by Kristie Cook
I laughed at the situation. “Yeah, I’m fine. Binks just scared the crap out of me. Sorry.”
Kace flung himself back down on the couch, rubbing his face with his hands. “Guess you’re still a little jumpy from last night, huh?”
I’d forgotten about last night. At Kace’s reminder, images of the creepy red thing attached to the ceiling above my bed flashed through my mind. “I guess so.”
Binks jumped from the coffee table directly onto me, his nails digging into my hip. “Ouch! Jesus, you’ve got some nails.” I gently pushed him off and sat up.
“Ah, my head is killing me. What time is it?” Kace grumbled.
“I don’t know, but I have to work today.” I stood and started for the kitchen to see. “Eight fifty-two,” I said, glancing at the little clock that hung just beside the back door in the kitchen.
Great, I had one hour to get ready for work on a morning when I felt like I needed four. Why had I thought partying was such a great idea last night?
After taking a quick shower, I stood in the bathroom getting dressed. A noise outside the door caught my attention. It sounded like the clacking of nails against hardwood floor. I knew the noise well; it was the most annoying thing about spending the night at Vera’s—the sound of her black lab Boo’s extremely long nails tapping against the hardwood floor throughout her house. This noise sounded exactly the same.
I cracked the bathroom door open enough for my head to hang out so I could see what it was. Kace had just walked up the last step, holding something in his hand while he chewed on something else.
“Hey, thought you might want something to eat before you head out. There wasn’t much in your kitchen, but I did manage to find some bread for toast and a little jar of peanut butter.” He smiled as he handed me the peanut butter toast.
“Did you hear something?” I whispered. Images of the nails the thing from last night must have had flooded my mind and made fear prickle across my skin.
“Nope, why?”
I opened the bathroom door all the way and took the toast from him. “Where’s Binks at?”
“Downstairs eating the scoop of food I just gave him. What did you hear?”
“I don’t know. It sounded like something with nails was walking in the hallway.”
My stomach rolled and my heart jumped to my throat. What the hell was going on? Had that protection spell not worked and someone had sent something else after me?
Kace looked around. “I don’t see anything.”
I shook my head, shaking away the crazy thoughts that congested my mind, and took a bite of the toast Kace had made me. “Thanks for breakfast.”
“Not a problem.” He grinned, but there was a look of worry swirling in the depths of his crazy blue eyes.
I plastered on a smile and realized I should probably keep my next insane encounter with this imaginary creature to myself, or else he was going to think there was something seriously wrong with me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - Skepticism
The bell above the door to Spellbinding Reads chimed as I entered. I stepped inside and walked all the way to the back of the store, ready to put my purse in the back room and begin my shift.
“Good morning,” Admer called from somewhere to my left.
I cringed, hoping he wouldn’t take notice that I was technically five minutes late getting here, at least that was what my cell phone clock said.
“Morning. I’m going to set my stuff in the back. Do you need any help over there after?” I asked.
“Absolutely. This novel came out today, and I didn’t get a chance to make room for it yesterday on the shelves beforehand.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. It felt awkward to be here now that I knew it had been my grandmother’s shop. But that wasn’t what really bothered me, what bothered me most was that Admer knew who I was—what I was—and yet he’d said nothing. Why? I wanted to ask, but how do you even broach a subject like that? This was where Vera’s flat-out boldness and blunt way of speaking came in handy. Too bad I didn’t have even an ounce of either of those things inside of me.
Setting my purse on the desk in the back room, I glanced at the photo hanging on the wall beside it. My grandmother seemed happy, as if she were the type who was always happy. Why had my mother left her? Left all of this? Including me? I reached out and touched the picture, caressing my grandmother’s cheek.
“Would you grab that … ?”Admer began and then stopped once he saw what I was doing. I jumped and stumbled backward slightly, busting the side of my hip against the desk. “I didn’t realize you were having a moment in here. A little jumpy today, are we? I was just going to ask you to grab the box over there on top of that stack before you come out.”
“I wasn’t, I mean … I was, but now I’m finished. And yeah, I am feeling a little jumpy today.” I turned away from the picture and headed toward the stack of boxes he’d pointed to.
“Why is that?” he asked, seeming a little too concerned.
“Just being in that house alone, I guess.”
“Noises from old houses can play tricks on the mind.”
“If you knew my grandmother, then did you know my mother too?” The words flew from my lips in a rush before I could stop them. Of course he knew my mother.
“I did,” Admer admitted without hesitation, even though my question was incredibly random. His voice was smooth, but seemed devoid of any real emotion.
I turned to face him, shaken, and narrowed my eyes. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
His deep green eyes locked on mine. “Because I didn’t know how much you knew about your biological family, and I didn’t want to upset you. I wanted you to be the one to ask if there was anything of significance you sought to know. And now you have. Is there anything else in particular you’d like to know?”
I thought for a moment. “What was she like, my mom?”
A distant gleam entered his eyes as though he were remembering a vivid image of her. “Beautiful, powerful, determined … she was everything I ever dreamed of.” He swallowed hard, and I wondered if they’d been close before she left. “You look so much like her.”
I smiled slightly at the knowledge. “I’ve never even seen a picture of her.”
Admer closed his eyes. “That’s sad.”
“Why did she give me up? Do you know?”
“Something spooked her, something to do with—” He cut himself off then and raised his eyes to meet mine. Skepticism pooled in the depths of them as he stared at me, but so did something else, something that resembled a spark of interest. “Have you … do you know about who you are … what you are? I saw Kace pick you up the other day, so I assume you do. Am I assuming right?” He seemed to choose his words carefully while he continued to stare at me.
I nodded. “I know about being an Elemental.” The words were thick as they came from my mouth. It seemed weird to say them out loud.
Relief crossed his features for the briefest of moments. “Good.”
“What spooked her? Was it something magickal?”
“She never told me exactly. We all wondered, but each of us swore she never mentioned a word about why she wanted to leave.”
“We?” I asked, wondering how many were in their group. Was it always four, or could there be more?
“Yes, we. There was a group of us,” he answered, but didn’t tell me as much as I hoped for.
“How many were there?”
“Five.”
I furrowed my brows. “How did that work? Some of you had to be the same element.”
“Myself and another wielded the same element. Once we were all initiated, the size of our group didn’t matter. As long as there were always four elements present at the time of any magickal use, all of us could join in.”
I thought about what he’d said. “But, wouldn’t that make your magick unbalanced or something?”
“Smart girl.” A twisted smile formed on his face, and he stared at me as though I were the most int
riguing thing he’d seen in a while. “Some had this fear. Others of us didn’t mind.”
“Were you close with my mother, then? Did she care about that?” I asked.
Maybe that had been her driving force to leave—that she was worried about a balance being upset. A lot of the books I’d read had that as a rule of sorts. Then again, that was fiction. This was real. Insanely real.
“I tried to be close with her, quite a few times actually, but she was with someone else.” His lips drew together, forming a thin line as he dropped his gaze to the floor. “As for if she cared about the balance of our magick, I can’t say really, because I don’t know.”
Awkwardness filled the tiny office, crushing me from all sides. He’d obviously liked my mother, and she’d either given him the run around or flat-out turned him down. From the sounds of it, it seemed like more than once too.
“Sorry,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
The bell above the front door chimed, and Admer’s lips twisted into that odd smile of his once more. “What’s done is done. Don’t forget to grab that box before you come out.”
He turned and walked to the front of the store. I stared into the space he’d just occupied, trying to piece together how I felt about him now. I couldn’t put my finger on it just yet, but there was something off about him. He was hiding something. I’d bet it was that he knew exactly why my mother had left.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - The Red Creature
I got off work at four and headed straight home. Even though I hadn’t been doing anything strenuous while at work, I was still exhausted. Binks greeted me at the door when I walked in.
Bending down, I scratched behind his ears. “Hey, buddy, did you have a good day?”
I made my way to the kitchen to drop off my things and see what I had to make for dinner or whether it was a necessity to order takeout instead. Finding a frozen chicken pot pie—something which required virtually no amount of cooking—I decided it would suffice and headed to the living room to lie on the couch for a while and rest my eyes before cooking it.
The last few days had taken a lot out of me—all the insane magick stuff, the partying, working, and being scared to death I was going mental. I curled up on the couch, tucking a throw pillow beneath my head, and pondered if I’d just been sleep-deprived and drunk when I’d seen that creature last night. Kace hadn’t seen it. And there hadn’t been enough time for it to scramble out of the room. I wondered if this was another spell Theo and his Hoodoo family had put on me again. Was that creature only something I could see? I closed my eyes. God, I hoped not.
I must have fallen asleep, because what felt like moments later, I woke to the sound of my cell phone ringing from in the kitchen. Jumping off the couch, I raced to answer it, unbelieving I had zonked out on the couch so quickly. Kace’s name and number lit up my phone’s screen.
“Hello?” I answered, and then shifted to glance at the clock by the back door—it was almost eight already!
“Hey, sexy. I just wanted to see how you were doing,” he said. “I’ve got about another hour here and then I’m gonna head home to change before I come keep you company all night long, again.”
I smiled at his words. “Sounds good.”
“See you in a bit then.”
“See ya.” I hung up and glanced back at the clock. I couldn’t believe I’d slept for nearly four hours on the couch. My stomach grumbled, reminding me I hadn’t eaten, and I headed to the fridge.
Opening the freezer, I pulled out my chicken pot pie and began to read the back before placing it in the microwave. After cutting up a salad—which consisted solely of lettuce and a cucumber, because that was all I had—and heating up the chicken pot pie, I went to the living room to put in a movie and eat on the couch. Deciding on a romantic comedy I’d seen a million times, but still loved, I got settled and began my countdown until Kace arrived. I had no idea what we would actually get into tonight, but I knew one thing that was always on the table with him and I shivered from the anticipation of it.
Halfway into the movie, I thought I heard the same scratching, click-clacking of long toenails against hardwood flooring from this morning. I muted the TV and gazed slowly around the room, searching for Binks. He was lying on the sideboard table behind the couch, curled into a little ball, sleeping. I glanced at my phone. It had been almost an hour since Kace called me, which meant he was just getting off work and the noise couldn’t be him messing with me.
It sounded again, this time making me jump as it echoed through the silent house. I sat my food on the coffee table and stood, wondering what I should do. Should I walk around the house trying to pinpoint where the noise was coming from? Or should I hide until Kace came and pray that, if it was the creature, it didn’t find me?
At the sound of another cluster of clip-clapping—as if whatever it was had scurried from one place to another and then paused—I bolted from the living room and toward the foyer, deciding getting out of the house was the best option. Something hit me hard from behind, knocking me to the floor before I even made it two steps into the foyer. All the breath from my lungs left me in a loud whooshing noise, and I struggled to catch another gulp of air as the reality that something heavy was now on my back sunk in.
On instinct, I pushed myself up from the floor and attempted to buck off whatever it was on me. I didn’t have much luck. Instead, I succeeded in flipping myself over, bringing me face-to-face with my attacker.
It was the red creature made of nothing besides muscles—no skin, just red muscles—and it sat firmly on my chest now.
I screamed and began thrashing around in an effort to get the creature off me. Pushing it away with my hands, I grimaced at the way it felt—slimy and sticky at the same time. Its lips twisted into a wicked smile almost as though it enjoyed my torment and palpable fear a little too much. Its solid black, beady eyes bored into me as it wrapped its slick, taloned hands around my neck. My mouth opened and closed as I struggled to catch the tiniest breath of air. My hands punched and clawed at the creature’s arms and its fingers, which had tightly wrapped themselves around my throat.
I couldn’t breathe.
I squeezed my eyes shut as the creature lowered its face to mine. With only mere inches between us, I could feel its hot breath and taste its rancidness on my tongue. Dark spots began to feather the edges of my vision. I was going to die. I was going to be suffocated. All because of some crazy power I didn’t even understand yet. Tears trickled from the corners of my eyes, their hot wetness making tracks down the sides of my face.
“Open your eyes …” the creature hissed in a demonic-sounding voice.
Shocked it could speak, my eyes snapped open. The creature smiled at me, and I thrashed about even more. Its hands released my throat just enough for me to greedily gulp a few breaths of air. My throat felt raw and my lungs shriveled and starved. I could smell the rotten stench of the creature’s breath now full-on. It turned my stomach instantly, making saliva pool in my mouth and nausea bubble within my gut.
The creature lowered its lips closer to mine, and I clamped my mouth shut tightly on instinct. Words in a language I’d never heard before flowed from its lips in a steady rhythm as though it were singing. The air in the room changed, becoming thicker and hotter.
And that was when I felt it.
A tugging and pulling centered in my chest. It felt as though my soul was being ripped from within me.
My mouth opened and smoky red and yellow ribbons flowed from within, straight into the creature’s mouth. I could taste sweetness on my tongue. I wanted to move, to fight to keep whatever it was taking from inside of me, but I was frozen, completely paralyzed, as it sat on my chest with greed swelling in its beady black eyes as it savored my essence. Hopelessness swam through me as I realized that was exactly what it was doing—taking not only my magick, but also my life directly from me.
A loud growling caught my attention—Binks. I saw him leap at the creature’s shoulder, sinking
his teeth and claws into its wet exterior. With the creature’s attention elsewhere, the ribbons flowed back inside of me, and I was released from the paralysis it had inflicted upon me. I took advantage of the moment. Bucking and thrashing, I knocked over a table against the wall closest to me and heard the vase that had sat on it smash to the ground as I threw the creature that was nearly half my size off me and darted toward the front door, the closest escape available.
I gripped the cool metal knob in my hot hand at the exact moment Binks was thrown across the foyer and into the railing of the stairs. I watched as he bounced off and landed on the hardwood floor with a sickening thud.
“Come to me,” the creature shouted at me in its demonic tone, crooking its sharp-nailed finger my way.
I turned the knob and swung the door open as quickly as I could. Barreling down the steps, I paused for a split second to try my Jeep door. It was locked and I knew exactly where the keys were—resting on the kitchen counter. I darted down the driveway and out into the street barefoot, without knowing where I was going, but positive I couldn’t stay where I was. I hit the sidewalk and cut a left, heading toward the brushy woods, remembering the shortcut to Kace’s apartment he’d mentioned and praying I could find it.
Glancing behind me, I spotted the creature a little ways back running after me. It avoided all streetlights and looked like nothing more than a fast-moving shadow, a shade or two darker than it should be, slipping through the night. I continued forward, my vision becoming blurred by tears as the reality of what was happening finally began to sink in.
I was being chased by a freaking monster!
My lungs burned with every inhale, and my throat felt like it was on fire. I nearly wept when I reached the over-walked pathway cut into the brush, because I knew I was now that much closer to Kace and I was positive he would know what to do.
My breath burst in and out from my lungs in rapid succession as I leapt over fallen limbs and roots woven though the ground. The thicket seemed to be much darker than it had been the night before during Kace’s and my walk to the cliff party. My head pounded as I tried to remember where it was we had stopped and Kace had pointed out the way to his apartment complex. Rapid footfalls from behind me made me cry out in alarm. Glancing over my shoulder, I could clearly see the creature gaining on me, its shadowy figure growing closer with every inhale of my breath.