Awakening (9 page)

I rolled over the top of the fence,
catching the edge of my top on the sharp twisted wires. I pulled
myself free with one hand and made my way down, climbing, sliding,
and finally dropping the last four feet.

The car had stopped, and the men
started to get out, but as I dropped to the ground on the other
side, the driver yelled and they all got back in. The SUV spun
ahead.

They were going to go around, find the
first opening in the fence or make their way up the street and
around the block, circling around until they could find
me.

I pushed myself off the ground and
ran. Every time I came to an edge of a building I turned or changed
direction. Around one building and then past another, down one
alley and then up the next. I ran until I couldn’t run any longer.
My chest was burning, I was gasping, and my legs refused to go on.
I had to find cover. I squeezed behind a large metal garbage can. I
slumped down against a brick wall, my legs giving out. I cried out
when my bruised body made contact with the dirt.

I don’t know how long I stayed huddled
behind the garbage can, but when I finally emerged it was dark and
cold. I cautiously looked around the corner. No cars anywhere, the
place was deserted, but I had no idea where I was or if I could
make my way back to Luke’s. I had taken so many twists and turns
that I was completely turned around. I wrapped my arms around my
body for warmth and slowly made my way down the alley.

* * * *

I don’t know how long I walked. The
miles stretched on and on as I limped my way slowly along. Every
time I saw headlights or heard the roar of an engine I ducked
behind the corner of a building or dove behind the closest
telephone pole. I didn’t know if the men were still out there
searching for me.

I was in the industrial part of town.
The place at night was essentially abandoned. It was cold, but
thankfully the sky overhead was clear. I wrapped my arms tighter
around my body and kept moving. Finally, the landscape slowly began
to change. Large brick buildings and warehouses gave way to rows of
small white houses. I had finally stumbled into a neighborhood. Now
I just needed to find someone to help me.

The sound of music filled the air. I
changed direction and followed the loud thumping bass booms echoing
on the wind. A few blocks up I came upon a house in the midst of a
party. Bodies crowded the front yard, and even more were trying to
cram their way into the front door. Partygoers had parked, and
double parked, a couple of dozen cars sat along the street and a
few had pulled up onto the sidewalk. As I got closer, the music
became so loud I could feel the vibration of it against my
skin.

A blue mustang roared up the street
and came to a sudden halt in front of the house. A group of girls
about my age piled out of the car. I quickened my steps and headed
in their direction.

“
Can you help me?” I yelled
over the music.

One of the girls stopped and stared.
“What happened?”

I realized I must look a sight in my
torn top and jeans--my clothes and arms splashed with
dirt.

“
I was attacked. I need
help getting home.”

The girl called to her friends, who
were heading toward the house, “Hey, Amy, do you have my phone?
We’ve gotta call the police. Somebody mugged this girl.”

I moved quickly to her side and
gestured with my hands. “No police. I don’t think I could deal with
all their questions right now. I just need…I need to get home. Can
you help me?”

“
You sure you don’t want
the cops?” She was standing next to me now. Her expression was one
of sympathy.

“
I can pay you once I get
back. I don’t have money on me now.” Any money I had was in my
jacket pocket back at Luke’s place. “But if you can get me home I
can get you some cash.”

She shouted to her friends, “Hey, Amy
you wanted to get some food, right? Let’s go get some before we
head back into the party.” She turned back toward me. “Sure, we can
give a lift.”

She motioned for me to follow her. She
opened the car door, and I got in. Soon four girls piled in after
me, squeezing me tightly between bodies in the back
seat.

One of the girls asked, “Carla who’s
your new friend?” Then she asked me directly, “What happened to
you? Did you roll in the mud?”

Before I could answer Carla shouted
from the front seat, “She needs a ride. She was mugged. What do you
think? We can give her a ride and then go get something to
eat?”

A choir of voices shouted out in
unison “Yeah” and “Sounds good.”

Carla turned and looked back at me
from the front seat. “Where do you want to go?”

I gave her directions and laid my head
against the backseat.

Carla turned up the radio and music
blaring the car roared down the street.

* * * *

I’m not sure how far we traveled. I’d
closed my eyes and only opened them when I heard a chorus of voices
singing, “We’re here!”

We were in front of the magic shop. I
made a not-so-gracious exit, stepping on a few feet and hitting one
girl in the shoulder with my elbow on my way out.

“
Sorry. Excuse me. Oops,” I
said finally pulling myself out of the car.

I walked around the driver’s window,
and motioned for Carla to lower it. “I’ve some money upstairs. If
you wait, I can run up and get it.”

She shook her head. “Don’t worry about
it.”

I gave her a wide smile. “Thanks for
the ride.” Without her help, I could have been wandering the
streets all night.

Carla smiled back, and the car took
off.

The door to the magic shop had been
smashed in. I made my way cautiously into the shop. The place was a
mess. Someone had broken every piece of glass in the room. Items
once neatly stacked on shelves were now covering the floor. Ripped
books lay piled around.

It had taken a brutal streak of
violence to tear the place up like that. As I stood in the middle
of the wreckage a chill ran down my spine, and my thoughts turned
to Luke. The last time I had seen him, he’d been tossed out the
window.

Please goddess, let him be okay,
please let him be alive. I prayed under my breath as I took the
stairs two at a time.

I rushed into the main room and there
he was, sitting in a chair, with his head lying against his folded
arms.

I was so happy to see him that I cried
out his name, “Luke!”

He looked up and leaped out of the
chair. We came together, our bodies slamming into a hard
embrace.

“
You’re alive,” I
whispered.

He tightened his grip. “So are
you.”

We stayed like that, entwined in each
other’s arms until he slowly pulled back and asked, “Where’s
Darla?

“
They still…” my voice
broke into a sob. “They still have her.”

He pulled me into his arms again. “How
did you get away?”

“
I jumped from the
car.”

He took a step back and looked me
over. “Are you hurt?”

I held out my arms and turned them
over, “I’ve got some cuts and bruises, but I’m all right. How about
you?”

“
The railing stopped me
from going over, head-first, into the alley. I hit my head.” He
reached up and touched the side of his head and winced. “I must
have been unconscious for a while. When I came to it was dark, and
you were both gone.” His voice was full of anguish now. “I didn’t
know where to start looking. I know people hate our kind, but I
never imagined they would raid the house and try to kill
us.”

I cleared my throat a few times before
I could get the words out, “Those men weren’t after you. They were
after me.”

“
You recognized
them?”

I nodded my head and turned away. I
couldn’t meet his eyes. I was the reason he’d almost died, and
Darla was now in danger. “I’m so sorry. I should never have come,”
I whispered.

He came up behind me and rested a hand
on my shoulder. “We need to find Darla.”

I spun around. “Your family, people
from your guild can help us find her and bring her
back.”

“
My guild, my family,
everyone… they’re all on the retreat. It’s up in the mountains.
It’s remote. Cell phones don’t work up there. Darla and I were the
only ones who stayed back to watch the store. There’s no one to
help.”

“
But you said your uncle
would be gone for weeks, does that mean none of them will be back
for weeks?” Panic filled my voice.

He nodded his head. “Darla’s not dead.
I’d know if she…” He stopped and took a deep breath. “They have
her, we have to find her.”

“
What about the
cops?”

“
The cops won’t help my
kind. That goes for help from any other Guild. You know the way
people feel about my people. Look it’s just the two of
us.”

“
How do we find
her?”

“
We don’t. You
do.”

“
I don’t
understand.”

“
Your family was murdered
by these people.”

“
Can you call on them, my
family’s spirits?” I knew he could conjure up the dead. If my
family was in the place ‘between’, their spirits in an eternal
state of unrest, would they be like one of the Luke’s banshee’s? I
didn’t know if I could stomach seeing Mama’s face filled with the
pain and sorrow of a banshee.

“
No. If they were going to
contact me, they would have when you first showed up. Spirits
decide who they’re going to visit. They didn’t come to me, but I’m
betting they’ll come to you.”

“
You want me to call on my
family’s spirits?” my voice trembled as I asked the
question.

“
Yes, but for you to do
that you’d have to become one of us.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“You said you wouldn’t teach me.”

“
There’s no choice now.
Those men have Darla.” He turned and started pacing. “I don’t want
to do it. You don’t understand how hard it’s going to be. For you
to become one of us…I don’t know what’ll happen if we do it this
way. But these people killed your family. They haven’t hurt Darla
yet, but that doesn’t mean they won’t kill her.”

He was going to teach me. I was going
to get the thing I wanted most. I should have felt triumph, but I
only felt fear and a sinking feeling that maybe even now it was too
late to save his sister.

He grabbed my arm. “We need to find
somewhere safe to go. It’ll be light in a couple of hours. We can
do it tomorrow at the witching hour--we can perform the first
ritual.”

“
How many rituals are
there?” Darla’s words came back to me. Whatever these rituals were,
they weren’t going to be easy. They were something she was afraid
of.

There was an intensity in his eyes I
had never seen before. “Three. Normally candidates perform the
rituals over a full year, sometimes longer. People learn to wield
their power slowly, gradually building until they’re in true
possession of their gifts, but we don’t have that kind of time.”
His gripped tightened on my arm. “We can do the rituals over the
next three nights. It’s crazy, and as far as I know it’s never been
done, but we don’t have a choice.”

“
And if they hurt Darla
before I finish the rituals?” I was suddenly afraid to hear his
answer.

“
After you told me about
your family’s death I looked it up on the internet. It wasn’t hard
to find. Mass murder makes the headlines. It probably didn’t mean
anything to you at the time, but they killed your family on the
night of a full moon. When I fought them, most of the men were just
wizards. They had some power, but it wasn’t strong enough to
overtake me. But one of them, his power, it was like
mine.”

I forced the words out, “He was a
death dealer?”

Luke turned his face away. “He was,
but stronger than anyone I’ve ever seen. For him to be that strong,
he has to have been doing things…rituals that are hundreds of years
old. Things that are no longer done. Things my people now condemn.
The timing of the murders…I think it was a sacrifice.”

I could feel the blood draining from
my face. A cold seeped into my body and chilled me to the very
bone. “A sacrifice…”

“
A human sacrifice. They
slashed your father’s throat, most likely with a knife specially
prepared for the ritual.”

My father was a human sacrifice. I was
horrified at his answer. I stood staring at him
speechless.

“
They might do the same to
Darla, but n
ot until the time is right for
the ritual. If I’m right, and they plan on using her to power an
old spell, it’s six days until the next dark moon.” He reached out
and grabbed me by the shoulders.
The
expression in his eyes was one of desperation. “I can’t do this
alone. I wasn’t strong enough on my own. You saw what happened. If
you become one of us, even if you aren’t at full strength, you may
be able to help pull some of the focus off of me, so I can try and
work more powerful spells. We may be able to hold our own long
enough to free Darla. With your help, we might have a
chance.”