“Harper,” my grandmother called to me. She was headed toward the other end of the bridge, and too far away for me to reach out and touch her. “Be watching for that tempest, sweetheart. It won’t be long now,” she said softly just before she disappeared right before my eyes.
And just like that, the storm clouds were gone. I was standing there on the bridge with my bike right under me. I never moved away from where I parked it. It was all a part of the vision.
‘Two visions in one day. I’ve gotta get back to hermit mode as fast as possible.’
I quickly mounted the bike again and pedaled toward home. The vampire was still watching me. But that was it. Just watching. I thought of taking a few winding streets to lose him. Maybe that way he wouldn’t know where I lived. But if I did that, he would know that I was avoiding him. He would know I was aware of someone watching me. Better to just ride home and act as though I suspected nothing.
If I was lucky, he was merely checking me out. Maybe he didn’t even know what I was. But he could walk in the sunlight. Which meant only one thing. He had killed a kruxa in the past. Most vampires were confined to the night because the majority of kruxa had already been killed off. Killing one gave a vampire a small amount of a kruxa’s magic, protecting them from the sun. Oddly enough, this didn’t make me more uneasy about his presence. It meant he wouldn’t kill me immediately just for sun walking abilities like so many did to my kind in the past.
I turned on the road heading to my house and down the hillside as fast as I could, debating the entire way if I should tell Madison about the vision. We sometimes shared them with each other so we could dissect the meaning together. And she would want to hear about gran. But this particular vision would only scare her. It would be a sign to her that she was right to tell me not to help Officer Parker.
When I got to my street, I saw someone on my front porch in the distance, swinging on the large wooden swing set Caleb bought a couple years back. We would often sit on it in the morning and share a cup of coffee before he headed to work. Watching the sun come up with him sitting there was my favorite part of the day. Until he came home. That was an even better part of the day.
It was a familiar face greeting me when I finally got close.
“Emily?” I called out. “What’s going on? Are you okay?” I asked as I parked my bike by the garage and walked up the front steps. She got off the swing and wandered over to me. Her eyes were downcast.
“Yeah. I know it’s a bad time, but…” She hesitated. “Could you read for me?” I reached inside her to get a sense of her emotions. She was distraught. And tired. The kind of emotional tired someone feels the morning after an intense argument.
If it had been anyone else sitting on my front porch I probably would have said no. But I had a soft spot for Emily Larsen. She was in elementary school when I was in my last year of junior high. We rode the same bus back home. Her father was a Georgia Congressman. In other words, he was rarely there and never picked her up from school. And her mother was always raising money for charities or visiting her father in Washington D.C. while he worked there. Both of them were oblivious to how Emily was treated at school. How she was bullied. How I gave her a spot next to me on the bus so the other kids would leave her alone. Even back then I had a bit of a reputation that kept the meaner kids from bothering me. I even gave her a reading from time to time on the bus ride home. She depended on them now. I could sense that she needed a friend and getting readings was her way of coping with the rougher parts of being a teenager.
She was such a quiet girl. Enormously shy. Her eyes were almost always glued to the floor. She insisted on wearing glasses because her eyes never got used to contact lenses. And she spent most weekends doing extra homework that she requested from the teacher. That and a dose of acne, you have a nerd.
Now she was in high school. The glasses and acne remained, but she learned to open up a little more. As a fellow introvert, I felt as though she had made progress. Even if I had to urge her to tell me things that were going on.
“Sure, come on in,” I said. “Fair warning, I haven’t cleaned in quite some time.”
“I don’t care,” she said.
I unlocked the door and she walked in silently behind me. I went over to the desk in the study I usually used to do readings. It was covered in an array of tissues and random books that were starting to gather a bit of dust. The cards I liked using for Emily were in a box near the bookshelf. Special cards that I only used for my best clients. Others were satisfied with me reading tarot for them. But for those who truly appreciated it, I read special cards. Ones used by the kruxa for centuries. Ones my grandmother bequeathed to me. Ones you could find in new age shops if you knew what to ask for, but were still unique enough to give my own special twist to a reading. When I held them, I felt gran’s energy still surging through them. It was like she left a piece of herself in them just for me. I used to carry them with me all the time. I made another mental note to start doing that again. Granted the vision I just experienced, I was curious to see what the cards had to say. But most of the time the cards only served as a gentle guide. I learned more from the other person’s touch than anything else. Which was why I made sure to always graze their hands when they cut the deck for me.
I took the cards out of their box and let them fall into my hand out of the pouch I kept them in.
“How are things at school?” I asked her, relieved to be home and away from the eyes of the vampire who clearly thought I was worthy of watching. My mind was already going crazy over the possibilities. Who was he? Why was he spying on me? Was he merely hunting and I didn’t look appetizing? Or was it something more? It had to be more.
“Alright, I guess,” she said quietly, touching the bridge of her glasses and pushing them up.
I sat opposite her and shuffled the cards, then laid them down before her.
“Cut the deck three times then re-stack them and hand them back to me,” I instructed.
She did so and I took the cards back into my hands, being careful to graze a finger over hers before getting started.
I placed the first card down on the table. It had the image of dark stones piled up on one another in front of a dark ocean. An ominous card. My brief touch of Emily’s hand gave me what I needed to know. She was starting to apply for colleges. But it was by her father’s demand. He wanted her to pursue an Ivy League school. Somewhere that would be prestigious so he could finally showcase her as being worthy of the family name. His words cut through Emily deeply. She didn’t want to go to college. She didn’t want to please him anymore like when she was little. She learned quickly that he could never be pleased. He had wanted sons. Girls were an inconvenience.
I saw a flash of him hollering at her. Screaming that it was time for her to be an adult. She turned away like a shrinking violet, obviously sensitive to his harsh words.
“You have a big decision ahead of you,” I said calmly. “One you really don’t want to make. One that others are trying to make for you.”
She didn’t say anything. Her eyes were transfixed to the corner of the room, as they usually were. I could see circles behind the lenses of her glasses. Her eyes were completely worn out from lack of sleep. There was definitely something on her mind that she couldn’t let go. Something more. Something that had nothing to do with academia or her father. I focused as hard as I could, but her secret was well-guarded.
I placed down another card, not even really bothering to see which one it was. I let my hand touch it before gliding away, trying to concentrate on what I had just sensed rather than the card. A light tingling reached through my fingertips. My magic wanted to come out to give me more details about her situation. I restrained it as much as I could.
‘Stay there, damn it.’
You would think that after fighting it off for so many years I’d be a pro. But each time felt as though it was the first. And it’s also why so many kruxa have been caught and killed over the centuries. Our lack
of control was our fatal flaw.
I held back. I always held back. If I gave too many details it could be risky. Not that there wasn’t already risk involved. A vampire had been watching me not even ten minutes ago.
“You have ideas as far as what you want. You don’t like it here in Dilton. There are too many people who know you. Too many people who already think a certain way about you. Maybe there’s hope for you in another town. One where people don’t know your name. Who don’t know you’re the daughter of a Congressman. Who might see you as something more.”
I was starting to get more hints as my magic shifted inside me, luring my mind to the right answers.
“Is there a man who has your interest?”
Her lips quirked a bit to the side. I got that part right. She gave a small shy nod of her head but remained silent as the seconds passed between us. Usually, people gave me more details to go on. But not Emily. She was too reserved. Especially for a teenager.
I couldn’t help but grin. “He’s handsome. Very handsome. But older?”
She was quiet and didn’t respond.
“He respects you. Not like your dad. He makes you feel worthy.”
I lay down another card, allowing my hand to touch it then drift away. “Something is holding you back though. Something that has you worried about leaving Dilton altogether.” Here it was. The part where I revealed too much. Where I gave myself away a bit more than your average psychic. “Samantha. You’re worried about Samantha. Is she okay?”
Emily took her eyes away from the corner of the room and stared at me. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. I got it right. I always got it right.
I placed down another card. I told clients that this was the karma card. The one that told me what their karmic lesson was and what they should take from a situation. What sort of lesson are they repeatedly trying to learn in this particular life? Only they could decipher that one. I could give my insight. That was all. But it left them with more to think about and often brought them back for more readings.
“I think you’re stronger than you realize, Emily. You need to learn your own strength. I know it doesn’t feel that way because you’ve been beaten down emotionally over the years. Kids can be so mean. And parents who think we’re not doing enough to meet their expectations are even worse. But perhaps you should find out for yourself. See a little of the world through your own eyes. And you don’t have to drop thousands of dollars on a college education to do so. I didn’t. I watched my older sister go into debt up to her eyeballs. And even if your father were to pay for it, I doubt his control over you would end. He’ll probably tell you what you’re going to study and exactly what kind of job you need to get. Maybe that’s up to you. Not him. And maybe this new man on your mind can be of help to you. It’s okay to open up to people. Perhaps let him in a little and see what comes of it.”
She gave me a smile. A bigger one than I was used to seeing from her. Only for it to fall in a matter of seconds. There was something else. Something I glazed over but didn’t go deep into.
Her sister.
“Is Samantha alright?” I asked again. She never really did answer my question.
“I don’t know.”
Was that an ‘I don’t know’ as in she really wasn’t aware, or that Samantha was in trouble and she didn’t know the depth of it.
I honestly didn’t care for Samantha. She was in my graduating class in high school. Stunning black hair, green eyes, a cheerleader, and completely into herself. Easily the most popular girl in school. But rather dismissive of the people around her. People like me. Not that I wanted her friendship. I could sense she was the type of person to use and dispose of those she didn’t deem worthy of her in a hurry.
I wasn’t entirely sure of the kind of relationship Samantha and Emily had, but I gathered Emily felt something for her. Maybe not sisterly affection, but there was still a love between siblings that existed under the surface.
“Samantha’s back in town,” she said softly. “She was in D.C. with my dad for a while.”
I pushed a little harder to sense what she was feeling. She wouldn’t be here if it were that simple. No. Samantha was doing something. Or perhaps getting herself involved in something. With a man. It had to be a man. A man that frightened Emily. A man who made her nervous. Nervous as hell. That was half the reason she wanted to leave. And not to a college her father would hand pick for her. She wanted to get farther away. To a place where her father couldn’t influence her choices no matter how hard he tried. And she saw this other man on her mind that she respected as a possible means to do just that.
“You don’t know what she did while she was there?” I questioned.
No. She knew. She just didn’t want to say. I could feel her starting to close off.
“Have you tried talking to her?”
Emily gave a small shrug of her shoulders. “She said she didn’t need advice from the virginator.”
‘The virginator? Wow. What a sweet sister.’
Suddenly Madison’s hovering didn’t seem so bad. At least she genuinely cared about me.
My magic was starting to itch under my skin. I could feel it lurking just inside my fingertips, wanting to be let out. If I did, a glow would appear from my hands. And maybe my whole body if I let it. I kept it inside, demanding it obey me. I shuddered as it coursed through my shoulders and down my spine. It only did that when something was coming. Or someone. And not someone who meant well.
My mind automatically went to the absolute worst possibility.
“Emily, I hate to say this, but I have another client coming,” I lied. “He’ll be here in just a few minutes, so I’ll have to cut this one short.”
She took out her wallet. She sometimes gave me ten dollars. Being a Congressman’s daughter didn’t help when it came to a generous allowance. She told me the last time she came that he refused to let her get an after-school job. It was beneath her. Or beneath the family name… or something. I suspected she did some babysitting jobs on the side and she prayed he wouldn’t notice.
“Don’t worry about that,” I said, refusing the money. “Can you get home okay?”
“I’m parked around the street corner,” she said.
“Why didn’t you park near the house?” My magic went down through my legs, tingling them and then shooting back up. “Ugh, never mind. It doesn’t matter. Just drive safe and I hope I see you again soon.” I didn’t want her walking home with a vampire close by. It was too far away in this heat. But if my magic was trying to tell me anything, it was that the vampire didn’t have her in his sights. He was focused on me.
“Thanks,” she said, then headed out the door and down the steps. I gathered my reading cards from the table, placed them in my pocket, and watched through the window blinds until she made it to her car and drove away.
The magic in my fingers traveled back through my arms, giving me goosebumps as it went. I could feel its glow starting to pierce through my fingertips. At least Emily was gone now. But her emotions still lingered inside me from the reading. She was scared. Samantha was probably up to no good. Probably involved with some entitled asshole that her father approved of. But that wasn’t really a concern of mine. No. The highest on my list of concerns was that someone was in my house.
You know that myth about vampires needing permission to enter someone’s house? That only works for humans. And I’m not human. I may look it. Most people would need to get to know me to see the differences. With Caleb’s death, the house passed down to me. It was no longer protected by the human ownership factor.
This vampire knew what I was. He knew he could enter my house. I didn’t even have time to see my attacker before he swiftly turned me around to face him, shoved me against the wall, and placed a sharp knife to my throat so I wouldn’t scream.
Chapter 4
Anyone who tries telling you that vampires are teenage heart-throbs with a protective instinct, they want nothing more than to turn you into a va
mpire, and make you their’s for all eternity, are lying little sacks of shit. They don’t sparkle. They don’t have a soft spot for you. They don’t want to protect anyone but themselves. And most of all, humans are a meal to them. Something that will get them through to the next night.
Or at least that’s what I was always told by my mother and gran. It’s not like I went looking for one to find evidence to the contrary.
‘Good lord, his hands are like ice.’
I might have gasped, but I didn’t scream. Not that anyone would hear me. Most of my neighbors were at work. They were done with bringing over casseroles and pies for the grieving widow. No one was coming around to check on me except Madison, and she was probably off to pick up her daughters from kindergarten by now.
His eyes were intense and focused. Unmoving and dangerous. I waited for him to dig his teeth into me. Or to rip my heart out. That was what most vampires did when they managed to find a kruxa. Whereas they would tell humans to burn them at the stake. The only good kruxa was a dead kruxa in their eyes. But once again, this was my mother and gran’s words. I did my best not to draw the attention of such company.
“Do anything other than answer my questions and I won’t hesitate to kill you,” he threatened with a smooth English accent. Too smooth. Words that were tainted with the promise of blood as they teased me with the hope of mercy. “Do you understand?”
I don’t know what he expected me to do. I couldn’t nod, because…you know, a knife to the throat and all that. I was too terrified to speak and he did a good job of bashing the back of my head when he turned me around and shoved me against the wall. My silence must have communicated some level of understanding because he slowly removed the knife from my throat, leaving only a small cut. I was tempted to reach for the single droplet of blood trailing down my throat, but I didn’t dare move. He took his thumb and brushed it up against the cut, then brought the blood up to his lips.
Witchling Wars Page 4