Cleo's Curse

by Allie Burton

  “No. They both have been exposed to King Tut’s soul.”

  A spike of disbelief halted the pain. “What?”

  “Another long story about how they met and how the Soul Warriors were formed.” Antony took a step closer, filling my sights with his carved abs and wide shoulders. “Let’s say they brought us together, and have been commissioned by King Tut to serve in this time.”

  “In this time?”

  “You sure ask a lot of questions.” He tried to shake me off.

  “You sure evade a lot of answers.”

  “Let’s do some contact sparring.” Antony placed a hand on my shoulder and guided me to pivot in the other direction.

  My entire body tensed. I stood stiff, afraid he might jump at any second. I couldn’t see his face or his expression to judge his intent. “I don’t think I’m ready for this.”

  “Don’t you trust me?” He sounded hurt, as if I’d wounded him when he was about to wound me. “You’ll never be ready for an attack if you don’t try to learn.”

  He was so logical and down to earth. I liked that about him. Respected his opinions and his protectiveness. Enjoyed spending time with him doing just about anything…except this.

  “Why would Olivia want me to train? Doesn’t she think I’m working against you?” I asked the same question in another way, even though asking reminded him of my guilt. “I am blackmailing you.”

  “For a good reason.” He didn’t place blame on me, just as he hadn’t placed blame on Piper for her betrayal. “I’m going to come at you from behind and grab you around the waist. I want you…”

  I wished he’d stop talking right there.

  He didn’t. “…to swivel around. Lift your arm to try to get free, and kick me in the knee or the nuts.”

  Confusion threaded through my veins, pulling taut, making my body tense and my mind wary. “Do you really think someone is going to attack me? I mean, I have you around and once I give you the Knot of Uset, whoever these people are won’t bother me anymore.”

  “Possibly.”

  “You don’t think so, though.”

  “These people are dangerous.” His arm grabbed me from behind.

  I paused, and then moved into action. Twisting, my arm clashed with his arm as I lifted it higher. His grip loosened. I couldn’t believe I’d broken his hold.

  He grabbed me again.

  I revolved and lifted my arm. This time I couldn’t get free. I didn’t really want to. I enjoyed his arm around my waist, and his bare chest pressed to my back. His warmth seeped into me giving me strength. Strength to try. Strength to fight.

  Going again, I jerked my arm upright and broke his hold. “What people? Do you know who they are?”

  His gaze raked over me, judging how much to tell. “I don’t want you to be on your own and defenseless.” He grabbed me again, and held me close against him.

  This time the warmth didn’t comfort. It put me on defensive, making my mind click. Even though I was staying in his house and was snuggled in his arms, he didn’t trust me. Antony was still keeping secrets.

  * * *

  The dining room table was filled with Soul Warriors, like the Knights of the Round Table, except this table was rectangular. Olivia sat at the head of the table, with Xander on her right side. To her left was Aria and Falcon. Next to Xander was Piper and Math. Ash sat next to Antony, and I sat next to him. Blaze sat down beside me once he’d brought in the big bowl of pasta after our salads. He was the chef in the group.

  There were other warriors missing. Out on not-discussed missions. Not discussed because I was present. Hurtful, but understandable. I wasn’t one of them.

  An intense yearning tugged at my soul. What would it be like to part of this enjoyable and purposeful group?

  The fun dinner was served family-style. I’d experienced passed bowls at Asian restaurants. At home, servants placed plates in front of us, filled with items appropriate for our eating habits. But never before had I experienced food throwing.

  A piece of garlic bread tossed between Falcon and Ash. A shared taste between Piper and Math. A whipped noodle thrown and stuck to the wall.

  And there was so much laughter. Inside jokes. Outside jokes. Stories from recent quests. Tales from an ancient past they must’ve read in a textbook. I’d never lived with so much friendly banter. A comfy-snugness wrapped around me. I wanted to soak it in and remember.

  This is what it could be like with a loving family and good friends. Nothing resembling the solemn meals with inquisitions I had at home, or the show-offy and catty comments experienced with my East Coast friends. People could be happy and not rich.

  Could I?

  The yearning drew me in, anchoring my body.

  I surveyed their faces. Each one of the warriors were different, but united. They came from various places and life stations, and yet they’d bonded into a single unit. A caring and loving unit. A happy unit.

  Was I happy?

  Before this big adventure began, had I been really happy? At Exeter Academy, or even before that, at home?

  I certainly didn’t laugh as much or have this kind of fun. I enjoyed shopping and fashion week. I liked spending time at the country club. But that wasn’t happiness.

  Even though I didn’t participate, the energy surrounding the kitchen filled me on the inside. This feeling, this glow, this satisfaction. This was happiness.

  Being with these people even if they didn’t completely trust me.

  Being with Antony even though he kept secrets. I had secrets of my own.

  I found him analyzing me with an unnerving and exciting intensity.

  “Are you all right?” He stroked the top of my hand. “You’ve been quiet through the entire meal.”

  “I’m good.” Real good.

  Happy.

  “They’ll clean up.” He picked my hand off the table and held it tight, sending a spark through me. “Let’s go out back.”

  I let him lead me to the back porch, and we sat on the stairs, watching the night sky. The fog hadn’t completely covered the shining stars. The chilled air sent a shiver down my spine.

  “Cold?” He put his arm around my shoulders.

  My bones liquefied and my blood heated. This was so close to what I imagined Olivia and Xander had. What I wanted. Wanted with Antony.

  Was that love or loneliness talking?

  Even though I had parents and surface friendships, I’d been lonely. Never found that person to share my thoughts and dreams. To share the real me.

  He jostled next to me, sitting closer. “We need a couple of comfortable chairs out here.”

  “Or a swinging porch chair.” One where two people could cuddle and kiss. I yearned for another kiss from him. To be close.

  “Much more comfortable than the single beds in the basement.” His fingers fiddled with my hair.

  I was curious about the basement. Curious about everything in Antony’s world.

  Why would he show me, when I’d be leaving soon? But if I got back in to Exeter Academy, I could stay close by. Maybe even date. Maybe become part of this group. Happiness surged again. “Has Piper made any progress?”

  “She’s working on it.” Antony stretched away from me and stood. “The wood stairs make me stiff.”

  Missing his arm around my shoulders and his fingers in my hair, I stood and stretched too, wanting to get close again.

  “Tired?” He grabbed my raised hand.

  “Fighting is hard work.” I’d held my own. Although I wondered if Antony had taken it easy on me. I’d been able to break many of his holds and even cornered him at one point.

  “Imagine if your attacker was real.” He let our hands drop keeping them clasped. “I don’t want you to go to bed yet.”

  His words and our physical connection sent heated spirals toward my center. “Me, either.” Glancing around, I skimmed for a patch of grass or a tree with a low-slung branch.

  “A hammock.” I tugged the Knot of Uset from beneath my
T-shirt. “I made a hammock with this in my room the other night. Will we be safe out here?”

  He helped me loop one end of the rope around a newel post on the porch and we pulled. “No one would dare attack our headquarters.”

  The golden thread stretched and grew with perfectly placed knots every six inches. The rope reached across the porch to the other side. Antony and I climbed inside the hammock. His arms circled mine and we both cozied against each other.

  I reveled in his caress, in his arms around me. Comfort and attraction encompassed us.

  We didn’t talk. Just enjoyed our closeness.

  His lips kissed the top of my head and my eyelids drifted closed.

  I don’t know how much later, I stretched and felt Antony’s body spooning me on the hammock. The pitch dark sky told me it was the middle of the night. I didn’t hear traffic from the street and fog had settled around the professor’s house. It seemed magical. As if Antony and I were the only two people in the universe. We must’ve fallen asleep.

  “What time is it?” I didn’t know if the professor gave the Soul Warriors curfews. I hadn’t met him.

  His body stretched beside mine and I loved the closeness of waking beside him. I wanted to see the softness of his expression at rest. Tilting my head, I tried to see his face. My eyes went wide.

  “Antony?”

  No response because his body was…

  Missing.

  My lungs wheezed, and my brain searched for an answer. I must be dreaming. I felt his warmth, the weight of his arm around my waist, but saw only air.

  “Antony!” I rubbed my eyes. “I can’t see you.”

  His body shifted. The weight of his arms left me. The hammock swung haphazardly and I almost fell. My skin cooled with the absence of his body heat.

  My phone buzzed, and I scrambled to get it from the pocket of the sweats I wore. I recognized the number. “Antony?”

  Panic pulsed. If Antony was calling me on the phone, what did that mean? Where was he? But I’d felt his body seconds ago.

  “I’m invisible.” His voice held a note of panic mirroring my own.

  Except he couldn’t mirror anything.

  “I can’t see you.” Dizzy from the swinging hammock and confused by him, I stood up and steadied myself. “How can you see me when I’m invisible, yet I can’t see you? And why are you invisible?”

  “The effects of the Knot of Uset must’ve transferred to me because we were wrapped in the hammock made from the Knot.” He reasoned over the phone. “What I don’t understand is why I’m still invisible.”

  Things in my head were getting as tangled as the knots in the hammock. I wished I could see his expression. “What do you mean, you don’t understand? The Knot of Uset makes you invisible.”

  “I’m not carrying or wearing or touching the Knot of Uset at this moment. Neither are you.” His tone pointed at me and my distance from the hammock. “And yet, both of us are still invisible.”

  “Yeah, so?” I noticed the invisibility lasted longer and longer every time I’d worn the golden rope. “Give it a second or two. Move farther away from the hammock.” Taking my own advice, I took another step away.

  “I had contact with the Knot of Uset in my past life. A lot of contact.” His voice rose higher and higher. “Could it be possible if you possess or have contact with the Knot for too long, the temporary effects wear off?”

  His question sunk into my brain. Panic slashed, giving me a splitting headache. Thoughts whirred and tumbled. “Why are you asking me? Don’t you know this stuff?”

  “I wasn’t in a privileged position last time I had contact with the Knot of Uset.” His voice grated on my nerves, blaming me.

  “Okay.” I kept calm, sort of. “We’ve now not been touching the Knot for several minutes and I still can’t see you.”

  “Based on my knowledge of the other magical relics we’ve discovered, the forces of the power have counteracted and permeated into our skin.” And he thought he wasn’t smart.

  I tried not to jump to conclusions, even though my brain swirled with possibilities. Bad ones. “What do you mean?”

  “If the effects are no longer temporary, which seems to be the case. And we have absorbed the Knot’s power.” His voice held a breathless quality. “The effects are permanent. We are permanently invisible.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Cleo

  Permanent.

  The word branded me similar to wearing white after Labor Day.

  “What do you mean, permanent?” Screaming into my phone, I paced to the other side of the porch, waving my free hand around with nervous energy. “How am I supposed to go back to school? I’ll be marked absent every day! What am I going to tell my parents?”

  My parents.

  An image of them blurred in my head, as if they were gone to me forever.

  They’d never really seen me when I was visible. Solid. They’d shipped me to San Francisco and forgotten about me. Now that I was actually invisible, my parents were more likely to forget I existed.

  “Don’t yell.” Antony’s calming tone reached through the phone line and my major panic, but didn’t soothe. “We don’t want to wake anyone.”

  Hysteria shredded through me. As if I cared whether we woke up his band of brothers. And sisters. We were permanently invisible! We should be alerting them so they could help.

  “I know what to do.” I kicked the post at the top of the stairs. The entire porch shook. Maybe it had been a quake because I didn’t have the strength to make a large porch shake. “My parents are rich. They can hire scientists to figure out how to cure us.”

  “This isn’t a disease.” Antony’s invisible hand skimmed my shoulder, sending shivers, the good kind, through my system. “It’s ancient magic.” He pulled me into his invisible arms. “You can’t tell anyone. It’s too dangerous.”

  I sniffled, snuggling closer to his body. I couldn’t see him, but I could feel him. Feel his strength and his determination. Feel the sparks flying whenever we touched. “I don’t want to be invisible forever.”

  “We’ll figure something out. First, you need to get anointed with special oils so you can see and hear me.” He squeezed my body tighter, and I wanted to believe he’d make everything all right. “I’ll consult the others in the morning. And in the meantime, we stay inside the professor’s house.”

  “With the Knot?” Hysteria rose again and I pushed him away. “I don’t want to be anywhere near the thing if it makes the invisibility last longer.”

  “No need to worry.” He pulled me closer again and rubbed my back with his knuckles. “The damage is already done.”

  * * *

  “CC.” Antony spoke to me through the phone. The only way we could communicate.

  I hurried to meet him. Except I still couldn’t see him.

  I paused at the bottom of the stairs, tugging on the tank top and shorts Aria had given me after I’d showered. Not my own designer clothes, but since no one could see me, did it really matter what I wore? My lungs spasmed. I loved clothes, wanted to design them someday like Demetri, but I wouldn’t be able to become a designer if people couldn’t see me or my fashion style.

  “I’m by the professor’s study.”

  I followed his instructions over the phone. “Are you ready for me?”

  He’d asked me to stay upstairs this morning, while he prepared what was needed for the anointing ceremony. My nerves had been jumpy similar to right before a big fashion reveal. I wanted to see what he’d prepared, and see him.

  See his muscular frame. See his thick hair and shining eyes. See his sexy smile when he looked at me. Another good shiver tingled my spine. My connection with him was different than anything I’d ever experienced. He understood me. He was cute and nice and brave.

  Realization changed the tingles into waves of awareness. I might’ve doubted him before, but now I had complete faith in him. In his ability to make me un-invisible and to get me reenrolled at school. To protect
and to cherish.

  Remembering how he’d held me last night in the hammock, my body heated. My skin warmed and my heart melted. I liked him. I mean, really, really liked him.

  Did he like me, or was he putting up with me because I had the Knot?

  I’d tied the golden rope around my hair, similar to a headband. It had gone from the size of a hammock large enough to hold Antony and me, to fitting around my head. The other warriors could clearly see it shining through my hair.

  In a way it was a test. Did the other warriors trust me enough to leave the Knot of Uset alone on my head? Or would they try to slip it off and steal it?

  Entering the study, I noted the built-in bookcases, the closet door behind the wooden desk, and the plaques and awards scattered throughout the room. A computer sat on the desk. Another normal room, except for the burning candles covering every empty surface.

  I’d peeked in the room during my tour of the house, but Aria had chosen not to take me inside. Yesterday, the candles weren’t here. Nor was the smell.

  The scent of flickering flames and lotus and something I’d never smelled before filled the air. The unique fragrance blended together and made the room cloistered and hypnotic. Relaxing.

  “Take a seat.” The black upholstered chair rolled backwards.

  With a nervous giggle, I perched on the edge of the chair. “Where are you? What’re you going to do?”

  “Relax and close your eyes.” His slow and deep voice soothed. The phone was taken from my hand. “I’ll put it on speaker.”

  His fingers pressed against my temple and swirled into a massage. An oily sensation left a trail.

  I closed my eyes and tried to relax. “What is that?”

  He kneaded my shoulders with the oil on his palms. “Essential oils.”

  “Essential for what?”

  “For this ceremony.” He massaged each one of my fingers.

  I relaxed resembling a pile of silky fabric, letting my bones meld to the back of the chair.