Helpless (Blue Fire Saga)

by Scott Prussing

  Dominic shook his head. “No, I do not think so.” He laid his hand on Leesa’s shoulder, reassuring her. “I suspect it was just pure chance that brought the vampires near here. In fact, it prob-ably means Josef is far away. He would not have sent his servants somewhere already within the range of his own senses.”

  “Phew. I’m glad to hear that,” Leesa said. “And even more relieved you didn’t need to help Rave and Stefan with your magic. I don’t want to have to leave here.”

  They resumed walking.

  “Josef will have sensed the destruction of his creatures,” Dominic said. “He will know there was no magic involved, but he might still be curious about what happened to them. Vampires infused with the blood of a black waziri are not easily destroyed. We need to be extra careful, in case he decides to come this way to investigate.”

  Leesa did not like the sound of that. It seemed like Dominic was saying their days here in Middletown might be numbered after all.

  “Should we go back and scatter the ashes, or maybe even move them,” Rave asked, “to make them more difficult for Josef to find?”

  “I considered doing just that,” Dominic replied. “But Josef will find the spot regardless of what we do. I think it better that he knows beyond a doubt his vampires were destroyed by volkaanes. You are natural enemies—such deaths should arouse no suspicion in him.”

  “So when Josef discovers it was volkaanes, he’ll have no reason to hang around?” Leesa asked hopefully. A sudden disturbing thought struck her, and she tightened her grip on Rave’s arm. Once again, she stopped walking. “He won’t go seeking revenge on Rave, will he?”

  “No, I doubt it. These two were mere tools to him. He might be curious about what happened, but with no magic involved, he won’t really care. He won’t waste his time or energy trying to find out who did it, and he wouldn’t want to risk making enemies of an entire clan of volkaanes in any case.”

  Leesa let out a sigh of relief. “That’s good to hear. Now what about the other thing? Do you think he’ll hang around once he learns what happened?”

  “Not unless he somehow senses your magic.” Dominic’s voice turned grave. “We must be extra careful now, Leesa. Do not practice any active magic by yourself. No moving objects in your room, no matter how small. When you and I work on that together, we will do it far from here, as we have been.”

  “What about my dreams and visions? I can’t control those. Could Josef sense them?”

  “No, they are passive magic. He could not even sense me doing those things, let alone you with your altered vibrations.”

  Leesa silently thanked those altered vibrations, courtesy of the grafhym, as well as Dominic’s foresight in choosing a female instead of a guy. Of course, if he had picked some other female, she wouldn’t be worrying about any of this. But then she wouldn’t be relishing the thought of several centuries together with Rave, either. Now if she could just survive all this black magic crap….

  31. incantations

  The rest of the week passed uneventfully, for which Leesa was very grateful. Way too much stuff had been happening lately and she needed a chance to settle down and catch her breath. Of course, uneventful did not mean nothing was going on. There were classes and a growing amount of homework, and she was practicing passive magic almost every evening with Dominic.

  Today, they were heading out on another road trip. She couldn’t wait until they reached whatever destination Dominic had in mind, because he had said he was going to teach her to cast her first spell today!

  They had already driven farther west than they had ever gone, skirting the northern suburbs of New York City and crossing the Hudson River on the gigantic Tappan Zee Bridge. The three mile long bridge was by far the longest and highest Leesa had ever crossed, and she was a bit nervous driving across it. She vowed to be less nervous on the return trip and to enjoy the spectacular view.

  After leaving the bridge, they continued west for another few miles, and then Dominic had her exit the freeway and head south on a narrow state highway. Twenty minutes later they turned into the parking lot of a gorgeous park atop the New Jersey Palisades, a line of towering rock cliffs overlooking the Hudson. As soon as she pulled the Blazer into a parking space, Leesa shot out of the car and limped quickly over to the waist high rock wall that protected people from the edge of the almost five hundred foot high cliffs.

  The view was breathtaking. Leesa had never seen anything like it, had never been this high up except for her one flight from San Diego to Connecticut, and being in a plane was nothing like standing so close to the edge of cliffs like these. She had spent the first seven years of her life in New Jersey but had never been anywhere like this. Far below, the wide waters of the Hudson reflected the blue sky. Even though it was winter, at least a dozen pleasure boats cruised the river, some traveling at a leisurely pace, others streaming fast enough to leave a narrow white wake behind them. Some miles to the south, she could see the giant span of the famous George Washington Bridge.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Dominic asked her.

  “Breathtaking,” Leesa agreed. “I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m so glad you brought me here. How did you find it?”

  Dominic smiled, looking very pleased with himself. “I did some computer searching in the Middletown library. I was looking for parks a bit farther away than we had been going, and I stumbled across this place.”

  Leesa sucked in a big breath of cool, fresh air. “I’m so glad you did. It’s awesome.”

  “But not too pretty to do some work, I hope?”

  Leesa reluctantly pulled her eyes away from the gorgeous view and turned back to the parking lot. There were only five or six other cars in the lot. She saw a family of four entering the gift shop and snack bar adjacent to the north end of the lot, and two couples stood by the rock wall not too far from the building, taking in the view. She guessed the other car owners were either in the snack bar or maybe hiking along the trail that led into the woods along the cliff top.

  “Where should we go?” she asked, knowing they would probably need at least a little privacy.

  Dominic turned his head to the south. “Judging by where the cars are parked, I think we will find more privacy if we go this way for a bit.”

  Dominic was right. They hiked barely one hundred yards into the trees before they found themselves totally alone and out of sight from the parking area. The trail no longer skirted the top of the cliffs here, but they could still see the river through a narrow band of leafless trees.

  “Let’s warm up with something familiar,” Dominic said. He pulled a tennis ball from his jacket pocket and balanced it on the back of his left hand. “Move it,” he said.

  Leesa closed her eyes for just a moment and repeated her trigger word. When she opened her eyes, she focused all her thoughts on the ball. She was pleasantly surprised when it toppled from his hand. They had never done this particular thing before, so she had no previous visual of the ball rolling off his hand. She wondered if it was something about this gorgeous location that inspired her or if all her practice was paying off and she was simply getting better at it.

  “Well done,” Dominic said, smiling. “You got it the first time.”

  He placed the ball in the middle of the dirt trail. “Try it now.”

  Leesa looked down at the ball. This was the first time she was going to try to move the ball along a flat surface—all her previous practice had been making it fall off the edge of something like the car or her desk. She quickly went through her routine again and tried to roll the ball along the path. She was not surprised and only mildly disappointed when the ball refused to move.

  Dominic kicked the ball softly with his shoe, sending it rolling four or five feet down the path. He retrieved the ball and placed it back in its original position.

  “Try it again.”

  This time, Leesa was able to make it roll almost as far as Dominic had kicked it. She smiled. The visual had certainly helped.
She had been doing this long enough now that she knew she would probably not need a prior visual much longer.

  “Very nice,” Dominic said. “We’ll do more of this later. Now, though, I think it’s time for something new.”

  Leesa could scarcely control her excitement. In a few moments, she would be attempting to cast her first spell. She wondered what it would be.

  “Spells can be divided into two kinds,” Dominic explained. “Those that require incantations and those that can be performed without them. The second kind require more power.”

  Leesa listened closely. She was guessing they would try an incantation spell, since she was such a beginner.

  Dominic reached into his pocket and pulled out a small paperback book. Leesa wondered if it was some kind of book of spells, but it looked much too new for that. When he turned it over, she saw it was only a trail guide for the park. So much for a book of spells, she thought, though that would have been really cool and quite handy.

  “Where did you get that?” she asked. “Surely they didn’t have one of those in the Middletown library.”

  Dominic thumbed through the book’s pages. “I got it from the park shop yesterday.”

  “You were here yesterday?” Leesa asked, surprised.

  Dominic nodded. “I always check a place out before I bring you to it, to make sure it’s safe for whatever I have planned.”

  When he found the section he wanted, he started looking through it more carefully, occasionally lifting his eyes from the book and checking something alongside the trail. Leesa watched him closely, wondering what he was doing.

  “Okay, got it,” Dominic said. He closed the book, marking the place he had selected with his finger. “I’m going to teach you a growth spell for plants. Unfortunately, I cannot demonstrate it for you, or the black waziri will sense my magic. When you are ready, we’ll use the book to give you a visual.”

  Leesa nodded, wondering what kind of plant growth thing it would be.

  “First,” Dominic continued, “I have to teach you the in-cantation. I cannot say the parts all together or they will trigger the spell. So I’ll give it to you in pieces. Once you have them all, you can put them together. Okay?”

  “Yeah. I understand.”

  “Blitha is the first part.”

  “Blitha,” Leesa repeated.

  “Next is egras.”

  “Egras.”

  “Finally, sumuss.”

  “Blitha egras sumuss,” Leesa said. Since she didn’t know exactly what the spell was supposed to do, she didn’t really expect anything to happen. She was surprised when she felt a slight tingling in her body.

  “Did you feel anything?” Dominic asked. “When you said it?”

  Leesa nodded vigorously. “Yes. A little bit of tingling, all through my body.”

  Dominic smiled. “Good. That tingling was your magic being triggered. Now you need to learn how to direct it properly. This spell can do several things, depending on what you picture. It can cause a plant to grow taller, make a flower bloom, or cause a branch to grow leaves.” He pointed to a slender sapling just off the path. “I want you to try to grow a leaf on this one.”

  He opened the book to the place marked by his finger and held the page so Leesa could see it. “This is what the leaves on this tree look like. Get a good image in your mind.”

  Leesa stared at the picture, focusing on every detail of the leaf. She knew from experience how important even the tiniest of details could be.

  “Got it,” she said.

  Dominic closed the book and placed his finger on one of the sapling’s branches, just below a tiny growth bump.

  “Now repeat the incantation while you picture one of those leaves growing right here,” he said. “Do your trigger word first, to help you focus. Once you get the hang of this, you won’t need to waste time with the trigger—your mind and the incantation will be enough.”

  Leesa did as Dominic instructed.

  “Blitha egras sumuss,” she said when she was ready, concentrating on seeing a leaf appear on the spot just above Dominic’s finger.

  Leesa felt the faint tingle move through her body and watched in amazement as a tiny bright green bud appeared on the branch. Disappointingly, the bud failed to grow any bigger, and after a moment it turned brown. She frowned.

  “Not bad for a first attempt,” Dominic said. “Not bad at all.”

  He gave her another look at the picture in the book and then pointed to a growth spot on a different branch. “Try it again.”

  “Blitha egras sumuss,” Leesa said again, louder this time, as if the increased volume might somehow help the spell. Once again, a green bud appeared. This time, it sprouted almost a quarter inch out from the branch before it too turned brown and died.

  “That’s progress,” Dominic said. “This is a bit more difficult than it might be, since it is not the normal growing season.”

  “But it can be done, completely, even though it’s winter?” Leesa asked.

  “Oh, yes. Definitely.” Dominic placed his finger near a third spot. “Once more,” he said.

  This time, the bud grew almost half an inch and was just beginning to form the shape of a tiny leaf when it shriveled and turned brown. Leesa didn’t care that it withered—she was thrilled to have gotten this far so soon.

  Dominic placed his hand on her shoulder.

  “That’s enough for now. You did great. Again, I must warn you about practicing this on your own. It’s active magic and could be dangerous.”

  “I won’t,” Leesa said, though she wanted nothing more than to be able to work on this fun new trick. She wished there was a way they could be certain their enemies could not sense her active magic at all, but she knew there wasn’t. And in this case, safe was certainly better than sorry.

  “Can I ask you a question, Dominic?”

  “Of course. Always.”

  “Why did you choose this spell for my first one? It’s way cool and amazing and all that, but I don’t see what good it’s going to be if your enemies find us.”

  Dominic grinned. “Well, you never know what spells may come in handy some time. But I picked this one for two reasons. Both have to do with the visual. Let’s say we tried something like solidifying the air around you or causing a stone to glow for light, what could I show you about how it should look?” He held up the book. “With the growth spell I can use this to show you what the leaf looks like.”

  Leesa realized that what Dominic said made very good sense. Visuals had been pretty important in almost everything she had tried so far.

  “What’s the second reason?”

  “I knew there wasn’t much chance you would be completely or even mostly successful your first day. But even if you were just a little bit successful with the growth spell, you would be able to see your progress.”

  Leesa nodded. Dominic was right. Even though she’d only managed a little bit of growth, seeing the tiny green shoot sprout from the branch had been amazing.

  “I get it now,” she said. “The growth thing was a really good choice. Even though I never really got to the leaf, I loved seeing the little bud appear.”

  Dominic smiled and returned the book to his pocket. He pulled the tennis ball from his jacket.

  “Let’s try this again once or twice, and then we’ll see if you can move something that isn’t round and doesn’t move so easily.”

  They spent another two hours working on Leesa’s telekinesis skills. By the time they were done, she had managed to force a flat-bottomed rock almost six inches down the trail. She needed to watch Dominic push the stone along the ground with his foot before she could get it to move, but since the rock was much heavier than the tennis ball and more anchored to the dirt by its shape, Leesa was quite pleased with her effort.

  The afternoon had grown quite cold as the sun sank lower in the west, so Dominic had Leesa make a couple of attempts at using her magic to keep herself warm without her jacket. He was pleased with her progress her
e, too.

  As they walked back to the car to get ready for the drive home, Leesa thought that even though Rave hadn’t been here, all in all, it had been a pretty darn good day.

  32. SECOND TIME’S A CHARM

  The next few days passed in a wonderfully boring way. This week’s big activity was a normal college thing—a Valentine’s Day party at Andy’s fraternity tomorrow night. At first Leesa didn’t want to go, but Cali had talked her into it. Once Rave agreed to come along, Leesa was happy. Almost anything she did with Rave was romantic, but being with him at a Valentine’s thing would be extra special. The only problem was she had no idea what she should wear. Once again, Cali had come to the rescue. They were going shopping today at a resale clothes place on campus called Second Time’s A Charm to try to find something “valentiny” as Cali called it. Cali already had her own outfit picked out, but she was keeping it a surprise from everyone, including Leesa.

  “You ready to go?” Cali asked from Leesa’s doorway. She was wearing her gray jacket with the pink accents, but since it wasn’t all that cold out she was wearing jeans with pink sparkles around the pockets rather than her pink ski pants. On her feet she wore a pair of gray Nikes with pink swooshes and pink laces that matched the accents on her jacket almost perfectly.

  “Yep. Just have to grab my jacket.” As usual, Leesa felt drab next to Cali in her plain, dark blue long sleeve shirt, ordinary jeans and dark brown walking shoes. She pulled her parka from its hook in the closet and the two of them headed down the stairs.

  Second Time’s A Charm was less than a fifteen minute walk from the dorm. The mid afternoon sun was still high enough in the sky to provide some warmth. Leesa guessed the temperature was probably somewhere around forty degrees, and with almost no wind, the walk was quite comfortable. They reached the store in what seemed like no time at all.

  The place wasn’t very big, but it was packed so tight with clothes there was barely room for the girls to squeeze down the aisles between the racks of clothing. A lot of the stuff was pretty wild—not Leesa’s kind of thing at all—but she could see why Cali liked this place so much. Two of the walls were lined floor to ceiling with wooden shelves. The shelves on one wall were filled with jeans, the other with sweatshirts and sweaters. The place smelled faintly of burned incense. Lady Gaga’s “Edge of Glory” thumped in the background. Leesa was not that big a Gaga fan, but she could see why a store like this would play that kind of music.