"Celeste! Solomon!" Jack's voice cried out as I turned sharply to where Celeste was sitting. Her seat was now empty, and Jack was looking around him behind the seats, in front of the seats, underneath the seats. He was trying to locate her, but it was obviously no use. "She's gone!"
My heart sank like a stone. "What the HELL is going on?!" I growled as Von darted towards the seat next to Jack.
Von's forehead furrowed and he looked at me imploringly. Nothing. She was gone, and there was no way to know where and why.
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The time ticked away slowly as we all looked at each other in quiet frustration.
"She's stronger." Von finally said, cutting the stale silence with his sharp tone. "She could have sent herself anywhere. She wouldn't even be aware of what she was doing—she had to have done it on her own." He tilted his head back as he blew a gust of air up at the ceiling.
I looked at him like he was insane. "Are you kidding me? She had to have been exhausted—there was no way that she could have done something like that when she was so weak."
It was definitely an insane thought that she could have transported herself off of a plane, moving at the speeds that we were traveling. Magic was a tricky thing, and although I didn't understand it enough to be an expert, I knew that it was almost impossible to magically transport yourself from a moving plane like that. Almost.
"No." Von dipped his head and closed his eyes as if he was trying to get a fix on her. "She isn't anywhere near—I can't feel her. She transported herself without intending to. She is much stronger now than she ever has been, and her simple relaxation technique just...sent her away." He looked down at the palm of his hands as if he was wondering why he wasn't even close to as strong as Celeste. Why didn't he have enough power to bring her back? Useless warlock.
Jack dropped his head to his chest in a clear sign of defeat. "Her relaxation technique. Of course!" He placed his hands over his eyes like he had a terrible migraine, rubbing the palms of his hands into his eye sockets. "She sent herself away to her favorite place." He shuddered as he looked up at me.
"The beach." I said simply as I looked at Celeste's empty seat like she was going to appear if I stared hard enough at the leather. We were rocketing away from the beach, so it meant that we were getting further and further away from her every second.
"I fail to see the importance of the beach. Why would she be transported there?" Gabriel's voice struck us as odd coming from the side of the cabin, and we all turned to look at him as if he had just grown a second head.
"The beach." Von sighed heavily. "It's her favorite place—she's always been drawn to it. The ocean calls to her and gives her strength and peace. It centers her and gives her a renewal of her mind and spirit. It has always been that way. That is why the castle is built on the coast—she can't be away from the water, the ocean."
"Hmm, that is quite interesting." Gabriel's voice drifted away from us as if he didn't want us to hear. "That makes sense, I would think." He nodded to himself and then straightened his collar. "Yes, that makes perfect sense."
"What makes sense?" I looked at Gabriel and hoped that it didn't look threatening. There was information that Gabriel was going to share that could help us in the future. He knew something about Celeste that we didn't.
"Her mother..." Gabriel began when there was a sharp crackle on the cabin intercom.
"Solomon! Von! Come here! Now!" Cora's voice sounded panicked and we swept towards the cockpit as Von pushed past me and slammed the door open to reveal Cora's wild expression as she pointed to the empty pilot's chair. "Babbo is gone! Leo is gone!" She sounded exasperated as well as scared.
I scanned the cockpit to see the tight quarters that were available for the pilots—all the coziness of a closet. Cora was gripping the controls in her hands as if they would explode if she let go, and she suddenly looked extremely young and helpless, needing our support.
"What could have possibly happened to him?" Her voice shook as Von walked over to her and squeezed into the head pilot's chair, distracting himself with the panels before him.
"I would suppose that your mother has called him away." He tried to sound authoritative, and it was actually pretty convincing until I looked into his eyes and saw the unbridled fear.
Cora's eyes darted to mine. "Dad?"
Nodding, I leaned over her chair and laid my hand on her shoulder. "She has transported herself somewhere—we suspect it was to the beach. She has called Leo to her, we deduce, the same way that she has done in the past. He is the easiest to call, it would seem."
A razor-sharp pain ripped through my chest. I was jealous that she had called to Leo and not to me. How would she have been able to call to you? He's a demon and he can shadow away to wherever there is darkness. I shuddered involuntarily. There's darkness where she is right now.
Von looked up at me from his seat and then he turned to check the gauges, finally turning to Cora. "I'm staying here with you. I have my pilot's license but I'm not up-to-date on Learjets. You will have to guide me through the process so that I can help you land this thing. I won't leave you." He sounded so comforting, that for some reason, I hated him less.
Cora nodded at him gratefully as she turned to face the wildness of the world outside. "Okay." She sighed and gripped the controls loosely, easing back into her chair.
"I will be in the back, keeping an eye out for Celeste and Leo." Silence was my reply.
Turning back to the cabin, I closed the door slowly behind me. Cora would be well taken care of with Von next to her, assuring her that everything was going to be fine, and that her mother would show eventually. I could only hope so.
I stalked over to Gabriel as he leaned back in his seat, eyes closed and mouthing words I couldn't hear. "Tell us what you were going to share." I towered over him, showing him that I wasn't going to take 'no' for an answer.
Gabriel continued to lean back in his seat, eyes closed, but he continued his story. "Her mother—she was an extremely powerful shaman. She was the one that placed the blessing on our tribe for extreme longevity. In fact, I don't think that I have aged much at all since I turned 29. It's a gift." He smiled smugly as he opened his eyes and peered up at me with the pitch black of his eyes. "She was beyond compare...well, except for Celeste, and now Cora. But she fell in love and she conceived a child when she was 25—Celeste." His head flicked in the direction of Celeste's empty seat as he continued. "There is a story passed down from generation to generation that she fell in love with the Ocean."
"Right, the ocean. That's exactly how Celeste feels about the ocean—she can't be too far away from it or she becomes...hostile." Jack gruffed from his seat. "So what?"
"That is not what I said. I said that she fell in love with the Ocean—the ocean god Lir. It is said that she loved him so deeply that he couldn't resist her; she was so natural, so strong, that he couldn't keep away from her. There were huge ocean storms the year that Celeste was born because it appeared that the ocean was pining for Celeste's mother. He was torn up that she couldn't be near him all of the time." He scanned his eyes towards the overhead bulkhead to the left of him. "When she was able to make the trips to the ocean there was quiet and calm. It seemed like the ocean was happy. But when she had to leave, the ocean was violent and cruel." Gabriel looked back at me and shrugged his shoulders. "But it was just a story."
"Your stories..." I scratched my chin as I walked towards the cabin door again, turning and walking back. "They are oral histories—as accurate as any books, from what I understand. They are taught to your children word-for-word so that no one forgets." A sudden thought occurred to me. "Could this ocean god...could he have contacted Celeste?"
Gabriel looked at me as if he were trying to dissect me with his eyes. "Hmm, it must be possible. But most gods have already faded away. Without someone to worship them, they simply disappear into the mist. They lose their grip on reality and simply fade away." He scratched his chin
as if he had stubble there to scratch. I doubted that this man ever had any stubble to worry about at any time—his skin was as smooth as a baby's butt.
Jack sat forward in his seat, clearly happy to be distracted from his hatred of flying. "Any of the times that Celeste has blacked out... What about that other time that she just appeared outside the house you bought her, on the beach? That could have been an opportunity for her to have a deep conversation with her old man, right?"
I thought about that for a while. There were so many times that Celeste had slipped in and out of trances, and a couple of times that she had just plain disappeared. There could have been many opportunities for her to be contacted, by anyone. I turned and walked in the other direction again.
This is killing me! Not knowing what is going on and being too far away from Celeste to protect her is just too much to take. I raked my hand through my hair, feeling my sharp nails grazing my scalp. What are we going to do?
Jack knew that we needed a distraction. He immediately jumped up to a flat screen console built into the far wall of the cabin and dug through a pull-out drawer beneath it. He pulled away in triumph as he held up a thick DVD case that obviously held a TV series.
"Bonanza!" He smiled victoriously as he clicked controls, popped open the case, and placed a brown DVD into an opening on the wall.
A slight laugh escaped me even though I didn't feel like laughing. "The demon likes Bonanza? This has got to be a joke!" I watched as Jack shrugged his shoulders.
"Doesn't everyone like Bonanza?"
The distraction was well needed, and Jack sat back in a chair close to the console as Gabriel took a seat near him, eyeing the screen with distrust.
"I've never watched this series before."
"Oh! It's fantastic to kill time. That's basically what we have to do..." he eyed me with meaning, "we have to get our minds off of the wait. A distraction like this is priceless!" He smiled broadly at me and looked around himself as if he was hoping that a bag of popcorn would just appear out of thin air.
"So...what is the point of the show?" Gabriel looked up at the screen as the opening credits began.
"Priceless intro! Everyone in the United States recognizes it...maybe even the world." Jack thrummed his thighs with the beat. "Just keep your eyes on the Cartwright men. It's sort of like watching Star Trek—if there is someone on an away mission wearing a red shirt that guy is going to bite the dust. This works much the same way. When a Cartwright man falls in love with a beautiful damsel in distress...well, just don't get attached to her."
"That's savage." Gabriel cringed.
"Yeah." Jack smiled. "That's the wild West for you." He shrugged and then looked up at me apologetically. "It doesn't apply here, of course." He clarified as I walked towards the back of the cabin to get myself something to drink.
"Yeah, I know." Damn. Maybe I have some Cartwright blood in me. That would really be a cruel twist of fate.
18
Three hours had passed and we were still sitting in the Learjet on the tarmac, hoping to hear anything about Celeste or Leo. Jack had been keeping track of the women that the Cartwright men had fallen in love with and lost, and it only seemed to amplify my fears. Damned Cartwright men!
We were all sitting there, uneasy about absolutely everything, when I heard voices coming from the rear of the plane. My head instantly turned in that direction as I watched Celeste push away the curtain that led to the very back of the cabin, followed by a seemingly even more arrogant Leo.
Celeste's eyes were stormy ice-blue clouds of anger and rage. She was shaking, crackling energy, and there was a faint scent of burning hair in the air. My mind flew in ten thousand directions and then zeroed in on the one that was the most frightening. Her eyes, they're so cold...so blue. What could have happened?!
My instincts told me to stay where I was, but Von made the mistake of getting in Celeste's way.
"Where have you been, Celeste?!" He sounds like a broken record! Get over it already. "What happened?!" He crossed his arms across his chest, and was immediately cast aside by nothing that we could see. He flew over the arm of a seat and gasped wildly for air. Took a good one to the stomach, it seems.
Celeste didn't even pause to look at any of us. She stormed through the cockpit's doorway and slammed it shut behind her, ensuring that no one was going to attempt to follow. I doubted that anyone in the room even considered it at that moment.
"Man, is she pissed." Jack shivered fiercely—over-dramatized for our benefit. We all turned to Leo but Jack was the one to ask the question. "What happened, Leo? Where did she go and why is she...like that?"
Leo looked around the room at our tense faces as he reached up and did something I've never seen him do before—he rubbed the back of his neck. For a typical guy that usually means frustration, concentration, or total loss of control. For Leo, it was a dead giveaway that he had experienced something he wasn't really comfortable with. Leo was always comfortable from what I could tell from past experiences. Now, the fact that this demon was uncomfortable with Celeste was something new—something extremely unsettling.
Leo sat down on the nearest empty seat and crossed his legs. He looked down at his shoes and frowned, noticing that they were speckled with sand and tiny spots of water. "Let me get to your questions before you die of curiosity, my dear Jack. We were in England with my sister, Sophia."
"Your sister?" Von blurted like he had something stuck down his throat and it had just been lodged free. "YOU have a sister?"
Looks like he got his breathing back into gear. Too bad.
Leo lowered his gaze slowly. "Older sister, but yes." He shuddered slightly when he turned his eyes to me. "You, my friend, are going to have your hands full." He shoved his hands down against the front of his suit jacket, squared his shoulders and then slowly began to smile. Raising an eyebrow, he crossed his arms and eyed me again. "Maybe she will be too much woman for you, no? Then I will be able to make my move?" He smiled broadly as I began to get an intense burning sensation in my stomach.
I need to eat or I'm going to give myself an ulcer. Do vampires even get ulcers?
"What are you talking about, Leo?" My voice was firm. He was being cryptic and annoying—probably his two favorite things to be.
"Celeste, of course. She is a powerhouse beyond our expectations. She is nothing like what we previously observed, and she is much, much more." His eyes burned right through me before he continued. "You, my friend, will not be able to control her."
"I've never tried to control her." I shrugged. "That's why we get along so well."
Von's body went tense in the corner of my eye as I kept looking at Leo for answers.
"So, Leo, what happened at your sister's place?" England sounded good right about now...anywhere but here.
"Oh, the usual events. My sister invited Celeste to lunch, asked her for her first-born child, introduced her son who happens to be a warlock-vampire half-breed. It was also revealed that they were the ones behind the shadow demons..."
My body instantly stilled and my heart seemed to stop in mid-beat. "What did you just say?"
"They were the ones to conceive of and create the shadow demons." Leo raised a hand to accentuate what he was talking about—waving it around in tight circles. "It seems that he created those rabid beasts by using Sophia's blood. He also seems to be the one controlling them—he was the one that sent them to kill Celeste before."
My head snapped over to check the cockpit door. "So what happened then?"
"Sophia sent us back to the beach." He shrugged.
"Did Celeste get into a fight while she was there at Sophia's?" Von's voice came out from the spot where Celeste had deposited him. "Was she physically threatened?" He seemed bothered by the idea. Guess I couldn't fault him for that.
"No, actually. Sophia was protective of Celeste, and sent her on her way when Maximilian began to rage like a spoiled child." He set his hand on the armrest of the seat and looked around the room. "What happ
ened next is what caused Celeste to look...a bit rattled." He shrugged and then sat silently, waiting to be prodded for more information. Dammit! That sick demon was getting a rise out of this!
"What happened next?" I heard myself ask, but I didn't remember opening my mouth to speak. Clearly I was walking directly into the demon's well-designed trap, but it seemed as if I didn't even care anymore.
Leo eyed me sadly, as if he were giving me terrible news, and I shook off the sense of anxiety that was trying to creep into my gut.
"We were attacked...on the beach...by over twenty shadow demons." He looked solemnly at me like that answered every question I could have asked.
My breathing stopped and I shut down all of my senses as I took what he said into consideration.
"And you saved her?" Jack's voice sounded small—almost a whisper.
"No." Leo turned his gaze back towards Jack, "I did not." He looked down at his hands and a wicked grin began to grow on his face, his lips curling up as his eyes began to narrow.
"Leo, just get to the point. I'm getting tired of your theatrics, and you're dragging out this story like a grandfather telling a tall tale to the grandkids. We aren't children. Get to it." I growled as I walked quickly to stand over him. I was just trying to pressure him to talk, but he seemed to think it meant that I was interested in his dramatic efforts.
"Okay, let me see. I want to ensure that I get all of the events in the correct order. It would be a shame to miss any minute detail that could shed light on this very unique situation. Hmm..." Leo looked down at his hands as if he were centering himself and then began. "My sister sent us away with her warlock bodyguard, Enrique, when Maximilian, her adopted son, began to grow upset. We were then returned to the beach where Celeste had transported herself to earlier, from the plane. I believe she said it was Cannon Beach. And then we were attacked."
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