Jude let a watery sigh out before turning away. I followed Jude out of the den to the living room.
“This will take you to the Nomads?” I asked.
“Yeah, I got the flash points set up on a keypad. All I have to do is select where I need to go and when I step through, I’ll be there.”
“I thought you had no magical abilities,” I said, screwing my face up in confusion.
“I’ve been working on this concept with Edge for a while. So far, it’s worked,” he tried for a smirk, but it fell flat.
His hand shook as he reached out and pushed a series of numbers on the keypad. His knuckles were white as he grabbed the doorknob. “Tell Edge, I said thanks - for everything.”
This was it. Now or never. The thought was so quick, that I moving before I knew it. I grabbed Jude’s arm and pulled him back. His balance wasn’t the greatest right now and I used it to my advantage. He tripped over his feet and sprawled on the floor.
“Tell him yourself,” I said, pulling the door closed behind me. What had I just done? My only hope was that this would save Jude. And the downfall? Edge was going to be so pissed.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The moment I stepped through the door I turned, half expecting Jude to be right behind me. But the door had disappeared. The room I stood in was empty. Had I screwed everything up by not showing up with Jude? The only door had vanished, leaving me in a sealed box. How long would I last without air?
The wall in front of me began to ripple. I pressed myself against the far wall, waiting to see what would happen. The wall gave way to a room full of people. Their backs were turned to me as they stood facing a slightly raised platform. No one turned to look at my intrusion as one man raised his hand to point his splayed fingers at me. My back bowed as if he were pulling me forward by my chest. My feet left the floor as I was tugged towards him on invisible stings.
As I got closer, I could see others sitting in high back chairs, forming a half circle around the one who held me tightly in his spell.
“Who comes before us uninvited?” he asked leaning closer to my face. His eyes took in every aspect of my body and snapped wide when he got to my arms.
His hand shot out at me. I ducked to protect myself, expecting a solid blow, but instead, a robe settled over my shoulders covering my body. The hood slid down over my face.
“Council is dismissed,” the voice boomed out. Feet shuffled out of the room as I strained to hear snippets of conversation. They were just as confused as I was. The hood over my head flipped back to reveal a wizened old face.
“Where is Jude?” he asked.
I couldn’t tell if he was angry or curious. There wasn’t a single flicker of emotion that came from his face.
“I have the book, so it wasn’t necessary for him to come,” I said, trying not to fidget under his scrutiny.
“He led you to it and he must pay for his treasonous actions against the Coven,” a hooded figure to the left of me sneered.
“Jude didn’t lead me to it. You had my friends. I came to get them and found the book.” Technically I wasn’t lying. Jude told me where it was, but never led me to it. Edge did.
“Now, now, my friends, this young lady will tell us everything we need to know. I’m sure,” the man in front of me said quietly.
“Lying by omission is still lying, Micah,” another man spoke up. I didn’t dare look up to see who was accusing me. I kept my eyes locked on the man in front of me.
“Let’s give her a little time to think on it, shall we?” He gestured for me to follow him. I had no choice but to keep up with him as the others crowded in behind me, pushing me forward without touching me. I was going further into the Nomad compound, which would make it much trickier to escape.
Micah and the rest of the Nomads said nothing as I was led to a deserted part of the compound. Empty rooms marched down the hallway without an escape route in sight.
“This room will do nicely,” he said as he put his hand on my shoulder and ushered me into a windowless bedroom. I had no choice but to go along with his wishes. There were too many of them to fight. The door closed and locked. The silence was broken only by the sound of many feet walking away. What the hell was I supposed to do now?
Edge would be furious when he got back from the Triad meeting. If he got back from it. What could have been so important for them to call a meeting together like that? There was something very odd about everything that was happening.
Jude was summoned to the Nomads. Edge was summoned for a meeting with the Triad. It was way too coincidental that all of this was happening at one time.
I chased the thoughts around in my head, trying to make the connection. Before I knew it, Micah was back. He quietly slipped through the door holding his fingers against his lips to ensure my silence.
His hands glided in the air, starting at the door, and then turning as if gesturing around the room. When he stopped to face me, he finally spoke. “My dear girl, you’ve gone and done it now, haven’t you?”
“What do you mean?” I was a little confused by his kindness.
“Sit and I will try to explain. We haven’t much time,” he said, sliding his eyes to the door as I sat on the edge of the bed. “May I see your arms?” he asked.
I turned my arms over and he reached out to touch the writing.
“May I?” he asked.
I nodded my approval and he flipped the hood of his robe back, revealing his shiny bald head. His skin was so light and thin that I could see bluish tinted veins. His fingers began tracing the outline of the foreign words as his tired looking eyes pinched closed.
“We’d hoped that this would never come to pass. Your mother and I, that is,” he sighed.
“My mother? You knew her?” I slid forward, hungry for every detail he had about my mother and the book.
“Yes. I had the pleasure of helping her once,” he said, tipping his head at the arm he had in his hands.
Hope soared through me. “You know about this?” Maybe I’d get more answers from him.
“I know that she searched for a very long time to find the right spell to bind the book. When she was successful, she brought the book to me and I’ve kept it ever since, until now.” He made an attempt to smile.
“Do you know who helped her?” I asked.
“I do…but, my dear girl, the man who helped her died for his troubles.” He let go of my arm and started to pace. “You see, the book was very–how would you say it.” He stroked his chin in thought.
“Demanding,” I said, rolling my eyes. How many times had I wanted to tell Edge what was going on inside of my head and got shut down?
“I guess that’s one way of saying it. Your mother made it her life’s work to keep the book from being passed on to you.”
I winced, knowing that in one move, I had undone all she had done for me. I had let her down and was now paying the price.
“My title gives me certain leverage here, but unfortunately even I can’t stop what is going to befall you because of the book. You see, for a very long time, no one else knew of it. That is, until one of the Nomad members decided to take it upon themselves to unpack my meager belongings when we came to this location. It was silly of me to think that others wouldn’t immediately recognize the book upon seeing it.” He shook his head and paused. “There is a turncoat in our midst, dear girl, and I’m afraid of what that means for the both of us.”
A traitor, of course there was a traitor, there always was. The traitor told the Triad, the Triad found out about Jude who linked him to Edge, and now Edge was with the Triad and I was with the Nomads.
Damn it!
It had been a very carefully constructed set up. What did that mean for Edge? Would the Triad hold him captive? Or were they just going to try and pick his brain for answers? The last run-in Edge had with Lorenzo replayed in my mind. He’d threatened Edge, but had admitted that he would hold his promise to leave him alone. Would that promise still hold?
“I
can see a million questions racing around in those eyes,” Micah said, bringing me back to the present.
“The Nomad Council is demanding action. They want the book brought back to its rightful owner, which is funny, because the rightful owner is you. However,” he said, flailing his hands, “they think by some strange right it belongs to the Nomad Coven because of our ability to keep it safe.”
“If only it were that easy,” I replied.
“Yes, if only,” he said as he turned to the door. “I will do what I can, but I must keep up with appearances. If they thought for one second that I was helping you, we’d both be dead.” He waved his hands around the room and again put his finger to his lips gesturing for my silence. He opened the door and slipped out, leaving me alone to deal with the information he’d just given me.
He knew about the book. He had known about my mother and that she’d bound the book before giving it to him for safe keeping. Now the Council had taken it upon themselves to be the Keepers of a book that didn’t belong to them. Hell, it didn’t even belong to me. It was its own Keeper that had chosen me as its host. How far would the Nomads go to pry it out of my head?
The answer to that question came a few hours later when the bedroom door was pushed open and I was practically dragged out by a robed figure. He tossed me into a closet-sized room and slammed the door shut.
I waited for what seemed to be hours, but was probably more like minutes. Time seems to do that… drag on in your darkest hours. The heavy door opened again and a smaller man cloaked from head-to-toe in a bulky gray robe walked in. The door closed behind him on its own. He snapped his fingers and it locked us in. A chair appeared and he silently gestured for me to sit.
“We find ourselves in quite a quandary,” he said, slowly pacing the room. Not an inch of him was visible under the heavy material. His arms crossed his chest, his hands tucked up inside the sleeves. It was like looking at the grim reaper without his sickle. I shivered.
“You see, girl, we cannot allow you to keep the book. Its magic is not for someone of your, how should I say this? Not for your kind,” he said, stopping before me.
“My name is not girl,” I hissed. Would it be so difficult for them to find out exactly who I am before they start telling me how incapable I am? And what exactly was my kind anyway?
Anger clouded my thoughts as I watched the hooded man tower over me. Could I help the fact that the book chose to absorb itself into me? No. Did I like having my thoughts being monitored every second of every day? No. How dare this man sit here and judge me as if I was lacking the missing chromosome to being human.
“You will give up the book,” he sneered.
Did he even know what he was asking? I laughed. Not a funny laugh, not even a that’s-a-good-joke laugh. No, I gave him one of those kiss-my-ass kind of laughs. The kind your body releases about ten seconds before fight or flight mentally kicks in.
Flight had been taken away when the door locked. So fight it was. I jumped up from my seat, my body squaring off with his. His hands dropped from the sleeves and darted out, flexing finger by finger.
“You will give us the book,” he barked.
“I will give you nothing!” I shouted back in his face.
“A mere Mick such as yourself has no say in our world,” he snapped.
A Mick? He thought I was a Mick?
Little did he know just how much magic was inside of me, only locked somewhere in the recesses of my mind. Frustration danced along my nerves. He had no idea who I was. Thinking on it, maybe that was a good thing. If they didn’t know who I was, that would keep Lorenzo in the dark as well. Micah had said there was a traitor in his Coven. I kept my mouth shut. If I continued on, I would blow what little cover I had.
“It is of no importance to us how we get it from you. You see, the book belongs to us. We are the true Keepers of it and you will give it back to us, or you will die,” he said as he wove his hands in the air around me. Tiny wisps of energy wrapped around my body and pulled tight as if I were tied with rope. My feet lifted off the floor and he pulled me behind him. Before the door opened, he turned to me, “You may just die anyway,” he said, tossing his hood back and snapping his teeth at me.
My body seized at the sight of him. Cloudy eyes stared at me. There was no pupil, only endless swirls of gray and black. It was like watching a thunderstorm gather. A scar ran the length of his cheek, puckered and purple against the stark whiteness of his skin. Veins crisscrossed his face like a misprinted map of blurred lines. I closed my eyes against the sight in front of me and he barked a menacing laugh. “Not so tough, now are you?”
I struggled against the bonds that held me, but it was no use. I wasn’t going anywhere and what little fight I could give was tiring me out. It was as if the invisible ropes were sucking the energy from my body with every movement.
He pulled me down empty hallways like a Macy’s Day Parade balloon until we reached a vast room with a single stone slab. It looked like a place where the Nomads would come to worship; only there was no one there. He pulled hard on the line holding me. My head cracked hard against the stone alter. The invisible ropes loosened and my arms and legs spread. The lines of rope split and wrapped around each appendage, tying off somewhere below me.
My head pounded as bile crawled up my throat. Black dots danced along my vision, making it impossible to see what was going on around me. Robes swished as the Nomad Council leaders all placed a hand on my body. They began chanting, the words foreign and deep. I blinked furiously to clear my vision. I had to know what they were doing. White hot pain tried to take over my body when one of the men dug his fingers into my temples. My body arched off the stone and slammed back down.
“You will tell us where the spell book is, or I will rip your mind apart looking for it,” the man with the swirling eyes hissed at me.
My vision cleared with a snap. The book came to life as the pages rustled in my mind. Back and forth, back and forth, they continued on until the book slammed shut and a voice entered my mind.
“Stupid girl! They will kill us both!” Her voice reverberated in my head. Tears slid down my temples as she raged. Each whip of a page made the energy intensify as she gathered her power around her.
Her thoughts connected to mine and I could feel my body healing. I was getting stronger and the ropes holding me in place were beginning to loosen.
“I will deal with your failure later,” she said. The pages snapped in response.
My body shifted and my arms and legs began moving with her direction. Her anger pulsed inside of me. She was taking over. Through my eyes, I witnessed just how deadly the woman inside of me could be. Nomads were scattering to get away, but she sought them out and blasted them with magic. Bodies began to litter the floor as she took them down one by one. The rise and fall of their chest reassured me that they were alive. If she was capable of taking over my body through the book, why would she leave them alive to come after it again?
“Because if I kill them, I will be forever stuck inside this book,” she growled.
Micah was the last one standing - just barely. He clung to the wall holding himself up as he held his hand out, pleading for her to stop.
My body marched up to his and my hand grabbed him by the throat.
“No…stop!” I pushed the words past the power she held me under. They echoed in my head.
I could almost feel her tilting her head in question. I blew a breath of relief that she’d actually heard me over her rage.
“Please, he was trying to help me,” I said. She paused long enough to listen. “He was the Keeper of the book. He kept it safe all these years.” I begged her to listen to me. I didn’t want him to be hurt. Not if he was on my side. Not if he knew things. Things I couldn’t think about–things she couldn’t know.
I covered my thoughts with the memories of him telling me that he would help me as much as he could.
She paused long enough to drop him to the floor where he fell to his knees.<
br />
“Make him take us back to Edge,” she said, stepping back into my head and leaving me in control of my body.
“Are you alright?” I asked, helping Micah to his feet.
He looked at me, really looked at me. His gaze burned into mine.
“Quite impressive when she gets angry,” he said with a halfhearted smile.
I winced as I took in the destruction she’d left behind. Stone benches were shattered. Bodies were laid out in various parts of the room, all still breathing but rendered incapable of stopping us from leaving.
The book slammed in my head. I wasn’t moving fast enough for her.
“You’re not safe here anymore. Please, take me home,” I said, gripping his arm to keep him steady.
He looked back over his shoulder and sighed. “I suppose you’re right. Nothing left for me here now.”
Micah led me down the empty corridors again, explaining that we were taking the long way around so that we wouldn’t bump into anyone. I was glad for that. I didn’t need the woman in the book to make a second appearance anytime soon, even if it were to help us. I liked being in control of my own body, thank you very much.
“How did you know it was her and not me?” I asked. I couldn’t help but wonder why he trusted me after watching me toss his Coven members around the room.
“It was your eyes,” he replied, limping beside me. He kept his arm on my shoulder for added support. I hoped we were getting to the door that would lead us home soon. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to carry him if he finally faltered.
“My eyes?”
“Oh yes, it was like watching pages fan when she, I guess you could say, stepped in.” He stopped in front of a featureless brick wall and waved his hands. It gave way to a door. He let go of my arm, placed his palm against the wood and murmured under his breath. The door rippled and he stepped back to let me go through first.
The pages ruffled in my head as if acknowledging that I was one step away from being back in Edge’s arms. I turned the handle and grabbed Micah’s hand. I wasn’t letting go of him until we were both through to the other side with the door firmly shut behind us.
Casted (Casted series) Page 17