Blood Ties

by Gina Whitney

  “Wow! That was amazing. Can you do that with anyone?” I asked.

  “Sure. But the results depend on the intellectual capability of the receiver. The less intelligent the victim, the more effective charisma is. Intellectual people are more difficult to influence. Independent minds fight manipulation. That’s why the masses can never be real witches. Yes, they can dabble in magic. However, their nature is to believe what they see and what they are told. Television makes it way too easy for me to do what I do.”

  Even though I was enjoying my lesson, I thought I had covered these bases with Addison. “So glamour and charisma are the same thing.”

  “Charisma and glamour have much in common. Both are based on illusion. There are key differences, though. They work on different levels. Glamour brings about material illusions, the third dimension. That’s why you were able to turn into a cat, so to speak. Charisma is abstract and takes advantage of one of the most powerful forces on earth: sex.”

  “So I can use glamour to stay beautiful and young forever?”

  “If you continue using the same glamour effect, it will become permanently etched on you. Unfortunately, youth and beauty are glamour’s exceptions. No one, not even witches, can stay young and beautiful forever. Witches still age, and our looks wither, even though at an extremely decelerated pace.”

  “What a cruel irony.”

  There was another paradox at hand. I was deeply in love with James. However, the more Adrian talked, the more fascinating he became to me. I found him to be well spoken, knowledgeable, and capable. The Bolingbrokes had underestimated his ability. He turned out to be a pretty good teacher. Still I remained cautious and heeded James’s advice to avoid his direct gaze.

  I was eager to give charisma a go. I rubbed my hands together and asked, “Can I try?” I could tell Adrian was attempting to look deeper into my eyes.

  “That’s what we’re here for,” he said.

  We walked down the congested sidewalk. At the horizon of the sea of people, I scoped out a man in a Valentino Newman suit. He carried a Montblanc briefcase in one hand and a Carve club sandwich in the other. I recited Adrian’s spell and made sure to smile. Smiling, Adrian said, was one of the best ways to entice people.

  The man stopped in his tracks and dropped his lunch right on the sidewalk. He swung around as he looked through the crowd. His prominent, fishlike eyes landed on me. He tilted his head to the side and grunted: “Hmph.” He swiveled back around and continued on to his destination.

  Adrian put his hand on the small of my back. “You got it. You’re a natural,” he said in a breathy voice.

  We went on for hours, spellbinding men, women, children, even a sewer rat. I finally understood why James said to use magic sparingly. The charisma drained me to the point where I could no longer garner any magical response.

  “You’re tired. Let’s go back to the house and get you rested,” Adrian said.

  I think I was turning green from exhaustion and the noxious fumes from the buses didn’t help either. As we waited to cross Broadway, Adrian took my hand. I didn’t know what to make of that. Was he just helping me because I was tired? Or was it something else?

  I didn’t have too much time to think about it. As I was about to step off the curb, a bat-out-of-hell taxi nearly took me out. It got so close to me that its wind shear billowed up my shirt when it passed. Adrian yanked me back and took me into his arms. At first I didn’t notice that he had rescued me. I was too busy screaming epithets at the long-gone taxi driver.

  “Are you alright?” Adrian asked. He stood back and examined me for injuries.

  After the last “stupid-ass shitface motherfucker” slipped from my mouth, the reality of what had happen set in. I didn’t have to worry about Catherine. Fucking traffic was going to get me first. I shook my head in response to Adrian’s question. He pulled me in close to his body and swayed in an effort to relax me. I started to feel better, but then panicked when realized I was too comfortable in his arms. A tiny sexual rush shot through my body, and I shamefully let go of him.

  “I know my rows with James are disturbing to you. I guess I act that way because I like you. I like you very, very much.” Adrian said. He paused for a moment to gather his thoughts. “Tell me something. If James weren’t in the picture, would I have a chance with you?”

  Deer in the headlights! Deer in the headlights! I absentmindedly patted my head, searching for those antlers. I had to think fast. Adrian would know if I wasn’t telling the truth. I had to be super careful with my response. “It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to answer that question.”

  He gave me a knowing grin. “You already did.”

  Look, I had found Adrian sexually appealing from the start. I couldn’t fool myself by pretending I didn’t. James, however, was the man for me, and I had no desire ever to cheat on him—especially with Adrian.

  Nonetheless, I was fully aware of Adrian’s growing compulsion toward me. He might as well have been a pyromaniac with a pocket full of matches.

  And I was the paper.

  I felt so guilty about my fleeting lust for Adrian in Times Square. And I was hoping like hell that James would be nowhere in sight when we got back to the house.

  Adrian drove well below the speed limit in an obvious ploy to increase our time together. He reached over and lightly touched my knee.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  I put his hand back on the steering wheel. “For what?”

  Adrian playfully smirked at my modest gesture. “For trusting me.”

  We made no more effort at conversation all the way back to Aunt Evelyn’s house. The only sound in the car was KJOY 98.3 playing an eclectic mix of artists including Eric Clapton, Shakira, and Taylor Swift.

  When we arrived at Aunt Evelyn’s, I could see James waiting on the front porch. Damn it. Now I had to pretend nothing had happened, and I was for shit when it came to lying. James walked toward the car while Adrian took his time parking it. Adrian wasn’t being at all subtle about his intentions to incense James. No matter how kind he had been that day, his base character still was operational.

  James hurriedly opened my car door and helped me out. He kissed me with such passion his body was shaking. It felt so good, I dug my fingernails into his arms.

  “Are you alright? You’re okay?” he asked.

  I was still trying to recover from that flaming-hot kiss. “Yeah, I’m great now,” I said, my body all wobbly.

  Adrian slammed his car door. “Why wouldn’t she be okay? Do you think I would hurt her?”

  James tuned Adrian out and focused on me instead. “You’re two hours late. I tried to call. Why didn’t you answer?”

  I looked at my phone and saw he had called three times. Did Adrian use charisma to make me miss the calls? After switching to another screen, I realized I had accidently sent all calls straight to voicemail.

  I said, “It was my fault, James. Everything’s fine. And I did great today.”

  Adrian winked at me. But this time he wasn’t so irritating. I had seen another side of him today. A vulnerable side. The one that had been living in his brother’s shadow. No, I didn’t want a relationship with Adrian. He was no James after all. But I did have a new understanding of him, whereas James still had the same one.

  “Grace, Aunt Evelyn wanted to see you as soon as you got back,” James said.

  That may have been true, but it was truer that James wanted to have some privacy and to fuck up his brother. I truly didn’t want a fight to break out on my account.

  “I can stay out here with you, babe. Aunt Evelyn won’t mind,” I said, trying to divert his attention to me.

  James kissed me again while keeping his furious eyes on Adrian. Then he said, “Grace, just go inside.” Aunt Evelyn crossed in front of the window at that very moment, giving credence to what James had said. “Go get yourself something to eat. You look pale.”

  “Yes, Grace. Get some nourishment. We’ve got to make sure our girl is well tak
en care of,” Adrian interjected.

  I had a decision to make. The first option was to stay there and amp up a volatile situation with my very presence. The second was to go inside and let these two men beat their chests and get whatever agitation they felt out of their systems. I opted for choice number two.

  “I’ll be waiting for you inside. Don’t make me wait too long,” I told James, and hurried to the house, though I stopped on the porch so I could hear their conversation.

  “Did you do it?” James demanded.

  Adrian played dumb. “Did I do what?”

  “Charisma. Did you use it on Grace?”

  “It really burns you up that she actually could’ve had a good time and learned something today. Really? Do you find me so inept you believe I can’t do anything?”

  “Adrian, she is too—”

  “Too what? Too nice to me? Too kind to me?”

  James curled his lip. “Too good for you.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that she may like me too? Or that I might sincerely care for her?”

  I knew from James’s face that was a real concern for him. And he saw in Adrian’s eyes something he’d never seen before: affection for another person. Adrian was still a manipulative cad, but he did have a soft spot for me.

  “I will ask you one more time, Adrian. Did you use any charisma on Grace?”

  Adrian stepped into James as he savored the moment. “I didn’t use charisma on Grace. It wasn’t necessary.”

  A hellish rage surged through James’s body. I could see he wanted to go all apeshit on Adrian. Adrian may have been asking for it, but I didn’t want his blood shed over me.

  Just then Aunt Evelyn stepped onto the porch. “James, where’s Grace?”

  She couldn’t have come at a better time. Her soothing yet commanding voice gave James the impetus to draw upon his own phenomenal self-control and bring himself down.

  He lowered his voice so Aunt Evelyn couldn’t hear. “I’m letting you be. Not for you, but for Grace, the woman I love. My woman,” he said to Adrian.

  “You might have Grace all caught up with you now. But I want her too. Enjoy her while you can,” Adrian responded.

  James had never had to think of Adrian as any sort of competition before. However, Adrian had never had a good enough reason to challenge James until now. Love is a potent motivator that inspires idlers to become conquerors.

  Chapter Twenty

  There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it never care for anything else thereafter.

  —Ernest Hemingway

  “Take the Sunrise Highway exit,” Catherine told Nick. Chetan woke up from his catnap just as the off-ramp dumped them onto a busy street. He looked out the window and surveyed the surroundings. “So this is Massapequa.”

  It was very early in the morning, and rush hour was in full swing. However, Catherine’s Mercedes traveled in the opposite direction of the traffic, headed east towards Grace’s childhood home.

  Catherine occupied herself with filing her dragon-claw nails. With every swipe of the pointy emery board, she enjoyed a thought about stabbing Grace in the throat with it.

  After a relatively short drive, the Mercedes entered an unassuming residential neighborhood. Catherine could tell from the houses that the people who lived there weren’t rich by any means. But their manicured yards and well-kept homes indicated they were hardworking folks and took pride in whatever they owned.

  After a few turns, they located Grace’s house on a dead-end street lined with a scant amount of trees.

  “Pull into the driveway,” Catherine said as she kept a close watch on the house.

  “Don’t you think that’s dangerous? What if Grace is in there? I’m not ready to get into anything,” Chetan whined.

  “Grace hasn’t seen me since she was an infant. I hardly think she’d remember my face. For all she knows, I’m just a harmless Avon lady.”

  Catherine’s salivary glands squirted with the prospect of killing and eating Grace right then and there. She took a breath to regulate her growing hunger and got out of the car. She told Chetan, “Stay here. Signal me if anyone comes up.” She started to walk away, but Chetan stopped her.

  “What should I say?” he asked with a profoundly confused look on his face.

  Catherine was breaking one of her own rules—she was suffering a fool. This was a temporary hassle, however, as she had nefarious plans for him later.

  “Just yell, ‘The bitch is coming! The bitch is coming!’” Catherine said with a sarcastic edge.

  Chetan had no idea she was belittling him. He said in all seriousness, “Okay.”

  Catherine stood there incredulous for a moment. Then she shook it off and took a few steps up the driveway. It was difficult for her to avoid getting her heel caught in the deep cracks of the paving stones, so she tiptoed to the threshold of the 1950s-style Cape Cod house.

  Compared to Catherine’s humongous penthouse, Grace’s home was gerbil-cage small. The tacky aluminum siding did nothing for its plain face. It had no central air conditioning, as evidenced by two window units on the upper and lower floors. Catherine ascertained that no one had been in the house for a while by the knee-deep grass and wildly growing shrubs that needed pruning.

  She also smugly noted the difference between her privileged upbringing and Grace’s humble middle-class roots. An anger rose in her as she realized a peon had the potential to annihilate her.

  Keeping her guard up, Catherine got closer to the house. As she did, her steps felt more and more like she was walking in quicksand. Moreover, she could smell the remnants of Grace’s scent and see the indigo residual of her aura.

  She climbed the creaky steps to the porch. Pulling open the storm door, she knocked on the scratched-up, hollow aluminum inner door. This was a show for any nosy neighbor who might have been snooping out a curtained window. She put her ear to the door and heard nothing. She decided the best course of action was to break in. So she nonchalantly made her way to the back of the house on a well-worn path through the dying grass. She passed cheap plastic lawn chairs and a card table.

  “Goodness! Am I fighting bunch of hillbillies?” she said.

  Catherine stepped onto the weathered deck. She traced her finger around the back door and closed her eyes to activate her second sight. When she opened them, she could see into the past, to when Grace and Julie had rushed out of the house. They looked like lines of electric currents forming vague human figures. Catherine stop-motioned the image, and the phantom forms hung frozen in the air. Catherine walked around Grace’s 3-D hologram, trying to get a clear view of her facial features, but they were just too hazy.

  She reached out and touched Grace. The image zapped and knocked her back some. That profoundly disturbed Catherine. If Grace’s image was that powerful, the real person had to have phenomenal magical assets.

  Wrath welled up in her, and she kicked in the door. She became even more tempestuous when, upon entering, she discovered the house had been totally vacated. There was no furniture, no dishes, not even pictures on the wall. The house was nothing more than empty rooms and stained rugs.

  But Catherine knew forensic traces were always left behind. She scoured the floor for a random strand of hair, a clothing fiber, or a nail clipping. Her radar hit on something down the hall. She followed the signal until she ended up in Grace’s room. Catherine’s fangs popped out in a reflexive action to being in Grace’s personal space.

  Catherine walked around the room and stepped on a loose, squeaky floorboard. That little board piqued her interest, and she lifted it. Underneath, Grace had stashed a trove of erotic photographs taken by Rafe.

  “Oh, you naughty, naughty girl,” Catherine said as she shuffled through the pictures. However, she wasn’t interested in Grace posed in strange positions and various stages of undress. What she examined was the background. The walls, where a ton of pictures of Aunt Evelyn and Julie hung.

&nbs
p; As Catherine continued to go through the photos, one stood out. This particular pictured was just a close-up of Grace’s face. As Catherine studied it, her eyes turned a demonic red. She stuffed the picture in her pocket for safekeeping. As she did so, she heard a pop of static electricity and turned around. James and Evelyn’s astral images floated across the room. They were ethereal, silvery, with the blackest of eyes. These powerful projections of James and Evelyn’s souls appeared to Catherine without their owners’ permission or knowledge.

  “Leave her be,” James’s projection said with a ghostly voice. “You already failed once. Go on your way.”

  Catherine was cocksure and not intimidated in the least. “You are mad. Tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to eviscerate, dismember, and consume every bit of your precious Grace as I promised. And when I have all of her power, I’ll kill the rest of you just for fun. You’ll all make tasty side dishes.”

  “This will be the end battle. Once and for all,” said Evelyn’s projection before disappearing into the ether. James’s projection evaporated too.

  Even though Catherine was sure of her own prowess, she was daunted by how apparently strong James and Evelyn already were due to their dedication to Grace. All she had was Nick and Chetan.

  “I’m going to need more protégés.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.

  —Oscar Wilde

  My father had a funny superstition he had picked up from his mother. He said that May heat waves were an omen that the devil was coming.

  I could not verify or get the background on this tidbit because my father had estranged himself from our family before my birth. He’d said it was for my safety. I guess now the reason was obvious. And, lucky for me, it was May, and Massapequa was suffering from bizarrely hot temperatures.