We sang Happy Birthday to my mother after that, and then Dr. Roberts was presented with a plaque honoring his achievements in medicinal magick. Reading over the award, it was the first time I noticed that they spelled “magic” with a “k” at the end.
Music started up and the host called Darren and I down from our table and over to the middle of the room. There was a dance floor there. My nerves flared up again when the host announced that we would be having the first dance. Darren whispered not to worry, that he would take the lead.
He led me out and did a bow. I started to curtsy but froze when I heard London’s voice in my head.
“I’m sorry, Ana. But I’m about to crash this little party of yours.” And then she showed me what she was going to do.
Chapter 28
Spectacle
I ran straight into the crowd in front of us, shoving my way through until I reached the back door. I’d hoped to catch her before she got to the entrance, but she met me there. I looked down at her shirt and recognized immediately that this was no empty threat. In bright red letters she’d written the words, “vampire lover.” She’d whitened her face to paleness of a vampire and had drawn on vampire fangs down her chin with lipstick
“Oh good, I already have everyone’s attention.”
I did my best to shield her from everyone behind me. “London, don’t do this. Just go. Just go away and don’t come back.”
“You sound like Aiden. I’m not leaving ‘til I make good on my promise to help you, Ana. So far I’ve just messed things up.”
“Then at least go back home,” I pleaded.
“She used the Kora Mortae spell on him, Ana. She tried to kill him.” A smug smile reached across her face. “Lucky for her, that spell doesn’t always work. Still, I think she could use a little lesson. If she wants to destroy the thing I love most, then I will destroy the thing she loves the most, her precious career. Let’s see how mommy explains this to the Elder Witches.”
She pushed past me and I could hear the gasps even before I turned around. The crowd parted and she moved through them until she was face to face with her mother among the other Elder Witches.
Bethany McArthur was livid, shaking in her chair. Tears started down her face. Then, she said something no one expected. “I’m sorry everyone, it seems the evil has finally reached her brain. You see, my daughter is a conjurer.”
Shouts and screams filled the room. London looked back to me, panicked. I didn’t know what to do, what to say. Duncan did. “Everyone’s here, I call for an immediate trial.”
The guardians surrounded London in an instant. Darren came to my side. “This is bad, Ana.”
“No!” I shouted to Duncan. “Leave her alone. I…I order you to.”
“You do not give me real orders until your twenty fifth birthday,” he shouted back. “Someone take our princess up to her room, I don’t want her to witness these unpleasantries.”
A guardian grabbed my arm but Darren pushed him away. “She is allowed to sit in on any criminal proceeding. We all have that right.”
Duncan shot him a nasty stare but Darren did not back down.
My grandmother stood up next. “This is a party! This is hardly the time! Bethany, surely you cannot want your daughter tried like this?”
Mrs. McArthur met London’s scared eyes and for a moment I thought her maternal side would prevail, that she would drop this entire thing and say it was a lie, an act of anger. But then her eyes hardened and she buried her face into her hands. “I’ve tried to protect her for so long. I can’t bear to see her mind warped by this…diseased magick. Do it now, get it over with.”
“What’s going on?” It was Aspen. She must have been outside for most of this. I started to tell her, but when she looked around, she understood for herself.
“Dr. Roberts, perform the tests,” Duncan ordered. “You can use the space outside the ballroom if you’d like.”
As the guardians seized London, Aspen lost it. She tried to run to her sister but was swept aside by one of the guardians. Realizing the futility of that effort, she ran over to her mother’s table. “You told them didn’t you? How…how could you do this? I hate you…I will never forgive you for this. I hope you die!” She ran crying and her father scooped her up. He shook his head in utter disbelief as he stared at his wife. For Mrs. McArthur, having lost her entire family in the span of minutes had finally cracked the vengeful anger that had walled her off from the reality of what she was doing. She dropped her head onto the table and began to sob loudly. Darren’s grandmother reached over to comfort her.
It might have ended there had Duncan not pressed on. My grandmother seemed too shaken to fight him, perhaps because she was hiding the fact that I was conjurer too, which was terrible because I was certain that she was the only person who could stop him. It only took a couple of minutes for Dr. Roberts to confirm what I already knew to be true. I had hoped he might lie for her, but given this was such a public thing, I understood that that option wasn’t a very realistic one. Even with Aspen’s words to her mother, it hadn’t been until people heard it from Dr. Roberts that they turned on London. Fear had taken over. They called for an immediate sentencing. There were calls for her death by more than a few people. It gave me chills.
I felt so helpless. I was some kind of princess, being brought in on a white horse to sit on a velvet throne and for what? I couldn’t do a thing to help her. Thankfully, Darren was becoming the man he set out to be right before my eyes. When no one else would, he volunteered to defend her.
Duncan just laughed—but it wasn’t for very long. Darren knew his stuff. Every time Duncan presented an argument that made it seem impossible not to kill her, Darren would counter successfully. Finally, when it appeared that Duncan was running out of steam, Darren asked for a second opinion on the tests done to confirm London was a conjurer. Visibly weary of tonight’s proceedings, the Elder Witches quickly accepted. And since there were no others present who could do the tests, the sentencing would have to be postponed.
Aiden burst into the ballroom, flashing his elongated canine teeth. The guardians reacted slowly, which I was sure was due to the fact that until this point, they had never thought it possible to see a vampire inside of Brighton. In their confusion, London ran to him, but the group of guardians who’d participated in the fire-show spread out to block their exit.
Aiden pulled London close.
“Attack!”Duncan shouted.
“You will do no such thing!” shouted my grandmother. The guardians who had been most ready to act had just barely stopped themselves. I was so glad that my grandmother snapped out of the daze she’d been in. “Do you really mean to strike them down in front of a room with children? We have ordered that a second round of tests be done, and until that time, the girl is to be considered one of us, as she always has. And you Duncan, are hereby relieved of your duties. Your actions have been reckless to say the least.”
“You do not have the authority to relieve me,” Duncan snickered. “Now atta—“
“Then I relieve you,” said my mother standing up. “As my daughter’s representative, and on her behalf.”
My mother’s inclusion in this public demotion hit Duncan hard. He had been her personal guardian her entire life and now she too had turned on him. The fight seemed to leave him all at once.
My grandmother extended her hand. “Come London, I promise that no harm will come to him once you have stepped away. You have my word.”
I saw London search her mind. She must have decided that it was okay because she was stepping away from Aiden. That’s when I heard Nathan’s voice.
“Gotcha vampire trash. Kora Mortae!”
Hearing those two words made me jump. I turned my head just in time to see London step back over to Aiden to calm him down. Only, she fell before she ever got the chance.
“Just as well!” Nathan shouted. “Filthy conjurer.”
I took Nathan by the shoulders. “How could you do that?”
His eyes became wide and childlike again. “But Ana, she’s a conjurer. They’re evil, just like vampires!”
I shook myself free of the daze Nathan’s words had sent me into and ran to London’s body, dropping to my knees beside her. She was holding her chest, staring up at me with confused eyes. She grabbed my hand. Her mother joined me there beside her and kept apologizing.
“I remember,” she thought, projecting her voice into my mind. And then she took her last breath.
I couldn’t accept it. I wouldn’t. “I can bring her back. I’ve done it before.” That’s what I kept telling them as they kept trying to pull me away. I took her hand, just as I’d done for my mom and I willed her to live. I sat there and eventually they gave up on pulling me away. I kept trying, again and again. And every time, the answer was still “no.”
Chapter 29
Time
It was my mother’s touch that brought me out of my hysterics—the kind that only a mother could give, the kind that seems to speak calm into you. I stood up, ignoring the shocked faces surrounding me. “You’ve tried,” she whispered in my ear.
She led me through the crowd. Remembering Aiden, I turned around, but it seemed he had accepted her fate long before I had. I wasn’t sure if anyone had gone after him or not, because everyone here was focused on me. I’d made it pretty obvious as to how my mother’s “miracle” had come about and I could hear “conjurer” being whispered in people’s minds. The unwavering support I enjoyed with them had dimmed, there was uncertainty in their eyes now.
My mother led me up to my room and tucked me into my bed. She kissed my forehead and left without saying a word. Helena came in a short time later to ask if I needed anything, and after she left it was my grandmother’s turn.
“It just doesn’t seem fair that you should have to endure so much in the span of a week,” she said.
“I haven’t endured anything,” I replied. “My mother’s alive, I’m still alive, London’s dead. That could have been me down there. We’re the same, we’ve made the same choices. That could have been me.”
My grandmother was taken aback by that comment. “What choices have you—“
“You know what choice,” I interrupted. “Tristan.”
And that’s when he appeared on my balcony. He pushed open the glass door, his face worried. “Aiden told me what happened. You can’t stay here Ana. The pain of losing London has made him give up. It’s just easier to separate himself from his emotions, to let the monster take back control. He blames you Ana, for not bringing her back. He will hunt you.”
My grandmother was speechless, but that didn’t stop him from addressing her next.
“He knows her scent. We have to move her. If she stays here, then he’ll return with an army of vampires to get to her. But if she’s gone, then he’ll prefer to travel alone, he can move faster that way. I know how his mind works.”
My grandmother looked between the both of us a couple of times before her gaze settled on Tristan. “You killed my daughter. Those were your bite marks on her neck—admit it once and for all. TELL ME THE TRUTH!”
I could tell the memory had hurt him. “They were mine. But if you had just let her leave, then she wouldn’t have been so desperate… How many times did she beg you?”
Her eyes were teary now. “You know nothing! And now you’ve come for her niece. Why? Because they look the same? How dare you!”
“We don’t have time for this!” he shouted. “He could be out there right now, making his decision. And if he determines that he needs an army, do you think the vampires will stop once they’ve stormed this mansion? They will keep murdering until your entire haven is dead.”
“I’ll go!” I said standing up. I couldn’t bear the thought of that happening because of me.
Tristan made a move to pick me up and my grandmother raised her hand to him. “Touch her and I will kill you where you stand.”
I ran into his arms and shielded his chest. “Then you’ll have to kill me first. Nobody else dies. Nobody.”
My grandmother put her hand down slowly, her face wrought with emotion. “She’s not Aleksandra!” she called as I backed Tristan onto the balcony.
“No more lies!” I shouted back. Tears were running down my cheeks. “You know that I am.”
And Tristan took me into the night.
********************
Tristan was eager to drop me off to free himself to go after Aiden. So, there hadn’t been any time to confront him about what I’d learned. Not that my mind was together enough for that talk right now. Tonight had been so utterly terrible, it was all I could do not to burst into tears. I couldn’t bear to hear any more bad news.
I knocked only once before Taylor opened the door. Despite my feeling out of sorts, my story must have been convincing because she hugged me on sight. She brought me inside and sat me down on her living room sofa, insisting I tell her everything. I stretched out the quick lie I’d given her on the payphone; I told her how my grandmother and I had had a big argument, and that my mother had taken her side, which made me feel so alone that I had to get out of there.
“Well, Daddy’s got some conference this weekend so you can stay here for the next two days. Just try not to go outside too much during the day. We’ve got nosy neighbors.”
“Thanks, I really appreciate this Taylor. You have no idea.”
Having left to get something out of the kitchen, she popped her head back into the living room. “Don’t you worry a bit, that’s what best friends are for, right? Besides, you have to hear what happened at Applebee’s…. Oh, and Darren called just after you did, I told him you were on your way over. You weren’t avoiding him or anything were you?”
“No, that’s fine.” His coming over here meant that he would be safe.
I kept seeing London’s face in my head. It had all happened so fast. My hands were still shaking. What had she remembered? I shook my head and looked around the room for a distraction.
“Hey? You rode bulls?”
She popped her head back into the living room again, beaming. “Yeah. I used to race horses, too.”
She deserted whatever she’d been doing in the kitchen and disappeared into the hallway, reappearing after a minute with a photo album in hand. She plopped down beside me and opened it up. We laughed at shots of her tiny frame on top of such large horses. She paused for a moment on a photograph in which she was standing next to an older version of herself, smiling a gap-toothed smile and tugging at her overalls. Taylor smiled as she ran her finger around the woman’s face.
“Is that your mother?”
“Yeah, she’s so awesome. She’s the one that got me started with riding. I miss her something awful. She would do these magic tricks—she could make fire dance in her hands or she’d leave a little snow man on my dresser in the middle of summer. I would beg her to show me how she did them so I could show off at school, but all she would ever say was, “When you’re old enough, I’ll show you.” Taylor laughed. “So every year on my birthday, til I was like twelve, I’d ask her if I was old enough and she’d just be like, “Nope not yet.” I think when I turn sixteen this December, I’m gonna call and ask her again as a joke.”
Taylor’s mom is a witch. It hit me so suddenly that I was surprised I didn’t say it out loud. Her father’s moving her up here didn’t seem like such a coincidence anymore. Was he a warlock? My mind raced with possibilities and I wondered why they hadn’t told her. I just smiled. “I have a feeling she might say yes this year.”
She gave me an odd look. “You think so?”
There was a knock at the door and Taylor jumped up to answer. She took a quick look through the peephole and then waved me over. She opened the door and I heard Darren asking for me. Hearing his voice brought me back to the reality of what had transpired tonight.
“She’s right here. Aww, look at you all concerned about her.”
She pulled me in front of her and Darren hugged me in the doorway. �
��How are you? I know it’s been a… rough night.”
“I’m dealing.”
“Taylor, do you mind if we have some privacy?” he asked. “We need to talk.”
She eyed him skeptically. “You guys can have the front room. But make sure that talking is all you guys do. We watch TV on that couch.”
As soon as she was gone, Darren set in on me with questions.
“Why in the world did you come here? You didn’t even tell anyone.”
“I just thought that Aiden might be looking for me. I didn’t think that he would guess to look for me here.”
“Did you know? What he was, I mean.”
I started to lie, but stopped myself. “You shouldn’t be so quick to judge her.”
“You can’t be serious! Ana, she brought a vampire to our school. She’s always been wild but this is just too far. I defended her, but honestly, she brought this all on herself. Being a conjurer isn’t something you can help, but to go and fall in love with one of those monsters on top of that? It’s indefensible.”
I could only stare, stunned that he could be thinking about all of that now. “Darren she’s dead! How can you just sit there— I want you to leave.”
Now he was stunned. “What?”
“Just leave!” I shouted at him.
This brought Taylor back into the living room. “Is everything alright?”
Another knock sounded on the door. “That was fast,” Taylor said. “Normally the pizza guy takes forever.” She dug some money out of her pocket and then pulled the door open. “Aiden?”
Before I could react, Taylor had been thrown backwards into the living room, crashing into a bookcase and landing on the floor, where she remained. Darren sent a streak of fire toward the front door and, taking my waist, he rushed me into the hallway, then into what appeared to be a spare bedroom.
“Get down!” he shouted. I ducked down on the other side of the bed and Darren took up a defensive position between me and the doorway. His hands were on fire.
But Aiden came through the window from outside, catching both of us completely off guard. I rolled underneath the bed; where, for a few minutes, I was taken back to the first time a vampire had come after me.
Grey Eyes Page 22
