“I’ll make this easy for you. If your brother was like you, I’ve never come into contact with him, nor has Lemuel. But if you tell me everything you know about it, I’m sure we can help you figure it out.”
Sam cursed inwardly. It was something they’ve all said when questioned about her brother and she was sick of hearing the same thing. She’d done her homework, looking up an organization only referred to as The Circle, a group of Mysts dedicated to protecting their kind. From what she’d gathered, Jonathan had been a part of that group when her brother was killed, working with them to thwart the Fraternity’s efforts to capture Mysts they found to be a danger to society. What she couldn’t understand was why their name continued to come up when she asked about her brother until the last man she’d spelled brought up their name.
“What do you know about The Circle?”
Jonathan and Colleen exchanged worried glances at the mention of the name and she knew she’d hit on something.
“How do you know about them?” Colleen asked, her eyes wary.
“Does it matter?”
Colleen tossed her hands up in frustration. “It matters quite a bit and you’re not leaving here until you tell us why you’re here, and why you’re asking about The Circle.”
“Colleen,” Jonathan warned, putting a hand up to stop her.
“I mean it, Jon. She’ll ruin everything we’ve worked for asking questions like that. We need to know exactly why she’s here.”
“I told you. I’m here to figure out what happened to my brother.” Sam explained, exasperation heavy in her voice. “I’m here because…”
“Bullshit.” Colleen raised her hand and a tornado of ice and fire circled the room, knocking down everything it touched. “You either tell us what you know or I swear I’ll kill you where you stand.”
Sam heard the conviction behind those words but the threat of death wasn’t enough to get her talking. Instead, it was the threat of letting down her brother, of his soul being trapped with no one to left to help him find peace that made her change her mind.
~*~
It was two in the morning and Brandon had sauntered through their front door, a bottle of liquor in one hand and an envelop in the next.
Sam watched from the darkened hallway as he slid into the living room, plopped down on the recliner, and propped his feet upon the coffee table.
Even in the dark she could see the colors swirling in his eyes as he eyed the envelop, teal and brown. The colors took on a darker hue as he slid his thumb across the top of it. Whatever it was had him scared, terrified enough his hands shook as he eyed it.
Sam wondered what would terrify her brother so badly. In all the years they’d lived together, she’d never seen him so rattled. Even when they’d gone up against the vampires that killed their parents, he’d been cool and confident, fighting with a precision she’d never known him to possess before.
She thought back on that night. The official story had been a car crash that claimed the lives of two of Channingsburg most prominent citizens, leaving their children with enough money to last them three life times. No one cared about the devastation that plagued them as they buried their parents and strived to find a way to live without them. No. Every newscaster pummeled them with questions concerning their newfound wealth, wealth they’d gladly have given away to get their parents back.
They’d known the truth, though. They’d known by the condition of their parent’s bodies, by the late-night phone calls they’d received, the hushed whispers they thought neither of their children had heard. Her parents had been marked for death in a war they’d wanted no part in and the vampires had carried out their sentence.
She watched him take a deep breath and set his jaw before tearing into the envelop. She’d expected him to pull out a piece of paper, a letter, or something with some substance. Instead, he reached in and pulled out a metal key, the likes of which hadn’t been seen since electronic locks became a standard.
He tested the key between his fingers before turning it over in his hands. A tear slipped from his eyes as he stared at it. Unable to contain her curiosity, she walked into the room.
“What is that?”
Startled, he shoved the key into the pocket of his jean jacket, rubbed the tears from his eyes, and glanced up at her. The colors in his eyes stopped swirling as he fought to hold his emotions at bay.
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
Of course. It was the same answer he’d given her when he’d received phone calls in the middle of the night, packages that were delivered unmarked at the door, and every time he’d come home late with another bruise on his body. In the beginning, she’d figured his drug habit had taken a turn for the worse, but that was near impossible. The government had seized all the drugs in the U.S. a few years before, replacing them with a synthetic strain that gave all the perks of drug use with no side effects and she doubted he’d go underground for the real stuff.
There was something else, something that reminded her of her parent’s final days and the thought made her skin crawl and her heart thump violently against her rips.
“Brandon,” she warned, a rough edge to her voice. “What is it?”
Brandon shook his head. “Sam, I’m serious. Its nothing you need to worry about. I have it under control.”
He flashed her a look that told her she would get no where with her line of questioning. She needed a different approach.
She stepped around the couch and claimed a spot on the edge, leaned forward, and rested her elbows on her thighs. Clasping her hands together, she met his eyes which were beginning to swirl with color again. Red and black. He was angry, scared, and desperate. It was the same colors she’d witness on her parents the last time she’d seen them before they were killed.
They’d never quite figured out why their parents had been marked. They were upstanding citizens and had kept their identities private all their lives. Even when an enchantress made the presence of Mysts known to the human world, their parents had always maintained their privacy, worried they’d be painting a target on their backs.
For the most part, Sam and Brandon had done the same, trying to keep their powers a secret but it was getting more difficult as time pressed forward. People were beginning to see the minor differences between the races and develop ways in which to tell if a person wielded magic.
Magic detectors were becoming a standard in every household, humans and Mysts alike, and it was only a matter of time before they’d see themselves exposed.
But hiding hadn’t been enough for their parents. Still they’d found themselves targeting by a group of vampires who wanted the dead. And now, with her brother hiding things from her just as they had, Sam couldn’t help the fear that tore through her.
She took a few breaths, a futile effort to calm herself.
“Am I going to lose you too?”
It was a fair enough question considering what they’d gone through already, but she hadn’t expected the reaction she received.
He kicked the coffee table away from him, letting the metal eat into the floor with a loud screech as he pushed himself from his seat.
“I don’t know.” He tossed his hands about and kicked the recliner back, creating enough room for him to pace. “I don’t know what will happen to either of us but I’m trying, Sam. I’m trying to make everything right. I’m trying to give them what they want but I can’t and neither could they.”
“They?”
“The vampires, Sam. With everything that’s going on in the world right now, with the government trying to come after us for everything we have, you’d think they’d have bigger fish to fry. But, no, they want…”
He stopped pacing long enough to pass her a glance, sorrow filling his expression.
“What do they want?” Sam asked, trying to understand. As far as she was concerned they could have anything if only they’d leave her family be. “The money?”
Brandon scoffed at that. “They have n
o use for money and you know that.”
True. But what else could it be? As far as she knew, there was nothing of value they could possibly be willing to kill for but whatever it was, she’d be willing to give it to keep her brother alive. The thought of losing him tore through her with a vengeance she hadn’t expected. He was all she had since their parent’s death and she’d give up anything, including her very life, just to keep him with her.
“Maybe I should talk to them and find out what they want. I don’t care what it is, I’ll give them anything…”
“Dammit, Sam. No. Its not just the vampires this time and what they want…I can’t give that to them no matter the cost. Please stay out of this.”
With that, he was gone. In the time it took Sam to gather her belongings and rush after him, he’d had a huge head start, but she’d find him. She searched through the connection they shared as she got into her car and slid her thumb over the reader. The car sprang to life and she pushed down on the accelerated, headed in his direction.
Her mind pressed up against his frantically, trying to see where he was but he’d fought back, thwarting her efforts. He pushed back, showing her only what he wanted her to see but she could see the cracks in the images. She could see pieces of what he’d been trying to hide from her slipping through those cracks, along with his fear.
She jerked the car to the right, feeling the tug pulling her in that direction but when another came from the opposite direction, she realized she was doing exactly what he wanted. He was keeping her away from wherever he was headed by sending her all over the place, something she hadn’t even known he’d been capable of until that moment.
Desperation had her pulling the vehicle to the side of the road. Fear stabbed through the bond, piercing through her, mixing with her own fear until she was blind from it.
She exited the vehicle, trying to calm herself enough to focus but it was hard with the amount of emotion that seemed to bleed from the bond the harder the pressed. She saw a glimpse of a man with long dark hair standing before her brother but the image was gone before she could make out who it was.
She pushed again, this time much harder than she ever had until something strange happened. The air crackled around her as an image of her brother presented itself in front of her as if some projection had been turned on. He stood before a man with milky skin, dark eyes, and raven black hair. She could see him talking to the man but heard nothing from it until a shot rang out.
All at once, the man before him disappeared and Brandon was left there, clutching his chest before his legs buckled from underneath him. He fell to the ground and Sam reached out, a scream tearing from her lips. Cold gripped her hand, pulling her toward the image until she was there with her brother, kneeling beside him as he sputtered out his last remaining breath.
Chapter Seven
Sam looked up into Colleen’s tear stained eyes but she couldn’t bring herself to say anything more. Emotion held her in its tight grip as memories of that night came flooding back into her. She could still see that cold, lifeless stare as the light left her brother’s eyes and she knew, at the moment, she’d lost him.
She’d cried over his body for hours, hoping that by some miracle his soul would return to the body. It never happened. He was gone, lost to her forever and the pain was just as real then as it had been that night.
“I’m sorry,” Colleen murmured, recalling the tornado of ice and flame. “I know that had to be hard for you.”
Sam looked away from the woman. The sympathy in Colleen’s eyes angered her far more than it should have and she needed to remain calm so she could go through the rest of the story without breaking down.
“For a long time I’d hunted down the vampire I saw that night. For fae, death isn’t always the end, especially when we’re stripped from this world before our time. Our souls cling to our bodies, refusing us relief in the afterlife until our deaths are avenged.”
She let out a huff of air and rubbed the tears from her eyes.
“Is that actually true?” Jonathan asked.
“We didn’t think so when we first heard it. We thought it was just a story passed down through the generations to justify vengeful acts. But when I parents passed, we could hear them calling to us every time we visited their graves. It didn’t stop until we took out the vampires that killed them.”
Colleen gave her an incredulous look. “So, you hear your brother?”
Even knowing the question was coming didn’t make it easier. Thing is, she never heard him no matter how many times she visited his grave and she had no clue what that meant. All she knew was she needed to figure out what happened to him and why.
“That doesn’t make sense. If you know that vampires were involved in his death, why seek me out? And why are you asking questions about The Circle.”
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