“I told you that the first day we met, that someone other than Gareth was watching you.” Harley commented.
“You said that vampires could put on glamours, disguise themselves to resemble someone I knew.” At her nod of consent, I turned back to Gareth. “Before all this started, how many times did you come see me? I mean, from the first time I saw you in the lab.”
“I came to you twice in the night and once at work. How many times did you think I came to you?” If he had hackles, they would have been raised. As it was, his jaw was clenched and he was grinding his teeth. His eyes were a shade darker.
“There was someone in the parking lot the day I met you, then again at my house that night. Then someone was at Written the first night that I was there.”
“I knew that was the other one.” Harley put in again.
“So he came to me twice, starting at the first, so something about Gareth and me together, not just at the lab is what’s bothering him. Are you sure he’s not just the jealous type?”
He shot me a dirty look and I shrugged.
“So, to get on with my theory. I think that he has someone working with him, someone who can see things happening, taking shape, but not someone who can see too far into the future, because if that was the case, then they would have just stopped us from the very beginning, long before I even came to work for Gareth. It may have been the one that broke into the lab and my house, but I don’t think so. I think he has…a henchman, for lack of a better word, to do that kind of dirty work.”
“Well, the future isn’t etched in stone, its fluid. Decisions are made that affect it daily. Someone could see a possible future, and make choices to alter it. So if he had a clairvoyant, they could have seen you going to work for Gareth, but not becoming involved with him. Then the day you two met, which seems to be the turning point, changed the future yet again. Maybe the two of you working together, not just being together, is what he fears. I wish we had our own clairvoyant. Well, we do, if you are a sorcerer. You haven’t had any visions, have you?” Teagan asked me, her eyes lighting with excitement.
“I’m going to start having visions? I can’t take much more of this.”
“Anyway, what I’m getting at is this; if his pet clairvoyant saw the two of you working together to…wait, what are you working towards? What doesn’t he want you to work on?” Teagan asked, confusion replacing excitement.
I looked at Gareth, who moved his shoulders in resignation.
You might as well tell them everything.
“Gareth is trying to find a cure for vampirism.”
Harley gave a low whistle. “That’s why he’s so angry.”
“I’ve been working on this for almost two centuries. It has to be more than that.”
“And it turns out, quite coincidentally, that we’re getting close. We were both working on the same hypothesis, although not together.” I put in, but Gareth shook his head.
“I’ve been working on the immortality gene longer than you were.” He argued, still shaking his head.
“But my work was done out in the open…”
Harley cut me off, saying, “Oh who cares who did it first, or what kind of security surrounded the research. You haven’t had the kind of technology that could actually make it happen, and now you have a geneticist that is a latent sorcerer that you are joined with, bonded with. The two of you together are a potent combination. You can link minds, she can manipulate damn near anything she’ll want to, and you have a big fancy lab at your disposal. How have we not figured this out before now?”
Gareth sat, his elbows on knees, hands clasped. He looked dejected. I laid a hand on his arm. He looked at me, his eyes sad again.
“I told you I was bad for you,” he whispered.
“Don’t start that shit again, Gareth. I swear I will…” I stopped at his smile, which threw me for a loop.
“You’ll what?” he prompted, lifting a hand to my face and cupping my scarred cheek.
“I’ll turn you into a toad or something equally repellant. I’m sure I’ll figure out something.” I mumbled, trying to give him a good glare and failing.
“Although we think you two are very adorable together, can we get back on track?” Teagan said as she stood and stretched.
“Yeah, it’s getting close to midnight, and we have a ritual to observe. Okay, if he knows how strong you are together, maybe he has seen you coming up with a cure.”
“Well, Harley, that would make sense if we were even close, but we’re not. Most of what we have, he would most likely want to get his hands on for his own nefarious purposes than what they’re intended for, like the prototype sunscreen and contacts. That would give him access to daylight.” Gareth stood also and moved across to the windows as he spoke, looking out into the night.
“Where do you keep the prototypes anyway?” I was curious. The lab was heavily guarded, especially now after what happened, with the newest and most high-tech security systems that money can buy.
“I have them in a very safe place. I don’t keep a large amount of sunscreen at the office, just enough for R&D, and the contacts are only one of two pairs. The other is locked in a safe that only I know the location of and the formulas for both are completely hidden. Not even the heads of the projects know how to get to them.”
“This is what I’m getting at though. Maybe his pet clairvoyant, as Teagan put it, has had a glimpse of a possible future where you and Anna find the cure.”
Her words hung in the air between us, and it was so obvious that I didn’t know how we hadn’t gotten it before this. It made complete sense. The only thing that didn’t is why he was waiting to pull out all the stops to destroy us, or at least attempt to. That, though, was going to be a conversation for another day.
“I’m tired, it’s been a long day, and I think that my brain was hit not only by wicked brain freeze but also by a stray bolt of lightning. I have to go to sleep and regenerate.” I stood and stretched, my words ending in a yawn. I saw Teagan’s face drop, and I stopped in mid-stretch to look at her. “What?”
She looked at Harley, who lifted her shoulders and tilted her head in a curious gesture.
“Well, we were wondering if you wanted to come with us. The woods are protected along with the house, but I guess it doesn’t matter too much, now that you’re Wonder Woman.”
“You mean, to a ritual? I don’t know what it means though. I don’t know anything about witchcraft.”
“This is how you learn. My first ritual was Samhain. That’s a doozy to start off with.” Harley explained.
I considered it for a moment. I would like to learn about it. The Catholic part of me, the voice of my mother in my head, almost stopped me from going. Almost. I hadn’t been a practicing Catholic for a long time, and whereas I believed in God, I could believe in other things, too. I looked at Gareth.
“Go on if you want. I have some things here that I can work on.” I went over to him and wrapped my arms around his waist, pressing my cheek to his chest, and he was so warm. It would be weird to be in bed with him tonight and have warm skin pressed against me. I had gotten quite used to his cold skin.
“Don’t worry, it won’t last much longer.” He bent his head and whispered in my ear, and I laughed quietly.
“I like having your mind back open to me. Especially when it’s those types of thoughts in there.”
I leaned up and kissed his chin, and he bent his head to take my mouth in a slow, drugging kiss that had my legs shaking from more than fatigue.
“We’re burning moonlight, folks, can we get going?” Teagan had her hand on the door knob, dancing in her impatience to be off.
“Let me grab my jacket.” I said, and they both laughed.
“Sure, although you won’t need it for long.”
“It is just going to be you three, isn’t it?” Gareth cocked an eyebrow at them, his voice questioning. I caught wariness on him again, and I wondered about it, along with the jacket thing.
“Yes, just the three of us. Imbolc is a quiet ritual for the most part, not like Samhain or Beltane. Only true witches celebrate.” Harley assured him.
“What would it matter if there are more people there?” I asked, shrugging into my jacket.
“Oh, you’re in for a surprise.” Teagan winked at me.
I was getting real tired of surprises. I hoped this one wouldn’t be a huge surprise.
Chapter Fifteen
It was a surprise. One I definitely wasn’t prepared for.
We left through the side garage door and stopped at Harley’s car. They grabbed two bags and jackets, but didn’t put them on, although it had to be close to thirty degrees outside.
We walked into the woods, and I trailed behind them, amazed to find myself even walking through the woods at night. I tended to stay out of the woods at night. Ever since I was a teenager, when I thought it was just that good old imagination acting up on me and I had seen what I thought was a werewolf at the edge of a clearing near my house, I had not gone near anything wooded or not lit up.
I could hear them talking ahead of me, and I thought I caught the word ‘skyclad’, but it had no meaning to me. Then I heard Teagan laugh really loudly, and it was disconcerting in the night quiet woods. I caught up to them, looking nervously over my shoulder.
“What are you two laughing about?” I huffed out crystal breath, which hung eerily in the air, even though there had been wind blowing when we entered the woods.
“Nothing, nothing. We’re almost there. We didn’t want to cast the circle too close to the house, in case someone came creeping by, so we went a little farther than usual.” Harley said over her shoulder as she ducked under a low hanging branch.
“Cast a circle? What does that mean?”
Teagan stumbled over a root and cursed a blue streak, hopping on one foot while holding the injured one. “We cast a circle to protect us while we perform our rituals, like protecting the house or calling to the Gods.” Her words were choppy from jumping up and down, but I got the gist.
“Is it hard to do?”
“Something tells me it won’t be hard for you, but you won’t be doing much tonight. You’re just observing and lending extra oomph to the ritual.” Harley said, stepping into a clearing that was almost a perfect circle, with a flat granite rock almost directly in the center.
I watched as they pulled stuff out of the bags, recognizing candles in yellow, green and white, a white cloth, and what looked like a bag of herbs. There were more items, and I thought I saw one of them take a knife from a wooden case, but they were both balls of energy that flitted around the dark clearing, illuminated only by the full moon shining above.
When they had all the preparations ready, that’s when I got my surprise.
I was standing there innocently enough, watching them do whatever it was they were doing, when Harley lifted her tunic over her head, and Teagan pulled her hoodie off. I was struck speechless, and couldn’t even blink until they started to take off their pants.
“What the hell?” I stammered, shock making my eyes wide. Teagan stopped short of pushing her pants down, and gave me a blank look, but Harley, who was completely naked by this time, laughed.
“This is what skyclad means. We perform our rituals in the all-together.”
“Yes, and it’s really cold out here, so we don’t want to spend too much time freezing.” Teagan put in as she continued disrobing.
“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll sit this one out, ok?”
They took pity on me and agreed, so I moved over to a low rock that was far enough away that I didn’t intrude, but close enough that the light from their candles cast a warm yellow glow almost to my feet.
I watched as they cast their circle, and I was amazed to see a line of blue flame erupt from the edge of the knife I had caught a glimpse of earlier. Harley etched a circle in the ground with the flames, which flared white before turning to a white ash circle encompassing the women. They both moved to a cauldron that sat on the flat granite rock, which I took to be an altar.
They lit the white candle there, and both spoke together, their voices strong.
“Amidst the darkness the Lady is stirring,
Gently awakening from frozen dreams,
All the world has awaited this moment, the return of the maiden
And her promise of oncoming Spring.”
I watched the rest of the ritual, captivated. The energy was building in the clearing, the air currents taking on an electric blue tinge that I wasn’t sure only I could see. I closed my eyes and listened to their chanting, their voices melodic and in perfect harmony. The air stirred in the clearing, where before it had been calm, and I caught the scent of spring-time flowers, almost like I was standing in the middle of a florist shop.
“Behold the God and Goddess,
Lord of the forest and his Bride,
Once again the Earth is blessed
With life anew inside.
Seeds shall soon begin to sprout
And creatures shall young bear
For this is the Promise, the Cycle of Life
That is born of the love They share.”
They continued their chants and I listened, my fascination knowing no bounds. I didn’t think I could stand naked in a clearing, but their words touched something in me that had lain dormant along with my powers. They were lovely in their meaning, about nurturing the earth and blessings given to family and friends that I thought that this was the meaning I had been missing in my life.
I thought about Gareth and wondered if he was part of this. Vampire lore taught us that they were children of the Devil, but I could find no trace of the Devil in Gareth. Were vampires just a genetic anomaly?
Falling back on the notion that the human brain had untold resources that science had yet to crack made sense, other than the blood for nourishment, but we all needed blood to live. We just didn’t have to ingest it. If there was a trigger that was activated, or whatever word you wanted to use, when a vampire was changed, couldn’t that account for the extra powers?
Humans carried around genes and vectors for almost everything, and this was why it was so hard to pin down a cure for anything but the simplest diseases.
Science didn’t know what caused a gene to mutate and produce cancer, so it was possible that there was a vampire gene. Maybe that was the connection to XP. Just possibly it was a different mutation of the same gene.
I must have been lost in my thoughts because before I knew it, Harley was standing in front of me, hurriedly throwing on clothes. I caught a glimpse of a tattoo of a pentacle on her hip before she pulled her leggings up.
“Don’t you hear that?” she asked, her movements almost frantic.
I looked at her with a puzzled expression on my face, and then I did hear what she was talking about. A long, low growl was coming from the backside of the clearing, and I peered into the shadows created by the low hanging branches of the pine trees, but couldn’t see anything.
“It’s probably just a dog.” I shrugged, but there was something in that growl, something almost human. I closed my eyes and opened myself up to see if I could get any emotion off of the thing. Warning, and wariness, but nothing else, no hunger or fear.
“I’m not hanging around to find out. It’s a full moon, so I am heading back to the house.” Teagan yanked her hoodie over her head, punching her arms through the arm holes and bending over to grab a bag. They must have concluded their ritual while I was daydreaming.
“Whatever it is it’s just watching us. I don’t pick up on any danger from it, but I agree. I’m not sticking around.” A vision came to me then, one of a huge wolf standing on two legs, one arm, leg, paw, whatever, braced on the pine closest to the clearing, as if it was the only thing holding it back from coming into the clearing. Its fur was black as the night surrounding it, its eyes green lanterns piercing the darkness enveloping us now that all the candles were extinguished.
Move slowly, don’t run. It’s
watching us.
I had no idea if werewolves could understand words spoken aloud, and I knew that they could read minds, but since I blocked him, and trusted the two of them to do the same I figured it would be better to speak to their thoughts. They both nodded and we started to walk slowly out of the clearing. It took everything in me to turn my back on what was out there, but I had no choice. I didn’t want it to know that I saw it.
I called to Gareth, my mind screaming to him, and as we put our feet onto the path that led out of the clearing, he was there. It had taken him less than three seconds to cover the three hundred feet from house to clearing.
“Go. I’ll handle this.” His voice was strained, but he pushed us in the direction of the path.
“No, I want to stay with you. Or come back with us, leave it alone.” I begged him, grabbing his arm as the growls turned into a crescendo of sharp barks, a warning sign if there ever had been one.
“Get inside, Anna. Take her.” He said to Teagan and Harley, who nodded and grabbed my arms. I struggled against them, but together they dragged me back to the house. I tried to get into Gareth’s head, but he shut me out so I tried to read the emotions in the clearing, but all I could get from either one of them was the smoky yellow-grey of caution.
They got me into the house, and I paced back and forth in front of the windows, casting mutinous glances at Harley and Teagan.
My worry for Gareth was palpable, and it threatened to choke me. I had no clue why the werewolf had been there; of all the clearings in all the woods in New Hampshire, why did he pick ours? Or had he just been out for a run and scented us on the wind and came to investigate?
Whatever brought him here, my life was now out there with him, and for the first time since this morning I wished that I was a vampire, so that I could be out there with Gareth, watching his back.
“He’ll be fine, Anna.” Teagan gave me a pat on my back, and I turned on her.
“Oh, he’ll be fine? That’s why a sorcerer had to save his life from another werewolf? I thought that it was very hard to kill vampires!” I screamed to the rafters, and I caught a worried glance between the two of them.
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