Praying for Daylight (20 page)

Despite the fact that we hadn’t hit it off on day one, I harbored a huge crush on Zack, my first ever. In the third grade I started a club. Girls only. We dubbed it an unofficial club because we thought some powerful person, like Oprah, had to deem it official.

We had since discovered that this was not true, but the name had a nice ring to it.

During our unofficial meetings we talked about Zack, spied on him, and risked being found out on a regular basis. What a rush, seriously. It was going great. The group accepted new members, and we even drew up plans for a clubhouse. I invented a fun game and made new friends.

Then, when I was in the fifth grade, Zack stole the streamers off my bike.

I cried, and made the very rational decision to hate him until the end of time. This effectively ended my reign as leader of The Unofficial Zack Warren Fan Club.

Which, last I heard, was still accepting unofficial members.

I glanced back at the pitcher, Zack Warren himself, and wondered why all these smart girls were attending a silly club, playing a game I had started when I was eight.

“Chloe, don’t say it,” Lana snapped, reading the annoyance on my face.

“I have to go home.” I was about to stand, but one of the girls grabbed my arm. Marcy. She played the tuba; last I heard, she didn’t attend meetings. “Don’t tell me they sucked you in, too.”

Her frizzy brown hair flew in her eyes and she had to push it back. “Just take pictures.”

“Oh, Lord.”

“It’s like we have a spy on the inside,” Christy Stillwater, the drama club president, cried through her headgear. She’d been in a boating accident last month and broken her jaw. Some of the girls had taken to calling her Chomper.

“I hear he wears nothing!” a cheerleader squealed. “Not boxers, briefs, or boxer briefs. He’s goes commando!”

A freshman girl blushed. “At lunch, someone told me he had to use two rulers to measure his…um, thingy.”

“It’s called a penis, honey,” one of the senior girls said.

“It can’t be that long,” another girl said. “Where would he put it in those pants?”

Across the field, Zack was practicing in his baseball uniform, and now every girl was staring at his crotch.

I wanted to crawl into a hole and hide. “Stop!”

“Bigger than average,” someone concluded.

“Oh!” Lana gasped. “Chloe, I want you to be the first to have one.” She pulled a plastic bag from her backpack and fished out a shiny pink object.

I stared down at a button. My nightmare manifested in real life.

Proud Member of

The Unofficial Zack Warren Fan Club

“Each one of you is certifiable.” I glared at them, feeling the blood whooshing in my ears. This couldn’t be happening! “You’ve managed to keep this club a secret, but what happens if you lose a button?”

Lana snorted. “We won’t.”

I tried a different approach. “What if Kyle finds them?”

She shrugged, examining her purple nails. “I’ll keep them hidden.”

“Like the club schedule he found?”

“He didn’t know what it was for!”

“He climbs through our dorm-room window every Friday night while I’m at study group. Don’t deny it. All it’s going to take is for you to leave a button where he’ll see and you’re screwed.”

“I’m already screwed.” She laughed.

“Since when have you and Kyle started sleeping together?” Christy asked, proudly pinning a button to her shirt.

“Since winter break.” Talk about a lack of modesty, but that was Lana. “I’m in love, Chomper.”

“Am I the only person here who thinks this club is morally wrong? Seriously creepy?” No one said a word. I rolled my eyes. “Fine, whatever. Just keep the buttons hidden. I really have to go.”

Marcy pouted. “At least snap some covert pictures, Chloe. You know what it would mean to us.”

“No.” I pushed to my feet. “This is a child’s game, and for some reason you’re all still playing. It feels weird drooling over Zack now. He’s not a piece of meat.”

“You’re right—he’s a hot piece of ass.” I didn’t dare look at the person who said that, because it was a guy.

“And why are you here?” I asked Lana. “You have a boyfriend. Doesn’t that mean something?”

“It’s not like I’m cheating on Kyle.”

“No, just undermining his value.” The decision to cut myself off was final, and they had to understand that. “From now on, my affiliation with this club is history. Make up some other girl. Say she started it. I’m going back to the dorms.”

“Don’t listen to Chloe,” Lana said to the group. “She can be so dramatic.”

“I’m not.”

“Zack’s never going to find out. You don’t need to be worried.” Marcy grabbed two pins and stuck them in her purse.

“The reason she’s pissed is because she likes Zack.” Lana smiled. “Admit it.”

“Wrong. I hate him.” I left them to finish the meeting. To moon and drool over the baseball player that, more often than not, went out of his way to annoy the absolute crap out of me. Zack probably got some sick pleasure from watching me squirm.

The club was like my own personal curse or something. I’d been able to put up with the immature high school antics. When Zack went away to college, I thought the bullshit would stop. Lana and her little followers would grow up. But they hadn’t. They worshiped him from afar for two more years. So I figured it was a high school thing. No self-respecting college girl would join a fan club for a baseball player, no matter how hot. By the time we graduated, they would have grown out of this phase.

I was so freaking wrong.

Lana and I applied for Eckerd College. It’s a private liberal arts school in St. Petersburg, Florida, on the Gulf of Mexico, and only a couple of hours from home in Naples, Florida. When we got accepted to the same school, Lana and I were thrilled. We were even allowed to be dorm mates.

I honestly didn’t think going to the same college as Zack, who was now a junior, would be a problem. Why should I let his presence keep me from going to the school I wanted?

My first day on campus, I realized there was a chance I’d never escape from the fan club. Lana started talking about having meetings, continuing the club. I ignored her. I figured her enthusiasm for worshiping a jock would be laughed at. Not that I wanted her to be shunned or anything. I thought a nice dose of the real world would be good for her.

It was now two days from my spring break as a college freshman, and in that time, Lana had cultivated almost fifty followers for the club. It was ridiculous.

I felt an acute annoyance, with a side of steaming, childish frustration and confusion. For some reason, smart, beautiful girls spent a few minutes listening to Lana about how great the club was, and they signed right up.

He was just one of those guys. Zack Warren walked into a room with a cocky strut and a wicked glint in his eyes. Guys wanted to be him. Girls wanted to be with him.

As I stomped past the god of baseball, it wasn’t hard to understand why so many girls loved Zack. Sure, he was intriguing and strong, and so what if he had a killer smile? I just couldn’t bring myself to like him.

Ever since the fifth grade, Zack and I have hated each other, and that’s never going to change.

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The Council, A Witch’s Memory

Inside he was tense, coiled, but calm and resolve.

Then I felt him falter, his worry ratchet up.

Our gazes locked.

He would not sacrifice himself for me.

I wouldn’t allow it.

Henry

The darkened hallway stretched out like a lazy black river. I listened to the sound of my footfalls echoing off the marble floors, wondering if other men who’d walked this path before me felt half my trepidation, or the immense amount of excitement coursing through my veins.

I stopped on the threshold of an open doorway at the end of the hall, trying to imagine the next thousand years of my life.

I was excited, of course, about to enter a world I’d been groomed for. Since I was a kid I’d dreamed of attending one of the important meetings held in this very room. Now that I’d turned eighteen, I’d finally “officially” be part of it.

“You gonna stand there all day, or close the bloody door?” My cousin Davy poked his head out of the room, grinning like a fool. “Come on, Henry. No need to be nervous about your first Council meeting, even if it is an emergency one.”

I straightened. “I’m not nervous.”

Normally there was a ceremony to welcome a new member of the Council. But I’d found out by text message from Davy that the ceremony wasn’t going to happen. He’d told me to get my ass to the Council chamber because the shit was hitting the fan.

He wasn’t one to mince words.

So not only was I nervous about my first meeting, I was also nervous about what was going to happen in it.

He smiled. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

With a grateful nod, I slipped inside, shutting the door behind me. The chamber was dimly lit, but I could see the outlines of three men standing around a white marble table. They were talking in low voices, careful not to let their conversation carry. As I drew nearer I studied the men, each dressed in black, their faces obscured by the low light.

Davy took his place on my left at the table and let out an anxious breath.

I stood next to James William Langley. The Warlock King. My father.

He looked formidable in his black uniform. Gold buttons adorned his coat and a saber was sheathed at his side in a black scabbard. His white gloves were a stark contrast to the dark colors of his uniform.

When I was little, my father had looked larger than life to me. He was the king, and the most powerful warlock, aside from my grandfather. It seemed he was capable of carrying the weight of the world on his great shoulders, just as he’d carried me.

“I would like to welcome Henry to his first Council meeting,” my father said. He smiled proudly and clapped me on the back.

“Thank you, Your Majesty.” I bowed out of respect. If we had been alone it wouldn’t have been so formal. “I am honored to be here.”

“And I am equally honored, son.” With a wave of his hand, my father lit the torches lining the walls, shedding much-needed light in the room. “Now, I should like to call this meeting to order. If there are no objections because some of our party are absent?”

“James, I do not object, merely wonder at your haste.” The Vampire King, Vladislav, chuckled. His deep blue eyes filled with amusement as he looked at my cousin. “That was a very cryptic message, Davy.”

I eyed my cousin. “You didn’t.”

Davy shrugged, hiding a grin. “It got their attention.”

My father leaned forward to see Vladislav’s phone as he held it out. “I guess I couldn’t have put it better myself.”

There was a rumbling growl from across the table and all eyes went to King Andrew. “It was a very funny message, I get it. Now, let’s get down to business.”

Vladislav nodded. “Is your son to join us, Andrew?”

“Unfortunately, no. Quinn is handling a dispute between clans.” King Andrew was the least vocal of the kings, one of those strong, silent types, until the werewolf in him reared its head.

I’d known Andrew and Vladislav all my life. I was thankful I didn’t have to worry about the group dynamics or having to prove myself to the kings.

“And your son?” my father asked.

“Dmitri is in Russia, taking my place at a dinner I regretfully backed out of to be here.” Vladislav looked more relieved than anything to be spared an evening of schmoozing.

“Then we shall begin. I advise you to prepare yourselves, gentlemen. For as horrible as you imagine my news to be, it has the potential to be devastating.” My father motioned for us to sit in the black, high-backed chairs surrounding the table. No one spoke. They watched patiently. “The Resistance is back.”

“Black of black,” Andrew whispered.

Black eyes, black soul.

Black of black.

When one of us went over to the dark side, a void spread through the immortal like a disease. From the inside out. Consuming the soul. Turning the eyes black. There was nothing that could be done to reverse it.

The last time the Resistance had challenged the Council, five hundred years ago, they had been annihilated. A group of extremists, they wanted nothing more than to take over the world and enslave the humans.

I didn’t think it was all that inventive, but at least they’d set a goal for themselves.

Then they decided that taking over the world wasn’t enough. They wanted to open a portal to connect our world to the plane ruled by the Demon King, Reagus.

The leader of the Resistance, Craven, thought humans were weak. He believed we were hiding from them, cowering. He tried opening the portal, and almost succeeded. My father had challenged him, and with the help of Vladislav and Andrew, had defeated him and saved the world.

The three men were already highly respected, but a call for order amongst the magical communities helped them to solidify the Council. Thus it had been officially formed five hundred years ago. We have kept peace and order, together, since.

Eight years ago, Craven had returned. He gathered power and support, but was betrayed by someone he was very close to. A woman, I think. It’d been so long since I’d heard the story.

“So, are you saying Craven is back?” I wasn’t quite sure what all of this meant.

“His body was never recovered.” My father’s eyes flashed a brilliant green. All immortals’ eyes glowed with the strong emotions we had. Happiness, sadness, anger…this hit close to home for all of us.

“What information do you have that suggests the Resistance is returning?” Vladislav asked. “There are no signs of a third uprising.”

“Your Majesties,” Davy said, gaining their attention. “Last night my men arrested a man for terrorizing humans in Central Park, New York City. We’ve identified him as Samuel Price. Warlock. Six hundred and thirteen years. No mate and no children.”