Blood of the White Witch (31 page)

We were currently in our bedroom. I was
sitting cross-legged on the bed watching him as he paced on the
floor. I was beginning to think he was going to wear a hole in the
carpet.

“Things just aren’t making sense, Portia,”
he said. “The eclipse is tonight. We should’ve seen some type of
preparations going on by now. No one has been in or out of that
place since we took Darcy. Where’s the rest of the coven? Which
circle is the right one? Where do we go from here?”

There was a knock at the door, and Shelly
entered the room, her face alight with excitement.

“Vance, your grandparents just left the
estate in their vehicle. They had a driver and another woman with
them. It was your mom. I’m sure of it. She looked just like the
demon you destroyed before that you thought was her.”

Vance was out the door and down the hall
before I could even get off the bed. I ran down the hallway after
him, clattering down the stairs and around the corner into the
sitting room.

Dad was rewinding the monitor, showing Vance
the image.

“That’s my mom,” he said. “We need to go
after her.”

“We will. The tracker on the car is working
well. Let’s get everyone into the cars so we can follow them,” Dad
said calmly.

“What if they’re going somewhere far away?”
Shelly asked. “Should we take our clothes?”

I could hear Vance literally growl in
frustration under his breath.

“We’ll just buy new clothes wherever we end
up,” he said through gritted teeth, and he dragged me toward the
doorway.

“Hang on,” Dad said to him, and I could feel
that it took every ounce of Vance’s self control to stop without
screaming at everyone at the top of his lungs. “Shelly, you and
Brad stay here and help Stacey gather up everyone’s things just in
case we need them. Mom and I will go on ahead with Vance and Portia
to track the vehicle. We’ll call you and let you know where we’re
going.”

Shelly nodded her head in reply, and Dad
leaned over to give Mom a peck on the cheek.

“Be careful,” Mom said softly to him.

“We will,” he said, with a lingering touch
against her face before he went out the door.

“Finally,” Vance muttered in irritation into
my head. “They could be halfway to the United States by now.”

“Try to stay calm, babe,” I said back to
him, knowing he was very frustrated. “We’ll find her.”

The four of us hurried to the car, quickly
climbing inside, Dad and Grandma up front and Vance and I in the
back.

Grandma was the driver, while Dad watched
his device and navigated which way to go. We soon found ourselves
heading out onto open highway.

My dad called my mom and told her it did
indeed look like we would be heading out for a longer trip and to
bring everything. He gave her our directions thus far and told her
he would call her again when he knew more.

Vance was holding my hand, but he was
clenching it so hard that I felt like my fingers were going to fall
off. I finally had to ask him to let go.

“Sorry,” he said, and I placed his hand in
my lap, trying to massage some of the tension out of it.

He was completely tied up in knots, both
inside and out.

I finally just gave up and laid my head on
his shoulder, linking my arm through his.

His eyes never left the road as he stared
straight ahead, watching for any sign of the vehicle ahead of
us.

I knew Dad was keeping us out of line of
sight on purpose. He didn’t want Douglas and Fiona to know we were
following them.

We had traveled for quite a while when we
finally came into an area known as Aberdeenshire. We tailed the
vehicle into the town of Inverurie. We were just inside the city
limits when Dad suddenly lost the signal to the car.

“No!” he said, and he hit the monitor on the
side with his hand. “No! No! No! Not now! Come back!”

Vance sat white-knuckled for a moment, then
threw his hands up in disgust and flopped back against the seat in
defeat.

Dad had Grandma drive to the last location
we had receive a signal from, but there was no sign of the vehicle
anywhere.

“Now what do we do?” I asked my dad, feeling
my own frustration at the situation mingling with Vance’s.

“I guess we’ll check into a hotel and see if
they ever pop back up on the monitor. I’m sorry, Vance,” he said
with true regret written all over his face. “I don’t know what
happened.”

“It isn’t your fault. Hopefully this was
their final destination also,” he said, completely dejected, and I
could tell by his voice that he didn’t think that was very
likely.

We checked into four of the rooms at the
Kintore Arms Hotel which was the closest place to where we had lost
the signal.

Dad got a hold of the others who were well
on their way here and gave them the final information.

The hotel was old and small, but under the
current circumstances it worked for our needs.

Vance and I went straight to our room and
plopped onto the bed, flicking on the television for a diversion
from our anxious thoughts.

It was late afternoon now. We hadn’t eaten
since breakfast, and I felt myself losing energy quickly.

“Do you want to try to find someplace to
eat?” I asked, and right on cue my stomach growled a little too
loudly.

“Do you think your Dad will let us out by
ourselves?” he asked sarcastically when he looked over at me.

“We won’t stop to ask him,” I said, pulling
him to his feet after me, and he flashed the first grin I had seen
him give all day.

We quickly exited the building, walking down
the street, entering the first pub we saw.

“You know this is a bar, right?” Vance said
when I pulled him inside.

“They serve food, too,” I replied, pointing
to the writing in the window before I guided him over to a small
table in a dark corner.

We ordered from a very friendly waitress,
and before long we had been served our food.

I began eating with relish.

“Don’t eat too fast,” Vance cautioned me,
watching me. “Remember what happened last time?”

“Yes,” I said with a sigh, taking care to
eat slower and trying to actually enjoy the food.

The sun was dipping low in the sky before we
finally finished, paid and headed back to the hotel.

The rest of the family had arrived by then,
and Dad was frantic with worry because no one had been able to find
us.

“You shouldn’t be out of the hotel!” he said
to Vance. “Someone could’ve seen you.”

“Portia was hungry,” Vance replied, not
stepping down. “I didn’t want her to get sick again, and I
certainly wasn’t sending her off to find food in a strange town by
herself.”

Grandma stepped in between the two of them
then.

“Sean, did you tell him what we found out
while they were gone?” she asked, trying to redirect their
attention.

Dad let out a big sigh.

“We got online and looked up stone circles
in the area,” he said with a hard expression.

“And?” Vance and I both asked at the same
time.

“There are ninety such circles in
Aberdeenshire.”

“That’s just great,” Vance said lifting his
hands before dropping them to his side in defeat. “Is anything
going to work in our favor?”

He spun around and walked down the hall into
our room, closing the door behind him with a slam.

Dad just looked at me, shaking his head, his
face reddening. “He’s really getting out of control, Portia.”

“He’s just nervous, Dad. We all are. That’s
why everyone is fighting. I’ll go talk to him.” I left Dad standing
there in the hall staring after me.

I went into the room, opening the door
softly and closing it the same way behind me.

Vance was lying on the bed watching the
news.

I walked into the bathroom to splash a
little cold water on my face, trying to calm my own nerves
down.

Things were coming to a head. I could feel
it.

“What the heck?” I heard Vance say from the
other room. “Portia! Come here quick!”

I walked to the doorway to see what he was
talking about.

He was standing at the foot of the bed
looking at the television. A news reporter was talking about a
breaking news story on the screen. She was standing next to Douglas
and Fiona.

“What happened then?” the reporter was
asking Fiona who looked very distraught but leaned in to speak into
the microphone.

“It has just been so horrible,” Fiona said,
clasping her hands together and wringing them in a frustrated
fashion. “We’ve been touring this part of the country with our
daughter-in-law for the last two days. She went out to see the
Easter Aquhorthies Stone Circle outside Inverurie yesterday.”

Vance was instantly on his laptop, looking
up directions.

“She never came home last night,” Fiona
continued. “She’s a diabetic, and we’re afraid that she’s sick
somewhere.”

A picture of Krista popped up on the
screen.

The reporter spoke up again.

“This woman was last reportedly seen on High
Street in Inverurie. If you have seen her, please call our hotline
number at the bottom of the screen. We need your help to return
this woman to her family.”

“What is this?” I asked, confused, and I
stared at the screen. “This doesn’t make any sense!”

“It’s a message for us,” Vance said while he
began to write something down on a piece of paper. “Portia, go get
your dad.”

“All right,” I said, hurrying out the door
and down the narrow hallway to my parents’ room.

I knocked briskly on the door, and my mom
answered.

“Did you see it?” I asked and pointed at the
T.V.

“See what?” she replied.

“Douglas and Fiona were just on the news
saying that Krista had gotten lost here yesterday after visiting
Easter Aquhorthies Stone Circle. Vance said it’s a message and to
come get Dad,” I replied.

Everyone jumped up in a flurry all at once
and hurried down to our room.

“Dad is here, Vance!” I called out when I
entered the room, but I didn’t see him. “Vance?” I called out, and
I went into the bathroom. “He isn’t here!” I ran to the window.
“The car is gone!” I yelled, and tears began to fill my eyes.

I turned to see Dad looking at Vance’s open
laptop.

“Get in the car! I have the directions!” Dad
hollered, and we all ran downstairs to pile into the other
vehicle.

I was shaking violently, and Brad wrapped
his arm around me.

“We’ll find him, don’t worry!” he said,
trying to comfort me while Dad peeled out of the parking lot onto
the dark road.

“Vance!” I screamed at him in my head.
“Don’t you dare do this!” I knew he could hear me.

“I have to, Portia!” he answered me
immediately. “They’ll kill her if I don’t go!”

“Vance, they want to drink your blood! You
could die, too! This is just a lure to get you there!” I argued
with him.

My dad caught my expression in the rearview
mirror.

“Are you talking to him?” he shouted at me
while we sped along.

I nodded my head.

“You tell him to pull that car over right
now and wait for us! That’s an order!”

I relayed the message, sure that Vance had
heard every word himself but desperate to try anything to get him
to stop.

“Portia,” he said back to me, calmer than I
had heard him in a while. “I love you, baby, but I have to do
this.”

The dreaded wall was instantly back in place
between us, and I could hear nothing but dead silence.

“He cut me off!” I cried out, my voice
catching.

I looked out the window and could easily see
that the moon was almost in full eclipse on the horizon.

We were speeding out of town, driving
recklessly. The road became increasingly narrower as we worked our
way up into some small hills, finally pulling into a parking
area.

I saw the car Vance had driven parked up in
front of us with the driver’s door hanging wide open.

My eyes followed the trail that led up the
hill, and I could see Vance running up it at full speed toward the
raised stone circle on the top.

“Get out!” I yelled at Brad, and I shoved
him out of the car, climbing over the top of him and taking off
after Vance.

I heard the others running behind me, but I
didn’t turn to look at their progress, only caring about my husband
in front of me.

I could see the black-cloaked figures that
stood in a circle around the fire burning in the middle. There was
also a white-clad figure lying across a recumbent stone on one side
of the circle. I knew instinctively that it was Krista even though
I was too far away to see for sure. She wasn’t moving, making me
wonder instantly if she had been drugged.

Vance was approaching the steps that led up
into the ring in front of me. I saw him breach the circle, throwing
both hands out to his sides, launching a stream of fire,
incinerating at least four of the demons present, two on each side
of him.

He ran straight to the recumbent stone,
jumping up on a small rock next to it, shoving Krista off the other
side of the altar, out of the circle and out of harm’s way.

I was a few yards away from the steps when
he turned to face the others. I saw the flash of a knife then and
felt the involuntary scream that was ripped from my lips when I saw
Fiona slam it into his chest, right into his heart.

I stumbled to my knees, grabbed my own chest
in pain, and saw the blood spray from him. Some of it gurgled up
out of his mouth, and he registered a look of surprise, falling
over onto the altar.

I could hear the others stop short behind me
with a gasp.

I saw Douglas flip his hood back then, and
he leaned over to drink the pumping blood straight from Vance’s
chest.