Tegan's Power (The Ultimate Power Series #4) (30 page)

“For the medicine that
you are going to take to make sure the child you are carrying doesn’t die.
There’s no sure-fire way of saving both of you, but there is a potion that will
at least ensure the baby lives.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“This is all I have to
offer.”

“Fine.”

I leave the room and
return with a pad and pen, taking down the ingredients as Emilia calls them
out. Once she’s finished, she says, “You will drink this every morning and
every night for the entire duration of your pregnancy. If you miss even a
single dose it will no longer work.”

“Right,” I reply, scanning
down the list and trying to figure out where I’m going to get a three/four
month supply of all this stuff. Then I remember Rita’s RV and how it’s jam
packed with spell ingredients. That’s one less thing to worry about.

Emilia doesn’t look at
me when I say, “We never had to be enemies, you know. I could have been a
granddaughter to you. Sometimes you just have to accept the imperfections in
people in order to find the pearl inside the ugly oyster shell.”

She continues to hold
her silence so I give up and thank her for the list of ingredients before I
leave.

Just as I’ve returned
to my room and started packing away the spell from earlier there’s a light
tapping on the window. I turn my head to find Roman hovering in the air. What’s
this, talk to your grandparent morning? I go to the window and let him in.

“Oh my God, you can
fly.”

“Not naturally,” he
answers while casually climbing inside. “It’s a spell.”

“Ah.”

Slipping off his coat,
he walks over to the bed and sits down. I swallow hard and glance at the door.
Ethan is out at the moment inspecting the wreckage at Crimson, but I still
can’t help being nervous that he’s going to walk in on us at any second. He’s
not too fond of Roman and I don’t know how he’d react if he found him here with
me in our room.

Roman clasps his hands
together and smiles at me.

“So,” he begins. “Have
you had enough time to consider my proposition?”

His proposition? Oh,
shit. What with everything that’s been happening, I’d completely forgotten.
Since he’d retrieved Emilia and Rebecca from Theodore, I’d just thought he was
doing this for me anyway, with or without me agreeing to let him train me as a
sorceress. I’m just now realising that despite doing this, he still hasn’t used
Emilia to take down the barrier, and he hasn’t gotten Rita back for me either.

“You know I’m pregnant,
right?” I say trying to distract him and buy myself more time before I have to
answer.

“I do. I would say
congratulations are in order, but that would probably be in bad taste.”

A shiver runs through
me as I try to push vivid thoughts of dying out of my head.

“I also know that
you’re planning on going after Theodore by yourself,” he continues. “Tut, tut,
Tegan. That’s a very bad idea. You have no chance of defeating him.”

“How the hell do you
know that?”

He taps his temple. “I
know a lot, too much really.”

I sigh and slump down
onto the bed beside him. “I’m just panicking, okay. If I survive my pregnancy
then I want to know that I’m bringing my child into a world that’s stable. In
order to do that, Theodore has to die.”

“Well, I could help you
with that, if you agree to my offer.”

Pursing my lips, I
stare down into the palms of my hands, searching for answers that aren’t there.
“If I became a sorceress, would I still be me?”

Roman laughs. “Of
course you would, my dear. The possession of magic comes with a choice. Take
Theodore and myself as an example. Theodore made the choice to use his magic
for darkness, while I choose to use mine to do good.”

“It’s that simple?”

“Most things are when
it comes down to it.”

I sigh, a million
thoughts rushing through my head. Finally, when I’ve come to a decision, I turn
and hold my hand out to Roman.

“Alright Granddad,
you’ve got yourself a deal.”

He takes my hand into
his immediately and we shake on it, a beatific smile spreading across his face.
“Marvellous.”

Standing up, I walk
over to the closet and pull out the backpack I’d stashed there last night. It
has a very, very sharp sword (which I stole from a room hidden at the back of
the basement, where I discovered Ethan keeps his weapons) several litres of
petrol, and a good old fashioned packet of matches. Oh yeah, and a zippo
lighter just in case the matches happen to get wet. The sword is too big for
the backpack and sticks awkwardly out of the top, so I take it and strap it
across my back instead.

Okay, I have to admit,
I feel pretty badass right now.

Hitching the bag over
my shoulder I face Roman again and he’s grinning at me.

“I see you’re
prepared.”

“Absolutely. Now, let’s
go kill ourselves a sorcerer.”

“It would be my
pleasure.”

In a matter of seconds
Roman has transported us to an empty meadow, quite close to the spot where Finn
brought me so that I could call my dad. The purple barrier hovers in the air
and shoots up into the sky just a short distance away.

“Come, we’ll walk from
here.”

“Where are we going?
There are no houses for miles.”

“Correction, no visible
houses.”

“Right.”

Roman strides ahead of
me and when he reaches the barrier he walks directly through it. I follow him,
but when I reach the other side there are still no houses in sight.

“Theodore’s been
staying on the other side of the barrier?” I question.

“I presume that after
what happened the other day, he decided that remaining just outside of Tribane
was the safer option.”

He sweeps his hand
through the air and gold trickles from his palm. It’s like he’s using an eraser
to wipe away the glamour, because each time he swipes his hand a new piece of a
hidden picture starts to emerge. Theodore hasn’t just hidden any old house here
in the middle of nowhere, he’s hidden his mansion. The very same mansion that I
saw crumble to the ground with my own eyes on Ridley Island just over two years
ago.

To be able to recreate
a house that’s been destroyed is just mind boggling to me.

When Roman is done and
the entire mansion is revealed to us I instinctively take a step back. I’ve got
a bad feeling about this and that bad feeling is confirmed when the door opens
and a small dark figure emerges. It’s Rita.

We’re a short distance
from the building so she begins to walk towards us. I look to Roman for
guidance on what we should do, but he’s staring at Rita with a massive smile on
his face.

“Um, what’s happening?”
I ask.

“It appears that
Theodore has decided to send his protégé to come and face us instead of doing
it himself.”

I snort. “Scaredy cat.”

“More like a clever
cat. He knows you love her like a sister and that no matter what happens you
won’t kill her.”

“Well, that’s just
cheating,” I reply, annoyed.

Roman doesn’t respond
but instead calls out to Rita. “Little witch, what a pleasure. I’ve been hoping
we’d meet again.”

“Fuck you,” she spits,
and I mean she actually spits. Fortunately, she’s still too far off to hit
Roman and it lands just shy of his feet.

“Rita…” I begin but
trail off.

Her eyes cut to me and
my heart chills at the look she gives me. Pure hate. “Oh, don’t start this shit
again, Tegan. I’m not your Rita, so stop giving me those bloody puppy eyes and thinking
I’m going to come back to you.”

These are the most
words she’s said to me in a long time, so despite their harsh nature, I take
hope from the fact that she’s actually talking to me.

I cock an eyebrow. “I’m
not going to give up on you, Reet. Even if you have turned into a massive
bitch.”

Roman chuckles.
Something flickers behind Rita’s eyes, but she quickly disguises it.

“Say whatever you want.
I think I’ll kill you now so that I can be done with you turning up all the
time trying to save me.”

There’s some sort of
honesty in what she’s saying, and suddenly I don’t feel so confident anymore.
“You’d really do that? You’d…kill me?”

Her mouth tightens. “Why
not? You’re nothing to me, nothing but an irritation.”

Roman is still laughing
like he knows a secret, and I wish he’d stop. This is not a laughing occasion.
He gives Rita a seductive look and I suddenly realise that he has the hots for
her. Great. Though to be honest I’m kind of glad he’s found someone else to
focus his affections on.

“Tegan, do you think
you can handle her on your own?” he asks. “I want to go and find the sorcerer.”

“No!” I screech. “She
just said she’s going to kill me and you want to leave me alone with her! What
the fuck?”

Roman studies me. “I
wouldn’t be leaving if I didn’t think you’d be safe.”

“I don’t care what you think,
you’re not leaving me.”

He takes a step closer
and stares seriously into my eyes. “You can do this, I believe in you.”

And with that he
disappears.

Several very loud
expletives leave my mouth.

Rita grins viciously.

Before I have the
chance to do a thing she throws a bolt of magic at me, knocking me to the
ground. I yelp, feeling the pain shoot right up my back.

“Jesus Christ, Rita!” I
exclaim. A sharp sting shoots through my stomach where my tiny little
possibility of a baby lies, and I reach down with my hand to rub at it. Rita’s
gaze follows the movement and then her eyes narrow in something close to
disgust.

“You’re pregnant with a
vampire abomination,” she says darkly while tiny flecks of magic drip from her
fingertips like water.

“You and your daddy
really are fond of that word, aren’t you?”

She turns her head and
looks off into the distance like she’s pondering something. “I should cut the
thing out of you.”

“Why bother?” I retort
even though my gut is churning at the thought of it. “The birth will more than
likely kill the both of us.”

“Hmm, that’s true.”

“Look Rita, I know a
vampire killed Noreen and that’s what sent you over the edge, but you can come
back from this.”

“Don’t you dare say her
name, you have no right!”

“Alvie really misses
you,” I continue and I might be mistaken but I think she winces for a split
second. “Everybody misses you. Come on, it must be awful living with old clown
face in there.”

I get a fright when she
lashes her magic at me and it misses by the barest fraction of an inch,
singeing the grass where I landed flat on my arse just moments ago. My hands
shake as I lift them up in front of me.

“Please, just calm
down, okay? I’m sorry I called your dad a clown face. If anything he’s more like
one of those marionette dolls.”

The old Rita would have
laughed at this, but not this Rita. This Rita simply stares at me without
emotion. She starts to pace, muttering to herself. I take the opportunity to
summon my sparks and have them ready to attack if needed as I pull myself up
off the grass.

I’m determined to find
some trace of her old humanity, so I continue talking. “What’s it like living
with him anyway? Must be kind of weird. Does he use the bathroom like normal
people or does he just magic that stuff away? I mean, I’ve often wondered if
sorcerers even have to sleep. Like, they’re immortal and all, so maybe they
don’t.”

Rita’s eyes cut to me.
She doesn’t do anything, but she doesn’t seem too enthused about me prattling
on either.

“These are important
questions, you see, because Roman’s going to train me to become a sorceress, so
I should probably know this stuff before I really commit. I think it might be
weird not going to the bathroom anymore. And I really like to sleep. Finn says
it’s my favourite pastime.”

“You, a sorceress?” Rita
interrupts and I feel a little rush of triumph that I got her to interact.
“Don’t make me laugh. You’re so clueless about even the basics of magic.”

Well, that was nice and
bitchy. Still, I’ll take ‘bitchy Rita’ over ‘I’m going to kill you and cut out
your baby Rita’ any day of the week.

“I might be clueless,
but I have power. That’s the most important thing, the other bits I can learn
as I go along.”

“You have power?” she
questions derisively. “Sure you do. Your only power is the ability to spread
your legs for vampires and let them feed on you.”

“I only let that happen
once,” I interject. “Once doesn’t make me a slut. Well, the blood thing
happened once, the spreading of the legs happened a few times. But you should
try it, you know. It’s lots of fun.”

Purple starts to swirl
in her black eyes now. “You’re vile.”