Blood Magic (Blood Magic Series Book 1)

by Ann Atkins

  “My mother had you both with her,” I countered. It didn’t help her very much. She might as well have been alone, because she’s still just as dead!”

  Sarah gasped and started to cry, and Mason looked as if he were on the verge of clubbing me over the head and dragging me back upstairs by my hair. It was time to get out of here. I couldn’t stand hurting them—and being hurt by them—anymore.

  There was just enough truth in my words to keep the suspicion out of Sarah’s eyes, and I was glad, but maybe it was more. My father had used coercion on them; maybe I was using it to a small degree as well … without even being aware of it.

  Sarah seemed to have accepted the fact that I couldn’t stay, but the look on Mason’s face told me that he would do anything to stop me, and there was only one thing I could think to do.

  “Both of you should sit down,” I said, infusing my voice with as much power as possible. Sarah happened to be standing at the table, so she sat in a chair, but Mason—who was standing closer to me—sat down in the floor. Sarah seemed to understand what had happened, but Mason looked confused. I watched the look of confusion change to shock, and then to fear, as he realized that he really couldn’t stop me.

  “Neither of you will try to keep me from leaving, and you will not try to follow me or come looking for me tonight,” I continued as I felt my energy spike.

  They both nodded and their eyes appeared slightly glassy, so I drained a little of the coercion from my voice. I wanted to keep them from chasing after me, but I didn’t want to turn them into mindless zombies.

  I turned toward the door and started to open it, but Mason called out to me, and I turned back around.

  “Will you do one last thing for me before you go?” he asked me.

  “What’s that?”

  “Kiss me,” he said.

  “What?” I asked, startled.

  “Just one kiss and I’ll stop trying to convince you to stay. Is it really too much to ask? The past is gone, and the future is so uncertain, but we have now, so give me a good memory to blot out the bad and the hope for a recurrence in the future. Please.”

  The look in his eyes made me feel tingly and weak, and I was just about to refuse, when my feet started moving me closer to him, and my mouth spoke the words I hadn’t meant to say.

  “All right, but it better not be a trick,” I said as I sat on the floor beside him.

  He immediately reached out and tunneled his fingers through my hair, and then he pulled me closer. Our noses were touching and our lips were a breath apart, but he didn’t move; he just kept staring into my eyes. My heart fluttered, faltered, and then started pounding. My breathing grew erratic, and my body swayed closer to his, causing his bottom lip to rub against mine.

  A spark caught, a fire ignited, and an explosion followed. I wrapped my arms around him and kissed him desperately. My emotions were both passionate and violent, and I poured all of that intensity into the kiss.

  I felt something wet on my cheeks and realized I was crying. I was kissing him as if it were the last time. A sharp pain pierced my heart and cleared my head, and I returned too quickly to reality.

  I wrenched myself away from him and quickly stood up as I backed toward the door. The look of triumph in his eyes was in sharp contrast to the look of panic in mine. If I didn’t leave now I wouldn’t be able to, and he knew it. It had been a trap, just not the kind I had expected.

  I picked up my things and opened the door, and I couldn’t stop myself from turning around for one last look.

  The look of triumph had faded to resignation. “I guess there’s nothing left to say, is there?” he asked.

  “Only one thing,” I answered. “Goodbye.”

  And with that, I was out the door. I didn’t even pause to shut it behind me as I ran toward Matt’s car. I quickly put my things in the backseat and climbed in the front with Matt. I had made it out in one piece, but the sharp pain in my chest reminded me that my heart hadn’t been so lucky, because half of it had stayed behind with him.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  A Preemptive Strike

  I had cried more in the last couple of months than I had in my entire life, but I was pretty sure that if anyone had a reason to cry, it was me. I had just dried the last tear from my cheek when Matt pulled me into his arms, and I buried my face in his chest and started sobbing while he rubbed my back and made little shushing sounds.

  “What happened, Allie?” he asked after I finally regained control of my turbulent emotions.

  “Not now,” I begged, shaking my head. “I’ll tell you later, but I just can’t right now. Just be the same annoying Matt I’ve always known and loved, and maybe I’ll be able to talk about it by the time we get to your house.”

  His face lit up with a smile that didn’t quite reach his sad brown eyes, but he was trying. “All right cat lady, buckle up and we’ll be on our way,” he told me.

  I smiled gratefully as I fastened my seatbelt, and he backed out of the driveway and started down the road. Bella started whining as soon as we backed out, and her cries grew even more plaintive the further away we got.

  Matt looked startled when he realized she was back there and almost swerved out of the road. I’d kind of, accidentally on purpose, forgotten to mention that I was bringing her with me.

  “Um, Allie, did you know there’s a mythological creature in the backseat of my car?” he asked.

  “You’re kidding! How did she get back there?” I exclaimed, in mock surprise.

  “Allie!”

  “All right, all right, I couldn’t bear to leave her behind,” I said sheepishly.

  “You do realize my mother isn’t blind, right? How are you gonna explain that little monster to her?”

  “I won’t have to, because I cast a glamour on her,” I said proudly.

  “A what?”

  “A glamour, it distorts her appearance and causes people to think they’re seeing a puppy,” I explained.

  He glanced in the rearview mirror at her. “Yeah? Well, she still looks like a little freak to me.”

  “Hey! She’s not a freak! And her disguise only works on people who’ve never seen her before.”

  “How do you know it actually works?”

  “I don’t,” I replied. “Your mother is my test subject.”

  He groaned and rolled his eyes. “Tell me you’re kidding, Al.”

  “I didn’t actually have time to test it out. It was kind of spur of the moment, okay? Besides, if the glamour fails, I can always coerce her into thinking Bella’s a puppy.”

  “Yeah? Can you make her forget about that F I got in Biology?”

  “What wouldn’t I do for you Mattie?” I asked, batting my eyelashes at him.

  He grinned and turned his attention back to the road, and I turned on the radio and started cruising through the stations. I finally stopped on a rap song, and I saw Matt give me a strange look. I usually hated rap, but tonight it was exactly what I needed. I didn’t want to listen to any sappy love songs that would only make me think of him, and this song was just annoying enough to distract me a little, but there’s only so much of that a person can stand this early in the morning. So after only two songs, I cut off the radio and decided to talk to Matt.

  “How come you’re so alert after being woken up at two in the morning?” I asked.

  “Because I haven’t been asleep, and I’ve had about two or three cans of Red Bull.”

  “Let me guess,” I replied. “Video games?”

  “Yep, I’ve been playing the new Walking Dead game all night. You wanna play when we get back? Some blood and guts might be just the distraction you need,” he quipped.

  “As awesome as that sounds, I think I’ll have to pass,” I said with a laugh.

  “Probably for the best anyway; ‘cause I really don’t want this game to end up in the toilet.”

  I cast a sidelong glance at him as memories from almost ten years ago ran through my mind. “I was only eight years old! Giv
e me a break!”

  “Age has nothing to do with it, babe. You’re just as much of a sore loser now as you were then,” he laughed.

  “It was a stupid game anyway!” I said crossing my arms over my chest.

  “Yeah, pretty much any game you couldn’t beat me at was stupid, wasn’t it? Poor Miss Pacman; she never saw it coming.”

  I glared at him. “Yeah, well, at least you had your revenge, and the heads of Barbie and Ken followed Miss Pacman into her watery grave.”

  “Hey, you’re the one who started it.”

  “I started it? Who was the one who followed me around all day calling me a crybaby loser?”

  “Well, I didn’t know you were gonna go psycho and flush my games down the toilet.”

  “After I think about it, it really was worth the decapitation of my dolls to see you cry,” I grinned.

  “I did not cry!” he insisted.

  “Yes, you did! That’s how you’re mom found out what we’d done. You ran to her and told on me.”

  “I think she would’ve figured it out anyway when the toilet started overflowing,” he said. “It’s a good thing my dad’s a plumber.”

  “Yeah, but we might’ve been able to convince her that it was an accident if you hadn’t ratted us out.”

  “Possibly,” he finally conceded. “It would’ve saved us from that spanking and having to replace each other’s toys and write each other a letter of apology,” he shuddered.

  It was only when the car came to a stop in his driveway that I realized he had managed to keep me distracted the whole way here, and I was so grateful, but I had promised to tell him everything once we got here, and I wasn’t going to put it off any longer.

  “Why can’t other things be as easily fixed or replaced as broken toys?” I asked him with a slight quiver in my voice.

  “Let’s get inside, Al,” he said gently, “and you can tell me all about it.” He made a move to open his door, but I grabbed his hand.

  “Can we just talk in here?” I asked.

  “Sure,” he answered. His mother had started to come out the door, but he waved her away and turned to me.

  I gave a small sigh of relief when I saw her go back inside. I didn’t want her to overhear anything I was about to say, because if she did, I was pretty sure that my next stop would be the nuthouse.

  When I looked at Matt and saw the love and concern shining out of his big, brown, puppy-dog eyes, I couldn’t hold back. I told him everything, and he didn’t speak until the entire story was told. I think he realized that I just needed to get it out all at once, so he held my hand and he listened.

  By the time I had finished my story I was crying again, but really, that isn’t anything new. I was surprised, however, to see that Matt’s eyes were bright with unshed tears.

  “I can’t imagine how awful it must have been to watch and feel yourself die,” he said as his fingers brushed against my swollen and bruised neck.

  “Yeah, most people’s bad dreams fade in the light of day,” I murmured. “Do you have any idea how much I wish I was one of those people right now?

  “I’m sorry, Al,” he said as he glanced down at the small photo of my mother and father.

  “Weren’t they beautiful?” I asked as fresh tears welled in my eyes. “They really loved me, you know? My life would’ve been so different if Sarah and Mason hadn’t let her go!” I said angrily.

  “Allie, if they hadn’t made that choice you might not have had a life at all,” he said sadly.

  “But my parents would’ve, and with me gone they’d have been out of danger.”

  “Your mother would’ve never forgiven them.”

  “At least she would’ve been alive!”

  “So you think they should’ve sacrificed an innocent baby?” he asked.

  “No! Of course not! But they shouldn’t have let her go! Two vampires fighting against a witch and a human? The odds were definitely in their favor. They’d already taken out everyone else!”

  “But they couldn’t hurt David without hurting you,” he insisted.

  I sighed. “I know that, but they could’ve ripped her head off and kept him prisoner.”

  “They tried.”

  “Yeah, until they stopped trying and let her walk away. Matt, they knew they’d never see her alive again.”

  He looked at me helplessly—not knowing what else to say—and wrapped his arms around me once again.

  I don’t know exactly how long we were out there, but Matt’s mom finally flashed the porch lights, so we got out of the car.

  He carried all of my bags, but I carried Bella, who was still protesting quite loudly. As we reached the porch steps, his mother came out to greet us, and I held my breath as she peeked inside the carrier.

  “Oh, how precious,” she squealed. “He’s a Pomeranian, isn’t he? Matt’s mother loved dogs, which was why I had decided to disguise Bella as a puppy.

  I released the breath I’d been holding, grateful that I would not have to use coercion. It wouldn’t really have required that much magic to coerce her, but I wasn’t hiding behind wards anymore, so I needed to be careful.

  “Yes,” I answered, “and it’s a she, not a he. Her name is Bella,” I said with a small smile.

  She glanced up at me, and the smile on her face faded as her eyes filled with sympathy and anger. She had just gotten her first look at my mangled neck, and I was pretty sure she would’ve gladly killed David if she could’ve gotten a hold of him.

  “Don’t worry, Allie. You can stay with us as long as you need to,” she told me as she wrapped me up in her arms.

  She didn’t seem like she was in a hurry to let me go, so I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, and I smiled as the smell of cinnamon filled my nostrils, and I clung to the good memories, wishing that I could go back in time to when my biggest worry was a headless doll and hot chocolate could fix anything.

  The smell of cinnamon is what gave her away, but that wasn’t how I knew. Hot chocolate was her remedy for everything, and she would always see Matt and me as the mischievous little kids we once had been.

  So the two steaming mugs of hot chocolate on the table really weren’t a surprise. A dollop of whipped cream floated on top and a sprinkle of cinnamon on top of that. She also had a tray of chocolate chip cookies that she was taking from the oven. And for the next thirty minutes I drowned myself in chocolaty goodness and refused to think about anything bad.

  It wasn’t long before Matt and I began to yawn, and if I didn’t know better I’d think the hot chocolate had been spiked, but I did know better. I was exhausted mentally and physically, and Matt was just too dumb to realize that playing video games all night instead of sleeping wasn’t the best idea.

  I would be sleeping on a blow-up mattress on Matt’s bedroom floor, because they didn’t have a spare bedroom. His mother was fine with that, because she knew there was nothing between us but friendship, but that didn’t stop Matt from making stupid jokes.

  “Hey, Al?”

  “Yeah?” I said with a yawn.

  “I just want you to know that sometimes I kick my covers off in the middle of the night,” he said seriously.

  “And why do I need to know that?” I was stupid enough to ask.

  “Well … I’m only wearing boxers.”

  “Can we please not talk about your underwear? I don’t wanna throw up all over my nice, clean sheets.”

  “I just want you to understand that if you look over here and see my sexy body bathed in moonlight, it is not an invitation; I’m just a restless sleeper.”

  I could hear the laughter in his voice, but he was trying to mask it. “I will try to contain myself, but if I can’t, I’ll just focus on the infamous bed-wetting incident of 2000,” I snickered.

  “I was only four then, but I assure you, I’m all man now,” he replied.

  “I’ll take your word for it,” I said dryly.

  “You say that now, but moonlight does crazy things to people.”

&nb
sp; “Matt, honey, there isn’t enough crazy in the world to make me crawl into that bed with you. Now, will you please shut up and let me get some sleep?”

  “Sure thing,” he said with a laugh, “but I bet you’ll dream of me.”

  “Goodnight, Matt!” I said irratibly.

  “Nite, Al.”

  I waited for more ridiculous proclamations about his virility and my lustfulness, but all I heard was a soft snore. He could fall asleep faster than anyone I’d ever seen, and I was anxious to join him—in sleep—not in his bed.

  I was snuggled deeply under the covers with Bella, who had finally quieted down. And for the first time in a long while, I was anxious for sleep, because I was pretty sure that real life sucked way worse than anything I could dream tonight, and all I wanted was a few hours of oblivion to forget about it all. I really should’ve known better by now, because I woke up sweaty and shaking two hours later with a pounding heart. I’d never had a dream about anything that I could actually change, but this time I had, and I was determined to do just that!

  I lay awake for the rest of the night, debating whether or not to tell Matt what I’d seen. I certainly wasn’t going to tell him that I was going home, or at least what had once been my home. He would insist on going with me, and there is no way I would ever let him do that. At least I have a chance of defending myself in the unlikely event that I’m caught, but Matt is human, and even if he wasn’t, I loved him too much to ever put him at risk.

  I sighed. My decision wasn’t really that hard; I would keep it all to myself. The main problem is that Matt knows me just as well as I know him, and if I tell him about my dream, he’d automatically guess what I’m going to do. Then, he’d tell everyone else, and they’d either try to talk me out of it or follow me. I was okay with risking my own life, because it was mine to risk, but I didn’t want the blood of those I loved on my hands.

  I would leave him a note telling him where I’d gone and what I had gone there to do. That way, if I didn’t come back, he’d at least know why. I thought about ripping it up after I’d written it, but it really wouldn’t matter. If I mysteriously disappeared, David’d be their number one suspect anyway. So note or no, they would go after him, that’s why I can’t get caught.