by JB Caine
“What is that, mind control? How could you do this to her?” I demanded of him. “Let her go!”
“Ah, my girl, so full of fire.” Now evident in his voice was that English accent I had wondered about.
“You don’t get to call me that. I’m not yours. Let. Her. Go. NOW.”
He chuckled. “Ah, but you are mine. You know that now, don’t you? My blood runs through you just as surely as hers does. Now, I don’t want to hurt Maddy any more than you want to see her hurt. But you and I have unfinished business. That was awfully clever of you, getting rid of that talisman. But you’ve forced me into a more direct approach.”
“If you harm one cell in her body, we won’t have any business at all.” My mind raced, searching for solutions. I had escaped him once, and I doubt he would underestimate me again. My first priority was my mother’s safety; he was still unlikely to physically hurt me. But I wasn’t too eager to take that chance either. “How are you even here right now? And what’s with the accent?” I did want to know how he got past the wards, but I was also buying time to think, searching for solutions.
“Ah, yes, well, that’s why we find ourselves in the garage. It seems your aunt only warded the house. Rather short-sighted, I’d say, but a boon from my point of view. As far as my accent is concerned,” here he flipped into the American accent I’d heard earlier, “the simplest disguise is often the best one. Didn’t want to tip you off to my identity too soon, after all.”
“What is it you want?”
“Didn’t we already have this conversation? There’s a great deal of power to be had, and while one god’s power is nice, why should I stop there when I can have more?”
“What makes you think that’s even possible?” Keep him talking, distract him, buy time…
He smiled wickedly. “Won’t it be fun finding out exactly WHAT is possible? I wouldn’t be the only one to benefit, you know. You’d gain as well. Surely you can see the benefits.” He was trying to use his abilities on me; I could feel it. I felt the violet swirls in my aura transform into outward-facing spikes. He winced.
“Well, well. It appears you’re a quick study.”
“Stay out of my head. And get out of hers.”
He shook his head. “Think of it as insurance, my girl. If I can’t control you one way, I’ll control you another. You have no idea what greatness we could be destined for. You can’t see it, but I can. Sometimes a father has to make the hard decisions for his children, wouldn’t you agree?”
“You’re not a father. You’re a sperm donor.” Something he said had resonated in the back of my mind. ...not the only one to benefit...greatness we could be destined for… In one respect, he was my father: blood. Which in this case meant POWER. I had some of his power, I knew it. I just had to figure out how to use it. I took a deep breath.
Keeping my eyes locked on his, I went to the closet in my mind and stood in front of the boxes. I whipped the tops off of all the ones I had used before and armed myself with their items. Ghost-seeing glasses, intuition headband, influence binoculars, glamour lip gloss, and then I added the others I hadn’t worked much with telekinetic gloves, beguiling fan… But that wasn’t enough. I needed more than Selene’s gifts to fight him. I started pulling the tops off of the boxes I couldn’t read. A whip, a hat, a bindi dot, a magnifying glass on a chain...I adorned myself with all of them.
When I refocused my attention on the present, I realized he was looking impatient. “Well, what will it be? Leave with me, and I will release your mother’s will. But don’t forget that I can take control of her anytime I please. I’d hate for her to be driven to self-harm as a result of your stubbornness.”
A wavering in the air behind him caught my attention, and my grandmother’s ghost materialized, looking angrier than I’d ever seen her. She focused herself on him, but he could not see her, and she couldn’t affect any of the physical environment.
He couldn’t see her, but I could. And she knew things.
“What do I do?” I pleaded. My father thought I was talking to him, but she knew better.
“I should think that’s obvious,” he began. His hubris reared its ugly head. He assumed he had won. My mother started to cry silently.
But Grandma understood. She turned to me and a truly frightening smile spread across her face. She was suddenly beside me, and I could feel the energy field around me begin to surge. I drew more and more power from within me, and I could feel my grandmother taking possession of my left hand while I maintained control of my right. In my mind, I saw her plan. It was a reckless gamble, but it was the only plan I had other than giving in to the Magician’s will. My energy pulsed all around me.
He could feel it, too. “I credit you for your intentions, my girl, but you don’t have the experience to attend to your mother and me at the same time. If you try to do anything to me, she will stab herself. If you try to pull that screwdriver away from her throat, you’ll be weak enough for me to control you. You’re out of your league here. See reason. You only have one choice.”
He was right about my experience but not about my grandmother’s. I visualized a bolt of my white and violet energy being pulled back like an arrow on a bow. My grandmother guided the arrow away from me and angled it behind my mother, pointing at my father.
With one more deep breath, I let out a yell that carried all the strength my soul possessed. I heard the twang of the bow, and a wide beam of energy shot out, knocking my mother’s hand away from her throat on its way to knock full-force into the man who would hurt us both. He slammed into the concrete wall, his head snapping back hard against the stone. His eyes rolled upward, and he crumpled to the ground, unconscious.
My grandmother appeared beside him, glared down at him, then faded.
The screwdriver clattered to the floor next to my mother, and she ran to me, sobbing. I hugged her fiercely, but then broke away, afraid to take my eyes off of the inert form of my father. We had to find a way to secure him until we could figure out what to do with him, and unfortunately, I didn’t have syringes full of sedatives to keep him under control.
So we did what any logical, intelligent women would do. We bound him with zip ties (HA. PAYBACK.), blindfolded and gagged him, and tossed him in the trunk of my mother’s car. Then we called my aunt and she called the Empress. They told us to meet them off Dixie Highway in the the Twelve-Mile Swamp.
It was an ambitious plan, but the only thing they could think of to do about him was some sort of binding spell. They weren't even sure it would work, but the only other option was for him to agree to behave himself, and it was clear he couldn't be trusted to keep his word.
We sped along Dixie Highway, our nerves severely frayed.
"What if he wakes up?" I asked nervously.
"He may already be awake," Mom replied. "There's no way to know. Lia, I'm so sorry. I…"
"Mom, you have nothing to apologize for. There's no way you could have prevented any of this."
She didn't respond, and I knew she was trying to find ways to blame herself for what my father had done. That was just one more reason to hate him.
We were maybe five minutes out from the place we'd agreed to meet when I spotted it. Roaring up behind us at alarming speed was a burgundy van. THE burgundy van. A realization sunk in. I wasn't sure why it hadn't occurred to me before.
He hadn't been alone when he grabbed me off the street. Of course not. That would have been reckless. And now his accomplice was coming to his rescue. And judging by the speed of that van, the accomplice WAS reckless.
"Mom, we've got a problem."
"Another one? Nope, no more problems. I’m full.”
“Yeah, funny. But seriously, that van coming up behind us? That’s the van Quinn...Blair...used when he grabbed me!”
“Oh, crap.” Eloquent and accurate.
The van pulled up alongside and then passed us, and I couldn’t make out the face of the driver in the quick glimpse that I got. Then the van whipped around to the
right in front of us and slammed on its brakes, blocking the path in front of us. We hit our brakes as well, screeching to a stop, but not in time to avoid impact with the passenger side of the van. It wasn’t a strong impact, but it was enough to jar us forward and activate the airbags.
I was momentarily stunned, but knew that I had to try and gather myself quickly. My mother grunted beside me, so I knew she was at least mostly alright. I fought the now-deflating airbag, knowing the driver wouldn’t be taking his time in coming for me. I was partially right. When I got the white canvas sufficiently out of my face, I saw the driver walking purposefully around the front of the van, heading for our car. But it wasn’t a he.
She was an imposing figure, to be sure. Close to six feet tall, if I had to guess, with rich ebony skin and long dreadlocks tied up on top of her head. I judged her to be a little bit older than I was, maybe early twenties. She was muscular, too, and I had no doubt it was those arms that had pinned me while my father had put a chloroform-soaked cloth over my nose and mouth a couple of weeks ago. I was wrestling with my seat belt, which didn’t want to come free, but I was also afraid to take my eyes off of her.
“Well, sis, you’ve made a right mess of things,” she remarked in a clipped accent that reminded me of a tougher version of his. “Looks like I’ma have to clean it up. But this ain’t over, make no mistake. We’ll meet again.” She stopped walking and raised her hand Iron-Man style, all the while staring at me with her piercing gray eyes. There was a blinding flash of light, and when my vision cleared, I caught sight of her back as she went back around the van toward the driver’s seat. I heard the door slam shut, and then she threw the engine into gear and drove away.
Somehow I knew that the trunk was going to be empty when we finally extracted ourselves from the car and were able to check it.
Gray eyes.
She had gray eyes.
Like his.
Oh, crap.
Chapter 34
December became the winter holidays, and it appeared that the Magician had run off, maybe back across the Atlantic, to lick his wounds. Everything was quiet, even the bi-weekly check-in from Claudia.
My mother had decided that a tree-trimming party was just the thing for me to celebrate three whole weeks without mortal danger.
I stood in front of my mirror, wearing a black tee under red-and-black plaid overalls. I had holly in my hair and blazing red lipstick. I was feeling pretty darn festive. A cool wind swirled around me, a brief greeting from Selene, and I trotted downstairs, prepared to bring on the merry.
Aunt Kitty showed up with her signature basket of baked goodies, this time an assortment of cookies and spiced cakes. We spread it all out next to a small punchbowl of eggnog and a few cans of Yoo-hoo. In the kitchen, my mother was mulling cider on the stove top.
“Everything going okay?” she asked.
“Couldn’t be better,” I responded honestly. “I mean, I’m still on-guard all the time, bordering on paranoid when it comes to new people, but I keep my personal alarm system powered up, and I’m taking it day-by-day.”
“You’re continuing to study your abilities?”
“Yeah, but not every day. Mostly I meditate, do little experiments kind of like Grandmother did. I’ve talked to Kai and Mary a couple of times, and they have good advice. But I sort of want a break from all of it other than what I need for safety, you know?” I set out the boxes of ornaments on the card table I’d set up earlier.
“I know that feeling better than you might think. I felt it so strongly, I gave up the card.”
I thought about that for a minute. “I don’t think I want to do that. My father is still out there, and it appears I have at least one other magical sibling. I believe them when they say they aren’t done with me. But for now…”
I was interrupted by the doorbell chiming throughout the house. I grinned and skipped to the door. When I opened it, I was greeted by the smiling faces of Treigh, Michael, Gemma, Alex, and Trina. Alex snaked his arm around my waist and kissed my cheek, Gemma hugged me, and Trina handed me a box of gold-wrapped chocolates.
Treigh sniffed the air. “Oh, yeah. Aunt Kitty’s been baking.”
They all slid past me into the house.
For the moment, at least, life was perfect. And that was good enough for me.
