Never Look Back (Paranormal Huntress Series Book 1)

by W. J. May

  “Listen,” James started as he unfolded his arms and looked straight into Atlanta’s eyes. “I wouldn’t keep anything from you unless it was for your own good. I hope you trust me with that.”

  “I do, but I think you underestimate how much I can handle,” she said dismissively as she walked out the door and left him gazing at her empty bed. She could feel her uncle’s eyes on her back, and she made it a point not to turn around as she walked into the bathroom and closed the door. She leaned against it, listening as her uncle’s footsteps disappeared down the stairs; only then did she let out a frustrated sigh.

  What else was going to come out of the woodwork? She glanced wearily at the wall. Possibly literally.

  She pushed off from the door and stood in front of the bathroom mirror as she turned on the water. She took a deep breath and realized how much she was dreading the day she had to face. She no longer knew what to expect. The things she then knew about Calen frightened her to her core. The stories she heard about witches were on rare occasions and had always seemed like a myth. But in the course of one night she had found out that the evil that had almost torn Calen apart a century ago, and threatened the lives of many, was a witch.

  Not to mention good old Beatrice, Atlanta thought bitterly. Family tree of witches.

  If James had had some magic powers all along then it was safe to assume that her mother did, too. So why couldn’t she escape the fire that had orphaned Atlanta? If her powers could make her transport from one place to the other in the blink of an eye, why didn’t she use those powers to save herself?

  The surge of tears came welling up in her eyes. She pressed her lips tight. She was not going to think of her parents. It had always been a matter for another day whenever it came to her mind. She could never handle the pain. She had always hated it, the weakness and surrender that came with the agony.

  Then, as air escaped her ballooned lungs, she splashed water on her face. The cool liquid washed down the flowing emotions that warmed her cheeks. The tears came with the water. She could breathe easier.

  Let it out, she told herself. If only briefly, even if she had to repeat to herself that it was just tap water, that they weren’t tears.

  A brief silence broke into her mind. The gears of her thoughts cracked and sped up. It was almost as if her consistent thinking was rolling on to lead to this one realization she was now having, and she didn’t know if she should grin, or frown, or dwell in fear from herself.

  Do I have powers?

  Atlanta stood frozen, staring at herself in the mirror. If her mother, James, and Beatrice all had magical powers, then it was only logical that she would have them, too. Then it might not have been her uncle who had saved her from that fall all those years ago. Could I have done it? Was I the one who floated?

  She opened the door of the bathroom and rushed outside. She had to be sure. She had to know the complete truth. She knew that she had made her uncle feel guilty earlier, but it was the only way she could get anything out of him. She could ask him whatever questions she wanted and he would answer not in words, but in stories.

  She ran down the stairs to the living room where she knew her uncle was waiting to take her to school, and from the restlessness of her mind she started speaking way before she had reached him. “Uncle James, I was wondering,” she started between slight pants and excitement. “Do I—”

  She fell silent at the sight of Marcus standing in the living room with James. He looked like he had just arrived, and before she could utter another word the words came out in his deep, husky voice.

  “Colin Toller was murdered last night.”

  Chapter 13

  The Night Before

  James grunted as he carried Atlanta up the stairs to her room and lay her down softly, making sure not to wake her. She’d fallen asleep on the couch in the basement, frustrated and angry when he couldn’t give her the answers she was looking for.

  He felt like he had already said too much. He knew he couldn’t protect her forever, but for now he had to make sure he didn’t overwhelm her. He wondered momentarily if he should’ve told her the truth about the Insurgence a long time ago. It didn’t matter. It was too late for what-ifs, and he was far too tired to beat himself up about it now.

  When he returned to the basement, Ryan had already put his shirt back on and was looking for his shoes. James had untied him not long after he’d told them the truth about the Insurgence.

  “You okay?” James asked.

  Ryan shot him a less than friendly glance and nodded slightly. “I need to get home.”

  “I’ll drive you.” The wolf in front of him was just a boy, but James knew better.

  Ryan snorted. “I could run the distance in seconds. You’ll only slow me down.”

  “Not with those injuries.”

  Ryan hesitated, and James could see that he was struggling to ask him something. “Spit it out,” James coaxed.

  “You should have told us before.” Ryan glared at him. “You should have told Atlanta.”

  “I was protecting her.”

  “One would think that telling her the truth would protect her.”

  James sighed. “One day, Ryan, you’re going to understand what I did and why.”

  “I doubt it.” Ryan grunted and stood up. “Let’s go. Please.”

  * * *

  The door to the Skolar house was dark brown with a brass knob right in the middle. From far away, the sides of the door were in line with the window of Atlanta’s room right above it. The window was painted white, black panels on both sides and underneath it. On a regular day it was an inviting scene, one that promised a sanctuary of sorts from the world outside.

  However, on that night a dark figure shrouded the top part of the window.

  The sun had begun to rise as James and Ryan left the house through the garage. Soft beams of light were beginning to fall on the paneled rooftop, but on the window to Atlanta’s room the shade was a crown.

  The figure hovered and hung upside down, his head dangling, taking glimpses of her room. His shoulders were broad, arms crossed, and although his head was on the crosshair of the force of gravity the black hood didn’t shake or fall from his head. His face was covered with the darkness that accompanied his shadowy figure. Only his fangs shone through his hooded image.

  He had been in the orbit of the Skolar house all night, prowling the corners of every window, keeping watch on the one who would save his brothers. He had tried to get into the house several times, pushing open the window to her room. But as his body touched the air inside the house his entire silhouette was repelled, uninvited. The window would glow in invisible green flickers. No matter how many spells he cast, the house still seemed like uncharted area for him.

  When James had bolted out of the house on his bike the first time, the dark figure had tried entering through the front door. Yet the moment his feet were a length from the tiles of the entrance his whole body felt paralyzed, cemented and repelled.

  And when she’d glimpsed him standing there, he rose from his hypnotized posture and hovered back into his bat-like position by the window of her room.

  On the window, next to the door of the house, the raven that accompanied him wherever he went, his ‘eye,’ stayed, glaring at her. The smallest specks of light in the darkest of rooms were absorbed by the raven’s eyes, resting on the focal points in its red-engulfed retina. Yet the image wouldn’t form anywhere in its blank mind.

  The figure watched James and Ryan leave, and he realized that trying to enter the house again would be useless. Even though the only one in Calen they needed was lying asleep inches away, it felt like his mother would be more satisfied with another disturbance. In his malicious, frosted heart, he knew where to go next.

  The engine of James’ bike roared and Ryan hopped on behind him. The figure waited until they were at a distance before bolting behind them. His cloaked body jumped from building to building, like a shadow that disappeared at the touch of the wall
s, dissipating and reappearing at the edge of another building. The towers of Calen rose to slap at the sky as he followed the fumes coming from James’ bike.

  A few minutes later, a house with dark grey walls came into view. The white rooftop was divided into two triangles, the one on the right nearly half the size of the other. The one on the left had a circular window that almost looked like a porthole, and on the two sides of the paneled triangle that shaped a room were two other porthole-like windows. Their purpose was to focus all the light coming in from the moon, to invite it in from any direction as it hung proudly in the sky. The figure knew the house. The room under the bigger triangle was Colin’s.

  The figure dangled from a tree, both legs slightly touching a branch, almost as if he was attached to the tree through a peculiar force of gravity. From far away he looked like a shadow under the shade of a tree, camouflaged. He watched Ryan slip painfully off the motorbike, and waited as the men below talked briefly. James’ lips moved, then there was a moment of silence. James patted Ryan on the side of his arm; Ryan smiled and then turned to the house.

  The bike thundered away but the birds in the trees didn’t move. The figure was pulling them towards him, not from the nature of his being but to keep the air silent and the fierce eyes of the werewolves away from the moving branches.

  When Ryan entered the house, the figure descended from his position in the tree. He glared at the room under the triangular roof on the left, and in a swift movement his legs bent and stretched to reappear yards ahead, on top of the roof. Not a sound was made, not a single panel on the roof breathed, his movements as silent as the sound of the sinking moon.

  Through the window he could see the room clearly. The sunbeams rested on a corner table right across from the bed. The figure gazed a moment at the picture of Ryan with his father. Colin, he hissed. In the picture it looked like they were on a mountaintop, a vastness of white clouds and greenery behind them.

  His eyes slowly investigated the rest of the room. He sensed a heaviness weighing down the bed. It was covered in blankets. The figure twisted, trying to get a better view. From where he hovered, the top side of the bed couldn’t be seen. He moved swiftly, and reappeared on the other side of the room to look in that window. A set of pillows covered in blankets rested where a sleeping body should have been.

  The figure squinted and his fangs elongated, his body glowing with a slight mist of green. But before he could even turn back or begin to investigate the rest of the house, a deep and long howl sent the birds around the house in search of the sun. He was bombarded with a heavy collision from behind. Sharp teeth pierced his neck and claws dug deep into the back of his shoulders as they fell, rolling in a heap on the wet grass behind the house.

  The figure’s head snapped up. Colin had fully turned, much larger than most werewolves, a black-furred beast with eyes that were as yellow as the flaming sun. He growled as he pinned down the now-unhooded figure and tore part of his skin from the back of his neck.

  No blood seeped out from the intruder, and when Colin’s claws dug deep into his back he didn’t even cry out.

  He was being crushed under Colin’s enormous weight. A bite in the neck from a Werewolf like Colin usually meant instant fatality, yet for this one the damage did little more than stun him.

  Colin went for another snap with his jowls, but was suddenly biting the grass. The figure under him disappeared, as if he’d liquefied and then seeped through Colin’s fierce claws.

  He nearly laughed as Colin turned around, growling at him standing just out of the wolf’s reach. He watched the wolf stare at his human face. The sky of his eyes was black, not white, and in the middle the redness of them alternated hues when his fangs elongated. His forehead was covered with his light brown hair, falling on his face like a veil, like the way his hood usually did. He shrugged his broad shoulders. The rest of his body was abnormally slim, his cloak usually hiding that as well.

  As Colin stared, the figure laughed as he suddenly sent the green mist surrounding him flowing toward the wolf.

  Colin leaped, trying to attack the figure again. Halfway through the air, he shifted.

  The figure watched, his face expressionless. He knew what was happening inside the wolf. Pain raced through its body, and through it the wolf could feel his fur recede back into his skin, changing color quickly. His fangs shrank back into teeth and the sharpness of them dissipated into the light of the day. And when he was inches away from falling headfirst on the attacker, his eyes changed from the wrathful flaming yellow into the deep brown color of his human form.

  He fell straight into the hands of the figure standing in front of him, grinning.

  Claws held Colin from the back of his neck as the figure slammed his face into the ground. The figure lifted him up again with ease, as if picking up a doll.

  Colin tried to growl, probably tried to shift, but all that came out was a crackly sigh.

  The figure bent his head to a side, taking in the look on Colin’s worn face. A raven descended on the attacker’s shoulders and stared at Colin with glaring red eyes.

  With his other hand, the figure buried his claws in Colin’s chest, penetrating the ribcage. Colin gasped as the hand withdrew, ripping his heart out. His heart pounded for a few seconds before turning to ash, and the figure dropped Colin, lifeless, on the ground.

  The attacker stared at what was left of the shifter for a few seconds before turning his head to gaze at the smaller triangular rooftop of Ryan’s room.

  The raven soared from his shoulders and turned to face him. Through the simultaneousness of purpose and the blankness of his mind, he knew what to do next.

  The figure soared into the air, disappearing just as Ryan raced out of the house. Looking behind him, he watched Ryan fall to his knees, holding his father’s devoured body and howling in rage at the morning sky.

  Things were about to get very interesting in Calen.

  Chapter 14

  Present Day

  Atlanta sighed for the millionth time. Through the window of the car, the skies bent down in a grey melancholy blur that flattened the thoughts in her mind. And like the skies, her silence and grief hung like a heavy shroud over her. She barely glanced at her uncle as they drove home from the funeral, but it was clear he was just as devastated as she was. She knew how far back her uncle and Colin had gone.

  They were high school buddies. Like me and Ryan.

  The only difference was that there was way more history between James and Colin, and Atlanta had a hard time wrapping her head around how her uncle must feel. The frown on his face said a lot about his anger, but what worried her more was that he wasn’t showing any grief.

  Anger didn’t lead to the smartest way of thinking. He’d taught her that.

  He’s mad at what killed Colin. Wants to find it. Probably tear its guts out.

  Atlanta had eavesdropped on her uncle speaking with one of the Werewolf elders. It was apparent from Colin’s body that he’d been killed in the same way Louis had been. The signs were obvious. Without a doubt, it was the same attacker. The news would circulate around Calen, and soon there would be the outrage of misled werewolves who immediately blamed the Vamps, a form of revenge for Louis’ murder. It was one of the reasons that it was important for Marcus to be at the funeral, talking with the elders, sharing his concern and vowing to do what must be done.

  “What happens now?” Atlanta asked, looking over at her uncle and blinking back the tears that had started to form in her eyes.

  James shook his head and didn’t reply. There had been talk about the urgency in need of guarding the door in the Dome and, most importantly, finding a new leader for the pack.

  It was a subject her Uncle James was deliberately ignoring.

  “What about Ryan?” Atlanta asked, not referring to the new leader issue but something else entirely.

  James gave her a quick look before returning his attention to the road in front of them. They’d found Colin’s body, but ther
e was no sign of Ryan anywhere. James was the last one to see the boy when he dropped him off at his house, and that only meant one of two things. Either Ryan was dead, or he’d been taken by the same beast who’d killed his father. No matter what the explanation was his disappearance had to be sorted out, especially with the leaders of the other packs hungrily circling the Toller territory, blood- thirsty and willing to disturb the peace they had all been working so hard to maintain.

  “Uncle James?”

  “Not now, Atlanta,” James cut her short. “We’ll figure this out later.”

  * * *

  Later took a lot longer than either of them expected.

  Days went by with no sign of Ryan. Several meetings were held at the Dome, where wolves and vampires argued endlessly. Atlanta had been adamant on attending each and every one of them, and she watched as James interfered almost every time with a calm and rational solution to each problem. It was impressive to see him do what he did, but Atlanta knew it was only a matter of time before his words held no meaning. The rage was bottling up on both sides, and she knew her uncle was only prolonging an inevitable collision that would set the city aflame.

  “Do you think he’s dead?” she blurted out one day as they drove back from the Dome, turning her eyes from the corner of the passenger window and to the distance in the road ahead. She’d tried looking for Ryan, and was stopped each night by her uncle. He didn’t want her out on her own, after dark or during the day. It was beginning to feel like a prison. She pushed her thoughts aside and told herself to focus on finding Ryan. And nothing else.

  “I doubt that,” he replied after a moment of thought. “If he were dead, his body would’ve been found by now.”

  “What makes you sure of that?” she asked as her mind struggled to paint her pain in words.

  “I’m almost sure that Louis and Colin’s killer is a hybrid,” he declared, “and if so, then they wouldn’t kill anyone without leaving his body behind. They’d want to make a scene. Try to upset the peace.”