and clothes. Thick raindrops slid off the leaves, collapsing the mini structures created beneath the bowing trees. The wall of vines and bushes hiding the shack fought against her, but her strength in the presence of the rain had nearly quadrupled, and she ripped the wiry branches away with ease. She stumbled into the cottage and collapsed onto the dusty floor, cushioned by dead leaves and yellowed newspaper.
She hated to turn back, knowing that her mother and father were held captive, possibly tortured, but when the rain grew so thick that she could not see her hand in front of her face, she'd had to. The hut would provide shelter and time to think. It would only make things worse if she missed a marker in the rain and ended up reaching Canada instead of her parents.
In the silence of the shack, with the storm beating around her, she felt disconnected from the power that she'd held only moments earlier. How easily it could be switched on and off. A simple movement from wet to dry seeped the energy from her limbs.
The shack was a mess, long ago abandoned by its previous residents. The hole in the roof allowed a waterfall to flood what once had been a kitchen - the water hit a row of decayed plywood cabinets and spattered onto the peeling kitchen counter. There was a black hole where a sink had been, and the window, which might have once revealed a garden view for the dish-doer, was strangled with weeds, a few splinters of glass still hanging in the frame.
Despite the hole and several others like it, the living room was mostly dry. The tortured red couch and a threadbare blue rug sat in one corner facing a small fireplace. Like everything else, the fireplace appeared ancient and misused, but Abby felt a chill settling in her bones. With the storm had come a severe temperature drop, dragging the warm summer day into the teeth- rattling cold of November. She almost expected to see her breath crystallize in the air before her.
She took a minute to survey the rest of the shack. A small, dark hallway led to a tiny bathroom that tightly fit a toilet, stand up shower, and white porcelain sink. Used to be white, anyway. Every inch of the room was covered in a layer of grime, and leaves had blown in clogging the toilet bowl and sink drain. At the end of the hall, she found a closet-sized bedroom. A mattress-less metal frame sat along one wall, and a squat wooden dresser faced it, almost daring the bed to make a run for it. The roof slanted sharply which allowed for standing in only half of the bedroom.
Returning to the sitting area, she peeked into the fireplace, surprised at the rain falling through. She had expected the chute to be clogged with leaves and maybe even some dead animals, but the flue looked mostly empty. She shoveled in some of the leaves and newspaper strewn along the floor, knowing that she'd need something bigger if the fire were to last more than a few minutes. With no other options, she kicked the arm of the couch until a hunk of the wooden frame broke free, and she shoved that into the fire pit as well.
"Come on, Devin, just a flame," she whispered to the small goddess lighter as she held it near a wad of newspaper. The tiny blue flame peeked and disappeared. She felt vaguely guilty for using the lighter for its actual purpose. It was, after all, a powerful object that housed a piece of Devin's soul, but the cold that had earlier felt like a whisper had become a full on scream. Pressing her blue lips together, she gave the lighter another flick.
The newspaper erupted into flames, and at the same moment Abby saw Vesta.
* * * *
The Vepar was moving through a thick tangle of woods, skeletal branches snatching at her long hair, wet from the rain. She thrust her forearm in front of her and muttered a slur of profanities. A deep, condescending chuckle snaked behind her, and Abby saw the Vepar, Tony, his hunched face grimacing in delight at Vesta's obvious frustration. The branches scraped him as well, but he paid no mind, more interested in watching Vesta as she hurried ahead of him, her stride a mixture of rush and apprehension.
“I had an omen today,” Tony whispered meanly, boring holes into Vesta’s back with his dark gaze. “A black hound in the forest.”
“Sure that wasn’t the mirror?” she snapped.
“Oh, no, little girl. Though in your naivete I understand the confusion. It takes time to learn the black world, time and something else. Something that you do not have.”
She turned her head and noticed that he had moved closer. She pulled a branch out of her way and let it fling back, but he caught it before it struck his face.
“I ate the hound, and you know what I saw?”
She ignored him.
“I saw you, Vesta. Ripe, fresh, Vesta. I saw you, and I think that today you will die.”
She stumbled, fell to her hands and knees and then stood, hurriedly. He reached her, but did not pass, falling back. She did not like him behind her.
"The Lourdes has news for you,
" Tony hissed.
"So what," she cut him off, not bothering to turn around. "The Lourdes is deranged, and this is a prank." She hoped, but no, hope was for the weak, and she was strong.
"Tisk tisk," he told her haughtily. "Tobias has used her guidance many times. I must wonder why you're so quick to disregard her. Unless, of course, it's jealousy."
Vesta's shoulders stiffened at this comment. "Jealous?" she spat. "Of a disgusting old witch? Hardly."
Not jealous exactly, but afraid. Afraid because the witch had powers that surpassed hers, and the witch yearned for Tobias. Whether to love him or devour him, Vesta did not know.
"Au contraire," he continued, his skinny lips crackling into a smile to reveal blackened teeth. "I have seen her looking most delectable."
Vesta did not retort, but spat rudely into the bushes as if trying to remove the taste of the Lourdes from her mouth.
The Red Willow appeared before them. Water gushed over the long tentacles and flowed onto the ground, pulling some of the slimy redness into rivulets that cut through the green grass. Vesta stepped around these, but Tony sloshed through them, the red water splashing onto his faded black jeans.
They ducked below the willow branches and moved quickly down the root steps into the Lourdes’s rotted home. Vesta wrinkled her nose in disgust, more to insult the Lourdes than out of true revulsion.
The witch no longer sat on the wooden bench. She had moved into the head seat at her table and faced them as they entered. All of her ugliness had been stripped away. Her long, almond hair flowed over each shoulder, tumbling down the front of a silky red gown that clung to her slender frame. Her black eyes sparkled in the candlelight, and she smiled at them hard, not opening her mouth, but winking seductively at Tony, who lifted his eyebrows in return. Despite the alarming attraction that seeped from her, the Lourdes still felt wrong. As if a monster lurked just below the pink skin, waiting to tear it away and reveal itself.
Ula (Born of Shadows Book 1) Page 27
