White Witch

by Trish Milburn

  My heart lurches, and raw fear squelches my power down to barely a hum. “Did you lead them here?”

  He lifts an eyebrow. “Hello. If I’d done that, why would I have just urged you to calm down?”

  I narrow my eyes at him. “So I don’t ‘toast your ass’.”

  “Good point. But I’m figuring you went to a lot of effort to escape and hide, so why go all witchy and light up the night with a neon sign that says, “Look, here I am.”

  I relax a little but don’t take my eyes off Egan. “How did you find me?”

  “I’m smarter than the average bear?”

  “That’s debatable.”

  He puts a hand to his heart. “Ouch, that hurt.”

  I roll my eyes. “Oh, please.”

  Egan places one hand against the doorframe and leans on it. “I figured all the clues leading your family to Alaska were bogus. You’re from Miami. You’d freeze your cute little butt off in Alaska.”

  I narrow my eyes at him again, let a little sizzling spark jump between two of my fingers.

  “Touchy. Okay.” He lifts his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I’m very good at computer hacking and not leaving any trace behind. I read through all the communications regarding your disappearance then started checking out places I thought you might go.”

  I looked at him in disbelief. “How in the world did you pull Baker Gap, North Carolina from the endless possibilities?”

  “Well, they’re not exactly endless. There are places of energy that call to us. It’s in our DNA.”

  “What?”

  “The places where the covens harvested the dark energy that made us what we are today. There’s one in these mountains somewhere. That’s why you felt like this was the right place.”

  “You’re telling me I followed some call of the darkness, the thing I’m trying to flee?” Panic wells up inside me. Egan must see it because he steps inside, closes and locks the door behind him.

  “Calm down. I’m not here to hurt you or tell your family where you are. See, I’m in the same boat.”

  “Huh?”

  “I flew the coop, too.”

  “You . . . you left your coven?”

  “Yeah. I’ve thought about it for a long time. I don’t like hurting people any more than you do.”

  I look up at him, shocked to the soles of my feet. “I had no idea.”

  “Yeah, not something I advertise. Didn’t think it was good for my life expectancy.”

  “Then why find me? Now we’ll have both of our families looking for us. We’d maybe fare better if we split up.”

  “Or we could stand more of a chance of fighting them off together if they do show up.”

  I pace, which considering the size of the little RV and the fact that Egan is standing at one end means that I can take two steps one way before having to turn around to take another two in the opposite direction.

  “This is crazy.”

  “Why are two rogue witches any crazier than one?”

  “I don’t know. It just is.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll make myself scarce when your little hunter guy is around.”

  I stop pacing and face Egan. “Don’t hurt him.”

  Egan’s face changes, like I really have hurt his feelings this time. “I won’t, not unless he threatens you.”

  “He won’t.”

  “Maybe not physically.”

  “Have you been spying on me? Wait, I know the answer to this. You were outside the theater tonight. How many other times have you been watching? And why didn’t I detect you?”

  “Enough to know when it was safest to approach you. And I stayed out of range except that one blip outside the theater.”

  “Safest for me or safest for you?”

  “Both. Listen, Jax. I swear to you, I’m being totally honest. I want a chance to make my own life, too. You know me. How well do you think I like being told what to do every damn minute of every day?”

  I sink onto the couch that turns down into my bed. “About as much as me, I’d guess.”

  “See there, two peas in a pod.” He points toward the bench seat wrapped around the tiny kitchen table. “Is it safe for me to sit down, or are you going to go all sparky fingers on me again?”

  I motion toward the table. “Sit.”

  “You’re going to be glad you didn’t burn me to a crisp.”

  “And why is that?”

  “This.” He pulls a thin, black-bound book from the back waistband of his jeans.

  “Which is?”

  “The Beginning Book.”

  I hear the words, but my brain refuses to believe them. “The . . . It can’t be. It was destroyed.”

  “So we’ve been told. Turns out it was stolen and lost to the covens.”

  “How is that even possible?”

  “The details are sketchy. I’ve been trying to piece them together since I found it.”

  “You found it? Where?”

  “Online. This little bookstore in El Paso was selling off its stock so the owners can retire to Puerto Vallarta. They didn’t even know what to call it. They had it listed as ‘novel about witches, no title or author shown’. It just has a black cover, no markings at all—just a small capital ‘BB’ in the top right corner of the cover.”

  I shook my head slowly, feeling like I was moving through a dream. “The Beginning Book. God, Egan, everyone’s going to be looking for this.”

  “That’s the beauty of it. They’re not. As far as I can tell, everyone believes the story that it was destroyed. I don’t know who started perpetuating that myth, but I’d love to kiss them about now.”

  “Why?”

  “Because this is what’s going to keep the two of us alive and living the life we want to live.” He flips to a page located in the middle of the book. “Read this.”

  I hesitate a moment, half scared to touch a book supposedly forged from the same dark forces that turned the covens into the powerful witches they currently are.

  “Go on, it’s safe.”

  I inhale a deep breath and take the book. I place it in my lap and begin to read.

  The first of each coven is endowed with the full powers brought forth by the callers. From that moment, all that shall ever exist in his line will be endowed with the same powers.

  “I know we all have the same powers. Why am I reading this?”

  “Keep going.”

  The powers are innate, but full development of such powers depends on the individual witch.

  Innate.

  I look up at Egan. “Does this mean what I think it does?”

  He nods. “We were born with all the powers we’ll ever have. What we’ve all been told, that we don’t come into our full powers until we turn seventeen, is a load of crap.”

  “Have you tried anything?”

  “A little, not enough to send out too much of a signature. I didn’t want them to figure out how I was suddenly using more power than I’m supposed to have before I could escape.” He took a deep breath. “But it’s true, Jax. I could feel it after I knew it was there.”

  “Did you . . . did it feel like it was pulling you?”

  “To the dark side? No.”

  I shake my head slowly. “Why the lies?”

  “Why do the leaders of the covens do anything?”

  “Retribution.”

  “Power, pure and simple. It started out as retribution for the wrongs against our families, but it’s changed over the years.” Hadn’t I told Toni much the same thing? “Now they’re addicted to the power, and they don’t want anyone who isn’t fully indoctrinated getting any ideas about challenging them.”

  An unwanted image of my mother screaming as she died made my stomach turn. But she’d been an adult, a powerful woman. What does it say about the covens that they don’t trust their own children?

  “They’re afraid of idealistic kids? God, there are so few of us who would go against them. What do they have to worry about?”

  �
�Maybe there are so few of us because nobody thinks there’s any choice. We all know what happens if we break rank.” He looks over at me, and I see the knowledge of what happened to my mother isn’t contained within the Pherson Coven. “I think somebody among the first ones was more power hungry than the others and wanted to destroy the book. Maybe he even tried, but it survived somehow.”

  I flip through the pages, reading bits of the old script, pieces of my family history. “This is so much to take in.”

  He comes to sit beside me. “There’s more. You’d think with all the power our families possess, they wouldn’t be afraid of much, but there is something, something more powerful than even the darkest Master Witch.”

  “What?”

  “That’s the problem.” He turns toward the back of the book, to where a page has been ripped out. “I don’t know.”

  The jagged edge of paper taunts us. “If someone was going to destroy the book anyway, why bother ripping out a page?”

  Egan runs a hand through his mid-neck-length, dark blond hair. “All I can guess is a couple of possibilities. One, the person destroying the book might have wanted to keep this single page for some reason. Or there was a disagreement about the fate of the book between some of the first callers of magic, and one of them ripped out this page to save it should the proponents of destroying the book win.”

  I examine the pages before and after the missing one. “You’re right. I think this page talked about some kind of vulnerability, some more powerful force than the covens.”

  “Now if we could just figure out what it is or somehow find that missing page.”

  “You think it’s even possible that a single page from a book this old is still around?”

  “The book was supposed to be long gone, but here it is.”

  I run my fingertips along the edge of the missing page. “Talk about a needle in a world-sized haystack.”

  Someone knocks on my door, startling me for the second time tonight.

  “Want me to get it?” Egan asks.

  I shake my head. “I don’t sense anything.” Nothing witch-related anyway. There’s a frisson of what feels like nervous energy in the air.

  Even without sensing either Egan’s or my covens, my heart starts that familiar rapid beating again as I open the door. My mouth falls partially open when I see Keller standing there. My heart leaps, even though I know he might very well be there to perform his sworn duty as a hunter.

  “Keller.”

  “Hey.”

  “Is . . . is something wrong?”

  “No. Uh, maybe. Toni just ripped into me, making it abundantly clear what a jerk I’ve been to you.” He pauses, looks down at his feet for a moment before returning his gaze to me. “Can I come in? I’d like to talk.”

  Egan, blast him, walks up next to me.

  “Hey, man.”

  Keller stares at Egan for several interminable seconds, suspicion swirling in his eyes like dark fog. “I didn’t know you had company.”

  I don’t like how he says “company”, like he’s assuming the worst.

  “Yeah, it was a surprise.”

  “Oh.”

  I can almost hear the gears clicking in Keller’s head as he tries to figure out the reason behind Egan’s sudden appearance in Baker Gap.

  “Egan is an old friend.”

  Keller’s eyes shift to Egan again.

  “Yep, afraid you’ve got another witch in town.” Egan holds up his hands, a teasing smile tugging at his lips. “But don’t shoot me. I’m a good witch, too.”

  Keller doesn’t say anything, just glances back at me, takes a few steps backward then strides away without another word. I’m too stunned at first to say anything.

  “Nice sense of humor,” Egan says. “I can see why you’re falling all over yourself for him.”

  I swat Egan’s arm without looking at him. “Shut up.”

  “Want me to flatten all his tires so he can’t leave?”

  “Yeah, that’ll improve his mood.” I’ve got to talk to Keller before he reaches his dad and they decide a witch invasion has begun and call every hunter they know. I turn my attention to Keller’s retreat. “Keller, wait up.”

  He doesn’t even pause as I hurry toward him. If anything, he increases his pace, sliding into the truck and slamming the door, turning the engine and spinning out of the gravel parking space.

  I stare at his retreating taillights, stunned. Then I get mad, really mad. “Stay here. I’ll be back later.” I don’t wait to hear if Egan responds before I jump into my car and tear out after Keller.

  It doesn’t take long for me to catch up to him. My car is smaller and more easily maneuvered around the mountain curves. That and the fact my heightened senses let me drive at crazy speeds without endangering anyone, myself included. I’m beginning to think he’s going to drive until he runs out of gas when he turns off on a rutted, gravel road. My anger ratchets up a notch. He’s trying to lose me by driving where my car will have trouble. He is so going to pay.

  About the time I think I’m going to have to abandon the car and stalk after Keller on foot, he steers over onto a dirt pull-off next to a fence. He gets out of his truck and goes about arming himself for the hunt, acting as if I’m not even here. Is he prepping to kill me?

  No, that didn’t make sense. If he’d decided I had to be eliminated, he would have just done it when I opened the RV’s door. But if he’s changed his mind during his insane drive to this remote spot, he’s going to find out just what he’s up against.

  Undeterred by his ignoring me, I march up to him. “I’m going to stick by your side until you decide to talk to me.”

  “I’m here to work.”

  “Me, too. I’m working up a gigantic ball of anger.”

  “Why?” He asks the question as he starts toward the fence, but he doesn’t sound like he actually cares.

  I grab his arm and jerk him to a stop. “Why? Because when you’re not looking at me like I might fry you to a crisp, you’re ignoring me. Because you’re so damn sure you’ve got everything figured out.”

  “Some things aren’t that hard to figure out.”

  I let my hand drop away from his arm. “I’m not here to hurt anyone. Neither is Egan.”

  “I didn’t say you were.”

  I feel like screaming until the mountains tremble at his detached attitude, like he’d never once smiled at me, kissed me.

  “Why did you come to my place tonight? To talk about what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You drove miles out of town to talk about nothing?”

  He kept checking the readiness of his weapons, looking like a soldier preparing for war. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  I cross my arms and stare at him, willing him to make eye contact. “I suppose that pea brain of yours thinks something is going on between Egan and me.”

  He finally looks at me then, his eyes dark and unreadable under the night sky. “It makes sense, really. You’re two of a kind.”

  Damn if tears don’t sting my eyes again. I tell myself they’re from anger, not some weaker emotion. “If I wanted to be with Egan, would I be here right now?” Am I risking exposing Keller to harm, risking that the legend about losing my powers if I love a non-witch are true?

  I think I see a yearning in him that echoes inside me. Is he waging an internal battle within himself like I am? For what seems like hours instead of seconds, I don’t think he’s going to say anything.

  “You should be with someone who understands you,” he finally says.

  “You can understand me. Really, I’m not that complex.”

  “Jax, don’t. This is hard enough as it is. Don’t make it worse.”

  “How am I making it worse?”

  “It’d never work. Can’t you see? I’m a supernatural hunter. You’re the type of thing I hunt.”

  Anger explodes out of me. “Fine.” I back up and spread my arms wide. “Here I am. Take your best shot. I won’t even fight you.
Then you can go and hunt whatever it is you’re here to get. Two kills in one night. You should sleep like a baby.”

  He stares at me, horror on his face. “I’m not going to shoot you.”

  “Why not? You said it yourself. I’m the type of ‘thing’ you hunt.”

  “That’s not what I . . . You know what I mean.”

  “No, Keller, I don’t. I thought we had some sort of connection. Obviously, I was wrong.”

  He runs a hand over his face, and I notice he looks very tired, like he hasn’t slept any better than I have in the last week. “We do. That’s what’s so confusing.”

  “Because your world is black and white, and I’m gray.”

  Keller sighs, his shoulders slumping. “Yeah.”

  I walk slowly toward him. “I’m not, really. I’ll even wear a white hat if it helps. Do you think they make white witch hats?”

  I stand so close to him now that I think I spy a hint of a smile.

  A bone-chilling, evil cold slams into me before Keller is even aware of the spirit’s presence. He notices his prey just as I reach for his gun. With lightning speed, I spin and aim the gun at the spirit with my left hand.

  “Do you mind? We’re trying to have a conversation here.” I fire, blowing the red-tinged spirit into oblivion. Despite the gun’s recoil, that felt good. What a tremendous adrenaline rush.

  When I turn back toward Keller, extending his gun to him, I notice the odd look on his face. “What?”

  He pulls me into his arms, crushing my body next to his, and kisses me like the heroes in movies kiss heroines. Like Angel kisses Buffy. Like Spidey’s upside-down kiss with Mary Jane. Like Will kisses Elizabeth in the middle of the battle in Pirates of the Caribbean. Like I’ve only fantasized about being kissed. Deeply, hungrily, so full of emotion my adrenaline is on fire. An epic kiss.

  The gun drops to the ground as I lift my arms to wrap around his neck.

  We kiss forever. At least it seems that way.

  When Keller finally pulls away, he lifts his hands to the sides of my face. “You still confuse me.”

  Despite what has just passed between us, I know suspicion still demands to be heard within him. I guess I can’t expect a lifetime of teaching to simply dissolve because I claim I’m a good person. But when I’m standing in his arms like this, I know I’ll do whatever I can to banish that suspicion like I did the spirit.