Born of Shadows- Complete Series

by J. R. Erickson

"It is better," she sighed, but shot a furtive glance toward the tunnels behind her.

  Unlike her last trip to the cave, the pull towards the center tunnel no longer existed. She didn't want to walk through that passageway—she could barely remember why she had intended to in the first place.

  "It's okay to forget," Victor said, "to release the things that are holding us back."

  She nodded and relaxed into her spirit body. It felt so good to let go.

  "Join us, Abby. Your coven is holding you prisoner. We need you...and you need us." His eyes were intent and riveting. She stared into the sparkling black orbs and felt herself nod.

  They need me, she thought and let that roll around in her head for a bit. She liked the way it sounded and strangely could not remember a single time in her entire life when she had felt needed. But, even so, she could not simply abandon all that had happened—Ula, Sebastian, Sydney.

  "I'm not finished," she told him, without really thinking the words first, but when she spoke she knew them to be true.

  Victor started to protest, but then, seeing something in her eyes, he stopped.

  "Then at least let me help you," he sounded determined. "You've been to a Vepar's lair. The location is inside you."

  She shook her head.

  "I was unconscious when they took me there. I have no idea where it's at."

  "Sure you do," he laughed. "You're a witch, Abby. Your body knows things your mind doesn't have a clue about yet and vice versa. We can unlock it, we can find that cave."

  "How do you even know about that?" she asked, uncomfortable with what he implied.

  "Because Dante saw it at Sorciére. He has this mind-reading thing. It's pretty wild right now and he has no idea when it's going to happen, but he saw the Vepar's lair and he saw that you killed one..."

  Abby drifted past him and into the tunnel on the right. At the end of the tunnel, she found the rest of his group. They stood around a glowing fire and she recalled the very first time she traveled to the cave before she even knew that witches existed.

  None of them spoke, but their circle broke apart and she and Victor moved into it, closing it again. They did not touch, but their energies became one.

  ****

  Sebastian edged from tree to tree staring through a dense morning fog at an unfamiliar landscape of ripe green valleys, dotted with ramshackle barns. The leaden sky foretold of rain and Sebastian's thin shirt and black spandex pants already left him shivering and drab. His feet were raw and blistered and, when he sat against a large pine tree, the aches of his body immediately clamored for his attention. His legs and back throbbed from days and nights of confused walking. His head swam with tiredness. His hands, feet and elbows stung where blisters and scrapes lay open to the strong winds. He had removed his costume entirely and rubbed his skin raw where the paint had not already been sweated away.

  He dared not even think of his predicament in a foreign land with no money, identification or friend to speak of. He still did not know if he was in France or some other unidentified countryside.

  Searching his pockets, he emptied the remains in his lap and found little to celebrate. The only thing that he carried was the tiny silver ring he had discovered in Claire's box, the only item he had felt compelled to snatch from his nightstand before readying for the Ball. Not a thought had been given to any human necessity because he was traveling with witches. Who needed passports for magic mirrors or money for booze conjured from thin air? He had brought nothing and now, in the early morning mist of an alien landscape, he had nothing.

  His only glimmer of hope was Abby. Surely she was desperately searching for him and insisting that the witches pour all of their energy into that endeavor. It made him feel weak, his terror at being cast out. He had underestimated the security that living with witches brought into his life. For years he had been on his own, struggling and desperate, and then, in a matter of days, that had all reversed and he found himself living with a coven of witches. He didn't have to think of money or food or even...Claire, if he didn't want to. There had even been a few days where her image went mostly unseen. Her memory never died, but the constant itch to avenge her had momentarily subsided. That was until several weeks earlier when suddenly he found himself again consumed by her death. Why had it returned so suddenly?

  He still felt it, sort of, as he sat alone and shivering in the morning light. However, mostly he felt troubled. His usual survival skills were slow to kick in. He scanned the horizon, letting his eyes rest on a small shed, blue paint peeling beneath a white hand-painted sign. He could not make out the words but, as he studied them, he grew more convinced that they were in French, which meant that he was still in Bordeaux, somewhere.

  He took a deep breath and shuffled to his feet. At the very least, the shed offered sanctuary from the biting wind and an opportunity to shed the remainder of his costume and attempt a presentable appearance. He hoped more that it might contain some food source. He would eat raw eggs, milk, even pigs feed if he had to. He was ravished and scowled each time he thought of the buffets from the party. He had fully intended to gorge half the night away when he'd finally tired of dancing, but he had barely eaten half a sandwich when...what? What had happened?

  Why couldn't he remember? He recalled the little girl creating the monster from dust and then a witch. What had her name been?

  "Indra," he said aloud triumphantly, and then quickly backed into the trees, It could not have been that loud, but still in the silent valley, who knew how his voice might carry?

  Yes, Indra had been her name and she seemed strangely fascinated by him. He had almost asked her if she knew that he was human, but then thought better of it. She might have. He had felt exposed much of the night. Every time a witch's gaze lingered on him, he wondered if they could sense clearly his lack of mystical power. As he grew drunk on champagne, he had stopped caring that he was the odd man out and simply gave in to the pleasure of the night.

  ****

  Abby's bedroom materialized around her and the emptiness found her. For that brief period with Victor and the others, her loneliness had dulled and then disappeared. Returning to her empty room brought the heaviness of solitude back to her.

  In the castle halls, she was greeted with silence and she sighed out loud just to hear any sound of life.

  She walked to the library, not truly wanting to face everyone, but unable to simply stay in her room and hide. When she heard voices through the door, she paused. They were muffled, but sounded urgent. Abby imagined an enormous rushing waterfall and, as her pulse quickened, she sent the energy into her ear causing her eardrum to vibrate more quickly. She listened.

  Elda's voice drifted out.

  "I agree that we need to help her, Oliver, but in time, of course. We cannot grieve for her."

  "That's not what I'm saying," Oliver said, sounding irritated. "What faith will she have in this coven, or in herself for that matter, if she's forced to sit in her room staring at the sky, while all of her people die?"

  "No one else is going to die," Faustine chimed in, his voice high and tense.

  "No? And how do you know that? How about her parents, her ex-boyfriend, her old friend's for Pete's sakes. How long until Tobias or some other Vepar decides it's time to even the score for Antonio."

  "We must protect the coven, Oliver. That is our first priority. We cannot send her back to France, or anywhere else for that matter. She has not yet honed her skills or even discovered most of them," Elda argued.

  "I have to tell her about Sydney," Oliver said suddenly, and Abby heard a chair scrape along the carpeting as if he had stood.

  "No," both Elda and Faustine said in unison.

  "She cannot handle any more trauma," Faustine's voice commanded.

  "What she can't handle," Oliver nearly shouted, "is more deception. She needs the truth. The only thing that can free her is knowing everything. I killed Sydney, I killed her, and I have to come clean."

  Abby heard the words and b
egan to shake her head no before she even fully processed them. She started to back away from the door just as it flung open.

  Oliver stared at her, shocked, and, as their eyes met, he understood that she had heard everything.

  "You killed Sydney?" Her heart hurt to say it, but she had to, had to know for sure.

  "Oh, Abby, please..." he murmured as tears sprang to his eyes. He grabbed her hands and squeezed them against his chest. "Let me explain."

  She bit her lip and refused her own tears, staring with pain and sorrow at the top of his bowed head.

  For an instant, she imagined hearing him out. She could listen to his story and then sit down to dinner with all of the other witches, just like every other night and pretend that nothing was wrong, except she couldn't. Before she even understood that staying had already ceased as an option, she had ripped her hands away from him.

  "I'm already gone," she said through gritted teeth.

  She moved away from him, and again, for a moment, time grew endless and the tick of a second spread into hours and she hoped that he would stop her, that he would rush up behind her and grab her around the waist and tie her to him. Not because she loved him, but because she was terrified at what lay ahead and she was devastated to leave him behind. It was not true that she did not love Oliver. She did love him, but she hated him for Sydney and she hated his coven for Sebastian and she hated herself for all that felt lost to her as she stood in the hallway.

  When Abby made it to her bedroom, Victor's face kept dancing into her mind and his image urged her on. She had not intended to actually meet Victor that night. Or had she?

  It felt like such a sickly familiar moment, running away. She grabbed a bag and hastily threw together her things. The halls were silent as she strode out of the castle and into the cool evening. She turned only once to see Lydie who lifted a lifeless hand and waved goodbye.

  Chapter 9

  The boat ride was eerily calm and Abby swallowed tears and screams that tormented her chest and eyes. The black night did not disturb her but, for the first time in months, for the first time since leaving Nick and her family, she felt utterly alone, cast out of the new life as if it were merely a dress and the party had come to an end.

  She took hours, knowing that Victor would not arrive until well after midnight. She thought of her moonlit boat ride with Sebastian and how they narrowly escaped death by Tobias and the other Vepars. She wondered if they wouldn't have been better off running the other way, fleeing to Mexico and burning Claire's journals rather than following them to the coven of Ula.

  When she saw headlights at the mainland, she steered the boat away and then returned on foot through the woods, crouching and watching. When she stood close enough to see Victor's face, she left her concealment and stepped into the car's beams He did not jump, or even flinch, and she understood that he sensed her approach.

  He leaned across the seat and pushed the passenger door open.

  "Ready for the ride of your life?" he asked, grinning. His eyes, mischievous, danced over her and he raised his eyebrows at her bag. "Bring some snacks along?"

  "I've decided to leave Ula for a while," she told him and slid into the seat, pressing the bag between her knees and squeezing it for comfort. She chose not to elaborate.

  "A minimalist. I like it," he said with a grin. He did not probe further.

  "So how do we do this?" Abby asked. "I really don't remember where the lair was..."

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small heart-shaped bottle.

  "This is a super-special tonic that Kendra makes. I'm embarrassed to admit that we usually use it to find lost keys and other nonsense, but she amped it up for you."

  Abby took the bottle and studied it.

  "I don't want to start recovering lost memories from my childhood or some craziness."

  "That's what this is for."

  Victor pulled out a tiny scroll and undid the twine holding it together. A teeny pencil, the size of a push pin, rolled out.

  "Write what you're looking for on the paper and drop it in."

  Abby took it, leery, but more intrigued. Holding the tiny pencil, she wrote 'The Vepars Lair where I killed Tony'. It barely fit. She carefully unscrewed the top from the bottle and slid the tiny scroll inside. It dissolved instantly.

  "Now, you drink while I drive," Victor chuckled.

  He gunned the car in reverse and spun around. They tore away from the winding trail that led to Lake Superior. She glimpsed the lake in the rearview mirror as Victor hit the care brakes and the shoreline lit up red and barren behind them.

  ****

  "What's your edge, Abby?" Victor whispered, extending his body another inch over the side of the cliff.

  The waterfall rushed beneath them. The water was black, oily and familiar. She remembered the taste, the copper salty flavor like blood. Overhead the moon spooked the shadows and made Victor's teeth glow a vampiric white. A million stars watched, the eyes of the cosmos causing Abby to shiver with delight and fear.

  They stood over the Vepar's lair as if on a midnight dare. They might have been high school friends taunting the other to run the light, take the shot...do it, whatever it was. A rock slid away beneath Victor and Abby jumped, startled. Her mind and body were at odds. Goosebumps and trembling flesh told her that fight or flight was at hand. Her spirit, however, drew great heaping gulps from the waterfall below and surged enormous and ready to deal justice to the enemy beneath them.

  Abby laughed, scared, but so much more than that. A feeling of aliveness pulsed through her body. She felt alive like no other moment since becoming a witch, alive in a way that reading and casting and conjuring could not imitate. The pain of Sebastian's death lived on another planet, maybe in another galaxy, and she let it stay there.

  She held her palms down over the water and she willed it, demanded it to stop. The flow rushed on, but then the water slowed, trickled and dried. The night grew silent beneath the water's absence, but Abby felt the water within her. It surged up and up, waiting for her to cast it out, to channel the energy building.

  Victor did not wait, but plummeted over the ledge, his hands claw-like as he climbed the rock surface and swung into the mouth of the cave.

  Abby hesitated. She looked at the flowing river beyond and she remembered escaping from the tunnels below her. She remembered plunging the rock into the Vepar Antonio. The squeals of agony and black blood filled her brain like a tumor exploding and then Victor called her name and she plunged after him. She moved down the rock face slowly, planting each foot and hand, searching for the widest ledge and the sharpest outcroppings.

  When she reached the tunnel, she nearly slipped on the overhang and Victor did not reach out to help her. He was tap dancing on the remaining pools of water, his eyes shining with moonlight and mischief.

  "It's now or never, beautiful." He grinned and heaved her up by the arm.

  She cast a final glance at the night sky and together they descended into the darkness.

  ****

  Sebastian rolled onto his back and yawned, stretching his fingers overhead where they brushed an empty trough, the sides dried and rough with dirt. He had slept deeply, much to his surprise, and thanked the gods for his fortune that the shed sat atop a root cellar, full to bursting with jars of pickles, fruit, jams and relishes. He had eaten two jars of peaches and half a jar of pickles before falling into a heap on the ground.

  He listened for the sounds of others, but his ears caught nothing beyond his breath and the occasional groans of the shed walls.

  Before leaving, he peeked through grimy windows at the field beyond. He saw a tall, dark farmhouse in the distance, flanked by a gnarled orchard. The leaves had fallen and mostly blown away and the house looked empty, possibly abandoned. He had sensed that the jarred food had been in the cellar for years and that perhaps no one saw to the shed on any regular basis. The door hinges were rusted and cried out when he first pushed them in, and everything in the shed, from w
orkbench to rafters, was covered in a light gray dust.

  He moved deliberately to a small patch of bushes growing wild in the yard. He stood, waited, and then advanced toward the house. He feigned confidence in case someone did reside there. He would merely pretend that he searched for his missing dog.

  He neared the back porch where white paint peeled to gray and noted the boards crisscrossing the backdoor. Two windows revealed broken panes of glass and the overgrowth of weeds confirmed his suspicions that the house stood vacant. Several cars, dead-looking, lazed in the tall grass beside the house. He walked to each, peering through windows at cracked leather seats. They were small cars, European, with steering wheels on the right side. He knew a thing or two about hot-wiring, especially the older cars. His father's best friend had been a mechanic who insisted that Sebastian, as a young man, learn the basics—oil changes, flat tires and hot wiring. He did not feel hopeful, though, as he stared at the clunkers before him. In either direction, the road stretched in an endless line of open fields backed by dense forests. He might walk for miles before he encountered a sign of life, and then what?

  He felt a surge of hope at the mere thought of getting behind the wheel. Total helplessness could be remedied by a car. Driving had been important in his life before the coven of Ula. He drove to help Claire get over their parents' death. He drove to clear his mind and to find peace when it all became too much. At Ula, so many of his little cure-alls had dissipated. Gone were his long drives and hours in the kitchen behind a hot stove. His only reprieve had been the coven's library and their extensive collection of books. At Ula, he found material that he had longed for after Claire's death. He had absorbed much, but now, as he stood with his hands on the rusted hood of a four-door Renault, his brain felt void of knowledge. So focused on learning to kill Vepars, he'd all but forgotten what it felt like to survive in the human world.

  He found the passenger door unlocked and slid into the musty interior, cringing at the pair of molded fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror. Sebastian surveyed the car's contents. He noticed cardboard boxes filled with records, a couple of bags of musty clothes and pair of old tennis shoes. He fumbled along the visors and beneath the seats, hopeful.