Grey Eyes (Book One, The Forever Trilogy)

by Brandon Alston

  Chapter 28

  Spectacle

  I ran straight into the crowd in front of us, shoving my way through until I reached the back door.  I had 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 had 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.  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 magic.  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 one of the guardians swept her aside. 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 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 had 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.  Then she took her last breath.

  I couldn’t accept it.  I wouldn’t.  “I can bring her back.  I’ve done it befo
re.”  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.”