Enthrall Me (The conclusion to Enchant Me) (6 page)

“What!” Alexis burst out, breaking free of Neila’s hold, and racing over to Ciara.

“She went into town this morning,” she continued, “and we haven’t heard from her since. She’s not answering her phone either.”

All the blood dropped from Alexis’s face, and I moved to stand next to her. “Why did she go alone?” Alexis demanded of the room at large.

“Brianna is still young, I doubt the danger seemed real to her. Especially in her own hometown,” Grady answered softly.

“Let’s not assume the worst yet,” Ciara declared. But I wasn’t convinced, and I could tell just by her expression neither was Alexis. “The adults have already been separated into groups. Some will go into Athboy, while the others search the nearby forests. The rest will stay here with you,” she said, pointedly eyeing the teenagers in the room. Then she swept out, with most of the adults falling in behind her.

Immediately Alexis moved to follow them, and Grady pulled her back. “It’s too dangerous. You’ll be of more help staying here, so they won’t have to worry.”

Alexis turned to look at me. “Can you sense her powers anywhere nearby?”

I concentrated for a moment, weaving through all the layers of magic and power around me, but I couldn’t find the thread that belonged to Brianna. Frustrated I shook my head. I didn’t know how far my powers reached, but at the moment I couldn’t sense even a trace of her. Alexis turned back to Grady, determination written all over her face. “Christian maybe able to sense her if we’re out there searching.”

Grady just shook his head sadly. “I want to find her as much, or more than you do. She’s like a daughter to me and Ciara, but we can’t risk this being a trap. I’m sorry Alexis, but all of you kids need to stay here.”

My fists clenched, as I thought about Brianna out there alone, possibly hurt, but I needed to keep Alexis safe too. I moved in front of Alexis, and prepared to leave. “What if I just go, I can take care of myself.”

“I’m sorry Christian,” he said, as he closed the door, and stood guard in front of it. I stared at him for a moment, judging his resolve. Even though he usually was a softhearted pushover, he had no intention of letting us go this time, so I walked away.

Alexis paced angrily, undoubtedly trying to come up with an argument or scheme to get past Grady. The other people in the room, a few teenagers, and a couple of elderly people, talked quietly amongst themselves. I sat in a chair next to the fire, watching Alexis, but mentally searching for a sign of Brianna’s powers. Abruptly, a young Japanese looking girl across from me, lurched up and out of her chair. Her face going almost as pale as her bleached blonde bob. Grady rushed up, grabbed her shoulders, and gave her a little shake. “Mika, what do you see?”

All of us crowded around, her dark eyes were wide with sorrow. “She’s standing at the Veil.” The Veil… The shadowy space that separated life from death. If she crossed into the Veil she would be lost to us.

I felt sick at her words, and threw a concerned glance at Alexis. I didn’t want to imagine how Alexis felt, Brianna had been like a little sister to her. Alexis looked ready to explode. Rage and terror, all reflected in her face. I rushed over to her, when a blast wave hit me, and knocked me flat on my back. Power surged from her, but she didn’t seem to be aware of it, she seemed locked in place, her eyes flashing back and forth. I didn’t dare touch her. The others kept their distance, careful to stay outside the field of her power. Then just as suddenly she sagged, and became aware of her surroundings. She turned and met my eyes with a look that squeezed my heart. “She’s near the river, south of here.”

She whirled away from me and raced to the door, but Grady blocked the way. “I can’t Alexis. Ciara gave strict orders for all of you to stay here. I’ll call, and tell them where she is.”

I felt Alexis’s powers spike as she stared Grady down, and in a frighteningly controlled voice, she spoke. “It will be too late then. I’ve already seen it, we,” she gestured to me, and the others around us, “are the ones that find her.”

Grady looked at us, then stepped aside. As one, we all raced out into the night, following Alexis’s lead. When we got to the river Boyne, we spread out and headed south. With the overcast sky there was very little moonlight to go by, so I opened to my Otherworld vision, hoping I would see some faint glow of her powers.

“She’s close,” Mika called out from behind us. With her short stature, she had a hard time keeping up.

We stopped then, and searched the tall grasses. The lush countryside the painter in me would’ve loved to paint, became a torturous maze.

“Christian, can you sense her?” Alexis begged in a shaky voice.

“Not yet,” I replied gently.

“What if you increase her powers?”

Normally she would know this, but in her desperation, Alexis was grasping for any solution. “I can’t Alexis. Not if I can’t see or sense her.” I turned and studied her for a moment. On the magical plane she glowed so brightly, that she eclipsed everything else around her. I walked over to her, and took her hand in mine, rubbing it in comfort. “I need you to go back a bit. You’re glowing so bright I can’t see anything else.” She nodded, and walked away.

“Mika,” I called out, and she quickly ran up to my side. Even in my Otherworld vision I could see her saddened features. “Is she…”

“No, but she’s close. She doesn’t have much time,” she whispered.

I searched the area, straining my eyes with the effort to catch something, some glimmer of her powers. Finally a couple yards away, I saw a light so faint that I wondered if my eyes were playing tricks on me. I ran towards it, the others not far behind me. Releasing my Otherworld vision, I saw Brianna huddled on the ground, bleeding, and too still. I crouched down, and gently jiggled her. “Brianna, we’re here.”

Alexis rushed up, fell to her knees, and lifted Brianna’s head onto her lap. “Brianna?”

Under the glare of a flashlight, she blinked weakly. Her eyes were hazed with pain, but her body was lax, like all the fight in her had been extinguished. Drops of moisture fell on her face; Alexis was crying silently. My insides twisted. Who would hurt someone like Brianna?

“Can anyone here, heal?” Alexis pleaded.

“The healer’s were the first ones to disappear,” Grady replied in a chocked voice, as he bent down, and carefully picked up Brianna. We followed him as he carried her to the nearest road. I could see Liam and the rest of our Grove in the headlights of the truck they brought. Ciara’s eyes widened in horror upon seeing Brianna, and she threw her arms about her the best she could, as Grady carried her to the back of the truck, and laid her down.

As soon as we got back to Ward house, Grady and Ciara immediately took Brianna upstairs to the room she shared with Alexis, and carefully laid her down. Ciara only allowed our own Grove inside, but our grief filled the room. Brianna had yet to regain consciousness. Heartbreakingly, Alexis still cried with out sound as she handed damp cloths to Ciara, who tenderly cleaned the blood and dirt off of Brianna’s face and body. I slunk down against the wall, my chest felt tight, like someone pressed down on it from the inside.

Neila and Liam stood in the corner of the room, their eyes trained on Brianna, their powers flaring with their emotion. Desire for vengeance raged in their eyes, and Ciara obviously sensed it too.

“No good will come of you chasing them tonight. It could be exactly what they want.”

I jumped up. “You know who did this.”

Ciara’s hands shook as she bathed Brianna. “I have a suspicion.”

“Who is it?” I demanded, feeling my own powers spike.

With tears in her eyes, Ciara glared at me. “This isn’t the time.”

I wanted to argue. If they were still close… But then a soft knock sounded on the door. Liam opened the door, Mika stood in the hallway. The sadness and regret on her face looked wrong. She looked to young for something like this. “She’s passing into the veil,” she said in a soft Irish accent.

“No! cried Alexis, grabbing Brianna’s limp hand, and squeezing it. “Don’t go Brianna, please.”

Ciara cradled Brianna in her arms, and wailed in such pain it hurt my ears. I bent down and tried to pull Alexis into my arms, but she shook me off, refusing to release Brianna. Mika sat down next to us, her dark eyes worried. She placed her hands over Alexis’s. “You’ve got to let her go. Don’t send her on her journey with sadness and worry.”

Alexis stared at Mika for a moment, then looked back at Brianna, she shakily released her. “I love you.”

Alexis’s pain doubled my own, and tears streamed down my face as I watched Mika take Brianna’s hand. I opened my eyes to the Otherworld; Mika shimmered with her power. “Go in peace Brianna. You’ll see your loved ones again someday.”

At first nothing happened. No glow, nothing of power or light around Brianna. Mika laid her hand over Ciara’s, who still cradled Brianna in her arms, crying brokenly. “Please Ciara, let her go.”

Ciara’s whole body shook with sobs, but she pulled away, and leaned against Grady behind her. Mika patted Brianna’s hand. “They’re going to be o.k.. You can go. They’ll be alright, Brianna. Set yourself free.”

Light began to shimmer around Brianna, and for a moment, I hoped that she would come back to us. Then the shimmering form broke free of the body, hovered for a moment glancing at all those around, and then it dissipated into nothingness.

Nausea rolled through me. I’d just seen a soul separate from a friends body. I’d watched a friend, an innocent girl die. I gasped for breath. Alexis called my name, but I couldn’t hear past the sound of my heart pounding out a vow in my ears. I’d kill whoever did this.

CHAPTER 7

Even though burial preparations were still underway for Brianna, a council meeting was called the very next day. I held Alexis’s hand tightly as we walked into the overcrowded reception room. The atmosphere was a whirlpool of panic, fury, sadness and guilt, and everyone seemed to feel a degree of each. Right now, mine and Alexis’s primary emotion was anger; the Grove elders had refused to allow anyone to go back out and track down the people who had destroyed Brianna. While I had understood their need for caution, it still didn’t felt right.

Ciara, the elected speaker for the elders of the Groves, moved to the center of the room, and called the council meeting to order. “For awhile now we have been hearing rumors about a group of Druids we’ve termed the Dark Grove. The information that we received but we’re unable to verify, was that the leader of that Grove was looking for a spell that would open the Otherworld onto our plane. We have secretly sent several people to find out the truth, only to never hear from them again.”

“Which is verification in itself,” someone called out, disgruntled, from the crowd.

Ciara turned and stared at the man who had spoken out. “It contributes to the possibility, but it is not conclusive.”

“So all the missing people in the south of Ireland, and Brianna here, could be retaliatory, or the beginning of their attacks against us?” a female voice yelled out.

“It’s a possibility,” said one of the male council members.

“A possibility?” screeched another woman. “My sister has been missing for weeks, and just now you are telling us this?”

“Enough sitting around, it’s time we went on the offensive,” Neila declared.

Liam immediately launched up out of his chair. “And do what? We don’t know who they are or where they are? Without any information, all we’ll be doing is creating chaos and panic.”

“As opposed to missing and dead? If we had been warned maybe none of this would’ve happened,” Neila retorted with fire in her eyes.

Liam stepped up and got in Neila’s face. “Are you blaming the council now?”

Two fireballs burst into Neila’s hands. “Aren’t they to some degree responsible?”

The sudden spike of powers around me, made me release Alexis’s tightly clinging hand and grasp my head. Since our powers were so tightly tied to our emotions, the sudden explosion of anger and fear was playing havoc with my senses. I could barely hear Alexis quietly asking me what was wrong.

“Enough,” roared Ciara. “Grady, take the kids to their rooms.”

With little choice in the matter, we were all herded out. The pain lessened the further from the irate adults I got, but I could still feel the tension that flowed from Alexis. We separated at the top of the stairs and went to our rooms without argument. I knew as soon as Grady went back downstairs, Alexis would sneak back to my room. She’d had trouble sleeping in her room ever since we lost Brianna, so every night she slept in my room then crept back to her own, early in the morning.

Only a couple minutes passed before she slipped into my room, closing the door behind her. The expression in her eyes scared me. I had never seen her looking so hopeless. I pulled her into my arms, and held her tighter than I ever had before.

“This could be exactly what the Dark Grove wanted, for us to turn against ourselves in panic. Is this how it will all end?”

“No,” I promised, but I wondered if she caught the note of uncertainty that I hadn’t been able to hide.

When the day arrived for Brianna’s ceremony, all of us were worn out from the rollercoaster of emotions. Anger, grief, and a desire for revenge, it felt like a never ending cycle. But what I felt couldn’t compare to Alexis’s emotions. Her intense grief had turned to anger, and the fire in her eyes burned as brightly now as a week ago. I knew from experience that there were no words to make the pain go away, or bring Brianna back.

Looking in the mirror, I checked the look of the black suit I had to get at the last minute. Normally a Druid passing into the Otherworld was a moment of celebration, but in this case none of us were able to adopt that attitude. Brianna had been too young and innocent, to be destroyed like that. We could only guess that the Dark Grove had lured her away, and then attacked. But why they let her escape, we still didn’t know.

Sighing, I went to Alexis’s room, she opened the door with a weak smile and let me in. Ciara had removed all traces of Brianna in the room, even the bed, which somehow made it even worse, more obvious that something, or someone was missing. Without speaking Alexis, threw a dark wrap over her black dress, and made to head out the door, but I grabbed her from behind, wrapping my arms around her. She tried to shrug off my hold. “Alexis, if you need to cry, just cry. You can’t keep holding it in, and pushing everyone away.”