by Cheree Alsop
“Have you been camping?” she asked.
“No,” I replied. I glanced at my hands and saw that they were gray with lead.
“This feels so real,” she pressed. “Like you’ve been there. I can almost hear them laughing and talking around the fire.”
Her words made reality hit home. I had been there. I had listened to them talk and laugh. For I was the boy in wolf form watching them from the shadows and wondering what it would be like to have a family.
I took the picture from her hands and rose.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “It’s just a silly picture.”
I was about to toss it in the trash can near the sink when she grabbed it from my hand. I spun with my heart pounding as fighting instincts rose, instincts made from surviving the punishments of my youth. I had to protect myself. I was the only one who would.
“Zev?” Isley said.
I blinked and willed my eyes to focus on her.
She stood in front of me with the picture in one hand and her other on her hip. A concerned expression creased her brow. “Zev, you did it again.”
I forced my thoughts to find some semblance of calmness amid the whirlwind in my head. Flashbacks of the Lair, questions as to how I found myself in Isley’s mansion, fear of the witches and what was to come, and the loss of anything resembling a true purpose in this life pressed against me from a million directions.
“Zev, sit down,” Isley said.
She pulled out a chair and I numbly obeyed.
She crouched in front of me. “Are you alright?”
I studied her face, the soft contours of her cheekbones and the way the soft light of the kitchen made the glow of her skin appear warm and inviting. Her green eyes looked up at me with worry, a worry that I realized was for me. But she shouldn’t worry about me. Nobody should. I had to take care of myself. I was the only one who would.
She reached up a hand and was about to touch my face when she hesitated.
“I-I’ll burn you, won’t I?”
There was a tremble in her voice that she tried to hide. I told myself that my own fears were foolish, that the Lair was gone, that I had found something like a purpose when the witches asked me for help. But none of it mattered besides the pleading in her green gaze.
“Yes,” I whispered without looking away.
“Then why wouldn’t you stop me?” she asked, her voice the barest brush of sound against my ears.
“Because I’ve already been burned,” I replied. I tried to find somewhere in my heart where I cared about the pain she could inflict, but it wasn’t there. “And you can’t really hurt me,” I finished.
She lowered her hand. Still crouched in front of me, she clasped her hands in front of her.
“I don’t know where you go when you get that look in your eyes,” she said. “But it’s not here. Where is it?”
I might have been close to telling her what I was, but there was no way I would ever expose her to where I had come from. She didn’t need to know that a place like the Lair existed. She was too innocent, too pure, to hear about the violent deeds I had survived and done.
I looked away from her and said, “Somewhere bad. Somewhere I can’t talk about.”
I thought that would upset her. Instead, she knelt in silence for a few moments and then said, “I won’t push you if that’s how you feel; but Zev, I’ve seen your back.”
Her voice caught as if it had been difficult to admit. I hated myself for causing her that pain.
“You don’t have to tell me,” she said. “But just know that I’m here to talk to if you need it, alright?”
I made myself look back at her when I gave in and replied, “Alright.”
She let out a breath and rose to her feet. “For now, breakfast. How do you like your eggs?”
I followed her to the counter feeling as though I had just fought an intense battle. Her question was simple enough, but my answer had to be the truth. “I have no idea.”
She carried a container of eggs from the refrigerator to the counter and opened it to reveal six left of the dozen.
“Well,” she said with a teasing smile that chased the rest of the darkness from the room and made my heart give a strange beat in my chest, “That wasn’t the answer I was expecting, but we have six tries to figure it out. We’d better get started.”
By the time Virgo knocked on the front door, I had decided that I liked my eggs any way as long as Isley was the one who cooked them.
“I’ll grab my coat and meet you out front,” Isley called out as I made my way to the door.
I opened it to find Virgo staring wide-eyed into the entrance corridor.
“What on earth are you doing here?” he asked. He took a step back, looked me up and down, and continued with, “Did you change clothes?”
“It was raining,” I replied.
“It’s still raining!” he pointed out.
That surprised me. Somehow during my time with Isley, I had completely forgotten about the storm.
“Seriously, dude! What’s going on?” he demanded. “She needs to go back to the witches!”
I shook my head quickly. “No. She can’t.” At his mouth opening to protest, I said, “She’s still trying to figure out what happened to her.” I looked over my shoulder to make sure she was still upstairs, then lowered my voice to say, “They terrified her, Virgo. You were there. You know what happened.”
He nodded and a hint of compassion touched his face. “I know. It was hard and scary and I can’t blame her.” He looked past me. “But we told them we’d bring her back.”
“And we will,” I replied. “But give her some time to acclimatize to her new situation.”
“Acclimatize?” Virgo repeated. “Zev, she’s not a plant or a goldfish!”
“Who’s not a goldfish?” Isley asked from the stairs.
“Me,” Virgo said quickly. “I’m drowning out here. You guys coming?”
Isley looked at me. “Coming where?”
“Virgo’s store,” I replied as the thought struck me. “Someone broke in and he needs our help.”
Isley crossed the floor to join us. “That’s horrible!” she exclaimed. “I’m so sorry. I’ll be happy to help any way that I can.”
Virgo looked from Isley to me. At my nod, he forced a weak smile. “Uh, alright. Thanks.”
I felt Isley’s heat pressing against me in the truck. I scooted as close to the door as I could, but couldn’t ignore the burning sensation down my arm and leg where it was closest to her. She looked at me and I forced a smile, but the nausea in my stomach wouldn’t go away. The fact that it was so painful just to be around her reminded me that my werewolf nature was supposed to have nothing to do with Isley’s elemental affinity. The darkness of my soul wasn’t meant to be around such light. The resentment I felt about it was loath to leave.
At least my darkness didn’t seem to impact her. Even when our arms brushed and the sweltering heat of the contact made me break out in a sweat, she merely smiled sweetly before looking back out the front window.
Virgo’s windshield wipers worked overtime as he pulled up to the bookstore. The cardboard over the broken window pane was soaked through from the wind pushing the rain nearly sideways.
“I can’t remember the last time we had a storm like this,” Virgo said. He turned the key in the lock and let us inside.
“Tell me about it,” Isley replied. She looked out at the rain and rubbed her arms when she said, “It’s so dark out there even though it’s morning.”
I had to admit that the clouds looked ominous. I had seldom seen a storm so ferocious at the Lair. It made me wonder if there was more to it than just mother nature letting down her hair. The thought that something sinister could loom on the horizon made me turn away. I was dealing with enough at the moment and didn’t need my imagination adding to it.
“This is where it was taken,” Virgo said, pointing to the gaping spot on the shelf. “I just keep feeling like we’ve m
issed something, like there’s a clue we’re not seeing.” He gave me a pointed look. “Maybe a smell or a fingerprint or something.”
I sighed inwardly. I couldn’t track anything in the storm in my human form; it would have been hard enough as a wolf.
“And why not let the cops handle it?” Isley asked.
Virgo and I exchanged a glance.
“The book that was stolen was of a…well…a delicate subject,” Virgo hedged.
At Isley’s searching look, I said, “You might as well tell her. She was there, remember? She knows what you are.”
Isley’s eyebrows rose. “This was a magic book?”
Virgo shot me a frustrated glare before he said, “Yes. It was a very important magic book, and if I don’t get it back and the coven finds out, I’m going to be in trouble.”
“Could it help me?”
Her question hung in the air. Virgo gave me an uncomfortable look.
I sucked in a steeling breath and asked what I already knew. “You mean to change back to normal?”
Isley nodded. She crouched next to the books and said without looking at us, “I just want to feel like myself again.”
The same guilt I felt showed on Virgo’s face. The warlock cleared his throat as he patted the flyaways from his hair back toward his damp ponytail. “Maybe there’s something in there that could help.”
“Then maybe I can help find it,” Isley said with enthusiasm.
At my questioning look, the warlock lifted his shoulders. I didn’t like him lying to Isley, but perhaps he was right. If there was something in the book that could help her either gain control of her elemental side or suppress it again, it would be worth finding it for her.
“What about that?” Isley asked.
She pointed at something next to the bookshelf.
“I don’t see anything,” Virgo said.
I squinted, but couldn’t see any difference between the other parts of the bookshelf and where she pointed.
“The light,” Isley said. “That little trail. Can’t you see it?”
“No,” Virgo replied.
Red touched Isley’s cheeks and she lowered her gaze to the ground.
“Maybe I’m just seeing things,” she mumbled almost too softly for me to hear.
The sight of her embarrassment ate at me. “No,” I told her. “Just because we can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there.” I gestured toward the bookshelf. “Maybe you’re the one who can help us find it, not me.”
At my prodding look, Virgo nodded quickly. “Yeah,” he said. “At this point, any lead is better than what we’ve got.” He swallowed as if it was hard for him to continue, but he said tightly, “Will you help us?”
Isley peered up at us and the glimmer of hope in her eyes made me smile. “Really?”
Virgo nodded. “Elementals have strengths nobody really understands because there aren’t many of you out there. If you can see something, you should go with that. Try it.”
Isley glanced at me. I gave her an encouraging nod. The ghost of her smile returned to her lips.
“Alright,” she said. She stood, pointing at something we couldn’t see. “It goes over here.”
She walked back toward the door with her eyes on the ground.
Virgo shot me a worried look. I lifted a shoulder to say we had nothing else to go on. At least Isley was getting his mind off of the fact that he was in serious trouble with his coven if the book fell into the wrong hands.
“It goes out the door,” she said. Excitement colored her voice when she continued with, “It’s getting brighter!”
We opened the front door and Isley pointed. “It’s over there. It goes down the road. We should follow it!”
She ran toward the truck.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Virgo asked as he locked the door behind us.
“We don’t have any other leads,” I replied. “Besides, it’s nice to see her happy.”
Virgo sighed and replied, “Her happiness isn’t the point right now. If we don’t find that book and get Isley back to the coven, we’re going to be skinned alive.”
My chest ached at the thought of the bullets the witches had already used. He might have been speaking rhetorically, but I didn’t want to find out.
“Then let’s get going,” I told him.
Chapter Eight
“The trail leads in there.”
Virgo and I stared at the grounds of Township’s community college.
“We can’t just go traipsing around,” Virgo said.
His frustration was understandable. We had lost the trail several times on our way to the college. It had taken Isley a few minutes at each juncture in the road to figure out which way the light went. Twice, she had even gotten out of the truck in the rain to find it. The fact that the warlock had stuck with the search told how desperate he was to locate the book. But at the sight of the college, defeat seemed inevitable.
“It’s a Sunday,” Isley said. “Nobody’s going to be there. We should look.”
She opened the door of the truck without waiting for a reply.
“We could get in trouble for trespassing,” Virgo said before I followed her out.
“We’ve gone this far,” I told him. “Let’s see where the trail ends.”
“If there is a trail,” I heard the warlock mutter before I shut the door.
Isley led the way across the grass and past the cement sign that proclaimed, ‘Township Community College, Where Your Education is Our Priority.’
We wandered across the lawns and sidewalks for several minutes before she stopped at the side door to a building entitled ‘The Patterson Building of Science and Arts.’
“The trail goes inside,” Isley said.
I checked the door, but it was locked.
“Hold on,” I told her.
I pulled out the paperclips I had slipped into my pocket from Virgo’s store for just that reason and pushed the ends into the lock.
“Great, now we’re breaking and entering?” Virgo said when he caught up to us.
“They did the same to your store,” Isley replied.
That quieted him up enough for me to hear the small click of the latch. I pulled the door open.
“After you,” I told Isley.
She gave me a surprised look. “Where did you learn to do that?”
I shoved the paperclips back into my pocket and answered with a vague, “I had an interesting childhood.”
“Apparently,” she said before she entered the dark hallway.
Virgo rolled his eyes when he passed me.
“You should tell her about it sometime,” he grumbled.
I wondered what his problem was as I followed them both down the tiled walkway. He had been grumpy since I invited Isley to go with us to his bookstore. Thinking that he was just on edge due to the lost book, I pushed the thought aside and concentrated on what was before us.
The smell of formaldehyde burned in my nostrils when we entered the Biology wing. The memory of encountering the same scent at the bookstore said that we were on the right track. We may have ended up at the college eventually, but at least with Isley, we had made it far faster. With any luck, the book might still be there.
Isley and Virgo both slowed their steps in an attempt to walk quietly despite their wet shoes. I slipped off the sneakers she had leant me and motioned for them to wait.
“I’ll go ahead,” I whispered.
Isley’s questioning look when I set the shoes on the ground and went on without them reminded me that I acted without thinking of what a human would do in the same situation. I needed to be better at that if I had any chance of keeping her trust.
But free of my shoes, I was able to walk silently the way I had trained my entire life. I didn’t understand how humans could stand to have their feet enclosed, especially when the shoes were wet. It sounded like trying to walk with mice running along each step.
“Zev, in there,” Isley whispered loudly.
I looked back to see her pointing at the second room to my left. I nodded and crept forward.
A sound made me pause with my hand on the doorknob. The glass of the door was frosted so that I couldn’t see through it. By the smell, it was another Biology room. The faint scent of dry erase markers tickled my nose as well. The screech of a chair sliding back goaded me onward. I pulled the door open and stepped inside.
A man a few years older than I was stood quickly from the large desk in the corner. He wore a damp jacket over a buttoned-up shirt, a matching tie, and a pair of khaki pants. His brown leather shoes were still wet from the rain outside, and it dripped from his short hair as well. He clutched the book we had been searching for close to his chest and took a few steps back.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“My name’s Zev,” I replied. “I’m here for the book.”
He shook his head. “I need it. You can’t have it.”
I walked forward. “You stole it from a friend of mine and he’s going to get in a lot of trouble if I don’t get it back.”
The door opened behind me and I saw Virgo and Isley enter out of the corner of my eye.
The man backed up further until he was standing against the wall.
“But I need it,” he said, his tone desperate. “I’ll give it back when I’m done. I just—”
He looked behind me and his eyes widened. “Your runes,” he said. “You’re one of them!”
Before I could stop him, he slid the latch on the window beside him and threw himself through the opening. His shoes squeaked on the wet grass when he hit the ground running.
“I’ve got him,” I said to the others.
Adrenaline surged through my veins. I dove through the window and was up and running through the rain without pause. The sight of the man darting across the lawn toward the parking lot spurred me on. I may not have been able to phase to wolf form, but the ability to chase something, anything, filled me with animalistic joy. I lowered my head and ran faster, closing the distance between us.