by E. M. Moore
“Yeah, just…hurry,” Liam said, frustration lacing his usually otherwise soft tenor.
“Yeah, yeah.”
The bell on the door sounded, and I watched as Travis took off toward their apartment, not bothering to hurry at all like Liam requested. “Why is he so damn infuriating?”
Liam shrugged. “It’s not all his fault. He—” He turned toward me. He stopped in surprise and then took two long strides. “You’re bleeding.”
I reached up dumbly in the area Liam investigated. “I am?” Sure enough, my fingertips touched something wet and sticky.
Liam brushed my hair away gently and peered down. “I don’t think it’s deep. I’m sure you’ll be fine, but we should probably get a Bandaid on it.” He gazed at the wound for a little while longer, being extra careful with me until he glanced lower into my eyes. “I’m really sorry, Norah. I had no idea that was going to happen. Actually, something like that has never happened. We’ve always been good at hiding our presence from people who don’t like us. I have no idea how they found us, or why they did that.”
I couldn’t bring myself to speak. I just kept staring at him as he spoke. Granny always said to trust my gut, but why in the hell would it bring me to Salem where things like this happened? With guys who mesmerized me more than anything else?
“I can’t believe you put everyone to sleep like that. It was pretty amazing. How did you do it?”
I blinked, looking up to him again from the still form on the ground. I replayed the scene in my head that led up to the sleep spell. “How did you do what you did? You were stopping their spells. It would’ve been way worse if you weren’t there.”
“Just countering,” he said, shrugging my comment off.
“Countering? Like a counter spell? How do you do it?”
He brushed at my shoulder and another few pieces of glass fell to the floor. “Kind of like that. It’s easier to think of in a physical way. It’s like if someone was going to punch you and you blocked them. That’s what I did.”
“But you did it with magic.”
He smirked, proving that even the sweetest of boys had a dark side. “Exactly.”
Even though part of me was intrigued, this wasn’t what I wanted my life to be. I should’ve never come here. I should’ve stayed in New Orleans with my fake voodoo shop and sold weak spells to tourists. Granny never liked the idea, but she didn’t mind the new roof the income put on her decaying cottage in the woods or her well-stocked magical supplies. If she didn’t even like that part of magic, she’d really hate this violent side.
Even if the guys were the good ones, and the bad ones were the ones currently passed out on the floor, that didn’t mean I had to get myself mixed up in any of this. Right now, even the loneliness of New Orleans was looking better than Salem.
8
Randy
Frustrated as fuck, I walked away from the center of the circle where we’d kept the two goons who tried to take out Liam and Norah. I wasn’t sure if I was more pissed they’d tried to take out my best friend, or the sexy, yet infuriating, new girl. Or worse yet, that they’d just been decoys. The two were just duds, just bodies used to send us a message. One that said they knew who we were, but we knew nothing about them.
Liam was right. These guys were non-magic, and even worse, they had no idea who put the spell on them to attack us. Think of it like a robot with a program to inflict pain. That’s basically how they worked when they found Norah and Liam. What looked like them doing magic wasn’t them at all. They were just on autopilot.
While Travis wiped their memories and put them to sleep until we could drop them in the middle of Salem, Liam hovered in the corner, his face pensive. He looked down at his cell phone screen, his eyebrows pulling together. The little guy was my best friend. He was one of the most solid people I knew. Had a shit childhood because of his magic and not understanding one fucking thing about it. His Wiccan adoptive parents were always cool about it, but his childhood years were spent thinking he was a genetic freak, and none of the research he ever did amounted to anything because unless you were in the know, you had no idea where to look for answers. “What’s up?” I called out to him. He gave me a quick shake of his head, but I wasn’t an idiot. Something was bothering him. I walked over to him while Travis and a still jersey-clad Gabe picked up the first decoy and carried him toward the steps. “Come on,” I said, ribbing him. “What’s going on?”
He chewed over his lip until he finally said, “Norah hasn’t texted yet.”
I tamped down the sudden surge of jealousy that reared up. I still had no clue what the fuck happened when I’d taken her back to the apartment. My brain was at war with itself because I wanted her with every fiber of my being, and it certainly seemed like we were headed that way, but then, boom, total blackout. It was as if I’d just fallen asleep in her presence, but that couldn’t have happened unless it had a magical push. I wasn’t drunk. Well, I should say I wasn’t drunk enough to black out on my own and things were certainly going the way I wanted them to so to pass out just wasn’t in the cards for me.
Fuck. This girl. It was as if she had me by the balls in such a short amount of time and I had to admit I hated every freaking moment. The coven was the only thing I relied on and even that had been going to shit lately without Jax. Well, not actually Jax. Without the fifth. Without the fifth, we were pretty much useless and the bonds we’d formed were crumbling around us. Except for Liam and me. Liam and I were for life. And right now, he was upset about the girl I wanted not calling him.
“So, she said she would call you?” I ventured, hating the way my voice sounded when it came out. Accusatory and sad all at the same time.
Liam looked up, his eyebrows raised. “It’s not like that,” he said quickly.
“Like you don’t want it to be like that.”
His face blanched and then turned red in quick succession. God, why was I such a dick sometimes? Before I could explain myself, Liam squared his shoulders. “I don’t know all of what’s going on. I just know that when she’s around, things feel better around here. Don’t you agree?”
When she was around, I felt like I wanted to throw her in bed and feel half as much as I felt the other night. I wasn’t sure that was the same thing Liam was talking about though. We definitely had a sexual connection, Norah and I. As far as a coven connection, I couldn’t be one-hundred percent sure. I definitely wasn’t focused on that the other night. I had other things on my mind.
I shrugged, pretending I didn’t care. With Liam, I knew I wasn’t half as convincing as I was with the other guys, but I was nothing if not persistent.
“I just hope nothing’s happened to her.”
Okay, now he was talking my language. My hackles rose, and I stepped up closer. “Why would you think that? Was she afraid? What aren’t you telling us?”
Liam stumbled over his words at my sudden outburst. “I told her we would meet up so I could let her know the information we got out of the two guys.”
Behind us, Travis said, “Why the hell would you do that? Norah’s not the fifth. It can’t be. Order business is just that, our business. Not anyone else’s. We should’ve wiped her memory and sent her off.”
I got why Travis had such a chip on his shoulder nowadays, but this dick routine was really starting to piss me off. “We’re not wiping her memory.”
“Oh, of course,” he said, sneering. “Then she’d forget all about your fuck session. I guess you’ll just have to try again with her.”
A growl started deep in my throat, and little Liam stepped in front of me to face down Travis himself. “She’s a fellow witch. A possible member of the Order. We’re not wiping her memory, Travis. You know what happens if you deny the call.”
“Yeah, we all could be fucked,” Gabe said, finally speaking.
Travis’s jaw clenched. He knew better than anyone about giving up stuff for the order. He hadn’t talked much about it, but there’d been a reason he stayed in Adams a
s long as he did and it wasn’t just about trying to mend his family ties. There was a girl involved. A girl he couldn’t have, apparently. I eased up on my reaction. Since feeling something similar recently, I should give him some slack. Norah wasn’t just any girl. I’d had those kinds of girls. Slept with them, dated them. Norah was different. There was like a tie that was already in place. We were connected somehow. Even if she wasn’t the fifth, which was my guess, she was still supposed to be here in some way. Magic was a mystery sometimes and we just had to figure it out.
“Listen,” Liam said. “We’ll get the fifth.”
“Statistically speaking,” Gabe said, leaning against the wall, his leg bent at the knee as it rested flat against the rocky surface. “We should’ve had the fifth by now.” We all let that sink in. It wasn’t as if it hadn’t been at the forefront of all our minds lately. We were nothing without the fifth. There were even some scary stories out there about what could happen if the fifth never showed including loss of magic, death. I peered at Liam and he just looked at the floor. Gabe cleared his throat. “It needs to be brought up, so I’m doing it. A sexy witch walked into our lives yesterday talking about something that sounds suspiciously like she got the call.”
The blood in my veins boiled as a wave of possession flowed through me.
“Where are we all at with Norah? Who here thinks she’s the fifth?”
Before anyone could say anything, Travis laughed darkly. Liam looked up, his calm, serene face on. “I take that as a no from you.”
“You can take it as a fuck no. I stand by my sentiments yesterday. She’s female. Give me one Order of the Akasha coven that hasn’t been made up of five males. I’m not being a female hater, I’m being a realist. I’ve known some bad ass female witches,” Travis said, his voice scratching as a shadow crossed his face. “I’m not saying we’re better than them. What I am saying is that based on the past, it’s not possible.”
Liam nodded. He was nothing if not a common sense type of guy. His reaction gave me the courage to speak my own. “I don’t think she’s the fifth either. I think she’s here for a reason, I just don’t think she’s the fifth. And no,” I said, staring at Travis. “I don’t think her reason for being here is to be my plaything. Not that the idea bothers me…”
Travis smirked.
Gabe’s jaw set, his eyes zeroing in on me. “So, we have two no’s.” He raised his hand. “I, for one, am in the ‘It could happen’ camp. Everything she talked about last night was something I experienced myself, right down to the pull. I came from another damn continent. I felt the pull from even further away so I know it can happen. She said it pulled her right to our apartment. What the hell else could it be?”
Gabe’s question hung in the air. None of us could answer it. Instead, I stared at Liam. The guy was smart as hell and I respected his opinion probably more than any of the other guys. No, he wasn’t the leader type. He was too shy for that, but he was practically a genius. As the rest of the guys also started to look his way as the last one who hadn’t given his opinion yet, he started to fidget. He hated being the center of attention. He sighed. “I think she could be the fifth.”
Travis snorted. “You just want to bone her because she actually paid attention to you.”
I stepped forward. “Don’t be a dick, Trav.”
Travis shook his head and turned away. He never used to be like this and that was the only reason I hadn’t put him in his place. Yet. It was obvious his outbursts were about something else entirely and he had no one else to take it out on. It was just us after all. Day after day, just the four of us. None of us had been the one to actually strip Jax and Jennie. Nope, that honor went to him.
I took a deep breath. “Let’s just calm the fuck down. So, we have two no’s and two yes’s. How are we going to figure out if she really is the fifth?”
“I don’t understand why there needs to be a discussion, Mates,” Gabe said. “We didn’t talk about it when I showed up saying I got the pull.”
“But you had a history,” I told him.
Liam tapped his chin. “So, maybe what we need to do is get to know Norah better. The worst case scenario is she leaves Salem and we lose her. If she’s the fifth and we lose her, that’s the worst-worst case scenario. There can’t be any harm in getting to know her to see if she’s the real deal or not. If she isn’t, she leaves—or stays—whatever she wants to do, and then the actual fifth will eventually come.”
How many times had we talked about the fifth eventually coming and it hadn’t happened yet? I was with Liam though. It couldn’t hurt to get to know her even though I had a sneaking suspicion she’d put me in a spell yesterday and I was not happy about it. We could take the wait-and-see approach. Why not? We were already doing that.
“So, we’ve decided we’re all going to play nice to get to know Norah then?” Gabe asked. He caught Travis’s gaze first, then moved to me.
I shrugged. What else could we do? Hadn’t I already been nice to her?
“Whatever,” Travis said. “I’ll go with the majority on this, but don’t expect any help from me. I’m just going to be sitting back and waiting for the real fifth to arrive so we can get back to doing what we’re supposed to be doing.”
Gabe rolled his eyes, but that was as good as we were going to get out of Travis at the moment.
“Alright, how are we going to go about this then?” I asked. “Travis is out, I’m not sure I’m the best idea so—” I hated even thinking that. I wanted nothing more than to be close to Norah, but at the same time, the idea scared the shit out of me. This wasn’t just a one and done girl and I’d never been good at anything that could be called a relationship.
“I volunteer,” Gabe said, a smirk pulling at his lips.
I glanced to Liam whose shoulders deflated. Before I could offer up that Liam already had her cell phone number and found where she was staying, Liam shrugged. “Sure, yeah.” He passed his cell to him. “You can get her number off of there.”
I shook my head. Why in the hell wouldn’t he just go for something if he wanted it? Then again, I didn’t know if I wanted him to go for the same thing I wanted. Hell, if she wasn’t the fifth, we might as well just tie a noose around ourselves because our once very stable coven was only a few days from imploding, even without the magical help of not having the correct number of members.
9
I dreamt about Granny. At least, I think I was dreaming about Granny. Granny was definitely there, but I hadn’t realized I’d fallen asleep. The last thing I remembered was making up my mind to get the hell out of Salem.
After Liam and Travis took off to take the two bodies to their headquarters, I went back to my small room at the motel. Liam had wanted me to come, but Travis was definitely against that. I wasn’t sure what the hell his fucking problem was with me, but it didn’t matter now anyway. I was leaving.
At least, I thought I was. Right now, though, I was caught up in my own thoughts. I’d dreamt of Granny before, after she’d passed, but this time was a little different. This time I was getting a bit of a scolding. She put her hands on her wide hips. Granny was short and round around the middle. Her skin was an unblemished ebony, yet her hair hadn’t gotten the message. Riddled with gray, it fell past her shoulders, giving her a wise look that everyone in the parish respected. Back where we lived, people believed in what we did, and especially when Granny was involved. She healed the sick, helped the poor. She told tales as tall as the buildings in New York City and all the while I sat in the other room trying to have as normal a life as possible. No one bothered me all that much. Those that knew Granny were pretty sure I had magic running in my blood also, but they didn’t come to me like they came to Granny. I asked her about it one day and she just said I had this vibe that shouted not to talk to me. I didn’t mean to have that kind of vibe. Well, not all the time. I’d just never had the charisma Granny did.
Her fingers snapped in front of my face. “Pay attention, Norah Girl.” She sh
ook her head and tsked at me. Even in my dream state, anger rose inside me at being treated like a child. “Things are brewin’. I’m not sure what’s going on, but the aura around you is mixed. You’re in trouble, but you’re also exactly where you need to be.” She shook her head again. “I don’t know what you’ve got yourself into. Gone not even a year yet and I’m already having to come visit you. My girl, my girl, my girl.”
“Granny, I’m okay,” I said, my voice echoing off the invisible walls around us in the dream. Clouds of purple and pink surrounded her, making me feel like we were walking around in a cotton candy factory.
“Where are you, Norah Girl?”
“In a hotel, I think.”
“You think?” Her eyebrows arched. “What do you mean, ‘you think?’ Where?”
Her voice hardened as she tried to pull memories out of me, but they were short coming. I looked inside myself and couldn’t remember. The last thing I remembered for sure was heading back to the hotel after the magic fight that morning where Liam helped save me. Then, Travis made his dickish appearance.
“Don’t use that word,” Granny scolded.
I blinked at her. I hadn’t even realized I’d spoken aloud. Maybe I hadn’t…
“Who are these boys you’re thinking about? I don’t know them.” Her fingers tightened their grip on her hips. “They look like trouble.”
“They are Granny, that’s why I’m leaving. I need to get back to New Orleans.”
The clouds around Granny grew, the colors bleeding in more pronounced. “I don’t know, My Girl. I feel like you’re exactly where you need to be.”
“But… So, what am I supposed to do?” The smoke-like puffs reached over her face like prying fingers. Soon, her whole body was obscured by the wisps. “Granny? What am I supposed to do?”