"It's not mine." Arte said. Confusion spread across his face as he looked at Andrew for confirmation on his end.
"It’s not mine either." Andrew said, equally confused.
"Then whose was it?" I said feeling fear seep in. "That means someone else is tracking me." I looked between everyone feeling angry at myself, how could I let myself be tracked. Why did I not check myself more often?
"Come in." Clive said moving out of the way for Arte and Andrew to enter. He closed the door behind them. "It could be someone from the cult." He said.
"Meaning they would know I was here. They would be able to fine me, find the house." I dragged my hands down my face and walked back down to the living room.
With a wave of my hand the dust that covered every inch of the room was gone and I dropped onto one of the couches, it was surprisingly comfortable. I heard everyone enter. Dessen sat down on one end of the couch and Clive on the other. Jacob sat in the love seat to the right and Arte and Andrew both took the couch across from me.
"What if they were already in the woods?" Dessen said. "I didn't hear anything, but they could have protected themselves against being heard.”
"I don't think so?" Jacob said. "In the car when we crossed the barrier you had a shiver right? I think I counted three, and in the basement, you had two."
"Yea," I shrugged my shoulders. "So?"
"The barrier must act as a notification spell as well. To alert the owners that people have crossed over into their land." Jacob explained.
"It is possible." Arte explained. "Most Covens have a version of that spell on their homes. It's to ensure no non-Coven members enter their property."
"So, they can still come but I will just feel them when they cross over." I hated that I didn't already know this. I started to say something but Dessen shot up and inclined her head to the doorway.
"Is everything ok?" I asked.
"Someone is moving downstairs. I just heard a door open." She said as Clive and Jacob shot up. Both grabbed their weapons and had them trained on the doorway. Arte and Andrew stood and walked over to the doorway as well.
"Whoever it is, they are coming up the stairs." Dessen said. I walked over and stood behind them. No one should be here.
"Who's there?" Arte called and I shot him a look. How dare he take control in my home.
"I think…" a raspy voice rang up the stairwell, "the better question is who are you and how are you in my home?" The shadowy figure finished as they appeared in the doorway.
TWENTY-ONE
I couldn't believe it. This…she couldn't be standing there. She looked the same, from the photo. I didn't know what to say…how to feel so I blurted out the first words that came to mind. "You're alive?"
"Olivia." Clive turned to me as he lowered his gun recognizing her as well. "She's the woman from your photo, right?"
I nodded, not trusting my voice in that moment. I was barely trusting my eyes, because it didn’t make sense. She didn’t look a day over 50 and that was not possible.
Ahmentree looked around the room, studying each face before landing on mine. She stared at me longer than everyone else before her eyes widened. "Olivia." She covered her mouth. "You're alive."
"How…" I shook my head. "This has to be a trick."
"I always prayed this day would come." She said, stepping towards me; and I countered taking a step back.
"How are you still alive?" I blurted out. "I mean, you look exactly the same from the photos."
"What photos?" she asked.
"You're Ahmentree Romar." Andrew said.
She turned to him and smiled. "I am, and from your look and yours as well." She nodded to both Andrew and Arte. "You're an Easton and an Abbas." Both men nodded.
"Where have you been?" I asked still unsure of everything.
"Asleep." She answered. "Since you and your mother went missing, I had to place myself under a stasis spell to ensure my magic would last as long as possible." She walked closer to me, and I kept backing away from her.
"How long were you under the spell?" Arte asked.
"What year is it?"
"2019." Jacob answered.
She thought about it for a moment. "Twenty-three years."
"Oh." Both Arte and Andrew shared a look.
"What does that mean?" Dessen asked.
"Do you know?" She asked me, and I shook my head no.
"A stasis spell freezes a person in their current form for an indefinite amount of time, but it comes with a catch." Arte started to explain and Andrew took over.
"Every year under the spell equals one day. So, if she’s been under for twenty-three years, she will age those years in twenty-three days." He finished.
"Oh." I avoided looking at her. Coming here I didn't expect to find anyone, and the fact that she was alive should’ve made me happy but...I shook my head to clear my thoughts. "How did you know we were here?" I asked. "How did you know when to break your spell?"
She smiled at me. "I placed a blood tracker in the barrier around the property. To alert me of when someone of my blood passes through. When that happened, it broke the spell."
"So, in the meantime, anyone could have entered the property?" Jacob asked.
She shook her head. "No one would have made it through the barrier unless they were related to me, before then it would have been an immovable brush." She explained walking over to the couch. "If you excuse me, I need to sit down." Arte rushed over and held her arm, helping her sit. "Aren't you a kind one, Abbas." She smiled.
"Thank you, ma'am." He nodded and I just rolled my eyes. He was such a suck up. "Can we get you anything else?"
She smiled and shook her head no. "Not right now, but I assume I will in a bit. Right now, I want to talk to my granddaughter." She smiled at me.
"You were alive this entire time?" I blurted out.
She patted the open seat next to her. Everyone in the room watched as I hesitated to sit next to her. But she had this smile that said she understood what I was going through, which put me at ease. I relented and sat down on the open seat next to her.
"When your mother and her husband disappeared, it broke my heart, but I couldn't find anything in the news about it and I couldn't leave to check for myself." She started to explain. "As long as the Cult is still out there, there always needs to be a Romar here." She motioned to the home.
"Why?" Andrew asked from his seat.
"My father found out what they were after and placed a spell on this property, he created a portal that went to another dimension."
"We can do that?" I asked in awe, she nodded.
"We can, but it takes a lot of energy and he could only move to just one dimension over." She paused. "It wasn’t a stable dimension, so he created a spell that anchored it to our family home. Otherwise anything he took there would immediately come back."
"Even if they couldn't make portals?" Clive asked, to which she nodded.
"The spell is to our family blood, to all other portal makers, we keep the spell stable as long as we are alive."
"But they should be dead, right?" Andrew asked. "It’s been decades since they would have been put through the portal."
"Time moves differently in other dimensions, in the one my father took them to, one month here is about one second there. When my father first tried it out, we thought he had died. When he came back, he informed us he was only there for barely a second."
"So, if the spell is broken," Dessen said, "the original members of the cult would come back?"
"Yes, which is why I couldn't leave to go find you. I couldn’t risk their evil consuming the world again."
"So, you’ve just lived here since then, never leaving the property?"
She nodded. "To stop the Children of the Chosen? Yes. Do you know what their plan was?"
"They are trying to kill all whom they do not consider worthy of magic." Clive answered.
"It's worse than that." She sighed. "They found an old text from when magic first started.
It explained the origins of magic and how the Romars were the key to finding it. All the magic we use daily, with everyday spells and potions along with the magic that keeps magical beings alive, comes from another magical dimension. One where all magic on Earth is just a fraction of what is possible. And only a Romar has the power to find it." She patted my hand and smiled at me. "That is why they came after us, that is why they wanted us to be on their side. We have to willingly go there."
"Why not drop the crazy cult there and let them live in happy cult peace away from us?" Arte snapped.
"Because, that dimension controls all magic in every dimension. If the cult was able to go there, they would then have the power to turn it off everywhere else. Everyone who is magical, everyone who lives with or thru magic," she looked at Dessen, Clive, and Jacob, "they would die. All magicals like us would be greatly weakened to the point of death." She explained. "We cannot allow them to have that power."
"Did you know this?" I asked Andrew and Arte. "After all those meetings with Mrs. Coe, that this was their plan?"
"No, if she knew this was their plan she never let on." Andrew said.
"This is worse than we could ever imagine." Arte said. "This could bring the end to all magical life on this planet. We need to inform the other Covens, everyone in the community."
"No." Ahmentree said. "Not yet."
"Why not?" Andrew snapped. "This involves them, we need to create more barriers around your property. We need round the clock protection on both of you. We can't let anything happen to either one of you."
"When my father took down the cult the first time, he was told before betraying them that they had members within every fraction of the magical community. All of the communities, bounds, unbounds, halfling and vampire alike. If they are still there, who can you trust?"
"Holy shit." I gasped and squeezed my eyes together tightly feeling multiple shivers cross me. At least fifteen shivers ran through me before I lost count.
"How many?" Jacob asked.
"Eighteen." Ahmentree answered, she felt them two, but was not as affected as I was.
Clive shot up from his seat and crossed to the window, Arte was right behind him. Arte looked back at the room after a moment. "It's Stephen."
TWENTY-TWO
“He’s out there?” I shot up from my seat and crossed to the window to look myself.
Stephen McDaniels stood out in front of the manor with 17 other cult members behind him. “The third tracking spell, it had to be his, how else could they find us.” I said.
Clive took a step back and reached for his phone. “We are completely outnumbered and there is no way backup can be here in time.”
“What do we do?” Dessen asked.
“Do not worry.” Ahmentree stood and left the room. We raced to follow her as she walked down the hall to the front door. With a wave of her hand the door opened but she kept right inside the doorway. Mr. McDaniels smiled when we came into view.
“It’s good to see you both.” His voice didn’t hold the tone it normally did in the office.
Arte stepped forward. “You know Stephen, I really didn’t want to believe you were a part of this. I truly hoped this was a misunderstanding.”
Mr. McDaniels smirked and took his glasses off and rubbed them against his shirt then put them back on. “You stupid boy, you have no idea who I am.”
If Arte looked offended by his words he didn’t show it.
“You’re Elliot’s grandson.” Ahmentree said. “You look just like him.”
Mr. McDaniels nodded his head. “I am, and I truly expected you to be dead, but it is of no matter. You will be, it’s only a matter of time.”
I couldn't believe that this was the same man I worked with for years. I couldn't believe that at one point I looked up to this man that I trusted and cared what he thought about me. And Elliot…why did that name sounds so familiar? I racked my brain, trying to remember where I had saw or read that name and then it hit me. The book from the shop, the one about families, Elliot Morris was the son of the creator of the new Children of the Chosen. Oh my gosh. That meant if he was the grandson of Elliot, then he wasn't just a member of the Children of the Chosen, he was leading it.
“It doesn’t matter how long you wait. You won’t get what you came here for.” Ahmentree said.
“You may think that,” Stephen said, “but over time, we've learned to adapt.” He snapped his fingers and some of the members moved to the truck they arrived in and lifted up the fabric top, inside the truck was a large black screen.
“You're going to watch television while you wait?” Andrew laughed but I could tell he was trying to mask fear.
Mr. McDaniels just smirked. “That's was always the problem with Covens they never thought outside the box. Always saying how better you were because of your family magic because of the old ways. What you never understood and why you were never worthy of the powers you so wrongly have is your limited thought process. We have found ways to use magic that you could never dream of. This is a prime example.” He motioned to the black screen. He snapped his fingers again and the screen came on.
I felt my heart stop as I realized what I was seeing. It shouldn’t be possible, what he was doing should have been impossible.
He had created a portal.
“This lovely device was created thanks to the unsuspecting assistance of one Ms. Olivia London, or should I say Romar. What I’ve learned from my family’s past mistake was the children of the chosen cannot count on the words of a Romar, so I’ve made our need for your family obsolete. We were able to lock in on your magical signature every time you portaled home from WICCA, thanks to our little tracking spell. It doesn’t matter that you removed it, we got what we needed. And with a little sample of your DNA from all the little things you touched throughout the day at Sanders and Angell, we were able to replicate it-” he kept talking but I felt sick. He was able to create this portal because of me. The views from the portal changed as if it was fixing on a location, here. On the other side faces started to form followed by bodies. The original members of the Children of the Chosen started to appear, and we were looking right at them. Ahmentree was right they were still alive, and they were waiting to come back.
“You know I cannot let this happen.” Ahmentree spoke up.
“It's cute that you think you have a choice.” Stephens said. “I no longer need you willing, I just need you nearby.” At his words the screen started to change, and a small glowing light formed at the center and started to spread, I could tell that meant it was opening the portal.
“No!” Ahmentree yelled as she lifted her hands up in a waving motion, sending members of the cult flying backwards. But it was too late. The few faces we saw came through the screen before her actions took form. Andrew and Arte tried to help but Ahmentree held out an arm stopping them. It was Ahmentree who took charge.
I could barely make a portal without an anchor and she was using it like a whip with the lasso at the end. She wasn't portaling their entire bodies, only half of them. She was killing them. Detaining anyone in this fight was not an option for her, but it seemed as if Stephen didn't care that she was killing the members he brought with him. He only cared for those coming through his man-made portal. Once the man who looked like him, who I assumed was Elliot stepped through, the background changed and Stephen and the new members stepped back through their portal, disappearing from sight. The screen went black and crumpled into two pieces. It had to be a failsafe to ensure we couldn't track where they went. It happened in a matter of seconds before we could stop them.
When the screen shattered, Ahmentree looked back at me. Her face said it all. This wasn’t good. If they can make portable portal makers, they could get to the dimension of where magic first began and control it for themselves.
TWENTY-THREE
A few hours later we were all sitting in the living room again. Arte and Andrew had both called their families to check on their Covens and our worst fears were rea
lized. While Stephen was at the house, his members that were sleepers inside the Covens attacked. Dessen and Clive both confirmed the same happened in the halfling and vampire community.
Overall there were about 200 members within the Covens and the magical community that were killed. There was nothing we could have done to stop it. It all happened out of nowhere. And to top it all off, members of the original cult, who killed without remorse, were back.
It was official, war was upon us and we lost the first battle. Taken by surprise, what better outcome could we have hoped for? But since we knew who and what we were up against, we all needed to rally together. Bounds and Unbounds, vampires and halflings, we all needed to join together as one community and move forward.
“What’s the next step?” Dessen asked.
“We need to get to the magical dimension first to stop them.” Ahmentree answered.
“We need to stop them here.” Jacob said.
“And if we're not able to?” Ahmentree retorted. “What do you suppose we do then? They have the power to create their own portals. They can get there on their own, now we need to stop them.”
“How do you suggest we do that?”
“My father had a plan, a plan he shared with me of how to release the magic from the first dimension. It's been passed down from generation to generation of Romars. It's been our duty to protect it if something were ever to go wrong.”
“Why haven't you released it yet, if it's something that can be done?” Andrew asked.
“There's no telling what releasing the magic would do.” Ahmentree explained. “It could increase everyone's power tenfold, or it could remove it from existence. It's never been done before and no one's ever attempted to do it.”
“But it can be controlled, right? That's what they're trying to do, control it.” Arte said. “What if we got there first and took control?”
“Then we would be just like them.” Ahmentree said. “Magic is not here to be controlled or to control. It just is. And the moment you allow someone to control the power you take away the freedom of it.”
Ahmentree's Magic Page 13