Born of Shadows- Complete Series

by J. R. Erickson

  "Maybe. I want to find Stephen Kramer. He's clearly hinting at something happening in Trager City. Of course that concerns me for his whereabouts..."

  "Yeah, me too. I think he ran, though. The question is from what?"

  "Exactly. I'm also curious about that fire in 1908. The reports were conflicting. I mean, you have witnesses saying that more than eight people died, but the paper only reported one. Not to mention the cities attempt to demolish those woods and build a parking lot. What's that all about?"

  "I suspect," Oliver said, "that the person who wrote that Aubrey was the only fatality, also had a hand in lobbying for the destruction of the woods. Maybe they wanted to hide something?"

  "Or," Abby interjected. "Maybe Alva was playing puppet master even then. I told you how he orchestrated the arrest of Devin's adopted brother. I think he either got into the heads of those working the case, or he just went in there and did it himself."

  "Yeah, that sounds about right."

  "Have you told anyone at Ula about all of this?" Abby asked.

  "I haven't spoken with anyone at the coven in nearly five days."

  "Not even Faustine?" Abby was surprised. She assumed that he still connected with Faustine telepathically.

  "No. Our connection dissolved before I left, but since then, no communication from him at all. What's worse is that I feel so free and yet completely guilty at the same time."

  Abby squeezed his hand.

  "I understand that. When I left Nick and my family and went to Trager, I felt more liberated than I ever had, but beneath that lived this huge ball of shame just eating away at me. It's still there most days."

  Oliver sighed and shook his head sadly.

  "They have been so much more than a family to me, Abby. They saved my life. Before Helena found me, I was just...lost. I had even considered suicide. Can you believe that? Taking my own life because I just couldn't handle what was happening to me."

  Abby stopped and hugged Oliver hard, wrapping her arms tightly behind his back and letting her breath warm his neck. He hugged her back and they stood that way, allowing the world to move around them as they comforted each other for things that they didn't even know.

  When she finally pulled away, the heat abandoned them and they both grew cold.

  "Let's go in there." Oliver pointed to a tiny pub, tucked between two glowing store fronts. Inside they slid into a small half-moon booth with cracked and faded red leather seats. Abby leaned her head back and took a long breath, not minding the musty, dank air. Only a few people occupied the other tables. Several of them laughed too loudly as they drank enormous glasses of beer. The bartender looked tired and Abby watched her eyes drift repeatedly to the clock. Her blonde hair showed gray roots and she wore a low-cut, black t-shirt that revealed sagging breasts and the edge of some rose-patterned tattoo.

  "My lovely friend here and I will each have coffees, with Irish Cream," Oliver told the bartender when she shuffled over to the table, not bothering to pull out a pen and paper.

  "I.D.s," she grumbled, again her eyes flickering toward the clock.

  Absolutely," Oliver told her warmly, removing his and then taking her hand in his own as he pressed his driver's license into her palm.

  Abby saw the slightest shift as warmth traveled from Oliver into the woman, lighting up her body from within. When the flush reached her face, she smiled brightly and her eyes grew wide and alive.

  "What's your name, honey?" Oliver asked her, still holding her hand.

  "Janis," she responded kindly. The depth of her smile took ten years from her face.

  Abby marveled at the change and, even when Oliver took his hand away, the woman's cheery disposition held. She whistled as she walked away and playfully flicked the ear of one of her regulars as she returned to the bar. He laughed and threw a sugar packet at her.

  "That's a gift," Abby said, feeling lighter herself.

  "Yes, it is," Oliver agreed, and though he still smiled toward the woman, his eyes looked sad. "A gift that I rarely use. You know what? Victor is right. I don't want him to be right, but we're wasted at Ula. I have these powers and what do I do with them? I hunt Vepars. I use Helena's magical tinctures when I have a headache or when my past feels too heavy a load to bear. I could count on one hand how many times I've done that in the last year."

  Abby continued to watch the bartender as she flitted behind the counter, now like a tiny hummingbird. The weight of the world had vanished, not only from her shoulders, but from the energy around her. She delivered their drinks with a flourish, sliding Oliver's across the table so it just touched the edge, laughing merrily when he leaned down and took a sip.

  "Delicious, best I've ever had," he told her with a wink.

  "Thank you," Abby added, and the woman floated away, stopping at another table with three men who all whistled as she took a chair.

  "I agree with you," Abby said, "but I also think we need time at the coven to learn. It's like you said, they saved you. We shouldn't take that for granted."

  She spoke the words, but just barely believed them. After all, she'd felt stifled at Ula and angry at the way the witches seemed to shut out Sebastian. In her heart, she could never truly give herself to any group who cut out the people that she loved for being different.

  "Lydie too," Oliver continued. "She's brilliant and, when she gets a little bit older, she will be able to do the most amazing things. If she stays at Ula, I'm so afraid that she'll become like Dafne, this bitter angry woman who lives in a constant state of fear and agitation."

  "Do you think Ula did that to her?"

  "No, but it hasn't helped. The coven is supposed to support and help you grow. It's not meant to be a hideaway where witches avoid and escape from the problems of the world. Even Buddha spoke about how enlightenment is not avoiding life, but finding peace within life. I never wanted to be a monk tucked away in a mountain cave. I want to bring my light into the world."

  Abby took his hand and kissed it, moved by his words.

  "Me, too. I've always felt so damn simple, so not extraordinary and now I am. I can do crazy things that no one can do. I want to make a real difference with these powers, with this life."

  "That's what they're doing, Victor and Kendra and the others. They're like hippie witches, they're revolutionaries. The coven's are the past and they are creating the future."

  Oliver's words frightened Abby, but they also excited her. She didn't necessarily want to live Victor's life, but she wanted her own version and something about the coven seemed to warn against such things.

  "What would Elda say if you told her that? And Faustine? Would they try to stop you?"

  Oliver thought about it, slowly draining his glass and signaling to Janis for another.

  "I honestly have no idea. I really don't. This is the first time in years that I've even thought about leaving Ula. When Julian left, I almost followed him. He told me the same thing as Victor—in his own way, of course. He felt that the witches of Ula had retreated and were no longer living a creative life. They punished him by forcing him out of the coven."

  "Really?" Despite Abby's apprehensions, she found it hard to believe that Elda and Faustine would throw anyone out of the coven.

  ****

  Sebastian held his head in his hands and crinkled his nose at the bitter smelling mug that Julian had placed before him.

  "I know," Julian said kindly. "It's pretty ripe, especially when you're feeling like that."

  Sebastian nodded and took a sip, studying Julian, and for the first time realized that he knew him from somewhere.

  "Have I met you?" Sebastian asked, not totally hating the muddy tea once its warmth spread through his chest.

  "No," Julian told him without hesitation. "I would remember."

  Sebastian continued to stare at him, perplexed, and then he remembered a photo from the library at Ula. Eight people dressed in formal attire stood in front of a painting. The men wore tuxedos and the women ball gowns, but of an era
long past. Julian had been in that photograph, his hair long, nearly past his shoulders, and darker. His arm had been draped along the shoulders of a beautiful woman with large oval eyes and a pile of light-colored hair twisted on top of her head.

  "It was a picture at Ula," Sebastian told him, "on the fireplace mantel in the library."

  Julian smiled sadly.

  "I see. Then, yes, I guess that I am familiar to you."

  "Did you live at Ula?"

  Julian sighed and refilled Sebastian's cup.

  "Yes, for many years."

  "How about Adora? How is it that she's here? She helped my sister Claire, but I thought maybe she had died...she just disappeared."

  "And she feels extremely guilty about that," Julian replied. "She had an emergency and left abruptly. She did not intend to abandon your sister and had she known what would befall her, she never would have left. In her haste, she even left a Book of Shadows, which she fears may have fallen into the hands of the Vepars and caused the death of the witch Devin."

  "No, I had the book. First Claire and then, after Claire died, me. They killed Devin, but they didn't use the book to find her."

  Julian looked thoughtful.

  "Hmmm, that's interesting and will be welcome information to Adora. She suffers daily with the burden that she inadvertently caused the death of two witches and perhaps more. Who has the Astral Book of Shadows now?"

  "Elda. I gave it to her, along with Claire's journals when Abby and I first arrived at the island. Right before the All Hallow's Ball, I went into the dungeons and found some of the journals. I suddenly felt like I had to avenge Claire, as if she called out to me to even the score. What's strange is that I don't feel any of that anger now."

  Julian shook his head.

  "Witches are not vengeful creatures, Sebastian. I believe that your Claire rests peacefully."

  "How can you possibly know that?"

  "Because agitated spirits are easy to detect, especially when you've been around as long as I have..."

  "It felt so real. She came to me in my dreams and she asked me to find her. She wanted me to kill Tobias."

  "I know that you believed it to be real," Julian conceded. "But I also think that some other entity hoped to poison you with such thoughts."

  "Have you told them that you found me? Abby must be freaking out." Sebastian asked, realizing how terrifying his disappearance must have been for the witches at Ula.

  Julian paced to the window and looked into the night.

  "She is, I'm sure," Julian told him. "But no, I have not been in contact with the witches of Ula for more than ten years."

  "What? Why? We have to tell them." Sebastian stood up, faltered and sat back down.

  Julian turned back to Sebastian and looked at him seriously.

  "First you need to understand what's happening."

  "Okay, tell me then."

  "Let me begin by saying that I don't have the whole picture yet and that is why I have not reached out to Elda or Faustine. What I do know is that Dafne has masterminded this entire mess—your disappearance from the All Hallow's Ball, your memory loss and, if I'm right, the misconception that you have died."

  "Died?" Sebastian spat and then quickly lowered his voice, not wanting to wake the others. "Abby thinks I'm dead?"

  "I believe so, though on that point I'm not positive. However, this information comes to me from a very reliable source."

  "Dafne," Sebastian frowned as he spoke her name. "She has hated me since day one, but why would she do this?"

  "The answer to that is very complex and, again, I have only pieces of this much larger picture. Dafne was part of what appears to be a horrible curse that originated in Trager City. This curse occurs only once every century. You and Abigail arrived at the coven of Ula just days after the one hundred year mark. It is a strange curse, one that I still do not fully comprehend, but I have experienced first-hand the path of its destruction, as has Dafne. She believed that she could prevent the return of the curse by removing you from Ula."

  "A curse on what?" Sebastian asked. He took another drink of the tea and shuddered as the house moaned in the strong shifting winds.

  "A curse on the human lover of a new witch. It is tied to Trager City in some way. It appears to affect only one witch and her human counterpart. Of course, nothing truly happens only to one. We are intricately connected, what happens to one happens to all."

  "I still don't understand. What kind of curse? Is that why I lost my memory?"

  "No, I do not believe that the curse has begun. Adora and I have searched for dates, but they are inconsistent. The last witch who suffered this curse was Dafne and, in a span of only hours, her entire life fragmented. She lost her great love, her dearest friends and all that she had known in the world up to that point."

  "How is the curse on the lover then? Did he die?"

  "He was Tobias, Sebastian."

  Sebastian did not feel. First, numbness spread through him. The mere mention of Tobias's name brought such searingly painful memories that he felt unable to move or think. When his voice finally returned, he chose not to speak, fearing that he would scream.

  "It's true, Sebastian. I know it's hard to believe, but it's true."

  Sebastian picked up his mug and, before he could think, he slammed it back onto the counter and watched it shatter into tiny pieces. A shard cut deep into his hand, just below his thumb. The pain felt good and he glared at the blood gushing onto the white tiles.

  Julian said nothing, but handed him a clean rag and left the room. He returned with a brown leather bag and sifted through the contents, withdrawing a small glass bottle, similar to the tinctures at Ula.

  "Soak the rag in this and hold it on the wound," Julian told him.

  Sebastian did and the blood soon slowed and then stopped. The skin around the cut grew very hot and then it turned white and started to tingle.

  He stared at the puddle of blood that had pooled on the floor and let his thoughts run like wild dogs in his head. Their teeth gnashed and they howled in disbelief and he thought, if he were magic, he would throw Dafne in there and let her contend with the devils in his mind.

  "So what then? Is she a bad witch? They're in this together?"

  "No, not at all," Julian said quietly, ignoring the blood and taking a seat on one of the other stools. "One hundred years ago she and Tobias were in love and then in an instant he was pulled to the evil. He decimated her sister and brother witches, he burned them alive and he became the Tobias that we know today."

  Sebastian sat back down, the fight suddenly gone from him.

  "How is that possible? You're telling me that Tobias lived a normal life? That he wasn't always evil?"

  "Evil is not a natural state. It's like hate and greed and envy, we learn those realities. Evil gets a foothold here in the world of form because it's so dense and we're so confused by these bodies and brains. It can plant a seed and grow into this monstrous organism because there's a lot of fertile soil in the darkness of our hearts. Something reached out to Tobias because he loved a powerful witch. Love is energy like everything else. Transform that passion into hate and now it's powerful in a destructive way."

  "I need a drink," Sebastian muttered and started for the pantry door.

  "Scotch," Julian said. "To the right of the bread box. Make it two."

  Sebastian poured them each a small glass and threw in a few ice cubes.

  He savored the heat that flowed into his belly, grateful for anything to dull the information he'd just received.

  "The curse did not end with Dafne, though. Somehow she brought it with her to Ula and it nearly destroyed us as well."

  "You? That's when you lived at Ula, a hundred years ago?"

  Sebastian looked again at Julian. The man didn't look to be a day over sixty, but then again, Abby had told him that she suspected Faustine to be hundreds, if not thousands, of years old.

  "Yes, I lived there and many other witches as well. My wife Miran
da..." he took a long drink at the mention of her name and his eyes briefly closed. "She died just five days after Faustine and Elda brought Dafne to our coven."

  "How? Did Dafne do something?"

  "No. At least, not that I'm aware of, but Dafne and Tobias were somehow linked. This is part of the story that I don't yet understand, but the coven of Ula knew great power then. We were fifteen witches strong and we thrived as a coven and in the world. Tobias penetrated our fortress. He used Dafne to get in and for one very long night, he..." Julian's voice shook and his hand trembled on his glass. "Another time for the recounting of all that. Tonight we talk about the present."

  Sebastian did not press him.

  "So why does she think I'm going to be part of this?"

  "Because Abby is a new witch and you are her epic love. It's not as simple as all that, but that's where it begins."

  "She thinks that I'm going to become evil and destroy the coven of Ula?"

  "I would never claim to know Dafne's thoughts. She is a complicated individual, but yes, I believe that she felt so strongly that you and Abby were going to be the next to fall to this curse that she created an elaborate plan to not simply get you away from Ula, but out of the picture for good."

  ****

  In the morning, Abby and Oliver shared coffee and pastries with the Guerilla witches before they each left for their various projects around the city. Only Victor remained.

  "Victor, I need a favor," Oliver told him, downing the last of his espresso and quickly washing his cup. "I dreamed of my coven last night and I have to go there today."

  "You need some wheels?" Victor asked.

  Abby nodded.

  "I have some investigating to do otherwise I would give him mine," she added. She hated to refuse Oliver the car—not that he'd asked for it—but she was desperate to speak to the woman at the stone cottage.

  "It's no problem at all," Victor offered. "We have five cars in the basement parking garage of this place and we never even drive them." He laughed. "The public transportation is just too good."

  "And one more thing," Abby told him.

  She walked to her jacket and pulled the photo of Victor sitting with Stephen Kramer from her pocket. She laid the picture on the table in front of Victor. He touched the photo and his face softened as if recalling a fond memory.