Born of Shadows- Complete Series

by J. R. Erickson

  "I did it yesterday," he said simply, touching the skin near the tattoo, which Abby realized looked red and slightly puckered.

  "With a needle?" she asked, surprised.

  "Yeah, a needle and some ink that Helena gave me."

  "But why?"

  He looked at her strangely and pulled his sleeve down, covering the inflamed skin.

  "To remember. That's why I got it in the first place."

  Abby sucked her cheeks in and bit back the words on her tongue. It was not appropriate to be jealous of Sebastian's dead sister.

  "Why is it an issue?" he demanded, stepping from the bed and dropping to his hands and knees.

  "What are you doing?" she asked, peering over the side.

  "What does it look like? I'm getting my shoes so I can go back to my room."

  "Oh, come on, Sebastian. Just stay, I didn't mean anything..." But that was not true. She wanted him to stop obsessing over Claire. She wanted him to behave differently at the coven and stop talking about the Vepars, but she hadn't said any of that to him and felt as if she couldn't. More strange, she'd barely thought of Claire in weeks, but suddenly the dead witch seemed to be filling all of the chasms newly erected between her and Sebastian.

  "Just get some sleep," he told her, grabbing his sweatshirt off the floor and leaving the room. He didn't slam the door, but still she jumped when it clicked in the frame.

  Chapter 3

  For two days, Abby did not see Sebastian. The approaching All Hallow's Ball, combined with a seemingly endless list of distractions, left everyone at Ula surprisingly busy. Abby spent the day in the dungeon memorizing mantras to invoke the spirit. She sat on the stone floor and meditated, but the cold bit into the back of her legs and she wriggled uncomfortably. Elda sat on a stool nearby, her eyes closed and lips parted. She too was meditating, in addition to giving Abby directions.

  "Ommmmmmmn," Abby began again, making the sound deep in her belly and allowing it to continue long after breath had left her.

  Elda joined in the chant and Abby felt the vibrations that they each emitted traveling the length of her body. It took her away from her mind, but as soon as she returned to silence, her thoughts took hold again—mostly thoughts of Sebastian and her inability to accept his chilly behavior.

  "Concentrate, Abby—not on your mind, but on the stillness of this moment," Elda directed.

  Abby closed her eyes again.

  "This time, begin with the mantra HRIM. When you make the sound, lose yourself in it. The thoughts in your mind are not real, just let them go and be here now."

  Abby started again. "Hreeeeeemmmmm."

  As long as she held the chant, she felt energetically charged. Her body pulsed and goose-bumps prickled along her neck.

  "Now," Elda began. "Without stopping your mantra, bring rain into the dungeon."

  "Hreeeeeeemmmmm," Abby continued, though she did not imagine a dark cloud bursting with rain. Instead envisioned droplets on her face and the electrical current of the storm. She stayed there, but the more she felt those imaginary droplets, the more she thought of Sebastian. She remembered the night at Sydney's lake house, when they'd run along the beach during a spontaneous rainstorm. She knew now that the storm had been a manifestation of her growing power, but she was less concerned with that than Sebastian's hand in hers and the exhilaration at their decision to search for Devin's killer.

  "Abby? Abby, come back?" Elda demanded.

  Abby opened her eyes to Elda who looked mildly perturbed.

  "I'm sorry," she said, exasperated. "I have a lot on my mind."

  "Clearly. Let's finish here for today, but you must work at the lagoon. I have a ritual to prepare you for tomorrow's summoning that will probably take you until late tonight."

  Abby nodded, but hated the thought of spending the rest of the evening locked in her room chanting and waving incense. She wanted to have a conversation with Sebastian, but feared his response to the questions in her mind.

  ****

  Sebastian pushed the swinging door into the kitchen. Bridget sat on a high wooden table, both feet propped on a stool in front of her, an open cookbook resting in her lap.

  "Lured by the sweet scent?" Bridget asked, waving toward the enormous antique oven where several pots released tendrils of steam.

  He could smell ginger and garlic, maybe some cinnamon.

  "Mmmm, what's cooking?" he asked, lifting a lid and peering into a black gelatinous pool that smelled of vinegar.

  "Bad choice. That's a potion for Faustine," Bridget laughed. "He's suffering from an especially persistent foot fungus."

  Sebastian wrinkled his nose and pulled away.

  He had only been in the kitchen a couple of times, but found that he thought of it often. He missed cooking, a hobby that had also become a lifeline for him in the time before the coven. When he cooked, he turned off his thoughts and focused entirely on the meal. His mother had taken great pride in teaching her only son how to cook. Later, when his entire family lay dead beneath faceless tombs, he found solace in preparing food. Sometimes he made elaborate dinners that only he enjoyed. His masterpiece had been a Paella Valenciana, which he prepared during a two-month stay in Texas before he finally booked his flight to Panama in search of his sister's killer.

  He had cooked daily in Texas while renting a small efficiency that lacked everything except a functional stove and refrigerator. He gained twenty pounds during those two months, which he lost in three short weeks in Panama fighting constant diarrhea and nausea after being stricken with malaria. The malaria persisted throughout his stay and the staple food that he survived on during the trip—rice—now made his stomach churn at the thought. His trip had been a disaster. In addition to not finding a single clue as to Tobias's whereabouts, he spent most of his time occupying bathrooms until he finally flew home and spent three days in the hospital recovering. Sydney's home on the lake had symbolized a new hope.

  "Which sounds better? Red velvet cupcakes or black forest chocolate?" Bridget asked, holding up her copy of A Million Cupcakes to Make You Smile.

  "I like the one shaped like a spider," he said pointing to the cover.

  A strange look crossed her features, but then she flipped the book over and grinned.

  "Dark chocolate cake with chocolate ganache. It's rich, but I like it," she said, nodding her approval.

  "So do you need any help?" Sebastian asked hopefully, knowing that Bridget, a witch, did not need any help.

  She looked at him for another moment and then opened her hands wide.

  "Of course, the cook needs a vacation sometimes too. Why don't you whip up a couple of sides for dinner?"

  "Really?" he asked, not bothering to hide his relief. Finally, a space to feel useful.

  "Yep. We're looking at Minestrone for the main dish so whatever sounds good with that."

  "Awesome, yes, okay." He immediately started getting familiar with the kitchen, opening cupboards and drawers. "This place is fully equipped," he said scanning a shelf lined with at least two hundred spices.

  "Then you should have all you need," Bridget chirped, hopping down from the table. "I will be off to the garden then to collect a few things for Faustine's potion."

  She patted Sebastian motherly as she left and he sighed happily, staring at the empty counter space before him.

  ****

  "So why haven't you told Sebastian about the party?" Oliver asked, burrowing his bare feet into the cold sand.

  They stood near the stone slab at the second lagoon where Abby had been trying to concentrate for the better part of an hour after Elda had finally released her from the dungeon. The new goal that Elda had given her was to turn the lagoon solid enough that she could walk across. It was not an easy feat.

  "Because..." She blew a puff of air out of her cheeks and dipped her hands again into the frigid lagoon waters. Ice cold at first, the water gradually grew hot. She stood again when she felt sufficiently revved up and returned to the slab. "I got the feeli
ng from Elda that he shouldn't go."

  Oliver smoothed the sand around his feet and considered.

  "You wouldn't know it, but Elda plays a mean devil's advocate."

  Abby nodded, sitting on the edge of the slab and not bothering to even look at the water, let alone focus her power there. She was too distracted. On top of that, for days she had felt agitated and quick to anger.

  "Have you ever seen a human at an All Hallow's Ball?"

  He wrinkled his forehead and picked up a handful of sand.

  "If I have, I didn't know it."

  Abby bit her lip and thought again of the possibility of sneaking Sebastian into the party. Elda implied that it was possible, but she had not seemed enthused.

  "Would Dafne reveal him if we brought Sebastian and pretended that he was a witch?"

  Oliver laughed and looked at her sideways.

  "It's not that simple, Abby. He can't just wear a costume and hope nobody notices. These are witches, many of whom are clairvoyant. They're not easily deceived."

  "Well, Elda said..."

  "Oh, I'm not saying it's impossible," he interrupted. "Just that it will take work. You'll have to put a lot of energy into the spells and that means stating a clear intention. Don't try to cloak him when you're having all of these mixed emotions or you're liable to cast him as something worse than human, something dangerous."

  "Dangerous." Abby repeated.

  Rather than think more on it, she turned her eyes to the lagoon and pushed all of her power into solidifying the dark mass. Ripples broke across the water and then steadied.

  Abby walked to the water's edge and put a foot tentatively over the surface. It was solid, sort of, so she stepped onto it completely. Her feet sank down, but she was able to teeter out onto the lagoon. She felt like she walked on firm pudding and, though she expected Oliver to howl and break her focus, he remained quiet.

  She walked a few feet further, staring through the gelatinous water at the sandy floor as it sloped beneath her. A white crayfish crawled along the lagoon bed.

  "Hey," she yelled. "There's a crayfish right here."

  "Yeah?" Oliver called. "Think the water will hold both of us?"

  "Sure," Abby said, but didn't really know.

  Oliver walked carefully toward her, holding his arms out to both sides and intentionally swaying back and forth. When he reached her, he paused and stared down.

  "That fish looks cray," he joked.

  Abby laughed.

  "It's almost transparent."

  "Yeah, how would you like that? To be invisible?"

  "I would love that," Abby told him, wishing that more than invisible, she could just disappear altogether. Then she wouldn't have to tell Sebastian anything.

  "There are spells you know—to make you invisible."

  "Really?" she asked turning to face him. "I think I've done it, accidentally."

  "I believe it."

  She smiled and returned her gaze to the crayfish that had begun a slow crawl deeper into the lagoon.

  "Let's lay on it," Oliver suggested. "Face down."

  "Okay," she said, excited by the prospect. In her shoes, she could not tell what the water would feel like. She dropped onto her knees and then placed her hands on the surface expecting something cold and wet. Instead, her palms met a sheet of cold, firm silk that sank a few centimeters when she put her weight on it.

  Oliver lay down next to her and they both rested their foreheads against the surface.

  "It feels like Jello," Oliver mumbled. "I wish I was a water element."

  "Yeah right. You can manipulate earth, that's amazing."

  "Nature's waterbed," he laughed and rolled back and forth letting his fingers trail over the undulating surface.

  "My opinion is that you don't invite Sebastian," he said. "Just make up some reason that he can't go and leave it at that. I can tell you've already wasted a lot of thought on this."

  Abby started to disagree, but she had devoted countless hours to whether Sebastian should go. It had been a constant distraction since Sydney's funeral and Sebastian's growing agitation only amplified her doubts.

  Above them, gray storm clouds drew closer. Abby turned onto her back feeling the water dip beneath her, but still the surface stayed firm. She looked up into the bulbous clouds and felt their magnetic energy, the very energy that she had tried to draw in the dungeon earlier that day. They were filled with water, vibrating with the intensity of it and she could almost see the filaments that connected her own energy to that of the rain.

  Oliver reached over and squeezed her hand before climbing back to his feet. He helped her up as the first droplets hit the tops of their heads. A crack of thunder snapped Abby's focus. Beneath them the water became liquid again and they both plunged down.

  It was icy and Abby felt the breath sucked from her lungs. They were in over their heads, but they both laughed and choked as they struggled back to the beach. When they emerged, Abby spotted Dafne. She stood in the greenhouse, watching them from a circle, smoothed clear, in the fogged windows. Her black eyes locked with Abby's and then her face was gone.

  ****

  "Sebastian?" Abby knocked again and, when he didn't answer, she pushed his door with her foot. It opened and she called his name once. "Sebastian? Are you in here?"

  No answer.

  Sebastian's room was similar to hers, except the windows faced the lagoon and it was decorated with medieval torture devices that made her shudder whenever she visited him there. One wall held five different axes, their blades revealing slivers of her face in the candlelight.

  Sebastian was not an organized guest. His duffel bag lay open on the floor, his clothes a plume of debris surrounding it. An enormous oak desk stood beneath one of his windows covered in books, many lying open, their spines bent back. She walked to the books and glanced casually through them. Every title spoke of Vepars or demons.

  Abby knew that Sebastian continued to hunt Tobias, at least in his mind. He had stopped speaking of it with her, but occasionally slipped and let out some Vepar fact or trailed off about some secret location that he wanted to investigate. Abby hated his obsession with the killers. She wanted to forget them, but her opinion seemed of little matter to him lately.

  She wanted to bridge the gap, but simply could not find a way. Part of her felt deeply in love with Sebastian, but another part of her felt utterly detached from him. She thought of his beautiful blue eyes that glittered with a mystery that she could not begin to comprehend. She could sit and stare into his eyes and never grow tired of the light that she saw in them. At least she had felt that way a week earlier, but doubt had taken her love hostage and she could not shake it off.

  She sat on the edge of his bed and took his pillow in her hands, lifting it to her face and inhaling his scent. Her feet did not reach the floor, but her heel knocked against something hard. She hopped from the bed and squatted, reaching below the hanging comforter. Beneath the bed, her fingers sought an edge and she gripped it and pulled it towards her.

  As she tugged, a large wooden box emerged. It was lidless and inside, items and photos were carefully placed, many pinned to the box's walls and others glued to the base. There were photos of Claire. Claire in a red prom dress posing in front of a park swing set. Claire bikini-clad on a beach towel. Claire as a young girl with her arms wrapped around a stuffed turtle and two fingers stuck in her mouth. Around the pictures, Abby saw twigs, herbs and pieces of cloth. Several small containers glued to the bottom of the box were filled with liquid, one that looked strangely like blood.

  "What are you doing in here?"

  She paused with her hand above the box, only seconds from dipping her fingers into the brownish liquid, and took a deep breath.

  Sebastian stood in the doorway, his face empty of emotion, but his arms crossed defensively over his chest.

  "I was just looking for you," she started.

  "I was in the Healing Room getting a tincture for Bridget."

  "What
tincture?" Abby desperately wanted to distract him from her snooping.

  "I don't know. Something for mosquito bites." He looked perturbed, his eyes moving toward the box, but he said nothing. "Are you ready for dinner?"

  She nodded and stood, following him out of the room.

  ****

  "So what costume will you wear to the All Hallow's Ball, Abby?" Elda called down the dinner table.

  Abby stopped, her forkful of chicken poised halfway to her mouth. All of the witches looked at her expectantly and her face burned. She noticed that Sebastian was staring intently at the garlic mashed potatoes he'd prepared earlier that day. He had been spending more time in the kitchen with Bridget, which relieved Abby because it meant that he was not stalking the library for more titles on Vepar destruction.

  "Ummm, well..." she choked and found herself looking to Oliver for help.

  His lips were folded in a grimace and when they made eye contact, he shrugged as if to say 'guess you're telling him after all.'

  "Well, I've been so busy, I haven't given it much thought." An absolute lie. "By the way, Sebastian, I forgot to tell you about the All Hallow's Ball."

  "Oh." he mumbled, finally looking up. "Lydie mentioned it last week."

  Abby sucked in a breath and felt her blush deepen.

  "Yeah, I told Sebastian that he should be the Goblin King from Labyrinth," Lydie quipped, spooning potatoes into her mouth.

  She had recently dropped the clichés and Abby loved the change. She was much more like an adolescent girl than Abby had realized.

  "Ha, the Goblin King, Lyds?" Oliver laughed. "You want poor Sebastian in spandex pants and a pirate shirt?

  "I wasn't sure if it was a witch only thing..." Sebastian said, ignoring Oliver.

  "Well, I'm not totally sure either," Abby said looking at him apologetically. She reached beneath the table to squeeze his knee, but discovered that he was sitting too far away.

  "I'm sure that he can be concealed," Dafne muttered and Abby glanced toward her, bewildered. Oliver too seemed shocked at Dafne's comment, but her gaze had drifted back to her plate and no one else seemed to notice.