Someone grabbed me from behind. I looked over my shoulder, expecting to see Eirik. Relief was sweet when my eyes met Hawk’s. He was furious. I hoped it wasn’t with me.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice flat.
I shook my head.
“Get her out of here,” he said, practically shoving me into Femi’s arms.
“Leave now,” Hawk told the gathered witches. “The child is tired and needs to rest.”
“Why did the young Seeress summons us here, sir?” Ignacio asked. He seemed to be the spokesperson of the group.
“I didn’t,” I called out without stopping. The vision of me and Eirik was my top priority now. Where in Hel’s Mist would Torin be for me to kiss Eirik?
“Did you make the Call, sir?” Ignacio asked.
“No, I did not,” Hawk snapped. “And we most certainly don’t need your help.”
“You may not need our help, but someone wants us here,” Ignacio said. “There’ve been a dozen dead Seeresses across the globe, and your daughter might be next.”
Thoughts of Eirik became secondary, and I ignored Femi’s attempts to pull me into the office. I couldn’t tell these people the Seeresses weren’t really dead, but Ignacio’s “someone wants us here” had me thinking of last night’s meeting with Torin and the gang.
What if the person after me had summoned the witches? To what end? No, that didn’t make sense. They would have to know who I was and where I lived to do that. Whoever made the Call lived here in Kayville and either was trying to help me or was working with the people after me. The fact that the killings had stopped kind of confirmed it.
“Miss Lorraine is not my daughter,” Hawk said. “We,” he waved to indicate Femi, “are her guardians. I’ll say it again. We didn’t make the Call and we don’t need your help.”
I turned to face the witches, and Femi groaned. My head was pounding, and even worse, the scenes I’d seen when the witches had touched me were on a loop inside my head. “Has anyone seen the people killing these Seeresses?”
There were murmurs and headshakes.
“He has a British accent and long black hair,” I added.
That generated some excitement but no takers, until Stefania asked, “Does he have blue eyes?”
I frowned. “I think so. Why?”
“Madam Bosvilles has a friend, who looks like the man you just described. He kept in the background when I was her student.”
“I’ve never seen him either,” Rita said. “He comes and goes at night.”
“My son mentioned a man, too,” the old man with the crooked staff said. “He never described him. How do you know him?”
“I’ve seen this man and his friends in my visions,” I said. “He was the one hurting the Seeresses. Where can we find Madam Bosvilles? Maybe she can lead us to him.”
“She was gone by the time my coven went to her villa,” Stefania said. “She’s a powerful witch and probably knew they were coming.”
“We’ll stay until we know for sure she and this brother of hers are not headed this way,” Ignacio added, and the others nodded.
Torin was so not going to like this. From Femi’s expression, she didn’t either. As they filed out, she planted herself in front of me, neatly blocking them from my line of vision. “They can’t stay.”
“What if we need? We’re dealing with evil witches, possibly evil Immortals.”
“Immortals are never evil,” she practically snarled. She jerked her head to indicate the witches. “They can be. You can’t trust them.”
I sighed, the effect of the séance—if what just happened with the witches could be called that—still messing with my head. “What do you want me to do? I don’t have power over them.”
“But they’ll listen to you. We must come up with a reason to send them home. Even though we were once part of their community, we don’t mix with them. They’re powerful enough to tell we are different. We have to send them packing, or we leave.”
Leaving was out of the question. It was time to consult the Norns. Surely, they must know what to do in a situation like this. Heck, they could even erase minds.
“Can I just go home now?”
Hawk was staring at the still-unconscious Jared. They’d forgotten to wake him up.
“He’ll be okay,” Hawk said when he saw me stare at Jared. “He’ll come out of it soon enough. It was a simple sleeping spell. And yes, you can go home.”
“Use the portal,” Femi said. “I’ll bring your car home.”
In other words, she wanted me safe at home. I didn’t understand how she could mistrust witches when she was once a witch. I grabbed my things and headed to the office.
***
The house was quiet, but my head still buzzed with all the visions I had seen at the shop. I was putting that in the never-to-be-repeated category. I was mentally and physically drained. Then there was the vision of Eirik. That didn’t make sense. He wasn’t even there, so how could I have connected with him?
I dropped my backpack by the mirror and went to the kitchen to get a snack. Femi must have shopped because the fruit bowl was full. I grabbed a Pink Lady apple and rubbed it against my jacket. Transferring it to my left hand, I grabbed the knob to Dad’s room and turned.
My eyes widened at the scene. Dad wasn’t alone. He was asleep, but Torin stood by the head of the bed, peering at him. Andris stood on the other side of the bed while Echo rested his arms on top of the headboard.
They didn’t hear me open or close the door. It was so sweet of them to check on Dad. That was one thing about these guys. They might deal with the dead, but they were very loyal and respectful to the living.
I started across the room, intending to hug Torin from behind.
“Can’t we just snap his head?” Andris asked. “All our problems would be solved.”
I froze, my jaw hitting the ground. What? He wouldn’t dare. I’d kill him first. I opened my mouth to rip Andris a new one, but Torin spoke.
“You are right,” Torin said, smirking. “I should never have healed him or talked Echo out of reaping his soul. He’s been nothing but a burden ever since. The Norns wouldn’t be punishing us if it weren’t for him. Raine will never know we did it.”
My breath got lodged in my throat, tears rushing to my eyes. “Torin,” I whispered, but I didn’t think he heard me.
“As long as I take his soul straight to Hel’s Hall, she won’t know,” Echo chimed in. “Do it, or I will. I don’t have time.”
“No, guys. You can’t do this. He is mine. I’ll finish this.” Torin reached down and grabbed Dad’s head.
“Torin, no!” I engaged my runes and dashed across the room, twisting sideways to body slam Torin. I flew across the room and landed on the bookshelf. My shoulder rammed into something hard and white-hot pain ricocheted through me.
I jumped to my feet, but they were gone.
The bastards. I raced to Dad’s side and touched his forehead. It was warm. I placed a finger under his nostrils. He was still breathing. Shaking, I backed away and looked around. I was going to rip their hearts out. All the three of them.
I picked up the books I’d dropped from the shelf with shaking hands, then used the mirror portal and went straight next door.
“Torin?” I yelled.
There was no one in the living room, but the water was running. What kind of a monster claimed to love me and then tried to kill my father behind my back. I burst into his room. At the back of my mind, I knew something was off about his room, but I didn’t bother to check. He was in the shower.
“Come out right now, you piece—” I yanked opened the bathroom door just as he stepped out of the shower. Except it wasn’t Torin. “Eirik?”
“Hey, babe,” he said, flashing his famous boyish smile.
It was the older, more buff Eirik. He had some serious tattoos across his chest and on his arms—and they weren’t runes. I recognized a few Celtic symbols including a triskelion.
“Were you
coming to join me?” he asked.
I blinked. “Wh… how… what are you doing here?”
“What do you mean? I live here.” He pulled me into his arms and lowered his head.
This was not right. This could not possibly be right. I brought my leg up to knee him and lost my balance. I landed on the tiled floor, pain shooting through my tailbone.
A full-blown panic hit. There was no one in the bathroom with me. The shower was dry, which meant no one was in there a second ago.
I was going crazy. I backed out of the room and into the bedroom. It was Torin’s room, his framed motorcycle paintings on the walls. Seconds ago, I could have sworn I’d seen a table with cameras and photographs where the paintings were.
Something was wrong with me.
I glanced out the window and saw Femi pull up in my car. I called out her name, and she looked at me and waved. I raced downstairs and yanked open Torin’s front door only to be met by a throng of people. Neighbors. People from my school. The witches from the shop. I realized the light came from the porch and the sky was dark and starless.
This made no sense. Seconds ago, the sun was still up.
“So sorry for your loss, Raine,” Mrs. Rutledge said, touching my arm.
Loss? Who died? I looked for a familiar face.
“Isn’t it terrible about Torin and his friends?” a familiar voice said from my left. I recognized Kicker and other girls from the swim team.
“Poor Raine,” Sondra said. “Her father killed by her boyfriend.”
Kicker saw me and left the group to give me a hug. “So sorry, Raine.”
My teeth were beginning to chatter. “Have you seen Cora?”
“She was with Eirik in the house.”
Eirik again? Hysteria bubbled to my throat. I was going mad. There was no other explanation. I tried to push past the people and go to my house, but the crowd seemed to grow bigger.
I backpedaled, staggering into Torin’s house. More people stared at me with pitying expressions. I swallowed, but my throat was too tight with fear. My chest hurt with each breath, and my head felt stuffed with horrid images.
This is not real... this is not real… It can’t be real.
I repeated it over and over again. I was having visions, one after another. How was that possible when I wasn’t touching anyone or anything? Someone was screwing with my head. The mirror portal in Torin’s living room was open. I walked through it without caring that the people at the wake could see me.
Cool air slapped my face, and I sucked in a breath. I was on top of a roof. Just like in my first vision. It was still dark, but I recognized the buildings around it and the forests and mountains in the background.
Torin, Echo, and Andris stood on the roof, their heads bowed. No, not bowed. They were staring at something and talking in low tones. I moved closer, but I still couldn’t see what they were looking at. I was getting calmer now that I knew I was having visions, but I wished I knew how to get out of them.
“Torin?” I whispered.
He looked up and straight at me as though he’d heard me, but when his attention shifted, I saw what they were staring at on the roof. Celtic symbols drawn with chalk. They were like the ones on Eirik’s body. Once again, I recognized the triskelion.
“That’s the last one,” a familiar voice said from behind me, and I whipped around.
Buff Eirik walked toward me. He winked as he passed me. I turned and followed him with my eyes. Now the group with Torin had grown larger to about a dozen men and women. Torin’s back was to me, but I recognized the broad shoulders and the shaggy black hair. Where were Echo and Andris?
The moonlight created shadows on the faces of the men and women, but I recognized the triskelion on the back of their hands and on their foreheads. What did this mean? Rita and Gina’s protection amulets also had Celtic symbols.
“Look who decided to join us,” Eirik said, and I followed his eyes to a woman dressed in all black. I couldn’t guess her age, but she had long dark hair and pale skin. She was gorgeous. Her eyes glowed under the moonlight. The group on the roof parted for her, and she went straight to Torin and slipped her arms around his waist.
The next second, they were kissing.
What? I was so going to kill him. Not just him. Her, too. I engaged my strength runes, marched across the roof past the men and women watching them, and raised my fist.
“This is for you, you jackass,” I yelled.
Just before my hand connected with his face, he looked up. I barely stopped before rearranging his nose. It was Torin, yet it wasn’t. Same eyes, same facial structure, same lips, but he was older. Gray peppered the hair at his temples.
I closed my eyes tight, praying for this nightmare to end. Voices reached me, as though from afar, and I cringed. They’re not real… not real… not real…
“What happened?” Torin asked.
“I don’t know. I came back from the store and found her like this,” Femi said. She kept talking, but I tuned her out.
Nothing is real. It’s just a vision.
“I told her to use the portal while I brought her car home,” Femi was saying.
I opened my eyes. Torin squatted beside me. The younger Torin. Was he real or a figment of my imagination? I was on the floor outside my father’s bedroom. My back to the door.
“Raine,” Torin said.
“You’re not real,” I whispered. Torin would have called me Freckles.
He touched his face and his chest. “I’m real and I’m here now,” he said softly. He sat across from me and crossed his legs. He peered at me. “You’re going to be okay.”
“I won’t let you kill my father,” I whispered, my voice breaking. My throat burned and my chest hurt. “I know he’s sick and dying, but it’s not his fault you healed him. I will not let you kill him now.”
“I’d never, ever hurt him. I saved him for you and would do it again if I could,” Torin murmured.
I wanted to believe him so badly. “You were kissing someone else.”
“Feel free to decapitate me if I touch another woman, or man.” He smirked as though laughing at his own joke. I didn’t think it was funny. “There’s no one for me but you, Raine Cooper. And you know it.” He reached out and brushed my cheek. Only then did I realize I’d started to cry. “I love you, Freckles.”
Freckles. “You… called me Freckles.”
“Yes, luv. I called you Freckles.” His voice was velvety soft.
I flung myself into his arms, causing him to lose his balance. He rolled with me on the floor, chuckling.
“Now I know what to say when your visions turn you into a nutcase,” he said, planting a kiss on my nose.
I knew I should take offense to being called a nutcase, but for now, I just wanted him to hold me. I wound my arms around his shoulders, burrowed my face in the crock of his neck, and cried.
I felt him shift as he sat up and then stood. Without breaking his stride, he carried me upstairs. He carefully lowered me onto the bed, his movements gentle. For what seemed like forever, we spooned, his arms wrapped around my waist.
When I stopped crying and shifted to look at him, he grinned. “So I was kissing another woman?”
And I was kissing Eirik. I needed to talk about these visions or I was going to go crazy. “You were older with graying hair.”
He frowned. “I’m never going to gray or grow old, unless I stop using runes.”
“The guy in my vision looks exactly like you, except he’s older. The visions I had of the Seeresses—he was always there. He was like the leader. I couldn’t see his face properly, but I heard his voice. He has a British accent.”
Torin sat up, his jaw tense. “Why didn’t you say something before?”
“Because I wasn’t sure. Remember, my visions were blurry? He was just a shadowy guy with a British accent. Then I saw his eyes and hair, and he looked so much like you I thought he was a relative of yours.”
His eyelids lowered, but I still saw t
he flash in the depth of his eyes. He didn’t like that. “That’s why you kept asking me if I had relatives who looked like me. You should have told me, Raine.”
“I know, but I wasn’t sure if what I was seeing was real or not. The first clear vision I got was when I touched Rita’s amulet.”
“The witch.” He said it like Rita was some vile creature that had crawled from a sewer.
“Yes. Being around them unlocked something. The visions I’ve had since have all been clear. I saw his face clearly for the first time this evening when I was having that vision meltdown. He might look like you, but he’s older. Much older.”
Torin rolled off the bed and disappeared through the portal. Not sure, where he was headed, I went to wash my face. I looked up and my eyes widened. Not again.
A shirtless, smirking Eirik winked at me in the mirror.
I closed my eyes tight, my heart racing. When I opened them, he was gone. Why was I getting visions of him? Why now? I grabbed a towel to dry my face and hands.
“Is this the man you saw?” Torin asked, appearing in the bathroom doorway with an old portrait. It was the same man in my vision, although the painting was not very accurate or well done.
“Yes, that’s him. Who is he?”
Torin walked to my window and stared outside. From the tautness of his shoulders and the way he clenched the portrait, I was sure he wanted to hurl it.
“Torin?”
“I was hoping my mother’s amulet had been stolen, but he must have kept it. The bastard.”
I reacted to the pain in his voice and closed the gap between us. I rubbed his back, everything he’d told me about his mother’s death flashing in my head. “He’s the necromancer who killed your mother.”
He turned and faced me. His eyes shocked me. There was so much rage and torment in them. “Yes, he’s the necromancer who killed my mother.”
“Why is he still al—? Oh. He’s an Immortal,” I whispered.
“And my father,” he finished.
17. EVIL IMMORTAL
Seeress: Book Three (Runes Series) Page 25