“Your drink was spiked, smart one.”
“Right, well, I think I’m good.” He looks behind me. “Did your friend go back there?”
“What do you think?” I turn around, allowing my hair to whip across his face.
“Well, excuse me,” he says.
The music begins to fade away. I turn around and look at the crowd one more time. My gaze switches to a guy who looks like Eric leaving out of a back door of the house. Guess he’s done with the party. I want to see what he is up to, but my friend is more important right now.
We pass many doorways and a bathroom with a group of people inside. I catch the mystic scent in front of me. Stacy and David are close. There is a large door toward the end of the hallway. The music is still thudding against my back. I turn around to see Donovan tripping over his steps.
“That was some strong alcohol,” he says, rubbing his forehead. Dawn’s mumbles are coming from behind the door.
I whisper, “They’re in here.”
I kick the door open. Darkness slides out of the room and the smell of both mystics slither into my nose.
“Hey,” Donovan whispers. “Why are you acting sexy for?” He’s mumbling nonsense in my ears. I ignore the tipsy witch and enter the room.
Dawn’s cries are now silent. I can’t hear anything in here. Donovan and I both end up in the middle of the dark room, but suddenly the door closes shut.
First, all I see is yellow eyes glowing in the darkness. Then a tail coils around my legs, causing me to fall. The tail drags me across the room and then shoves me against a wall. I glance to my side and see Donovan is turning on his broomstick. He walks forward but he doesn’t get very far before he mumbles something, falls onto the ground, and begins to snore.
Are you serious?
It’s dark in the room, but I can see shadows moving around me. I can also predict what the next attack is gonna be. I’ve killed David before, but this time he isn’t alone. Stacy is here with him somewhere in the room.
“Why are you here? I didn’t invite you to my party,” she snarls.
“I know what you are, Stacy.” I hold out my dagger, gather myself, and start circling the room.
“You’re asking for your own death by being here,” she says. “Hand over the rose.”
“Show yourself!”
I feel a presence behind me. I drop to the floor and kick my leg up at the monster, which must be David. He staggers against the wall behind him. I leap up, miss his heart, and stab the wall instead.
“Who would turn their own boyfriend into a mystic?” I say through clenched teeth, taking out my dagger. I tilt my head and tightly grip my dagger.
“It was an accident. I didn’t mean to,” she replies.
“What do you mean it was an accident?”
I keep walking around the room, trying to get a hold of her location based off of her voice. I hear David walking behind me, waiting to receive orders to attack me again, but I’m not scared of him.
“We were kissing and he sort of just changed. I didn’t know anything about it! He turned into one by himself.”
“You were the cause of it. How could you not know what you were doing? You’re a mystic.”
“I swear I didn’t know!” she snarls. “I hid him away while he was changing, so that’s why he went missing.”
“So it was all an act? For attention? Your boyfriend missing from school and everything,” I say. “You’re more than evil. You’re corrupt.”
“Eliza, please. I’m not, please.” She frantically looks around, searching for an escape. Her voice sounds as if her throat is swollen.
“Why would you kidnap my friend? Hand over Dawn if you’re not corrupt.”
“You can take her, but she’s the only thing keeping David controlled because she’s an innocent.”
She turns on the lights. She and her snake boyfriend are standing by the window. Dawn is next to them. Her eyes widen when she notices me in the room. I rush to her and unwrap the rope. She breathes heavily and I help her up. As soon as this happens, David pushes her on the ground and swipes for my face.
“David, stop it!” Stacy screams.
I dodge the attack. “I know what you’re going to do next, David.”
His tail slithers around me. I step on it and roll on the ground to grab my dagger. He crawls onto the wall and ceiling. I stay calm and allow him to stalk me. I walk toward Dawn.
“Go ahead and get out of here quickly, okay?”
Dawn is afraid. This is the first time I’ve seen her unable to handle the mystics in the room. Even when she gets knocked out or thrown around, her bubbly personality usually comes back in an instant.
When she reaches the door, David drops from the ceiling, hissing in front of her. I grab his long tongue and lunge my dagger at his neck. My hair is then pulled back. I fall on the ground and look up to Stacy. I knew she would act this out all the way.
Stacy laughs. “You really think I’m going to let her leave?”
Suddenly, a whip slithers around Stacy’s neck, forcing her back. Donovan is standing from where he fell on the ground, slowly regaining his conscious.
“About time.” I eye him. “Dawn, get out of here.”
I get up and push David against the wall before he can grab Dawn. David puts up a fight. He scratches the side of my neck. His tail wraps around my neck and flicks me across the room. I hear the shocking sounds from the whip around Stacy’s neck.
“What did you get into this time, Rose?” Donovan says.
“You’re not…going to get away…from this,” Stacy says as she struggles to get out of the whip.
Stacy screams as she crashes against something in the room. David is now on top of me, trying to bite a piece of my neck. He disarms my dagger and tastes me with his slimy tongue. I don’t know how I am going to get this mystic off of me. The green markings on my left arm begin to freeze.
I feel like something is boiling within me. David’s claws begin to burn because of my skin. I glance down at his sizzling scales. He releases his grip in shock. Realizing that I am free to move, I roll to my side, grabbing my dagger. I swing my leg to kick his foot. He falls to the side.
With a successful aerial attack, I swipe a chunk of flesh from his neck with my dagger. He gargles his own blood. I land on the ground and move the strands of hair from the tip of my nose.
I turn around and strut to David. He looks up at me as I stab my dagger in the middle of his neck, pulling his hair up, and forcing his head from his neck. He then vanishes into a bright yellow mist. I pull my dagger out from the ground and look at Donovan. He was watching the whole moment I had while Stacy witnessed, wrapped up in his metal whip. She screeches in pain, knowing what I’ve done to her lover.
“Listen to me,” she snarls ferociously. “I didn’t mean to turn David.”
“You’re lying. Your saliva is venomous. You would have known,” I growl.
“I thought it wouldn’t turn him…Emily said—” She stops herself, watching me carefully.
“Who’s that?”
Suddenly, the Miss Canary lookalike girl I eavesdropped on enters the room. She looks between the three of us and says, “Me.”
She walks over to Stacy and pulls out a sword made of wood and leaves. “I’ve told you what was to come and you got in the way.” Her eyes begin to glow a deep green as Donovan holds her out, baring the mystic’s neck.
“Please…listen to me,” Stacy cries, overwhelmed by all of this.
“Why would I listen to a mystic?” Donovan says, clenching his jaws.
Something within me wants to believe that Stacy truly didn’t want to hurt anyone. She honestly just thought she could kiss her boyfriend without turning him into a mystic. But then turned the script around when she grabbed my hair. Stacy truly is on the verge of becoming corrupt, but she didn’t want to believe it. From what I read all a shifter has to do is scratch or bite you, to turn someone. She must not be telling the whole truth about David.
Emily slices her head off. I hear the bones crack and skin rip as I close my eyes, listening to her last screech. So much has happened in the past few hours, I can’t bring myself to feel or react at all.
As far as I can tell, Emily is some sort of elf who was aiding Stacy in some way and she came here only to kill her because she wasn’t completely following her directions.
I open my eyes and look at the two people in room waiting for me to say something. “What if she really, like, needed help?”
Emily’s hair is dirty blonde. She’s tall and thin.
She glances at me and says, “There’s no going back once you’re corrupt.”
Chapter 27
Emily quickly leaves with just as much grace as Miss Canary would. I look at Donovan and he shrugs.
“What did she mean there’s not a way to come back from corruption?”
“It means what it means. Once corrupt, you can’t become pure.”
We walk outside of the room and down the dark hallway, back to the people partying. Their sparkling drinks are still in their hands.
I glance at Donovan and say, “I think Stacy and Eric has something to do with these drinks being spiked.”
“Probably,” Donovan says. He takes my hand and leads me through the bumping bodies.
“What’s up with you and your brother?” I yell over the loud music.
Donovan mumbles something. I don’t catch a word he’s saying. We end up outside of the mansion, where Dawn is standing alone. The fear is still in her eyes. When she sees that I’m alive, a look of shock replaces the fear. She rushes to me and wraps her arms around me, giving me a big hug.
“I was trying to reach you on your cell, but…but…!” She’s at a loss of words.
“Don’t worry, I’m okay and I’m sorry I didn’t answer your phone calls earlier.”
She nods her head and then turns her attention to the buff witch behind me.
“Donovan, this is my best friend, Dawn.” I turn around to him. “Dawn, Donovan; Donovan, Dawn.”
“Hello!” Dawn says, but of course Donovan doesn’t greet her and begins to walk away.
“He’s like that.” I roll my eyes.
“Oh wow. Well then, I’ll be home if you need me for anything.”
“All right.” I watch Dawn walk to her car. “Sorry again!” I wave at her.
She smiles and shakes her head. I’m so happy she’s alive. It’s all my fault that she’s in this mess. I look at the markings on my arms.
Two very different colors and types of swirls. The silver seems smooth and sleek. As for the green, it’s more sharp and leafy. I fix my hair and circle around, looking for my stalker. He’s sitting on a large decorative boulder, tapping his broomstick on the rock. His knees are up and the icy blue eyes that always seem to pull me in are watching me closely.
“What are you looking at?” he says.
“Nothing.” That’s obviously a lie.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” he says, kicking his feet off the rock and landing on the ground. He puts his dark hood on and waits for me to appear next to his side. I’m not going to fall for anything or listen to a thing he has to say.
Donovan is not in charge of me, so I turn the other way and walk toward my car. Suddenly I am forced around with a grip around my waist. I look up to see Donovan staring down at me.
“I was talking to you.”
“I think I’m aware of that.”
“So why are you walking that way?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because,” I turn around to point at my car, “my ride is that way.”
I place the palm of my hand on his chest and push him back a bit, but my ears perk up. From a distance, I hear someone running. The wind blows the leaves on the trees and something scurries on the gravel beneath our feet.
“Do you hear that?”
“What are you talking about?” he says as I look up at him. He seems confused. I hear panting and more running.
“That! You don’t hear it?”
“No, I don’t, Rose.”
“Aren’t witches supposed to have heightened senses or whatever?”
“Not that I know of,” he says, placing his hands into his pockets. Is he serious? Maybe he just isn’t fully aware of his abilities as a witch yet. I turn in the direction of the sound I was hearing. My ears perk up one more time when I hear a familiar voice.
“She’s already in Ravamere.”
The voice belongs to Eric.
“It’s your brother.” My eyes flick back to Donovan. I begin to run in the direction I hear Eric. Donovan tugs on my arm. “Why are you being so reckless? You don’t know if it’s a trap or not.”
“Let go of me,” I say, glancing down at his hand. “He’s the only thing I have, to find out how to get my mom back.”
Donovan looks away as I run down the sidewalk from Stacy’s mansion. I turn right and see a dead end and then left, where I see many street lights and houses. I bite my bottom lip, hoping to hear another slight mutter.
Seconds later, I hear something familiar behind me. I turn around, swinging my fist. My attempt to attack is blocked. Donovan grips my wrist.
“How are you just going to run away from me like that?” he says. “Where’s your broomstick? Are you even prepared?”
I pull my broomstick out of my pocket. “Doesn’t matter if I didn’t have it. It never activates.”
“So? You don’t know how magical you really are.”
“Really don’t have time for the riddles,” I say, pointing to my left. “He’s this way. I need to ask him a few questions.”
We end up next to a building, where I hear Eric panting. Donovan mutters something to me, but I get distracted by the sound of another voice which is probably in front of the building.
I cover Donovan’s mouth.
“Would you shut up just for a minute?” I say, trying to hear what Eric is saying.
“If anything, she’s stuck with me for a while, but she’s not cooperating,” Eric says. “You know what to do.”
I hear two footsteps walking away. I place my back on the hard brick of the building. Donovan seems unaware of the voices my ears were picking up. Maybe he himself isn’t finished with his transformation.
I know I’m far from completing mine, but I’m almost there. It’s almost in my grip and I can feel myself developing more abilities day by day. However, the only thing that is missing from this transformation process is my broomstick working properly.
Donovan tugs on my arm like an annoying adolescent would to a parent. I flick his fingers off of me. He laughs it off. What about this is so funny to him?
“You’re acting all secret agent. It’s rather funny.”
“I’m trying to figure out who’s in front of the building…”
“Okay, let me help you with that,” he says, clicking the button on his broomstick.
He steps out in front of where Eric was supposed to be. I feel this overwhelming anxiety that something bad is about to happen. I hear a snap through the air as I run out and see Donovan’s whip coil around Eric’s body. He glances at me in pain and Donovan smirks.
And he called me reckless! This is completely moronic. Eric laughs. “Nice to see you again, Don.” The metal on the whip begins to flow with electricity, shocking Eric. He lifts his eyes up at me and winks. I shove my emotions deep in the back of my head. I need to be able to fake that my broomstick actually works. I take my weapon out and walk toward him slowly.
“Eric, why are you always in the middle of this type of shit?” Donovan says.
“I have no clue what you’re talking about.” He coughs and chuckles on the ground. He releases a loud grunt when the whip shocks him again. I look at Donovan, wanting him to stop hurting Eric. If he dies, how will I gather the answers I need?
“Donovan…” I say.
He clears his throat,
obviously getting the message. I walk over to a numb Eric on the ground and kick him over, belly up. I place my broomstick on his Adam’s apple.
“You’re staring at me again, Taylor Swift.”
I slap my broomstick across his face. Blood drips slowly from his mouth. He spits it out, laughing at what I’ve done.
“What did you do to my Mom? Why were you in her house that day?”
“What day are you talking about?”
“You know clearly what I’m talking about. After I saw you with her, she changed and then vanished.” I kneel down to his level.
“It was all up to her.”
“Elaborate or this broomstick will be the cause of your death.”
“To go to Rav. I was merely there for support.”
“Oh, cut the crap, Eric. Why would she need support to go to a place like that? You egged her on to make the decision, persuading her into corruption,” Donovan spits.
“How do I get her back?” I say.
“Go to Rav, of course. It’s in your little apartment. I mean, it’s easy access,” Eric says.
The stench I was far too familiar with slithers into my nostrils, but I can’t figure out where, exactly, the smell is coming from.
A breeze pushes me against the wall and roots from the ground hold me up, stinging my skin. A wolf runs out of the shadows and morphs into a girl with white hair and red eyes.
Leaping from the rooftop, a guy with gold hair lands right in front of me. There are markings placed on both of his shoulder blades. They begin to glow, and wings develop. The wings flutter as he floats in the sky and waves his hand in the air, forcing Donovan up on his feet. He is then pushed against the wall next to me as the girl shifter walks over to him and traces her index finger on Donovan’s cheek.
Both of the mystics are corrupt and strong.
“Don’t worry, we need you alive,” Eric says. The shifter giggles to herself as she morphs back into a white wolf and runs away. The fairy lifts Eric up and flies away. The roots that hold me captive dissolve as we fall to the ground.
“You heard him. I have to get to Ravamere to save my mom.”
“You can’t just go to Rav. If she’s already there, she’s corrupt, Rose.”
Mystical (The Mystical Trilogy Book 1) Page 24