All I could do in this once-in-a-lifetime meeting was smile nervously as Lupa stared at me. Sometimes animals had this way of looking at us that could make us feel like we were the smallest and most insignificant things in the world. What they saw and did on a daily basis to survive, especially in a place like this, when I slept in a warm bed and found my meals in a refrigerator…my life could not even compare to her trials and tribulations. I felt sheepish and vulnerable. I don’t think she meant to make me feel that way, but I felt totally out of my league with her.
Maybe they took their time and stared because they were silently judging us to decide if we were good people or the type of people that would have guns hidden under their jackets. I could see the strength in her, the unfailing sense of survival that had been bred through the generations of her pack. She was a result of those genes and traits being filtered and fortified since their species began. She was absolute perfection, and I was beyond honoured to meet her.
Lupa was staring at me again.
She slowly walked toward me and stopped a few feet away to sniff the air. She seemed to be taking more time in her decision making. I wished I could help her out with that. Then I realized why she had stepped forward in the first place. Then I realized. My thoughts! I then filled my heart with adoration and love for her and all wolves. I held her name in my mind. I thought of nothing but welcoming her and of how much I would love to touch her beautiful coat.
She lay down on her belly then and lowered her head to her paws. I took this as a sign to move forward. Slowly, very slowly, I crept to her, keeping my body low, and I gently put a shaky hand on her back. Her fur was cold, but her body was warm. I noticed a few bare spots from battles long past. I moved my hand up to her neck and scratched there behind her ears. She settled into my touch. I could see her breath puffing out of her nostrils, and it slowly began to cloud my vision. I closed my eyes. I felt her inquire of my heart and its secrets—out of curiosity, not maliciousness. It had been so long since I’d trusted anyone to get inside of my heart; I was hesitant for a moment. I opened up my eyes again to look into hers, and I felt safe and protected here. I let my thoughts about my home and family escape in a stream of visions through our connection. I let my eyes close again as my lids became so heavy, Lupa’s warm breath encasing me. Everything that moments ago had been so far away from me was now close enough to touch. I thought about Hunter and Betty, and my soul ached slightly for them now. I thought about our gardens and my shop. I could see us all, happy and piled on top of each other in a hot mess of fur and flesh, snuggling by the fire in our home at Autumn Moors. I could see Jasper running after Betty in the fields and Hunter at my side as we lazily walked along the shore of the river. I saw Duke and Theo play-fighting in the dirt, kicking up dust eddies in their wake. I pictured Tracey sneaking kisses with Joel as Strider stood watch. I pictured Jasper and that gorgeous smile on our wedding day with the gypsies. I showed her everyone and everything we knew and loved in our life. I could just barely feel fresh tears streaming down my face as I got lost in the memories of what beauty my life was.
Then the shadows came and blackened my dreams. Lou came stomping through the picturesque scenes of our town and lands as if he were a giant. With one step he crushed Autumn Moors with everyone I loved inside of it. Then I heard his laugh—the belly-shaking, guttural croaking that made me instantly sick.
“No!” I cried out. Laura touched my shoulder, and I opened my eyes, struggling to accept that what I’d seen was not the reality. It was only a vision; it was not real.
Not yet.
I cried softly, at a loss. Whatever I was doing would never be enough. Was that vision a premonition? Would I be made to watch my family die? I couldn’t handle the thought.
Lupa was nudging my chin with her head. I looked up and was now face-to-face with her as she stared deeply into my eyes. I felt her gently ease her vision down into me to peer at my soul. I was afraid to let anyone else in ever again after Lou had so savagely bored his way in at the exact same spot. I felt ashamed and unworthy of her. She sat and put one paw on my hand and cocked her head. I felt my despair and terror wash away then. I even drew up a smile. All I could do then was lean into her and hug her tightly, and I closed my eyes once more.
I felt her tell me silently to hang on tight.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Suddenly I was flying through space and time. Galaxies washed passed me, brilliant and blinding streams of light coursing through the vastness of the universe. I was afraid, but I felt like I was not alone. I felt protected, as if someone were holding me and shielding me from the unseen terrors of the night. I closed my eyes to the incredibility of the vision and followed that feeling of love.
I was being guided.
Finally my journey stopped, and I opened my eyes. My feet were firmly on the ground. It was hot and acrid. I looked around.
I was in hell.
Or what I would perceive to be hell if I ever dreamed of it. It was a chaotic desert, grotesque trees dead to the world. The skies were burned and to breathe only hurt me.
Perfect home for Lou.
I took a few steps until I came to a ridge where I could see for miles and nothing changed in any direction. It was my worst nightmare to see the earth in such ruin, and I was here, and I was alone.
Why was I here?
Because you need to know how to defeat your enemy.
I looked around. Who had said that? No one. I was alone.
“Nicky, Nicky, Nicky…” My name was whispered on the winds. I whipped around and saw no one. My heart began to pound; a cold sweat beaded on my neck. I knew whose voice that was.
I began running—to where, I didn’t know, but I had to get away from him. Then all around me, as if coming from the sky, was his booming cackle of laughter.
I stopped, my eyes searching wildly. I was teetering on the edge of full-scale panic. Then I felt the same as I had when I had been flying through space. I felt as if someone were with me. I felt as if more than one person was with me, trying to help, to protect me.
“It’s not quite a vacation spot, but we are here, so might as well make the best of it.”
I spun around and found Laura sitting on a dead tree that had fallen.
“Stop gawking, princess; you’ve never shared a vision before?” She smirked. “Guess not.” Well, I suppose I had, in a way. I remembered when Tracey had come to me and pulled me out of my coma. I heard my name again, and it sounded closer.
“Nicky…”
Thanks to Laura, I now knew this was only a vision, and Lou was not truly here.
I recalled the fire and Lupa, Anna Belle dancing, and Katerina singing. I could still feel Lupa’s fur in my hand.
Ok, I thought to myself. I’m here for a reason; I must find out what it is. I am an accomplished witch now. I can handle a vision. Besides, Lou has no idea I possess the power of the skies.
“Yeah, so what are we doing here? Why did we have to come here?” I asked.
“You are here to learn something, as always, witches are constantly learning.” She sighed, “Go forth and figure it out.”
Great....nice pep talk.
Instead of running this time, I turned back to follow the sound of Lou’s voice. I would find him. As I walked the scorched ground, I now had Lupa by my side, following me. She looked up at me, and I nodded at her. The first sign I was growing stronger was her joining me on this path. I realized then she had me entranced here. She wanted to show me something.
If you want to show me how to defeat Lou, I already had a vision of the last White Witch. I know what she did to kill him. I know what that means I must do.
I thought about Agnes’s words—that the legend of the White Witch stated she had ended up destroying herself with her own Lightning.
The last White Witch hadn’t had the help of a shield wolf or a trio of special witches. I thought.
When we finally found Lou, he was seated on a pile of bricks that were charred and st
ill smouldering. He had the head of some poor beast on a sword, its broken body at his feet.
He was wearing the blazer he’d bought in the shop the first day I’d met him. His hair was greased back, showing off the same beady black eyes.
I was taken aback when I saw him. It had been a long time. My stomach grew butterflies; my heart beat against my chest. He stood up and sauntered over to me. I felt his charisma and I felt his longing, which grew stronger every step he took toward me. His eyes stayed on me with so much intensity, never wavering. I had to tell myself he was evil over and over, because who I saw before me now was posing as a my old friend Lou.
But as he got closer to me, his features changed. His eyebrows furrowed, and his eyes pierced me like the nails of the Needle Twins from Shadow Hills. His beefy hands rolled up into fists. His steps were faster now, rushing toward me. I grew afraid. I winced in waiting.
Nothing happened. I opened my eyes, and he was gone.
Laura was standing there now, eyeballing me. “That was a test, princess, and you failed it.”
“What was I supposed to do?” I was exasperated. “He has some sort of strong hold over me that I can’t seem to break!” I threw my hands in the air. It wasn’t enough that I was a Lightning Witch. I was still pathetic and weak like the day he’d spellbound me in the garden. “He will kill me, and if by some chance I do defeat him, I have to destroy myself anyway, because that is the curse of the Lightning Witch!” It all felt so hopeless. I looked back at Laura, who was patiently watching me lose my shit. Lupa walked up beside her then, looking at me with curious eyes. “And stop calling me ‘princess’!”
Laura walked around a bit and poked at the dry sand with her cane. She was rolling something over in her mind. Her hand absently drew up to that scar at her temple. She touched it gently with the pads of her fingers, lost in some memory that she would never speak about but was obviously haunted by. Lupa pawed at her skirts. Laura bent down and seemed to be having some sort of consort with her that I couldn’t hear. Finally she nodded and took a breath as she stood, using the back of Lupa to gain purchase.
“Come here, girl; sit down.” I didn’t move. Her patience wore through. “I said come here and sit by me!”
I scrambled over and sat next to her. Her eyes were wide. “Sorry, I thought you were talking to Lupa,” I said. Lupa growled and sauntered off.
Laura was fussing around, trying to get comfortable but delaying something.
Now I was getting impatient. “Laura, what is it?”
She pressed her lips together as if trying to keep her words tucked up tight.
“Laura, obviously you are here in this hell with me for a reason. Just tell me.”
“All right.” She turned and gathered my hands into hers. “The vision you saw at Agnes’s was a true vision. The earth held the memory of the battle between the Lightning Witch and that demon you call Lou. It replayed it for you, almost like one of those fancy records.”
“You mean like a DVD?”
“Yes, yes—whatever. I’m not into this future stuff.” She was annoyed so easily speaking of technology. I didn’t bother telling her that DVDs were actually a thing of the past now.
“Anyways, what I am trying to say is—well, you keep saying she destroyed herself with her own Lightning.”
I nodded.
“Do you remember seeing that in your vision?”
I thought about it, and no—I had not. I wasn’t even sure how the vision ended. It was like trying to recall how a dream started or finished. Suddenly something was happening, and then you were awake. “No, I can’t remember.”
“Well, then; how do you know that is what happened to the Lightning Witch?”
“That seems to be the general consensus; it’s a apart of the legend.” Agnes had mentioned it, I remembered.
“I see.” Laura let go of my hands and looked off into the distance of the treacherous land. “Well, truth becomes memory, memory becomes legend, and legend becomes twisted with rumour and time.” She began rubbing that scar again.
I gasped.
It all came flooding back to me, what I had seen in my vision. Everything made sense now. I remembered the wound Lou had given the last Lightning Witch when he’d scraped her face with his claw.
I stared at Laura intensely. Could it really, truly be? But how? Agnes said the last Lightning Witch had been born two hundred years ago. It was all legends and myths before my vision. If it was Laura, that would mean she would have to be over two hundred years old. I thought about how much she hated technology and change. I thought about the secluded cabin in the woods and how the trio rarely ventured out past their home grounds and how no one ever came to visit. What sort of magic would keep someone alive that long?
Laura stared at her hands in her lap. The years began to show in her face.
“Laura, are you saying you were the last Lightning Witch?” I barely breathed, too afraid I would miss one word.
“For two hundred years I have carried this burden, watching all of my loved ones age and die. I have kept quiet, become a recluse, all in the name of waiting for the day that either the Daoi returned or the next Lightning Witch was born.” She laughed lightly, her eyes twinkling. “And now both of you have shown up at the same time.” She exhaled heavily.
“But I don’t understand. Agnes said the Lightning Witch destroyed herself in order to save her coven.” I remembered her words about the darkness that had grown inside of the witch and about how death had been the only answer to save the people.
Lupa came trotting up to us and sat staring at Laura before she laid her head on her lap.
“That’s my girl, Lupa.” Laura stroked her ears. “After my battle with the demon, he marked me deeply.” She drew a line on the scar around her eye with her finger. “It is true—the darkness had a hold on me, so much that I wasn’t sure I would be able to breathe without it, but knew I would die if I kept it.”
My heart ached for Laura. I knew that feeling all too well. It was a shitty crossroads of sorts, a hard decision that no one could make. It was the scariest nightmare that you couldn’t find your way out of, but at the same time, you basked in the beauty of its horror only to keep living.
“Lupa’s great-great-grandmother, Astrid, came to me the full moon after the battle when I’d left my village to go to the mountains to die.” Lupa cried a little with the sound of her family member’s name. Laura touched Lupa’s face with a warm hand. “I watched what my powers were doing to the land, to my people, to myself. I knew I was the seed of it. If I died, peace would return, and with it all of the bounties of the land. A balance needed to be achieved. My life was throwing it off, even though I had rid the world of a demon.” Laura paused in her reverie. The landscape was becoming violent; hot winds began whipping sands around us. Lupa stood up straight, ears perked, on alert. “Through the vision with Astrid, I found a way for atonement, and so I may still live and fulfill my burden.” She paused, pressing her lips together. “I traded the most important thing I had in my life, and I still had to go into exile. I had to leave my village and family and live on my own for many years in the cottage we live in now. If it hadn’t been for Laura and then Anna Belle coming along, I don’t think I could have waited around for the next White Witch much longer.” The skies began to open through their burnt-umber shade, and blackness was behind it. The dark began to roll toward this world like a giant wave.
“But I thought Laura and Anna Belle were your family.” I was confused; I had assumed they were three generations that had been living in harmony under one roof all of this time.
Laura looked around and visibly grew anxious. She turned back to me. “They are my family, Nicole, but that is a story for another time. We don’t have much time. Nicole, I’m trying to tell you that in the end I didn’t have to sacrifice myself. When I met with the Canadian shield wolves, they taught me that the balance could still be achieved, but I had to give up something so important.” She breathed deeply. “It w
as a big decision, and not without its own consequences.” The winds were howling louder now. I could scarcely hear her. I pushed the hair out of my face and drew closer to her. Lupa began to howl, as if trying to overcome the howling winds.
“What did you have to sacrifice?” I was yelling now so she could hear me. I could hear again the voice of Lou calling out to me, challenging me to face him again. I ignored it. I had to know what Laura had done to survive and still keep a balance.
Her face was forlorn; she was remembering now with all of its grandeur what she had given up in a trade for life and freedom from curse.
“My powers.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
I was taken aback. That was the answer? The last witchcraft you could ever practice would be killing the demon, and then…what? What were we if we were not witches? I had just made amends with Earth, and now I would lose her again? My heart sank.
“But I’ve seen you with spirits, you have magic still?” I inquired.
“I’m not sure how I am still able to communicate with spirit and conjure.” Laura sighed heavily. “Perhaps it is my only refuge from exile.....I can still feel all the things the White Witch can feel, the storms gathering in the distance I can feel with every ounce of my bones. I feel the lighting searching for me in the skies, like static on a sweater.” She looked above.
The Lightning Witch (Elements Book 2) Page 11
