Meghan once again crumpled to the ground, and once again, Ivan Crane arrived just in time to pick her back up.
“I… I told Juliska about Catrina,” she stuttered. “Colin told me he thinks she’s the Projector…”
“Um. What?” he responded, so shocked he nearly dropped her.
“I thought it was the right thing… Oh, God. Ivan… what did I do?”
“Can you reach him, through your mind?” he asked. “Maybe you shouldn’t…” he was obviously as torn about this situation as Meghan.
Meghan tried to reach him but Colin ignored her attempts.
“I think he’s at Billie’s. Everyone knows that’s where he’s staying. They’ll go right there.”
“Not if I get there first!” Nona purred out raucously. “Ivan, open the stove door.”
He did so at once, no hesitation in his choice to help Colin and Catrina.
Why? Meghan didn’t care why.
There might be a price later and if there was, she’d pay it.
Nona bounded into the flame, dissolving at once. The closest open flame was three tents away from Billie’s. As the Catawitch popped out of the flame, her legs were already running before they hit the ground.
Nona heard Meghan’s thoughts as she ran.
I can’t believe what I just did… I’m supposed to protect him… maybe I am protecting him… but he loves her… Colin will never forgive me for this… he shouldn’t ever forgive me for this…
Nona ran as fast as she could toward Billie’s, darting between unaware people, nearly tripping one man as she jumped through his legs.
“Oh please let me get there first!”
Colin Jacoby entered Billie’s tent.
The look on Garner’s face gave away nothing about what he had meant about him not being around Jae Mochrie, or thankfully, that he knew anything about Catrina.
Before Colin could greet either Billie or Garner, a bell started clanging, sounding an alarm outside.
Billie and Garner looked at each other, a cold fear of, what now? frosting the air. They opened the tent door to see what the alarm was for, only to have Nona spill inside.
“They know about Catrina! They’re coming for you!”
Colin dropped his tray of food.
The room started spinning and yet came to a sudden, complete stop.
Two seconds passed by that seemed like an eternity.
Catrina gasped inside their room.
Billie and Garner exchanged confused gazes, staring at him for explanation.
Colin’s mind opened to his sister’s thoughts, they drowned him like a flood.
She was the one. Meghan betrayed them to Juliska.
Time sped up again, anger seething through his veins.
How could you? How could you do this? His thoughts demanded an answer but refused to accept any. There was no acceptable reason. His mind slammed shut, blocking out her river of meaningless apologies.
He needed to get Catrina to safety, and ran into their room.
Garner and Billie followed.
“Catrina?” Garner questioned him. “Catrina Flummer?”
Colin spun around to deny it, but something in the man’s features stopped him. Some desperate need to know the answer, and not because he wanted to harm Catrina.
“Yes. I’ve been hiding her.”
Billie’s hand flew up to her mouth stifling a gasp.
“We feared she was lost!” Garner’s gaze buzzed from instant relief to planning mode. Colin cocked his head in befuddled mode. Was nothing in this place as it appeared? Was anyone telling him the truth?
No wonder Balloch and Corny said to trust no one.
I can’t even trust my own sister… and yet here he was trusting he’d just admitted the truth to the right people. Garner, somehow, fitting that category.
“Where is she?” Billie demanded.
He looked over at Catrina, who nodded to do it. She grabbed his hand and materialized by his side.
“You’re alive. You’re really alive.” Billie looked near to tears.
“You must leave,” Garner advised. “It’s not safe here.”
“And go where?” Colin asked, thrown off by Garner’s assistance.
“They’re coming,” reminded Nona.
“I will stall them as long as I can,” Garner told them. He and Billie exchanged a sharp nod. She grabbed Colin and Catrina.
“Follow me,” Billie ordered. She took them out the backside of tent creeping along the backsides of all the other tents just at the edge of the woods. They stopped four tents over and snuck inside. A woman jumped, startled, mid-sliding on a pair of shoes.
“Billie!” called out Sidra Flummer.
Noah, her and Balloch’s son, came running out of a room at the back, shouting, “What is it, Mother?” He froze when he saw Billie Sadorus, Colin Jacoby, and a girl he did not recognize and yet, did. Recognition hit both he and his mother a mere second later.
“You’re alive,” Sidra muttered, running forward and grasping Catrina in her arms as if she’d known the child all her life.
Catrina sobbed as Sidra held her close. They’d never even met, but it didn’t matter. Family was family, and hers obviously wanted her alive.
“Noah, Sidra, I’m sorry, there’s little time to explain. This alarm is because Colin has been hiding Catrina here in the camp since we arrived. I don’t know the story. I just found out. But Juliska’s coming for them.”
“They need to leave,” Noah said as urgently as Garner had just minutes before.
“How will we get them out of here?” asked Sidra. “And where will they go?”
“Into the forest,” said Noah, already packing a bag. He threw in what little food was in the tent and thrust the bag into Colin’s hands.
“How?” Sidra aimed at Colin. “How did you…”
“It was your husband, Mam. Balloch… after he died he came to me, told me where she was. I’m sorry I never told you. It’s just that Balloch told me not to trust anyone. I should have realized I could trust her family.”
Guilt consumed him instantly for not seeking out their help before. Then again, his own sister had betrayed him… he buried this anger. He did not have time for it now.
“Don’t apologize, Colin,” Noah insisted. “What you did was beyond brave. We’ll never be able to thank you for saving her.”
A voice shouted nearby.
“He’s not there. Search every tent until you find him.”
“We’ll give you as much time as we can,” Noah said.
“Where do we go after we’re in the forest?” Colin appealed to anyone, heading toward the back of the tent.
Noah lifted the bottom of the tent so he and Catrina could sneak straight into the woods. No one had an answer to that question and time was out.
Footsteps approached the Flummer’s tent.
Sidra grabbed Catrina, hugged her, and released her back to Colin.
“Run. Run as fast and as far as you can.” They dipped underneath the canvas and crawled into the woods.
Once in the woods, Colin attempted to recast his spell, to hide them both, but it failed. His nerves had gotten the better of him and the spell would not work. He froze.
“The Magicante. I left it!”
“We can’t go back, Colin,” Catrina said, shakily.
She was right, but he felt useless without the book.
“There they are,” a voice shouted, spying them just into the woods.
Colin grasped Catrina, and ran. He did not know where they were going. He didn’t know how he was going to save her. And whoever chased them was catching up.
Colin and Catrina were no match in a race on foot.
Someone big and male ordered them to stop but they kept running, darting under branches and over fallen logs. The voice shouted again and Colin recognized it as either Jelen or Jenner, Juliska Blackwell’s personal bodyguards.
“We’re not going to make it,” he said, fearful of the outcome if they
did not.
But they kept running.
The footsteps of Jelen and Jenner jutting at their ankles.
Catrina lost her grip and fell. Colin slid to a stop.
The two men caught up easily.
“Stay where you are!” Jelen ordered heavily.
“You are both under arrest!” Jenner added fiercely.
Colin jumped to his feet and helped Catrina stand. She wrapped her arms around his neck, afraid to look at the two men.
The guards stepped closer, and then oddly, stepped back, gaping at something behind Colin and Catrina. Colin wasn’t sure he wanted to look but took a chance anyway. A beam of light was emanating from a hollowed out tree, and even crazier, a face Colin thought he’d never see again popped out from the center of that light, followed by a man’s body.
“I see I arrived in time,” a grizzled voice stated. “Come with me. Now!” The man disappeared back into the light.
Colin and Catrina took one look at Jelen and Jenner and surmised they had no choice. Behind the men, the entire Svoda caravan approached. It was impossible for them not to see the two escapees, standing in front of the bright light, surrounded by the darkness of the forest.
“Who is that girl?” a voice asked.
Similar murmurings spread throughout the crowd.
No one, it seemed, understood what was happening.
“Stop them!” Juliska Blackwell shouted upon arrival, realizing they were about to escape.
Her bodyguards cautiously approached.
Meghan raced forward. “Colin, please don’t do this!” she pleaded. “Just let him go,” she aimed at Catrina.
Meghan’s body shockingly flew backwards through the air, landing with a soft thud on the thick forest floor. She felt some new force blocking her from Colin’s mind. She tried to penetrate it, but it was stronger than anything she had ever felt before. His thoughts, however, penetrated her mind like a knife stabbing into her brain.
“I won’t ever forgive you for this, Sister.”
So cold. So final. So not her brother.
A breath later, the connection she had known her entire life, vanished. Sucked out of her mind leaving only a black hole where Colin had once been. It tore at her, crushing any hope she had left. This Colin, was not the Colin she knew. Something in him changed, like a switch that flipped, turning him into something else.
Meghan cursed the day her brother discovered this girl, Catrina Flummer.
Jelen and Jenner bounded toward Colin and Catrina, who in turn, jumped into the light, which dissolved, leaving behind nothing but an empty, hollowed-out tree.
A look of fury crossed Juliska’s face, her veins, fiery and pulsing, lined her skin in furious lines of heat. Everyone gave her some distance; this wasn’t a side they saw often.
The entire Svoda caravan stood in the forest.
Billie stood close by her brother and his wife, Ravanna. The Sadorus’ nodded politely as the Flummer’s walked passed them, acting as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened at all. They pretended to be ignorant of the fact that the girl standing next to Colin Jacoby was a relative. She was in another group after all… how would they know what she looked like?
Juliska shouted for the Viancourt members and Balaton to follow her. A heated, but private conversation began, not too far away.
While they held their meeting, the people started asking more questions. Many stares and glares shot toward Meghan, who’d gotten to her feet and backed up, trying to hide in the darkness. It felt like her first day with the Svoda all over again. Her first day after finding out she was a Firemancer.
She reached out in her mind for Colin but he was not there.
She felt empty. Alone. Cut off.
Ivan suddenly appeared in front of her. His entire being, intense, but somehow sympathetic. “What’s done is done,” he told her. “You did what you thought was right. Sometimes,” he paused. “Sometimes, Meghan, what’s right is not what’s easy.”
Meghan only half heard him. She thought she might faint. She wished she could discover a way to go back in time and stop herself from telling Juliska about Catrina. At the same time, as happy as she was about Colin getting away, she feared for his life. Catrina was still dangerous.
“I might have been wrong,” Ivan told her. “You might be ready to hear what I have to say about Jae after all.”
Meghan jerked her head to look at him, her gaze fixed, but overloaded with emotion.
He walked away.
This moment was not the right moment.
There were no words for her treachery. She barely kept herself upright. Everything ached. She wanted to disappear.
Up ahead, she heard a voice calling out to the group.
“Look! Look here!” it shouted.
The caravan began a mass movement toward a clearing, not too far away.
Meghan traipsed along with them because the sad truth was, there was no disappearing.
“The meadow with the pyres,” someone whispered. Jae Mochrie had said it. Meghan hadn’t even noticed him step up next to her. He grasped her arm, gently.
“Ivan told me what happened,” his eyes screamed that he understood how she felt. “I know this won’t make you feel any better right now, but we all do things we wish we could take back. You can’t change what happened.” He let go, looking like he had a lot more to say but instead, followed the rest of the group toward the edge of the meadow.
The setting darkness unraveled a horrifying scene.
The pyres were no longer empty.
CHAPTER 34
The caravan huddled along the edge of the meadow in stunned abhorrence at the pyres, which now imprisoned the missing Svoda they had been searching for since their arrival. Gagged men, women, and children had been bound to the stakes.
They appeared to be unconscious. Or barely conscious as there were small signs of life. Fearful gasps and cries echoed into the meadow from the huddled Svoda as bodies of the chameleon-like Stripers starting materializing around the caravan, encircling them forcing them into the meadow with the pyres.
Juliska ordered silence with a single wave of her hand.
The leader of the Stripers, KarNavan, addressed them all.
“I will get right to the point. You are surrounded, and don’t even think about using magic.” He pointed to the pyres with his beady eyes. “These unlucky people are about to pay the ultimate price unless you hand over what we seek.”
“This is low, even for Stripers, KarNavan,” the Banon replied. “Our magic may be weakened, but we still have enough to wage battle if you force it upon us!”
“Actually, I think you’ll find you are wrong,” the Striper leader said. “Go ahead. Someone, anyone, try to use magic.” He opened his arms wide inviting an attack.
Garner Sadorus stepped forward and attempted to.
Nothing happened.
He tried again.
Nothing.
The crowd gasped in horror. They truly were helpless.
“If this is about the Projector...” Juliska was cut off.
“Ah, yes. You see, we have tracked the child’s magic, and the child is here. Alas, though, this is not the only job we are here to do,” he revealed wickedly. “We look for another child, too. Or more to the point, something this child possesses.” His words held no compassion.
Parents held their children close and murmurs spread quickly, but quietly.
KarNavan continued his speech.
“We seek a book. An ancient book. One currently owned by a boy named Colin Jacoby.”
Meghan’s head jerked up. The Magicante. As far as she knew, it was still at Billie’s. She did not think Colin had taken it. Ivan, who was near Juliska, glanced back at her, his gaze a pointed silent question.
She gave him a clipped shrug, telling him she was not sure. All she did know was that she could not let Colin down, again. She would not allow these people to take the book if it was at Billie’s.
“How is it, that you
are able to weaken our magic?” Juliska interrogated KarNavan. “You owe us, at the least, an answer to this question. We are, after all, descended from the same magical bloodlines.”
“Same magical lines, eh? Interesting theory, Gypsy Queen.” He winked at Juliska. His voice insinuated some hidden meaning behind the words he spoke and the glare on Juliska’s face took on a personal warning. “But why not,” the Striper said. “We are on the winning side.”
He jumped onto a nearby pyre, grasping the pole.
The body bound to it stirred, slightly. A bit like they’d been drugged.
“We were hired,” KarNavan explained, “to come here and collect two items: the Projector, and a book.”
“Items?” Juliska repeated, disgusted. “One of those items is a living child.”
“For now. We all know not for long.”
The sad, sucky truth of it all. Everyone was going to be searching for Colin and Catrina. To try to kill them.
“To ensure success in our mission, we were given a most powerful and intriguing weapon.” KarNavan made a dramatic move of his hand reaching into his pocket, but when he yanked it out… nothing. His palm extended wide open and empty. “Did you really think we’d just tell you?” he toyed with Juliska. And then laughed. Hard.
“You can’t blame a Queen for trying,” she answered sourly.
“I will tell you this… if you give us what we want, we will permit you to leave, unharmed. Within hours, perhaps a day, your magic will renew itself.” He jumped down from the pyre. “However, if you do not heed our demands, you will each be stripped of your magic, completely, and you will watch each of your friends, and loved ones, burn.”
Voices began shouting at the Stripers.
“Who is this child you seek?”
“Do you know which child it is?”
It seemed as though the caravan was ready to surrender the child, rather than see everyone they loved suffer a painful fate.
Juliska silenced her people with a deadly stare.
“Do you really think we would just hand this child over to you freely?” she directed at KarNavan. “There have been no signs of a Projector in our camp.”
The Map, The Dagger, and The Vampyres (Fated Chronicles Book 2) Page 30