The Enigma on Eden Road

by Jessica Lancaster

  “Graduation, already?” she asked. “I still need to write the report about Destiny and her family.”

  “Well, you get an A from me.”

  The letter grade was more of a way to tell her she’d done well, and by sticking this out, she was continuing to show me how well she was doing, and what a fine investigator she would become.

  “Aren’t you curious?”

  “Constantly.”

  “I mean about my family.”

  Of course. But I knew not to pry or investigate the people I regarded as friends, at least not unless they proved they were anything but. “I didn’t want to press you about it.”

  “So,” she began, taking a deep breath, preparing to exhale everything that had happened until this moment. “I was supposed to marry a man I’d never seen. He was from a powerful witch line, apparently I was their pawn, going to forge some alliance.”

  I placed a hand on her back. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, no, it’s okay,” she said. “I’ve come to terms with it now.”

  “Which family?” I asked.

  “The Pendle family.”

  A powerful family indeed. “I don’t blame you.”

  “I never had thoughts of marriage, but in my family, you’re given a husband based on whoever is around to do business with. That’s why I stole from them,” she said. “And I think I have something we could use to bond to the tooth. Maybe get some longer wear time out of the spell, or even reduce the time.”

  “I’m sorry you went through that.”

  “Well, we have more important things to do,” she replied, standing and brushing her hands down on her legs. “Tell me what we need, and we can whip something together.”

  I finally understood. Once she signed the oath to the Witches Council, her family couldn’t do anything to free her from it. The oath was signed in blood, unbreakable, no matter how much money was thrown at you—unless it was thrown at the High Witch, but she would never do anything quite so unethical.

  After a moment of searching through my book of shadows, I handed Cassandra a list of everything we needed, Phil was curious too, but his use was best left being out of our way while we worked on the potion.

  “We best get started,” I said. “It takes a full day.”

  Cassandra turned her watch around on her wrist. “Tomorrow at nineteen minutes past eight.”

  “What’s going on?” a sharp-tongued Ivory snapped, appearing from her cupboard.

  Perhaps Phil could have been useful after all, keeping Ivory occupied.

  FIFTEEN

  My home was the safest place for us to be, until the potion had formed and we could mask ourselves, we couldn’t leave. It was a choice, I chose not to leave, and so had most of the county. With my curious beady eyes on the television screen, I found anger and frustration in how little was being done to root the virus out.

  “Almost time,” Cassandra called out.

  Philip hadn’t left either, most likely as he had left the Council grounds without their permission, and they weren’t about to come searching for him in the midst of all this happening.

  “Already?” I asked, rolling my sleeve to see my watch. “Well, we need to be careful with when we take it. Once it’s done, we only have twelve hours.”

  While Cassandra’s stolen crystals were a benefit, they weren’t the type to change the speed of the potion. The speed of the potion was dependent on the ingredients used, most importantly, the banshee’s tooth, and the life of any once living thing, was always twelve hours, give or take a few minutes, it wasn’t an exact science—potions were done mostly by eye.

  In the kitchen, suspended in mid-air, a glass beaker of brown sludge bubbled away. It had been going like that for almost the full twenty-four hours. It was time for drinking as soon as the brown sludge turned purple.

  “Can we mix it with something?” Cassandra asked, pinching at her nose so a squeak of sound came through her mouth. “I don’t think I can do that.”

  Watching her from the doorway. I remembered I’d never done this one before, but in my book of shadows, it was recommended to mix it with something warm, or let it go down your throat like cement. “We can mix it with some tea,” I said. “But not too much, only to get the consistency a little loose.”

  “Can’t believe you’re really gonna drink that?” Phil added from over my shoulder.

  He was quiet on his feet, and I was used to his presence around me, which meant he could sneak without me first catching a whip of the air usually spinning around him.

  “Maybe you should have some as well,” I said, turning to wiggle my eyebrows at him. “Although it might kill you. Not sure how it works when it’s not on a witch.”

  “Ivory and I will be on watch, I don’t need any of that.”

  I boiled the teakettle. I hadn’t tasted the transformative stuff, but the smell alone told me I needed a strong gut, and tea was that baseline.

  “My favourite,” Ivory chuckled, bursting out of her cupboard. “You know these walls are paper thin. You should do something about that.”

  “I did,” I reminded her. “I had a shed built for you outside.”

  “Well, once this is all over, I’ll happily go back.”

  As the sludge turned purple and the teakettle boiled, we were ready to drink. Cassandra in all her nervousness, hadn’t yet eaten, we hadn’t a clue what was about to happen.

  Slop. The sound made the anticipation of drinking much worse.

  The end result was ninety-ten, ninety per-cent potion and ten per-cent tea. The attempt at masking the smell and the taste didn’t go over too well as we both clinked mugs and threw our heads back as the concoction moved down my throat like a hard putty.

  Phil, Jinx, and Ivory watched—neither of them looking pleased to have been witness to the event. Cassandra made gipping sounds from the back of her throat, but there was no way I was letting her vomit the stuff back up.

  I held a hand over her mouth. “No,” I said. “Not after all the work we’ve done.”

  She swallowed hard in her throat.

  I tried not to think about it, grabbing a glass of water and washing the reside down. My entire body shook. “I’ll go brush my teeth, nobody wants this stuff to repeat on them.”

  In the twenty-four hours we had to prepare for the event, I’d gathered all the items inside my tote bag. This was our all-or-nothing attempt, the make or break. I’d gathered amulets for disarming people; a number of them, there was no telling what types of creatures we’d find ourselves up again. I’d also made sure we had crystals for extra protection, especially where the centre of power was concerned.

  “The beacon could kill us all,” Cassandra sighed from my bedroom door.

  I turned, swinging my bag around on a shoulder. “Are you second guessing it?”

  “No, definitely not,” she said. “I’m just wondering if we should take anything else.”

  I approached her, opening the bag for her to see inside. “I think we’re prepared.”

  She nodded, but I wasn’t convinced she believed me. She’d just have to trust me, because we’d be out there soon enough, we only had twelve hours, and thirty minutes of those had gone by in a flash.

  Another fifteen minutes later and we were making our way through the forest. With Jinx on the ground alongside Phil, and Ivory up in the trees watching over us, Cassandra and I made our way further along unaccompanied.

  “I’m nervous,” she said, softly at my side.

  “Why?” I asked her, feeling a second bout of confidence. Strange how it worked, I was the one original cursed with nervousness, but it seemed to have travelled.

  “What if none of this works?”

  I grit my teeth. My throat closed shut in a gulp. This wasn’t the energy I needed, but I was her mentor still, and for that reason alone, I took her hand in mine. “It will,” I said. “Once we’re inside, nobody will question it. Nobody will question us. The only people who can see the path, or the door can get in.�
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  “Can you see the path?”

  I shook my head, turning around on the spot. “I’m still trying to pick it up.” I hummed. “They might have moved it since last time.”

  “That’s why I’m worried,” she said. “Because what if we get lost inside.”

  “We’d need to make it inside first.”

  “And what about our powers in there?”

  I gestured to my bag once again. “That’s why I packed these.” I squeezed her hand slightly before letting go. “If you’d have told me about all these questions and nerves before we left, I’d have whipped up a little liquid confidence for you.”

  Finally, her face broke into a smile. “That’s what my mother called gin.”

  A clamour of voices sprang from behind us.

  At first, I thought it was Phil arguing with the familiars, until I realised they were all male voices, all of them strong and vulgar.

  “Look what we have here then boys,” a man called out.

  I checked behind us to see them and double check whether or not Phil was on their tails. This was our first test. I took Cassandra’s hand once again. “This is it,” I told her. “We need to prove to them.”

  “Boys,” I smiled, waving at them.

  “What are you doing?” Cassandra whispered, the fear in her voice gnawing at my plan.

  There were four men, each of them dressed in blood-soaked clothing. They must have all been in their late thirties with scruff around their necks and crawling up their cheeks. They didn’t look harmful, other than the bodily fluids on their shirts.

  “Care for a bite?” one man asked in his thick cockney accent.

  “We’re lost,” I said. “We’re looking for the beacon.”

  “Oh?” they all questioned, their voices echoed like a seal at a zoo.

  Cassandra scoffed. “They don’t know,” she said. “Let’s leave these posers alone.”

  “Posers?” one man asked. He opened his mouth wide, showing the two pointy little fangs hooked to the roof of his mouth. He was possibly new—a sign that these people were created after the beacon started to gain power.

  Cassandra clapped, stepping away from my side. “Want to see what a banshee has to offer?”

  Their leader, the initial man stood forward. “No,” he said. “We don’t have death wishes.” He turned his back on us to face the three other men. “Banshees are hags.”

  “I heard that!” I said.

  He turned with a shot, pressing himself to me. “Did you?” he asked, sniffing deeply with his eyes closed. “Smells just like a hag to me.”

  SIXTEEN

  I elbowed him in the stomach and pressed a hand to his throat as he stepped back. My face was straight, and my lips were unsmiling. I was taken over with what younger Evanora would have done, and that was go on the attack.

  The men chuckled to themselves behind their leader. He stopped grinning for a moment, staring me directly in the eyes. “They’re okay,” he said.

  I pulled my hand away and brushed a hand across my blouse. “So, I gather you’re going to the beacon to ascend?”

  “That’s it,” he said. “You know it’s dangerous to stand around alone in a forest.”

  “Like we said, we got lost,” Cassandra added. “And we do quite well on our own.”

  A man stood forward, standing in line with their leader. “Banshees aren’t the type of creature to attack. You’ve already got plenty power in that scream of yours.”

  “And you have your power driven by a lust for blood,” I said. “We all want a little more control of ourselves, don’t we?”

  They weren’t a fan of the truth. Banshees weren’t to be messed with in the realm of all that is supernatural creatures, you ran away from a banshee if you saw one. But up was down and left was right lately.

  “Well, ladies,” their leader said. “Follow us.”

  They set off and we followed from behind, keeping at their pace. We couldn’t lose them, and we certainly couldn’t talk about them too each other. Vampires were famed for their hearing, and any tingle of doubt they had about us, could mean a surprise attack from above—from our side, of course.

  “They keep changing the spot,” their leader spoke from ahead. “But all roads lead to Rome.”

  His men chuckled at the comment. I hoped for his sake, that all roads lead to the beacon.

  “We heard from our sisters—”

  “There’s more of you?”

  “Inside, of course,” Cassandra said.

  “Our sisters told us the beacon will grant you incredible powers,” I said. “Powers beyond anything you could have ever imagined.” At this point, I was making up whatever I felt they wanted to hear, and gather more information from them.

  “These things don’t come around often,” the leader said. “But when they do, you’ve got to be worthy of it.”

  “Worthy?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he replied, stopping the walk to face me. “When they put out the call. They make sure you’ve paid your dues. Turned three people, if not more.” He paused to look us over, his squinting eyes and teeth slowly grinding. “Guess it’s different for you. You girls don’t really have a taste for blood, or that kind of power.”

  Proving once again, my decision to go with banshee over vampire was definitely a good one. But they also gave more insight into what was happening. Someone—or something was sending out messages, they were calling for people to kill, for people to turn humans into monsters.

  It explained the outbreak at least, why there was a mass panic and hysteria.

  Destiny’s death was the tip of the iceberg, and we were working our way to the base; Harry and the Lord Mayor must have been wracking up the kills in order to ascend.

  I hoped the familiars and Phil were listening to all of this.

  “Nothing quite like that for us,” I told him. “Our powers are in our voices. We’re stronger because of them. I guess we’re going to be of help when the beacon attempts to take over the world.”

  “It’ll start with the county,” he said. “Then move along the coast.” He rubbed his hands together with excitement. “In my fifty years as a vampire, this is the largest I’ve felt one grow to. Before this, it was—”

  “Durham,” I said. “I remember it fondly.”

  He shrugged. “Didn’t meet the quota of kills, so it vanished.”

  This thing was running on sacrifices, humans into monsters, and the more that happened, the bigger and stronger it would become. I glanced at Cassandra as she scowled at the group of men behind their leader. I wanted to tell her what I was thinking, or hope she was coming to the same conclusion.

  “We’ve wasted enough time,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  I had no idea if he was following the light, the spell on my glasses must have worn off, which wasn’t surprising, but perhaps it was something we should have thought about earlier. I mentally kicked myself for not being prepared—my dream was right.

  Taking Cassandra’s hand as we walked, I hoped a physical bond could patch through a telepathic connection.

  ‘Cassandra?’

  ‘Nora? What are you—in my—’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes. I don’t want to take too long. This beacon is running on sacrifices. There’s going to be thousands of people.’

  ‘Should we turn back? Think of something else, perhaps.’

  We were already too far gone.

  “Looks like we’re here.”

  ‘We are?’ Cassandra panicked in my mind.

  ‘Remember, Phil and the familiars are watching.’

  “Ladies?” their leader spoke, parting his men for us to see the door, hiding behind darkness the treetops provided.

  SEVENTEEN

  We stopped still, staring at the door. We pulled our hands from each other’s hands and smiled at the men. This was certainly the door we’d see the other day. And we now had under eleven hours before the potion wore off.

  “Ladies first,” the leader said.

>   “How kind,” I said with a smug smile. “Let’s go.”

  I pulled on the handle of the door and it opened onto a small square of dirt, covered in darkness. A torch lit on the side of the wall, illuminating a small staircase passage in deep orange hues.

  We were going back to the dark ages, it seemed.

  I entered with Cassandra at my side. The men followed behind as we walked ahead, walking down the steps. They didn’t seem to end, continuing down and down, almost like we were stepping directly into the stomach of the earth.

  “Nora,” Cass whispered, tugging my hand.

  There was another door ahead.

  I’d been preoccupied, staring at the walls and the clay dirt they’d been tunnelled in. This wasn’t like anything I’d seen before. And looking forward to the door, I realised how these people were able to get through all of Cottonwood—because they were underneath it.

  “I’ll go first,” I said, taking the lead of the group as I power walked toward the door.

  As I entered, a woman dressed from head-to-toe in black handed me a slip of paper with a number. “Two-hundred and eight,” she said with a croak of her voice, spitting out dust as she spoke. “Two-hundred and nine.”

  This room was brighter, only slightly. There were benches and chairs around the room. It was a waiting area, and there were several other people inside when we entered. I hadn’t banked on having to waste time here.

  I took a seat and Cassandra occupied the spot at my side.

  There were people covered in blood, not a single speck of their skin on show.

  “How long do you think it’ll take?” Cassandra asked in a whisper.

  “Couple hours,” a voice announced. “I’m number two-hundred.” The man revealed himself from the shadows, walking with a limp and a walking stick in hand. As light from firesticks reached him, casting him out in all his presence, I realised he had a large hump on his back and several other large protruding boils across his body.

  “Goblin?” I asked.

  He laughed. “In the flesh.”

  This must have been what happened to old goblins, or perhaps a hybrid mixture; human and goblin. I shuddered at the thought. This man was clearly in pain. He coughed and wheezed.