Enchant Me

by Anne Violet

  Even through my helmet I could hear the loud cracks of thunder and see the blinding sparks of lightning. Inwardly I cringed. I had always hated storms, imagining it would be just my luck to be one of the rare people that get struck by lightning. I drove as fast as I thought I could legally get away with in Steilacoom until I pulled up into my driveway. I was surprised to note that Christian’s car wasn’t here, and my mom’s was. I was actually a little late, not that that was a surprise. I pulled out my phone as I unlocked the door and walked into the house; there weren’t any messages. Mom was already heading out the door as I stepped to the side.

  “Alexis,” she said just stopping inside the doorway. “You’re really lucky to have met Christian. He seems like a real nice boy who really does care about you.”

  She looked sad as she said it, even though she was trying to hide it, and I realized this had more to do with her pain over Dad than me. “Mom, you’ll meet someone. You just have to give it a chance. Maybe you’ll meet a great guy tonight,” I said, smiling widely just to make her laugh.

  “Maybe so,” she agreed, smiling back. “I won’t be home till probably 2 tonight.”

  She started to close the door when I stopped her. “Mom, did Christian come by yet?”

  She looked at me confused. “No, not since I have been here. I’m sorry dear, I have to go. I don’t want to be late or I won’t be able to get a table.”

  I nodded distractedly as she locked the door behind her. It was probably nothing. Maybe his grandparents wanted to spend a little extra time with him and he had lost track of the time. I started to pace the living room as I called his cell phone. After five rings it went straight to voice mail. Absentmindedly I looked around the living room, my mind awhirl with growing anxiety. I noticed Cody watching me from his perch on the windowsill. His feline expression seemed solemn and he turned back to stare out the window. My intuition pricked at me. Before I knew it, I was locking up the house and getting on my bike.

  I rode straight to Christian’s since I didn’t have his grandparents’ number. I knocked on their door probably louder than necessary but my worry was starting to turn into full-blown panic. His grandmother opened the door and looked like she was surprised to see me. My heart dropped to my stomach.

  “What are you doing here?” She asked kindly. “He just headed to your place a couple of minutes ago.”

  “Umm, we must have just passed each other,” I lied.

  I couldn’t tell her what I was starting to fear. I tried as best I could to hold it together until I was out of sight of the house. Then I started to shake. I didn’t need my visions to know that Nicolas had Christian.

  CHAPTER 14

  Terror found a new home-- in my brain. Ripples of dread and shock coursed up and down my body and for a moment I was frozen… unable to get past the idea that Christian was in danger. My hands were like claws around my thighs trying to hold myself together. The sound of a car slowing down as it passed me made me realize that I was kneeling next to my bike in the dirt…wasting time.

  I jumped up and onto my bike, shoved my helmet back on my head, and drove for home. I knew Christian wouldn’t be there, but I had to check one last time. It felt like the longest two blocks I could remember but I didn’t need to slow down as I passed my house; his car wasn’t there. Although I knew it would be another dead end, I headed for Nicolas’s parents house. I tried to console myself with the idea that I would strangle Christian when I found him. Why did he have to be such a guy? Why hadn’t he just refused to go with Nicolas, refused to fight? Then it occurred to me. Oh god, what if Nicolas hadn’t given him a chance to refuse him? What if he had already hurt Christian? If Nicolas were just the average psycho that would have been bad enough, but he had powers and I had no idea what they were or what he could do to Christian. The only thing I did know was if he hurt Christian…

  The scenery around me started to pass by in a blur as I sped up, the rain pounding against me as I went faster and faster. The idea of Christian being hurt for something that wasn’t even his fault, made me see red. When I pulled into the Devereaux’s long driveway to their modern characterless house, I noticed that his parents’ car was gone, so I rode right up the steps onto their porch skidding to a halt right in front of their door, leaving black tire marks on the white painted planks. My hand already tingled before I reached for the door. Summoning my powers, I forced the lock to turn over, and jerked the door open. I rushed into the house screaming their names but there was no answer. Hopelessness lashed me as I stood in the empty living room. I didn’t need to search the house. They weren’t here; I couldn’t sense them anywhere. I truly didn’t know where to look next. Fear crawled through me as I stood there.

  The last time I had been here was when I had broken up with Nicolas. “You’re what?” He demanded.

  “I can’t see you anymore.” I said calmly and softly, hoping that he would take my cue to keep this friendly.

  “And why is that,” he responded in a deadly calm voice. “Are you seeing someone else?”

  I wasn’t fooled by his tone. This was going dangerous fast. The icy blue eyes I had always admired had gone to blue flame and I found myself edging towards the door. Alarmingly so did he. “No, I’m not. I’m…I’m just not ready for how serious you are getting.” I decided to be honest here. “You’re scaring me.”

  “Wait till you’ve gone through what I have. Then you’ll know real fear.”

  I felt myself start to shake. Was that a threat? My pulse started to race unpleasantly as he stalked towards me. Abruptly a key turned in the lock and his parents walked in. I turned to look at Nicolas one last time. “Don’t ever come near me again,” I whispered and bolted out of the house.

  Just then I heard a car pull up, then the pounding of feet as they came up the steps and burst through the open door, his parents Frederick and Renee. Guessing by their evening clothes they were obviously just coming home from dinner. Frederick’s eyes bulged and it looked like he wanted to kill me, and the fury on Renee’s face said she was thinking much the same. Considering the mood I was in--I couldn’t care less. At least they were no threat to me magically, I could sense nothing special about them. They were just ordinary people that apparently couldn’t raise a sane, well-adjusted, child.

  “How dare you Alexis! I knew it was you stalking Nicolas, not the other way around-” Renee screeched just to be interrupted by her husband.

  “You are going to pay for this after you have a nice little stint in jail tonight,” Frederick roared, making a big show of flipping open his phone and dialing the cops.

  “I know Nicolas’s secret,” I said, just loud enough to be heard, and sounding calmer than I really felt. “He’s taken my boyfriend Christian. You better pray that he hasn’t hurt him in any way or you won’t have enough of him to bury.”

  I stormed past their shocked faces, and noticed Frederick canceling the call and closing his phone. When I got to the door and turned to look back, I noticed that they were still in the same spots, still processing the danger to their little family.

  “If he survives tonight, I think it would be wisest for the three of you to leave, for good…” I warned and slammed the door behind me.

  Back outside I noticed the rain had stopped, but it was much colder and the wind was whipping through the trees with a vengeance. Worse, due to the weather it was getting darker earlier than usual. I was running out of time. Suddenly, agonizing pain throbbed in my temples and the roar of a vision eclipsed everything around me. I felt myself rocking in place with the intensity of it. Then the pain faded almost as quickly as it had begun.

  That’s when it registered…Christian must have released my visions so I could find him. He was still alive--for the moment. Then the image shoved into place. The first vision I saw was of Christian walking out of his house to his car. He was smiling, at least until he saw me. No, not me-- I had to be seeing through Nicolas’s eyes. I felt sick at the thought. We started to approach Christian, the
n the vision shifted. We were in his car staring out the window from the passenger side, it seemed, being driven somewhere. I felt dizzy as the image changed again. We pulled to a stop in front of the sign for Farrell’s Marsh. As the vision faded, relief swept through me, he was ok. I just had to get to them before Nicolas did anything. Not trusting Nicolas’s parents, I said nothing to them and tried to come up with a plan.

  Stealth definitely had to be a part of it so I pulled out my phone and turned it off as I got on my bike; I didn’t want to risk someone calling me as I approached. I wanted a chance to assess the situation before Nicolas saw me. I couldn’t risk him panicking and hurting Christian.

  Leaving a second set of skid marks alongside the first, I drove off the steps, down their driveway and into the street towards Farrell’s Marsh. The wildlife preserve was only about five minutes away which didn’t give me much time to come up with a strategy. I couldn’t call anyone. Except maybe my grandmother, who was too far away to help at this point. I didn’t have any weapons, and quite honestly I hoped I wouldn’t need any.

  Even though it was already pretty dark, I turned off my lights and slowed down as I drove down Chambers street that dead ended at Farrell’s Marsh. I killed the motor just before I pulled up at the trailhead and parked. Spotting Christian’s black RX-8 about twenty feet down the street, I ran over and peeked in the windows. They weren’t there and there wasn’t anything that gave a clue as to what was happening. Why would they come here? For a moment I just stared down the path, noticing the point where the street lamp’s light dissipated.

  I tucked my keys deep into my jeans pocket so they wouldn’t jingle as I approached, and started to creep down the dirt path towards the marsh. There was no moonlight to see by and it only got darker as the trees started to crowd around me. The fact that I couldn’t see far ahead made me imagine all the other dangers that could be in the marsh, two-legged and four-legged. The moisture from the wetlands made the air feel oppressive, and it reeked of some moldy mossy smell. I had to bite my lip from loudly yelping every time I felt a moth brush against my cheek, or I walked through a spider web. I slowed as I started to descend the small hill that led to the pond, straining to hear beyond the rustle of the trees for any sound that would indicate where they were.

  I still didn’t have a plan yet, and I had a feeling I probably still wouldn’t when I came across them. I was more a girl of action anyways. Just then I heard a man’s voice. I stopped and hid behind a tree, listening intently. It seemed like minutes instead of the seconds it actually was until I heard the voice again. It was coming from the right side of the forest. I crept to the other side of the trail and tried to peek through the bushes but it was too dark to see anything. Taking a deep breath, I tiptoed through the underbrush.

  Instantaneously alarm swept me as I realized I could sense Nicolas, and more terrifying, he could sense me. “You can come out, Alexis!” Nicolas challenged in a dark voice.

  “No!” yelled Christian, his voice sounding hoarse to my ears.

  For a second I couldn’t move. It was like, if I didn’t move-- then this nightmare wouldn’t be real. But the sound of Christian’s voice drew me forward; I needed to see if he was ok. So I took the last couple steps into the small clearing surrounded by towering fir trees. There should have been very little light here, but instead an eerie glow filled the space. I gasped when I realized where it was coming from. Christian lay on the ground, his golden skin leaching to a pale almost bluish color. Like all the oxygen was being drawn from him. He was surrounded by some sort of energy field that crackled and hissed, constantly in motion around him. Even as I watched, it got smaller and tighter around him. His usually vibrant dark brown eyes were dull with approaching unconsciousness. I watched terrified as he struggled for breath and tried to speak to me.

  “Al…Alexis-get out of here.”

  With horrified fury I finally turned to Nicolas. He watched me coldly and calmly, his hand stretched out towards Christian, slowly killing him.

  “Let him go,” I screamed at Nicolas.

  His ice blue eyes narrowed but he only tightened the field around Christian. “No. I want you to feel the same pain I feel,” his deadly calm as he spoke scared me.

  “Then let me take his place, this has nothing to do with him,” I pleaded. “I didn’t even know him when we had broke up.”

  Finally I saw a flash of anger in his eyes. “Like I am supposed to believe that.”

  “Yes, because it is the truth.”

  I watched him as we argued. His black long sleeve t-shirt and black jeans stuck to him, obviously damp from the rain. Where Christian seemed to be completely dry, like the shield had been protecting him from the elements but conversely limited his oxygen. By the way Nicolas was shaking I had to assume he had been doing this to Christian since he took him. Nicolas was getting tired and he knew it.

  “That’s not what Jenny and Tanya told me,” he sneered back at me.

  “I would think you would be too smart to believe those bobble head Barbies.”

  “I know who my friends are,” he replied, that deadly calm returning.

  “Obviously you don’t.”

  I had to admit to myself that logic wasn’t going to work. He had been poisoned with his own self-absorption in what he considered his personal tragedy. I started to discretely look around for something I could use to knock him out long enough to get him to drop the field and get Christian out of here.

  “Nicolas,” I said, now as calm as him, “you have to know you won’t make it out of here if you harm him.”

  “I guess we’ll have to see,” he warned as he turned back to Christian.

  “Lex…get out,” Christian gasped.

  My heart squeezed at how close Christian was to passing out. Time was out; I had to make a choice. Without warning or any of the usual fanfare that accompanied one of my visions, an image thrust in front of my eyes and unthinkingly I acted on it.

  “No!” howled Nicolas. I ran towards Christian leaping into the field that surrounded him. It dropped from him just as I fell through. Unfortunately for Christian, I landed on him pretty heavily, but the oxygen he so desperately needed…was able to get into his lungs. I gently eased off of him but kept my eyes on Nicolas, who was enraged now.

  “Move away from him Alexis,” he demanded, lifting his hand out to Christian again.

  I came up to a crouch next to Christian; his hand came up to mine, squeezing it reassuringly. Glancing quickly down, I noticed his color already returning, along with a healthy dose of fury. I squeezed back, silently asking him not to go ballistic.

  “Nicolas, leave here and let this go… While you still can,” I softly urged.

  Christian stood up pulling me with him, although still a little unsteady, he stood tall and straight facing Nicolas. He tried to nudge me behind him but I wasn’t budging from his side. Nicolas’s outrage at the obvious bond between Christian and I seemed to push him over the edge. By the look on his face, he was going to finish us off now. Due to his exhaustion Nicolas had to concentrate to summon his powers which gave us precious little time.

  I turned to Christian, “accelerate his powers,” I whispered. Christian looked down at me like I was crazy. All of the sudden a blast of light hurtled towards us. “Do it!” I screeched.

  Abruptly I heard Nicolas howl in pain and the light disappeared. Detached, I watched as he crumpled to the ground holding his head. For a time I just held Christian’s hand and let him take his revenge. It may not have been noble but it did feel justified. I had no doubt Nicolas had intended to murder Christian. Our only hope was to literally burn out his powers. If we didn’t, he would always be a threat to us and others. Eventually he had stopped howling and was shaking, sprawled out across the ground. Christian released my hand, walked over, and crouched next to him. I followed at a safe distance behind.

  “Alexis and I better never see your face again, or you will regret it,” he warned.

  Nicolas didn’t respond.
He actually looked like he was slipping into unconsciousness. I looked at Christian, willing him to release Nicolas without me having to ask him to. Perhaps because of our bond, I knew the second he released him. Without another glance at Nicolas, he turned towards me, wrapped his arms around my waist, and hugged me tightly. I hugged him back so hard he actually grunted in discomfort. I smiled and gave him a quick kiss.

  “Are you ok?” I asked.

  “Yeah, you?” he queried softly.

  I nodded my head in answer, released him and bent down towards Nicolas. His chest moved up and down, he was still alive, which was good, but he was definitely unconscious. Unfortunately as I scrutinized him, I could still sense his powers about him.

  “He still has his powers,” I murmured and stood back up, leaning against Christian’s warm body.

  “I know. I tried to exhaust every last reserve of power he had, but I would have ended up killing him, which would probably be more trouble than it’s worth.”

  Sighing, I pulled out my phone, turned it back on, and dialed Nicolas’s parents.

  “Who are you calling?”

  “Nicolas’s parents.”

  Renee picked up on the first ring. “Renee, you need to come pick up Nicolas. We’re at Farrell’s Marsh, just down the path.”

  I hung up the phone. “They’re on the way.”

  Christian wrapped his arm tighter around my waist. “Is there going to be a problem?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” I said, shaking my head as I thought about it. “To expose us would expose their son, and now that they know he was here without their knowledge, they will probably realize I might be telling the truth about everything else. Their reputation and image is very important to them; they will slip away quietly.”