Enlightened (Love and Light Series)

by Melissa Lummis

  “There’s no way out. You have to be able to teleport. Not everyone can do that.” With stiff legs, Patrick got up from his perch. The stone walls echoed the muted taps of his dress Oxfords. Pushing his tweed jacket out of the way, he tucked his hands in his pants pockets. He could have been preparing to give a lecture, except for the tortured look on his face. When he faced Rachel, the lantern cast deep marionette-like lines around his mouth, and his eyes gleamed with a watery quality. She waited for him to continue, furiously trying to remember her last attempts at teleporting—not a successful day. She’d ended up with a splitting headache and no fruits to show for her labor.

  “Is there a point to this?” She sighed, frustrated with herself.

  “Yes. I’m hoping to avert an even worse disaster. I hope you survive.” Patrick lowered himself with care to a squatting position beside her. “But if I can stop this whole thing from happening—well, I had to make a choice.” He shook his head in a beleaguered way. “Not that I’ve been very good in the choices department.” He was a man defeated, resigned, with a heavy brokenness about him. He’d been like a grandfather, since her real grandfather died long before she was born.

  A genuine lump formed in her throat. “You don’t have to do this, Patrick. We’ll help you—you know that. Nan will do what-ever—”

  “No. Can’t take any chances.” He got up, rubbing his hip. His movements were jerky as if rehearsed. “I’m going to go now and don’t want you to panic. I trust Katie and the rest of the coven will figure this out and get you out of here.” More to himself he said, “I’ve learned that much.” A mindless hand rubbed his bald spot. “I had to distract her. She would choose you over Loti.”

  Rachel sprang up, blue zig-zags streaked at him. He waved it off.

  “Now stop that. You’re going to get yourself hurt.” Rachel shot another one at him.

  Patrick’s face turned stern, the way it had when she was a toddler. He jerked both hands in an up and outward direction, and she froze mid-strike.

  “Listen to me very carefully, Rachel. I need you to remember something.” Her eyes followed him, but the rest of her was suspended in mid-air. “Ask your grandmother about Purgatory.” He touched her cheek. “This is important.” A tear pooled in the corner of his eye. “Ask her if she ever figured out how she escaped.” And he gestured, disappearing.

  As Rachel collapsed to the floor, blue lightning struck the ice cream scoop. A glowing blob of melted rock dripped down the side, solidifying as it puddled on the floor.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~

  The silver net couldn’t have weighed more than a couple pounds, but it immobilized Wolf. He managed to tuck his chin and get his hair between the silver and his face. One ear still sizzled against it. Burnt and bloody hands balled against his chest as he curled around them. The weave pattern burned on his face was healing quicker than normal. The van slowed down, stopped, and then jerked forward. There weren’t any windows to look out of, so he couldn’t see where they were going if he wanted to. As it was, he had to be careful not to move too much.

  A long, grinding metallic and whirring sounded as sheet metal rattled. While it was still going on, the van lurched and stopped. Wolf tensed as the engine stilled, and the van rocked, doors opening and banging closed. The back doors opened wide to a vast darkness and two men in jeans dragged him from the van. He tried to get his feet under him, but they held him like a rolled up carpet. He gritted his teeth as silver seared his face all over. He bucked a few times, but their grip didn’t loosen. Not vampire, but not human either. Too strong. They smelled like dog, so maybe lycanthrope? He hated werewolves. So unpredictable and stubborn. As best he could tell, they carried him through a door and down several flights of steps. His head smacked into a railing and the wall more than once.

  “Gentlemen, in here, please.” The voice from the shop rang a bell, but he couldn’t place it. They passed through another door, and then it slammed shut.

  “Set him in the chair.”

  He knew that voice. The thugs dropped him in a wooden chair and walked around behind him, keeping one hand on each of his shoulders. Wisps of smoke rose from his face as the silver settled down. He winced as he peered through the net, but this kind of pain was his forte, much easier to handle than other kinds. The room was empty save for two men and a lone table with things on it he didn’t like—scalpels, silver chains, and metal objects he couldn’t make sense of.

  “Mr. Arrighi. Welcome. Patrick, may we remove the silver, so our guest can relax?”

  Patrick Lynch walked around the chair mumbling under his breath as the two men stepped aside to allow Patrick to cast a magic circle. Wolf peered through the silver as he came around in front.

  “You can take the silver off.” Patrick walked past Wolf.

  “This was the one who helped you and Joe that day?” Wolf spoke to Patrick, who stopped in his tracks, a stricken look on his face. “What did he make you promise, Patrick?” Wolf never took his eyes off the old man as he turned to Wolf, opened his mouth, hesitated, then closed it.

  “Go, Mr. Lynch. You have other duties to perform,” the eerily familiar voice said.

  Patrick looked shell-shocked at Wolf, and as if he couldn’t bare it any longer, he turned away. His head hanging, he plodded toward the door.

  “Our Patrick is a bit frail these days.” The vampire stepped closer and Wolf recognized him. Patrick stole through the door that snicked shut behind him with a final, metal click.

  “Modore.”

  The goons lifted the silver and Wolf tried to leap from the chair, but it was as if the air itself held him in place. It probably did. He strained against the thickness all around him, but the more he fought it the more difficult it was to move. On impulse, he relaxed and found he could make small adjustments within the chair, but not get up. Each man grabbed an arm, and Wolf strained to keep them from clamping silver cuffs over his wrists. Fresh smoke and the smell of burnt flesh drifted up. He should have been able to throw them across the room now that the silver net was gone. Patrick must have cast a pretty serious spell to keep him not only in the chair, but weak.

  “Now that you are settled, we can begin.” Modore smiled serenely as he fingered the instruments on the table.

  “What do you want?” Wolf gritted his teeth.

  “Loti.”

  Wolf’s heart slammed in his chest, but he knew how to heel fear. His eyes narrowed and his jaw flexed. “Why?”

  Modore turned back to Wolf, his shoulder-length hair fluttering around his long, gaunt face that crinkled up into a bizarrely welcoming smile. In one hand he brandished a silver scalpel and in the other dangled a delicate length of silver chain.

  “She is valuable to me.”

  Wolf kept his eyes on the scalpel while he reinforced the shield between him and Loti.

  “Why? What do you want with her?” Wolf stalled.

  “Please, we’ve known each other off and on these past few hundred years.” He actually pouted. “You seem to have forgotten me.” Modore glided across the concrete floor to Wolf. “But, then again, you haven’t been playing our game lately. Are you no longer taking part in your precious Culper Ring crusades? Did you give up trying to save the world, Wolf?”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  The scalpel went rigid in Modore’s hand, but his smile was indulgent. “I want to walk in the sun.”

  Blood pounded in his ears. “Loti can’t make you walk in the sun.” This beating heart thing is annoying.

  “Are you so sure she cannot? Because I am sure she can. But that is not my only use for her. There are many benefits to bonding with a Light Walker.”

  “Then why’d you send one of your goons to kill her?”

  Modore held the scalpel a hair’s breadth from Wolf’s forehead. “I didn’t, but,” he bared his teeth, “you may want to speak to your old friends in Washington about that. I have a feeling the Culper Ring was a bit desperate after their prize agent died.” He straightened up
at Wolf’s obvious confusion. “Oh, you didn’t know David was an agent? I believe he was sent to prevent you from finding her.” Modore waved an absent-minded hand. “But you’ll have to confirm that with them, of course.”

  Modore pressed the scalpel to Wolf’s forehead, a thin line of blood welling around the blade as Wolf’s skin sizzled like bacon.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~

  Patrick’s face contorted as Wolf’s bellow breached the heavy metal door. Clawing at his chest, he staggered into the wall, groping for support. He sucked air in and out like a woman in labor, his face twisting and going slack. Tears streamed down his wrinkled face.

  Fiamette twisted her hands in her lap as Loti clutched her forehead, screaming. Calisto and Margarite sat on either side of her on the couch, bracing her with their arms. She screamed again.

  “Can you hear his thoughts?” Calisto whispered in her ear.

  She shook her head, panting as the white hot pain bit between her blinded eyes. She grasped the shield she’d constructed, but no matter how she contorted it, stretched it, imbued it with more energy, she couldn’t dampen the pain. Wolf’s agony twisted her mouth and his regret and sadness overflowed her eyes. Oh, Wolf. What are they doing to you? Please talk to me.

  He was there, but not communicating.

  “We need to find him before they kill him.” She wept.

  “Modore won’t kill him, I told you. Not until he has you. You have to stay at the ashram. Let us find him, Loti,” Fiamette begged.

  Loti shook her head. “I have to go to him. If this Modore wants me, then I’ll go.”

  “No.” Fiamette slapped her leg. “That’s what he wants. Once he has you, he’ll kill Wolf.”

  “Why?” Loti lowered shaking hands from her pale face.

  “He wants you. And that means he has to get rid of Wolf.” Fiamette squeezed Loti’s hands.

  “But why doesn’t he just kill him instead of torturing him?” Another searing pain shot through a cheek. She grabbed at the spot, clenching her chin to her chest, howling.

  “Because you’ll die too.” Margarite whispered, squeezing her arm tighter around Loti’s back, one hand on Loti’s leg. “Remember? Jyotika and Acacius?”

  Another withering pain slashed down the other cheek. “Calisto.” She choked. “We have to try something.”

  “He wants us to panic. We have to wait for the rest of Katie’s coven and move together.” Calisto rubbed Loti’s back as she shivered. “Unfortunately, I have not heard from our Washington friends.”

  Loti moaned.

  Loti

  Wolf’s voice in her head was faint, far away.

  Wolf—even her voice in their heads sounded weak.

  Make your shield stronger.

  I’ve tried.

  Don’t come. It’s what he wants.

  I can’t leave you

  He won’t kill me

  How do you know?

  No response.

  Wolf!

  “I can’t get ahold of Rachel, and she should have been back here an hour ago.” Katie ran up to them, snapping her cell shut.

  “The signal here is poor and intermittent. Use the house phone,” Margarite said.

  “I did. She’s not answering and that’s not like her. I need to go back to the house.” Katie spun around and trotted toward the foyer.

  “Wait, Katie.” Calisto jumped from the couch and followed Katie. “Don’t go alone. We’ll all go. We have to go to Lewiston anyway. We’ll figure out where he is and get him back.”

  “I can find him,” Loti’s voice shook. “I’m going with you.” She stumbled to her feet. Whatever Modore was doing to Wolf, he had taken a break

  “No.” Calisto’s eyes narrowed with a fierceness as he spun around. “Stay put.”

  “He got to me while I was here before,” Loti argued. Even through the fog of pain, her eyes snapped.

  “That’s because—” Margarite began.

  “No, he was going after Wolf regardless, if what Fiamette told us is true.” Loti’s tone left no room for debate. “He wants Wolf dead, so he can bond with me.”

  Calisto’s jaw clenched and unclenched. Margarite stood up from the couch, looking intently from Calisto to Loti.

  “I can find him, Calisto.” Loti’s body went rigid.

  Katie stood in the archway between the living room and kitchen, tapping her fingers on her crossed arms. “Either way, let’s get going. I can call the rest of the coven on the road and get things moved to my place. You’re sure he’s in Lewiston, Loti?”

  Loti nodded. “I think he’s further out than your place, but, yes, it feels close.”

  “All right. Then let’s get going.” Calisto made up his mind. “But you stick with us and the plan. Don’t go running off on some suicide mission.”

  Loti walked stiff-legged with her hands hovering over throbbing cheeks. It wasn’t subsiding at all; it throbbed and burned, and she could hardly breathe.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~

  Katie turned the key in the brass door knob, shoving her front door open.

  “Rachel? Honey?” she called.

  Her keys jangled into the red and yellow glass bowel by the door as she dropped her bag on the foyer bench and ran through the living room. Richard and Theresa, two of her coven members, followed her into the foyer.

  “She’s not here,” Katie shrilled from the den.

  Theresa and Richard ran into the den, and Katie stood in front of the cherry wood desk, one hand twisting a diamond-stud earring.

  “Where could she have gone? Do you think we missed her, and she’s on her way back to the ashram?”

  “I’m sure she’s fine, Katie.” Theresa patted her arm.

  “I don’t understand.” Katie stepped passed the desk and wandered around the room, one hand pressed into her low back and the other worrying her mouth. She gazed up at the pictures and diplomas on the walls, hers and her late husband Joe’s. Turning back, she noticed the pink box marked “Crystals” still sitting there. She walked around the desk, running her fingers over the smooth cardboard. Out of years of habit, she picked up the gold framed picture of her Joe, touched the glass, and then set it back down. Turning to the credenza, she stopped short and reached for the small cloth bags lying in a heap. Verbena, rowan, datura. She picked up the bags of herbs.

  “Katie?” Richard stood on the other side of the desk. She whirled around with the bags clutched in her hands.

  “Something’s wrong. The herbs I sent her for are still here.”

  There was a knock on the front door, and Katie ran around the desk and out the door. Calisto walked into the living room, Margarite and Loti on his heels as Katie waved the cloth bags.

  “She’s missing, Calisto. I know something’s wrong. These are the herbs I sent her for.”

  Loti took a bag out of her hand, turned it over in hers. Verbena. She stretched it open and stuck her nose in. Sweet, musky. Loti sneezed, and the powdery stuff flew up her nose.

  “Ow, ow.” She rubbed at her stinging nose.

  Calisto was a blur as he rushed to the foyer, waving his hand in front of his nose as if to chase away a bad odor.

  “Give me that, Loti. You’re probably sensitive to it, now. With the bond.” Katie snatched the open bag out of her hands, pulling the cotton strings tight.

  “Why?”

  “Vampires are allergic to verbena, or vervain as we used to call it in the old world.” Calisto coughed.

  “Why? Is it like garlic?”

  “That’s a myth.” Calisto ventured cautiously back into the living room.

  “Will it kill you?” She took the handkerchief Theresa held out to her. Loti had never met the middle-aged woman before, so she figured she must be a new member of the coven. “Thank you,” she said and then blew her nose and rubbed fiercely.

  “No, but it will burn and the pain is immobilizing. It takes a full day’s sleep to recover from it, too. It’s worse if you actually inhale it. Feels like your lungs are on fire.” Calisto made
a disgusted face.

  “Rachel, Calisto. She’s missing.” Katie waved the vervain in his face as he ventured back into the room. He jerked his chin back wrinkling his nose.

  Someone banged on the front door. Theresa ran to answer it. Loti collapsed on the familiar green couch, stroking her nose with the embroidered handkerchief. Guided, Hammer, Professor, and Fiamette poured into Katie’s living room, followed by most of Calisto’s nest and the rest of Katie’s coven. Without any warning, Katie clutched her head and fell on the floor. Loti, Calisto, and Guided grabbed for her.

  “Are you—”

  “Shhhhh,” she hissed through clenched teeth.

  “Oh Goddess, why, Patrick?” Katie’s hysterical cry pierced the room. “Why are you doing this? Why?” She jerked with broken-hearted sobs, curling around herself.

  Loti dropped to her knees beside Katie, clutching at her hands. The thin, soft skin of her wrinkled hands, once so soothing, was now jacked with fear.

  “Patrick? Where’s Rachel?” Loti whispered in the old woman’s ear.

  “A cave, somewhere in the mountains. He set a beacon so I can find it. He says we have to hurry.” She sobbed. “He wasn’t counting on the rain.” With panic-stricken eyes, she climbed to her feet. “We have to go. I’m taking the coven. It’s going to take all of us. The cave is near a lead deposit.”

  Richard’s mouth fell open. “Oh my god.”

  Loti scrambled to her feet. “What does that mean?”

  “It means we’re going to have a very hard time getting her out.” At Loti’s confused expression, Calisto added, “Lead is a barrier for magic, Loti. Just like lead can block radio frequencies, it can block magic.”

  Loti nodded, the situation sinking in. “I know iron interferes, so lead makes sense.” Loti’s face paled, but not just with fear. She was sick of this—sick of being afraid and sick of hiding and sick of the people she loved being used as pawns.

  “Go. Go save her, Nanny.” She balled her hands into fists and gritted her teeth. “And we’ll find Wolf.” Katie nodded and ran for the foyer, her coven mates right behind her.