It seemed as if all the air had been sucked from the room. How could Madalena know about that?
"I take it you have," Madalena continued. “Everything you have experienced . . . it's your magic, brimming beneath the surface. You're a witch. A very powerful one."
Naomi stared, waiting for her to laugh. But Madalena's face remained grave. Naomi looked up at Alaric. He looked just as serious. She closed her eyes. These people were crazy. She had to get out of here.
"I'm a witch as well," Madalena continued, "Alaric is a vampire. We are part of a group called the Alliance, a group of witches and vampires who've joined together to stop the people who are after you."
They seemed to believe their own words, studying her with intensity.
"We call witches like you Descendants, because you are a direct descendant of the First Witches who ever existed. Your bloodline is mostly pure, dating back thousands of years. In the human world, you have mitochondrial Eve. It would be like finding a human directly descended from her."
Naomi kept her eyes closed, forcing herself to keep her breathing steady. If she got up and left now, maybe they wouldn't stop her. Was the penthouse within hearing distance of other apartments in this building? If necessary, she could scream.
"I know how it sounds—especially to someone who has only known life as a human," Madalena said, her voice rising in urgency. "But I assure you, I'm telling the truth."
"I'm leaving," Naomi interrupted, opening her eyes and getting to her feet. She spoke slowly, trying to keep her tone calm. Why hadn't she left as soon as she woke up? "I will walk out that door. No one will follow me. If you do, I'll go to the police and report you for kidnapping."
Naomi turned on her heel to leave, but Madalena's next words stopped her in her tracks.
"Your parents didn't die in a car crash."
Naomi halted, a chill coiling through her.
"The same people looking for you murdered your parents," Madalena continued.
Naomi whirled to face her, hot tears stinging her eyes.
"Why are you doing this? None of this is true.”
Madalena expelled a sigh, lifting her hand. Naomi watched in horror as a duffel bag on the floor lifted into the air, seemingly of its own accord. A folder slid out of it, sailing through the air to hover before Naomi.
Naomi stumbled back, her hand flying to her mouth. The file followed her. She looked up at the ceiling for any hint of wires—for any logical reason that this was happening. There had to be strings somewhere.
"I'm using magic, Naomi," Madalena said gently, "I didn't want to spring it on you like this, but your life's in danger. If you leave here, they will kill you. Just like they killed your parents. Open the file. It contains proof."
"Madalena, perhaps we shouldn’t—“ Alaric began, but Madalena silenced him with a look.
Shaking, Naomi reached for the hovering file, flipping it open. Several photos slid out, and she caught them before they fell to the ground.
"Oh God," she gasped.
The photos were of dead bodies. She flipped through them, chilled. Each body was inscribed with a marking that resembled the infinity symbol, only there were jagged runic slashes in its center.
She froze when she reached a photo of her parents' dead bodies. They lay on the side of the road, their clothes torn, with the same markings carved into their flesh. There were no other injuries on their bodies.
"Whenever the Order kills someone, they sear their Mark on the victim. It's a warning and a symbol of pride," Madalena said, her voice heavy with bitterness.
A low moan arose from her throat, and she swayed on her feet. Alaric darted forward, steadying her and leading her back to her chair. Naomi leaned forward, pressing her forehead to her knees.
She hadn't seen her parents' bodies until the funeral home, at Kat's insistence. She'd thought Kat didn't want the sight of their bodies to traumatize her, but was this the real reason? Because her parents hadn't died in a car crash?
Naomi thought of the unexplained sensations that had plagued her over the years. The anxiety, the inner turmoil. The weird energy. She'd thought she was crazy.
Maybe she wasn't.
But . . . Madalena's story was impossible. It had to be.
She didn't know how long she sat there, her head against her knees. She was grateful they didn't talk to her, though she felt their concerned gazes on the back of her neck.
Sitting up, she took a deep breath. Information. She needed more information.
"These people who are after me. Why do they want to kill me? Why did they kill my parents?"
"They call themselves Primo Ordo Malejicis. The First Order of Witches. I'm ashamed to say they're made up of only our fellow witches. They hate all other creatures and want to rid the world of them. The stolen artifact—we call it the Incantation Stone—contains a powerful spell capable of unleashing a plague that would wipe out much of the human and vampire population. The Black Plague times a billion."
This story was getting even more ridiculous, but Naomi kept her focus.
"I still don't understand. What does the Incantation Stone have to do with me? Or why my parents were killed?"
"The Stone can only be activated—or destroyed—by pureblood witches like yourself. Or your mother. It's useless without you. We think they tried to get your mother to help locate it and she refused . . . so they killed her."
This was crazy. But Naomi recalled the whispers she'd heard from the artifact; its pull on her senses.
"We want to find and destroy the Stone . . . you can sense it in a way we can't. We need your help."
Chapter 6
Naomi stumbled into the bedroom she'd woken up in, closing the door behind her. She still wanted to leave the penthouse, but feared she wouldn't make it ten feet without passing out from shock.
She'd fled the kitchen after Madalena asked for her help. Neither Madalena nor Alaric had attempted to stop her. She needs time, she'd heard Madalena whisper.
She sank to the floor on shaky legs. Reeling, she pressed her fingertips to her temples.
They're crazy. They have to be, she told herself. I have to get out of here.
But something rooted her to the spot. She forced herself to set aside the gruesome image of her parents' dead bodies and think like an academic, weighing all the options.
Option A. Alaric, Madalena and those intruders in Athens were playing a bizarre prank on her. Maybe Emma had put them all up to it. Maybe there were hidden cameras all over this penthouse to record her reaction.
Naomi could find no logic behind this. It didn't explain the power that surged throughout her body before her apartment shook, nor that blinding light that seemed to come from her hands. And she had seen no strings or any other way Madalena could have made that duffel bag or that file folder sail through the air.
Option B. Alaric and Madalena were in fact kidnappers who'd gotten access to her medical records. If they knew of her mental health history, maybe they thought she was off her rocker enough to believe their story. By making it seem as if her life would be in danger if she left, they were trying to endear themselves to her, acting as if they were the only ones who could protect her. Classic Stockholm Syndrome.
This was slightly more plausible than the prank scenario, but it still seemed unlikely. There was something . . . different about Madalena and Alaric, something she couldn't quite place. But nothing about them seemed sinister. At least, that's what her gut told her.
Which left her with Option C. The craziest option.
They were telling the truth.
The problem with Option C was obvious. Vampires and witches didn't exist. If they did, they would've been discovered by now. Wouldn't they?
Discount nothing, a professor had lectured her, when she had dismissed a classmate's theory of economic development in ancient civilizations. Not until you have all the information. Witches and vampires existing were not economic theories. But she grudgingly had to admit that she didn't have a
ll the information. She had to focus on what she did know.
All her life, she had felt . . . something inside her, like a dormant volcano, on the verge of erupting. It's your magic, brimming beneath the surface, Madalena had said.
Her parents would leave for weeks at a time for research trips when she was a child. Had they been research trips? She'd thought they were hiding something from her when they were alive, but she assumed it was something about her mental state.
The thought of her parents hiding something this monumental from her was a sucker punch in the gut, and tears pricked at her eyes. Her parents were rational and academic to a fault. They scoffed at the depiction of supernatural creatures in television, books and movies; often musing why humans were so preoccupied with such creatures. She'd had to sneak out to watch vampire and werewolf movies with the few childhood friends she had because she knew her parents would scold her.
Even now, she could recall an incident when she was eight with perfect clarity. She'd been certain there was a monster that lived beneath her bed. Her parents had laughed, and her father pulled her onto his lap.
Monsters don't exist, sweetheart, he’d said.
Promise? she had asked. She remembered a flicker—just a flicker—of uncertainty in her father's eyes as he glanced at her mother, whose smile wavered. But he looked down at her with a broad grin and crossed his heart. Promise, he'd whispered.
Had that all been subterfuge?
Her thoughts drifted to the flash of light and her shaking apartment in Athens. She had done that somehow. She knew it in her bones.
When she clamored to her feet, she saw the spectacular view of the sun sinking beneath the London skyline outside her window. How long had she been sitting here?
She moved to the side table by the bed. To her relief, she saw that her cell phone now rested there. Kidnappers wouldn't allow her to have access to the outside world. But they're not kidnappers, a voice whispered in her mind. You know that.
Her phone was alight with missed calls and messages, most of them from Kat. She picked it up, pressing the speed dial button for her aunt's number. Kat answered on the first ring.
"Naomi," Kat breathed. "Thank God. Are you feeling better? I was about to hop on a flight to Athens."
"Is it true?" Naomi demanded.
She clutched the cell phone, shaking. She thought Kat would ask what she was talking about, but a tense silence followed her question, a silence that seemed to stretch into eternity. Naomi tightened her grip on the phone.
"Is it?! she repeated, her last word catching on a sob.
"Yes." The word was a hair's breadth above a whisper, but it reverberated in her ears like a gunshot.
Dazed, Naomi ended the call, letting her phone slip from her fingers to the floor. She ignored it when it rang. Kat didn't have to ask her questions . . . because she knew exactly what she was talking about. She knew. Which could only mean that Madalena spoke the truth. Witches, vampires . . . her parents. Her.
Oh my God. The room seemed to spin around her. Her entire body began to shake, so violently that she wondered if she was having a seizure. A multitude of emotions seized her; shock, anger, fear. It was similar to what she'd felt the night Alaric had come into her apartment; a vibrating hum beneath her skin that rose to a deafening roar.
"Naomi!" Madalena's worried voice came from right outside the door. "Your emotions are connected to your magic . . . you need to calm down. You need to breathe."
Naomi came back to herself. The walls of the bedroom were vibrating.
She drew in air to her lungs, willing herself to calm down. Immediately, the quaking stopped. Naomi looked down at her hands, horrified. She had done that. Again. How?
She stalked over to the door, swinging it open. Madalena stood there, Alaric hovering behind her. They studied her with a combination of panic, awe, and worry. Naomi blinked back her tears, leveling Madalena with a hard gaze.
"Tell me everything."
My mother, Elizabeth Feldman, was a Descendant of the First Witches. She was adopted by a human family who knew what she was. Elizabeth's parents—my grandparents—remain unknown, but it's believed they gave her to a human family for her safety. Elizabeth and my father, Sam, a fellow witch, placed something called a Locking spell on me. It's a binding spell that nullified my magic, making it seem like I was an ordinary human. While this guaranteed my safety, making me undetectable from the Order, the effects of my suppressed magic on my mental state has been acute, hence the anxiety, the panic attacks, the sense that something was missing. I could perform magic in Athens because my life was in danger; the Locking spell can only be broken under those circumstances. Now, my magic is permanently unlocked.
Naomi looked down at the notes she'd written in the notebook that Madalena had given her. She thought writing down what Madalena told her would help make sense of all this. It was something she did when trying to solve a complex research problem during her years in academia.
Only then, she wasn't writing about magic and witches. Naomi pressed her hand to her mouth, stifling a hysterical laugh at the thought.
"I can't fathom how overwhelming this must be for you," Madalena said. "Take some time to let this all settle in."
Naomi looked up. She was in Madalena's small private study; Madalena sat perched on an armchair opposite her, studying her with concern. Naomi had almost forgotten she was there.
"It'll never settle in," Naomi whispered, "my whole life I thought something was wrong with me—and my parents never corrected me. They took me to doctors and therapists when the whole time they knew what was happening."
"I know I can't speak for them . . . but I imagine they wanted to keep you safe."
"Well, it didn't work," Naomi said bitterly, setting down her notebook. "This Order still found me. So did you guys. How?"
"We didn't know for sure you were a Descendant . . . but we suspected you were. We're keeping at least a dozen suspected Descendants under surveillance. The Order's probably keeping a similar surveillance pattern. We don't know how long they've been watching you. We look for witches whose parents have died under mysterious or violent circumstances, and who exhibit little or no magic despite their lineage. They often have a history of mental problems because of their suppressed magic."
Naomi stared at her, reeling. She didn't know what disturbed her more, the fact that her background was text book, or that there were others out there like her.
"To confirm your status, we do want to perform you a blood test, with your consent," Madalena continued. "There's an ancient genetic marker only a Descendant would have."
Naomi nodded absently; a blood test was the only rational part of all this.
"And the Incantation Stone?" Naomi pressed. "How did they find out about it?"
"For many generations, the Incantation Stone was considered myth. Like . . . Atlantis in the human world. Around forty years ago, a historian—a witch—found evidence that it might actually exist. The Order formed around the same time to hunt for it. They've been keeping track of archeological digs all over the world, as have we. Unfortunately, they got to it first. They must have better intelligence than we do," she added, with a trace of frustration.
Naomi studied her. There was something she wasn't telling her.
"The Order has the Stone, so they don't need me to find it. They just need me to activate the spell. Why do they want to kill me?"
Madalena hesitated.
"Madalena, please," she pressed. "Tell me."
"You're a historian. You know what ancient rituals were like," Madalena replied, after a long pause.
She did know what they were like. Horror coursed through Naomi's veins at the realization. Madalena met her eyes, grim.
"To activate the spell, the Stone requires the willing blood sacrifice of a Descendant. Your life."
Chapter 7
Alaric hovered by the doorway of the study, listening to the low hum of Madalena and Naomi's voices from the adjacent room.
When Naomi demanded answers, Madalena gave him a look indicating she wanted to talk to Naomi alone. He'd left them to head into the main study, where he found the other Alliance members, Casimir and Elias.
Behind him, Casimir sat at the large mahogany desk at the far end of the study, his silver eyes trained on his laptop screen.
Elias lounged on the couch, his legs propped on the coffee table in front of him, a large platter of fish and chips on his lap. Elias, a two-hundred-year-old vampire, had been to London many times throughout his long existence, even living here for a spell, but he was behaving like a human tourist with his insistence on eating local food. Unlike most vampires, Elias enjoyed eating human food, and indulged often.
"What are they saying?" Elias asked, nibbling on a chip.
"Naomi's explaining everything to her. Our existence, her existence. The Order. The Incantation Stone," Alaric replied. Madalena must have used a Silencing spell; he could barely make out their words, but he could guess what they were discussing.
"Does she think we're full of shit?" Elias asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Of course. She almost walked out on us. I would have done the same if I grew up with the same human myths," Alaric said, "it'll take her some time to accept all this."
"Where do you think we lost her?" Elias asked, with a wry grin. "'Witches and vampires exist', or 'We kind of need you to help us save the world'."
In spite of himself, Alaric grinned. Elias' joviality could annoy him at times, but it was also refreshing. Elias set down his platter on the coffee table, leaning back to stretch out his long limbs.
"Now that you've brought Naomi here, shouldn't you be on to your next assignment? I overheard Madalena on the phone with our surveillance team in the States. There's a potential Descendant in New York that we—“
"No," Alaric said, the word almost coming out as a snarl. He paused, taking a moment to collect himself. "The Order is still after Naomi. My assignment here isn't complete."
Shadow Descendant (Descendants Book 1) Page 4