Halfway to the campus, I paused, ducking into the shop to my right to get off the sidewalk.
A bell dinged overhead, and a quiet chatter of voices sounded behind me.
I turned around and saw a confused woman behind the counter of the coffee shop I’d chosen to slip into.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“Yeah, sorry,” I said, and threw a smile on my face that seemed to calm her down. “Just a coffee, please.”
She returned the smile and rang up my order.
I paid and accepted the cup with another nod of thanks before I found a small table near the front windows. Keeping one eye on the street, I found my cell in my pocket and texted Tank and Davis.
I hadn’t seen them, but just like the other day, I could smell them, like a rancid odor that seeped up from the sewers. They were out there, and I needed eyes on them if possible.
Tank texted back a few seconds later and said they were pulling up the street views.
I sipped my coffee and grimaced. I really hated coffee, but kept drinking it just in case I wasn’t the only one doing the watching.
My cell dinged, and I held it up to read the message:
TWO SOUTH OF YOUR POSITION. ENTERED AN HERB SHOP. KEEP OUT OF SIGHT UNTIL I GET THERE.
I smirked, drained the rest of the coffee, and burned my mouth.
Tank should know better.
Tossing the empty cup, I left the shop and stepped into the others walking down the sidewalk.
The sign of the herb shop was visible from here, and I quickened my pace to see what our friends were up to this time.
From the sidewalk, the shop looked pretty normal. Herbs and bottles of homemade remedies were displayed in the front windows. There were several books stacked near the bottom, ways to brew your own healing aids, and what stones were good to promote positive vibes.
For a few seconds, I debated on even going in, thinking Davis had been wrong, but then I saw it, and my blood ran fiery hot with rage.
There, etched into the glass in the bottom right corner was a sigil I knew better than anything else in this damn world.
Absently, I rubbed my side through my coat as I glared at the symbol before I was walking into the shop.
There was no plan, but I didn’t care.
They’d been here all along, right out in the open. Now the question was how long had they been a part of this city, right under everyone’s noses, and they didn’t even know it?
Jenny and Preston never mentioned anything about them even having an old residence here. I wandered aimlessly through the small, dusty shop. The lighting was dim and reeked of incense, but there was no one behind the main counter. No one in there at all.
I sniffed harder, and beneath the incense, I caught the sharp scent of their presence.
If I had any doubts about Davis’ intel, it disappeared as I quietly moved deeper through the rickety wooden shelves of crystals and candles.
A curtain hung over a doorway, and grabbing a dagger from my boot, I held it in my hand as I carefully peeled the dingy fabric back to reveal a set of stairs going down.
I held my breath and tilted my head, listening.
At first, there was just subtle growling, but then there was cackling, and I flinched as memories rushed through my head, taking me back to much darker days.
The spot on my side flared in pain, and I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough to bleed to stop myself from cursing.
“Soon, we will have the numbers we need,” a deep baritone grunted, and the others fell silent. “It will not be long now.”
“The others, they are starting to… talk,” a second voice said, female.
“Then do what you must to silence them. They should know by now what happens when they do not follow through with their orders,” the first voice boomed fiercely. Something thudded against a hard surface, possibly a fist, as he ranted on, “Soon enough, there will be no hope for them anymore. We will find the others and crush them beneath our heels. Soon, we will no longer need their support.”
I leaned closer, wanting to hear more. I needed to see their faces, but without knowing the layout of the basement, stepping down there would be a suicide mission. Despite what the others feared, I wasn’t about to throw my life away. Not yet at least.
“He is nearly ready,” the voice went on. “It has taken these past few hundred years to bring us back from the point of death, and now… now they will regret the day they ever thought they could exterminate us.”
Glasses clinked together, and the boisterous laughter started up again.
They were talking, but it was too quiet for me to hear, so I backed away slowly, letting the curtain fall over the doorway.
I just sheathed my dagger and was turning to go when the air suddenly grew heavy around me.
I struggled to get air into my lungs and then the deafening silence was shattered by a furious roar from beneath me.
As if pushing through water, I cursed, realizing who else must be down there.
They’d noticed me after all.
I kept moving, gritting my teeth as their steps pounded behind me and finally the door was in reach. The air grew heavier still, and shoved me to my knees, just shy of the doorknob.
“Damn it,” I snarled, unable to even reach for my daggers.
I wasn’t ready to get dragged back into that world, not now, but then the front door was yanked open, and two rough hands dragged me out onto the sidewalk. I was thrown bodily into the backseat of a car before it sped away.
“Why the hell didn’t you wait, you fool?” Tank yelled as I tried to sit up in the backseat.
Davis was driving, swerving in and out of traffic, until we were a few blocks away and he finally slowed down, glancing at me with a dark look in the rearview mirror.
“What?” I snapped when he didn’t stop. “Watch the damn road!”
“Don’t you worry about the road! What was that in there?” Davis growled. “I felt it as soon as we pulled up. You just couldn’t find something normal, could you. First the half-shifting and now… now we find out they’re working with priests!”
I didn’t like it either, and shook out my shoulders, trying to get rid of the heavy sensation that had consumed my body just minutes ago.
Blood Moon Priests, an old order we thought dead and buried long ago after the war. Guess that was one secret our conquerors wanted to keep us from, and for good reason.
“This changes everything,” I whispered, more to myself than them.
“No, really?” Tank muttered sarcastically.
We needed to get back to the warehouse and warn the others of what was coming. “The dragons are working for them,” I said quietly as Tank turned to face me with a dark look in his eyes, “they’re still trying to fight back. But… I heard them say soon they wouldn’t need any of our kind anymore.”
Tank rattled off a very colorful stream of curses as Davis maneuvered us through the city and eventually back to the warehouse. “You get them on the computer, and you tell them everything you heard. Got it?”
“Fine, then I have to go check on Everest.”
It was Saturday so there was a chance she wouldn’t be on campus, but I prayed that she wouldn’t leave those grounds.
If there were priests here, then this entire situation was about to get ten times worse.
Preston might not want to tell me who Everest really was, but I was pretty sure what I was about to tell him was going to make him change his mind really quick.
FIVE
EVEREST
It was almost noon on Saturday, and I was hiding out in my room, trying to catch up as much as possible on my crazy first two weeks at this new school.
It didn’t help that my weird dreams kept getting worse. Every night now, I saw either something that was clearly from the past, or memories about Mom trying to resurface. And that man. I knew he had to be our dad.
Last night had been particularly rough. He’d been packing a bag while I cried
and Mom… she begged him to leave even as he told her he would stay, no matter what the cost.
Just when they were starting to talk more, I’d woken up and punched my pillow in aggravation. I was so close to figuring out who he was, aside from the fact that I was pretty sure he was my dad. But who he really was, that was the mystery.
I was nose deep in a history of the Shadowguard Dragons when my door flew open, and Amelie bounded in, scaring the crap out of me as she bellowed my name.
She giggled in my doorway as I broke down and laughed with her, my heart thudding in my chest and reached down to pick my dropped book off the floor.
“You are quite jumpy today,” she mused. “Think those combat classes are getting to you.”
“Doesn’t help when the teacher thinks it’s good to learn by scaring the crap out of the students,” I muttered. “What’s up?”
“You have visitors,” she informed me.
I set my book on my nightstand, feeling my cheeks warmed thinking it might be Jared. “Who?”
She waggled her eyebrows at me, but shook her head with an overdramatic sigh. “Not him, sorry, but I think you’ll still be happy. It’s your brother.”
“Mason,” I exclaimed happily and rushed downstairs to see him. I couldn’t believe it’d been over two weeks! We’d texted a lot, but that wasn’t the same as actually seeing him and knowing he was really doing okay with all of this.
Mason and Edgar sat in our little living area waiting on me and stood when I bounded over to them.
Mason jumped up and gave me a huge hug as I squeezed him back. He was definitely enjoying our new lives. I could see it in his eyes when I set him back on his feet and smiled at Edgar, though I did have a long list of questions I wanted to pester him with now that he was here.
His smile faltered when he met my eye, as if he could easily read my mind. Good, he should be uncomfortable. First, he shows up and barely tells us anything really useful, then he neglects to even tell me what I am, or that dragons and witches are real. He was going to get it today.
“Everest! Have you learned any spells yet? This is so crazy! I can’t believe all of this is real—dragons, and witches! You, you’re a witch!” he babbled on excited, and I just nodded along with him. “I knew there was something else out there for us. Just knew it.”
“Glad one of us did,” I said and ruffled his hair until he shoved my hand away. “Though I’m not sure how I feel yet about this whole witch thing. Still getting the hang of all of it. Although, I have been excelling in combat training, for the most part.”
At first, I’d been a mess, but after a few go-rounds with the other girls in the class, and then a few of the guys, I got so fed up that I just stopped thinking and just reacted. I was far from being best in the class, but I only got knocked on my butt twice in the last class, instead of every time. I glanced warily at my little brother.
“Wait, are you taking combat training, too?” I asked and shot a look at Edgar.
Mason grinned even wider, and I narrowed my gaze at Edgar. He waved me off as if it was no big deal for him learning how to fight. “What? It’ll come in handy for him one day.”
“To do what exactly?”
“Stop worrying, Everest,” Mason assured me with a pat on the arm that did nothing to ease my worrying at all. “Wish I could do magic like you, though. Heard it’s pretty sweet. Can you do something now?”
I was about to say I could try a simple spell to make the nearby table hover, but Amelie was suddenly at my side shaking her head profusely. “What? Oh, come on, you’re still holding that against me?” I complained, and Edgar’s brow rose to his hairline as Mason frowned. “One time, it was one time.”
“One time is all it takes,” Amelie said, coming up behind me. “Your sister blew up a cauldron her first day in Advanced Spellcasting, and we had to evacuate the entire hallway. Baby steps, all right?”
I blushed. Yeah, that had been embarrassing. But I had learned fast. I was already casting a few basic spells, mastered a couple of potions that would come in handy, and my teachers were pretty impressed with me. I was whizzing through my Introduction to Spells course that I took with a bunch of other beginner students, but I still had to play a lot of catch up to get on Amelie’s level in our Advanced Spellcasting class. All spells were done in Latin, so I took my Latin class very seriously. I was pretty much learning a dead language, but it came to me pretty naturally as well. Guessed it had something to do with my heritage and all.
“Sorry, kiddo, maybe in a few more weeks… or months,” I amended when Amelie was still shaking her head at me from across the room.
I took in my little brother, and for the first time in years, he looked really happy. His eyes were bright, there were no worry lines on his young face. And I could’ve sworn he’d grown a few inches at least. Part of me was sad I’d missed his transformation, but then again, we both had gone through some pretty crazy things these past few weeks.
“What are you two doing here?” I asked.
“Uncle Edgar wants to take us out for lunch,” Mason said, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Finally, we can get off campus for a bit.”
Getting away from campus and the students who still found it necessary to stare at me like I was some rare animal, sounded really nice.
I bid Amelie farewell, grabbed my shoes and purse, and followed him and Edgar off campus. We rode in Edgar’s car to a pancake house in a small town not far from the school. I gave it a confused look, but my uncle shrugged and said Mason begged for pancakes for lunch. Mason always had loved breakfast food any time of the day. Once we had placed our order and were waiting for food, I decided I didn’t want to wait until later to talk to him about Mom, or the other crap he put me through.
I glanced around to see a lot of people around us, but I wasn’t going to let him slip away before asking what I needed to ask.
“You know, you could have explained a lot of this to me before dumping me off at the school,” I said quietly, leaning in. “Told us both a lot more actually.”
Edgar’s lips thinned, and he tapped his fingers on the table. Each time, I noticed the ice cubes in his glass vibrating.
“I will admit, I have never been very good with children and trying to find a way to explain your… predicament, was a bit out of reach for me.”
“That’s a terrible excuse,” I muttered.
“Yes, well, wasn’t the surprise so much more fun?” He grinned as he said it and I rolled my eyes. “Oh, come now, Everest, what’s life without a little excitement now and again? Keeps you on your toes.”
“Or makes you pass out from the punch of it,” I said. “People hated me at first for being mortal-raised, by the way. I’m sure some of them still do even though I’m a… I’m a… the Descendant thing.”
“Yes well, not everyone can be as open-minded as we would like.” He tapped his fingers more, and the entire glass started to shake before he managed to get a hold of himself. “What else have you learned since being there?”
Mason started rambling off all about his lessons and what he was doing, but I sensed that wasn’t what Edgar meant by his question. I watched him closely from across the table, and a bit of yellow mist—as the teachers called it—flitted out from under his tapping fingers. I’d learned that each person’s magic had a color to it, identifying and showing what type of person the user was. When I used magic, it was purple, and I knew Amelie’s was orange.
When Mason finally came to a stop, I nodded at Edgar’s hand. “Yellow?”
“Hmm?” He glanced down, and his fingers immediately stopped. “Yes, well, you have not yet told me what color your magic takes on.”
“Purple, a very bold purple. It actually looks like one of the strongest in the class though I’m not even close to being that,” I told him and his face broke into a sad smile. “What?”
“Just like your mom,” he said with a proud look. “Yes, each of the Descendants of the First Communion, their magic is a bit more p
ronounced than your average witch or warlock so no matter your skill level, yours will always appear more vibrant.”
“Ugh,” Mason exclaimed. “It’s not fair that Everest inherited magic. I feel so lame.”
“Yes, that is a bit unusual,” Edgar said slowly. “I will admit I was surprised.”
“Was our father mortal? Maybe that’s why?” I asked, thinking about the dreams I’d been having.
Edgar shrugged my question off.
I rolled my eyes. “You really don’t have much to say whenever I ask you something. What happened to her? And him? Why does everyone give me these sympathetic looks when I’m walking down the hall?”
His eyes darted around the restaurant as Mason eyed him closely, too. “We will finish our lunch and then we will discuss this further, but not here,” he said firmly. “Please, Everest, not in here.”
I wasn’t about to let him get away with not answering, but gave in. We ate our lunch, Mason doing most of the talking. I wasn’t really hungry anymore and just picked at my plate until Edgar finally said we could leave.
Outside, we followed him to a small park, walked down a winding path and came to a bench beneath a weeping willow. He motioned for us to sit and I watched as he waved his hand around us, a yellow mist that shimmered in the sunlight flowing around us.
“You just cast a blocking spell, didn’t you?” I asked, excited despite my annoyance at him.
“That I did. Safer that no one overhears us.”
“Edgar, what happened?” I asked when he paced in front of us. “And who is our dad?”
He paused at that and whipped his head around. “Who told you about your father?”
I glanced at Mason, also giving me a confused look and shrugged. “No one, but, I, uh… I’ve been having these dreams, and I’m pretty sure they’re memories from when I was little.”
Dragon Feared (Ever Witch Book 2) Page 4
