“Please tell me this isn’t a memory,” she said, her mouth watering at the tantalizing smell emanating through the door each time it opened.
“We are in the present and I’m about to try pizza.” Colby’s face lit up like an excited child about to open a present.
Meghan wondered if he was always like this, or if this was a side effect of the new gift his father had given him. He presented confidence and yet questioned himself constantly. He was independent and yet would do anything to please his father. He loved attention. Was never wrong. Was stubborn. Was...
She looked at him, her eyes wide with uneasy acceptance. He’s me.
“Finally getting that are you?” he asked, hearing her thoughts. “We are not so different, Meghan.”
“We may have shared a womb and parents, and we may even act a bit alike,” she conceded. “But we are very different people, Colby.”
“Suit yourself,” he said, grabbing the door as a young man exited with a pizza box. “After you,” he motioned.
Her stomach growled. She frowned, stepping inside.
Colby watched a young woman taking a gooey bubbling cheese pizza out of the oven and cut it into slices. Once she had the box closed, she wrote a name across the top and set it on a counter for a customer not yet arrived to pick it up. Colby simply thought it and the pizza box was in his hands. They escaped the parlor and exited the store. It was a chilly evening, near dusk. At least she assumed it was chilly, as people wore light jackets and scarves; but whatever magic Colby was doing, she did not feel the cold.
They found a deserted picnic table near the back of the store, out of sight and opened the box. A plume of steam shot up into the sky and they each grabbed a slice. The first bite was truly delectable. Meghan had not had this in such a long time she had forgotten how good it was. In no time, Colby was onto his second slice.
“I don’t care if this is mind numbing. This might be the best thing I’ve ever tasted,” he mumbled, stuffing in another bite.
She could not stop herself from agreeing. Something about the hot gooey cheesy crust made all her worries subside. For a moment, life was simply about eating pizza.
She stopped for a minute, watching him.
“Did you... did you just smile?”
His grin dropped. “No,” he instantly retorted.
“I totally saw you smile. I was starting to think it wasn’t possible.”
He finished his slice with a forced frown.
She rolled her eyes, grabbing another slice.
When done, she let out a satisfied groan.
“So should not have eaten that last slice, so full. Ugh! I don’t know about mind numbing, but I sure would have a hard time running away from something right now.”
He agreed, patting his stomach.
“You don’t look so good,” she told him.
“Don’t feel so good.”
“Oh, crap! You’re not gonna hurl are you?”
He was turning pale and looking sickly. “Wait,” he said, something dawning on him. “I’ll just think it away. Yours too.”
A moment later, she no longer felt full and overloaded, just satisfied.
“Um, huh,” she whispered, afraid to encourage him.
Now back to the satisfied feeling, Colby once again rubbed his stomach happily. A young woman came out of the pizza parlor and took out a cigarette.
“Howdy,” she said.
Without thinking, Meghan replied, “Howdy” back.
The color drained from her face.
“Colby,” she whispered. “She can see us! What does that mean? Did your magic stop working?”
He turned and looked at the young woman. She blew out a puff of smoke and winked at him. He turned to Meghan with a look of panic.
“Oh no,” she said. “Not here. Not now. You better keep it together!”
“Don’t know how to turn it back on,” he said. “I must have gotten too comfortable, let my guard down. I’m not ready to go home yet, my dad will find me...” he started spouting incoherently.
Meghan grabbed him and darted into the darkness of a nearby tree line, hoping to go unseen and hoping Colby wouldn’t make some kind of magical scene in front of normal people who had no idea what was going on.
“Colby,” she said, getting him to pick up his head. “Just keep it together. Take deep breaths or something, focus on just one thing.”
Her mind connected with his and she knew he was losing control again. His block dissolved and she once again found her thoughts jumbled with his.
“Try grabbing on to just one thought,” she told him. She tried to focus her own mind on one thought hoping this would somehow transfer to him. She thought about Nona and Elisha, and how nice it would be to return to them.
Colby shouted, “No! I’m not ready to go back yet. I need to hide us again.”
“But my friends can help you!” she told him.
“How? And who says I want any help!” he yelled at her. “I just need time to learn how to control it.”
“I don’t know how they can help but I know that they would try,” she said. “I don’t know if this is something you can do on your own, Colby. Why isn’t your father helping you?”
“I don’t need his help! I can do it on my own!” he replied haughtily.
“We could help you!” she slammed back at him.
“No! I said no!”
Quite suddenly, Meghan’s body sank to the ground. She didn’t move. Colby’s streaming thoughts came to a screeching halt.
“Meghan,” he called out nervously. She did not respond or move. He called out her name again. No response. He knelt down and rolled her over.
He let go and stood up, aghast. “She can’t be. She can’t be dead,” he muttered. “It was just a passing thought. I just wanted her to shut up.”
He leaned down again. “You have to be alive,” he said. “You can’t die. You have to come back. Please.”
Just as suddenly as she had fallen to the ground, her eyes opened and her chest heaved with life giving breath.
“What happened?” she choked out.
He fell onto his backside on the ground.
“I- I killed you,” he admitted, still shocked.
“Um. What?” she said, sitting up.
“You heard me.”
She stared in bewilderment at Colby.
“I take it you also brought me back to life?” she asked.
He nodded.
She knew that he was powerful, but to be able to wish someone dead and then back to life again... it had just happened to her and still she had trouble believing it.
“Colby, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, because believe me, grateful to still be amongst the living, but...”
“I need help,” he finished. “I can’t control this thing. I didn’t want to kill you it was just this fleeting thought and then it just happened.” For once, he had a proper look of horror in reaction to what he had done.
“Then let’s go to my friends. Let’s figure out how to help you.” Before he could answer the ground around them began to quiver and shake, as if something were digging its way up, underneath them.
A spiteful look crossed Colby’s face.
“What?” asked Meghan.
“I can sense them. We’re being tracked.”
“By our father?”
“No, these things don’t belong to him.”
“We should run,” she said. “I don’t think you should try to fight anything in your condition right now.”
To her shock, he agreed.
They arose and started to run, Colby trying to regain complete control and get them hidden, cloaked once again. The ground underneath where they had been sitting began to crack and something dug its way upward. They stopped; panic stricken, as two enormous creatures crawled their way to the surface. Their thundering frames jumped out of the dirt and onto the ground. No one in the non-magical world seemed to notice; Colby and Meghan assumed they must have s
ome magical protection around them.
Another figure started to emerge in front of the Trackers; it arrived in a swirling stream of blackness.
“Grosvenor,” they both said together.
Colby added, “Not our father.”
On the spot, Meghan and Colby dissolved. He knew where he was taking them, but he was unable to reform the protective cloak. They were exposed and the Trackers would follow. It also meant that his father’s secret was a secret no more. The other Grosvenor knew about him. And now, they most likely knew about Meghan, too.
##
Ivan Crane scraped off his half-eaten plate of food and magicked it clean. He motioned for Sebastien’s and did the same to his half-eaten plate. They had spent nearly a week waiting, and waiting, with no sign of Colby or Meghan. The book, the Magicante, repeatedly reminded them it would take time and patience, something both young men were growing short on.
Ivan leaned down to a small fire they had built and warmed his hands. The air was chilled and had the bite of a snowstorm coming soon. Both Nona and Elisha sat near the fire licking their paws.
Sebastien sat down close to the fire, his thoughts wandering to his parents; he wondered what they were doing, if they were still with Amelia or if by chance, they had left and joined Kanda. He had left them an escape route that led directly to Kanda Macawi’s home.
And where were Colin and Catrina? Were they safe?
He wasn’t sure how much longer he could just lay in wait for Colby to mess up and let his cloak dissolve so that Magicante could track him. He let out a deep frustrated sigh.
“I know, this is getting ridiculous,” said Ivan, agreeing to Sebastien’s unspoken frustrations.
“We must wait, there is nothing else we can do right now,” said Nona, although her tone notated the same anxiousness.
At nightfall, the two Catawitches fell off to sleep leaving Ivan and Sebastien peering restlessly into the fire.
“Sebastien,” said Ivan, “there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you.”
He stretched, yawned and replied lazily, “Ask away.”
“When you stole Colin’s book, the Magicante, back in Grimble, did you know what it was then? What it could do?”
He shook his head. “Just thought it was a book of magic. Guess I should have figured out it was something a little more special than that, seeing as the Grosvenor wanted it.”
“And what was Amelia trading for it?”
He puffed out an exasperated breath. “I really wish I knew for sure what it was. I peeked inside; it was the makings of some kind of spell, using blood. I didn’t understand it at all. I’ve never seen anything like it and cannot imagine what she is planning on doing with it.”
“I’ve never heard of such a blood spell either,” said Ivan. “Did you know when you delivered it, that you were meeting that kid, Colby, and that he was the son of Fazendiin?”
Sebastien didn’t answer for a moment and when he did his tone was repulsed. “I did.” He shrugged as if not sure what else to say. “I knew and yet I did it anyway.”
“You had to,” said Ivan. “I of all people, get that part.”
“That was when I really started to question everything though,” Sebastien added. “The moment Amelia asked me to handle that deal; I knew something wasn’t right, that she wasn’t admitting everything. I mean, to make a deal with a Grosvenor... why? If she’s working along side them, then how could she possibly be up to anything good? And if that’s the price of returning magic, it didn’t seem worth it to me.”
“How well do you know her? Amelia...”
“I thought pretty well. She’s been friends with my parents for longer than I’ve been alive. I remember them having conversations about what the world would be like if magic was returned for as long as I can remember. She’s not a bad person, I don’t think she means to be anyway. She has always been really nice to me and it’s only been these last few years that she’s become like uber obsessed with her plan.”
“Do you think that she can be stopped? Do you think she can be saved?”
“Stopped, I don’t know. Saved? What do you mean, like can she be shown reason to stop?”
“Yeah, see reason. Reality. Just how ridiculous returning magic is.”
“That’s the thing, Ivan. I don’t know as she can. And, I have a bad feeling. There’s parts of the plans that she has never told anyone, not even the people closest to her. Those are the parts that really worry me. And I would bet my life that those are the parts that involve Colin and Meghan.”
“Colin’s a Projector, I think we can say he’s probably safe from whatever she’s got planned for him. Hey! Does she know what he is?”
“Last I knew, no. But she does know Meghan’s a Firemancer.”
“Meghan is much more vulnerable,” said Ivan. “She’s becoming really good at Firemancy, but she’s never been so great at magic. Maybe once she’s back I can spend some time working with her. You’d think she’d be better at it, being the daughter of an immortal and all. Guess she must take after her mother more,” he decided.
Sebastien didn’t reply.
“Or you could help her I guess,” suggested Ivan, seeing a frown developing on Sebastien’s face.
“I don’t think she’s going to want to spend much time with me,” said Sebastien. “She’s going to be angry at me for a long time.”
“She is not the type to forgive easily,” agreed Ivan.
“That works out good for you,” noted Sebastien with a tone of jealousy.
“Me?”
“It’s clear you care about her, a lot. And I think she feels the same,” Sebastien said with a heavy heart.
“I think you got things quite wrong,” insisted Ivan. “For one, I’m too old for her, I just turned twenty, she’s not quite sixteen yet. If you must force me to admit it, yes, I care about what happens to her, but not like that.”
“I don’t know,” disagreed Sebastien. “She seemed quite cozy by your side after Jae...” he trailed off not wishing to revisit that terrible moment.
“You’re still wrong,” said Ivan. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, she’s like the annoying little sister I never wanted. And if you need more proof, there’s this other girl. Not that I’ll ever have the chance to see her again. And Meghan reminds me of...”
“Another girl?” cut off Sebastien, with a tone of hope.
“Her name’s Maria,” Ivan told him. He didn’t know why. Perhaps all this waiting was driving him mad with boredom. “I’ve never even really said more than a few words to her. She is... very kind. Not quick to blurt out whatever comes to her head. She takes her time to speak. I like that.”
“What did you do? Spy on her?” asked Sebastien. “Sorry,” he blurted seeing Ivan’s lips turn downward. “You said you never talked to her and yet you seem to know a lot about her.”
“It’s called being observant. And like you can talk Mr. Bird Man! Following around the girl you claim to care about for two years not telling her who you were!”
“Touché,” surrendered Sebastien.
“Anyway,” continued Ivan, “Maria is on the island. I just hope safe and alive, along with everyone else still there.”
Sebastien frowned again.
“Here I am moaning on about my troubles forgetting that everyone you care about is stuck on that island with that witch! Juliska Blackwell.”
“And we are stuck here,” said Ivan bitterly, “doing nothing but slowly going insane waiting for Colby to mess up.”
“Not for long,” spat out the book, Magicante, startling them.
They jumped up and doused the fire, plummeting them into darkness. Nona and Elisha awoke and bounded onto the book.
Ivan and Sebastien took hold and the book swept them away.
They arrived with a swish and a pop in a familiar spot, just in the woods outside of the cave where Meghan and Colby’s mother resided. With a crack, two other shapes appeared out of nowhere.
&nb
sp; Colby saw them and shouted, “Incoming!”
It was the only warning he could give before the ground below them all began to quake.
Meghan and Colby ran to the group, Nona jumped into her arms.
“You’re not going anywhere else without me,” she said.
Colby dived alongside Elisha, hiding behind a group of trees. Sebastien and Ivan stepped in front of Meghan, poised to fight whatever evil was about to burst forth from the ground below. They feared they knew what was winding its way upward, but prepared for it to be anything.
“Master. Master,” they heard Elisha repeating.
Meghan sensed that Colby was losing it again. His thoughts were strumming at full speed and she struggled to keep them out of her own head.
The ground started to crack and split open.
“I don’t know how to stop them,” warned Colby.
Meghan added, “I think they’re made of stone.”
Ivan and Sebastien looked at each other. They knew this already, having seen them once before, but neither had ever had dealings with such a creature.
“They’re tracking Colby,” advised Meghan as a stone arm clawed its way out of the ground. It yanked its body out with one pull. Its counterpart pulled itself out right next to it and when they stood at full height, they were at least twelve feet tall, with lumbering limbs that could easily crush anything they came into contact with.
“I wish Colin were here,” Meghan could not help but say. “I think he might have been strong enough to defeat them.”
“We have another here with Projector’s powers,” said the Magicante. “He just needs help to concentrate on the task.”
“Can you help him?” asked Elisha.
“Yes, I can. But I will need a moment.”
“We will give you as much time as we can,” said Sebastien. He faced his palm toward the stone Trackers and shot off a spell. It repelled off and hit a nearby tree, sending bark and wood flying. He ran and tried to get the attention of the Trackers, while Ivan ran in the opposite direction, trying to attract the other. Ivan shot off a spell but it blasted away only a small chunk of stone, which didn’t faze the thing even a little.
Taken (Book Six) (Fated Saga Fantasy Series) Page 9