Tethered 02 - Conjure (17 page)

“Can you at least put a glamour over both of us so we aren’t seen walking into the woods together in the middle of the night?” I struggled to keep up with Theo’s fast pace. He didn’t answer me, so I took that as a no.

I tugged the edges of my robe around me tighter as I walked down the street. No cars passed us; the street was dead. I wondered what time it was, remembering it had been nearly ten when Kace and everyone had left. Mom and I had sat up talking for a little while longer, but not much. Noises from another tourist rager on the beach met my ears. For a split second I wondered if it was like this year-round and why the police didn’t patrol the area more to keep control over it.

Theo cleared his throat, reminding me of his silent presence and where we were headed. The hum of a transformer on the fritz buzzed in my ears as I slipped through the overgrown brush at the entrance to the pathway.

“Why are we going to the cliff?” I asked, my stomach churning.

Why was I even going into the woods with him at all? I should have told him to come back tomorrow night, when my mom was gone, so we could perform whatever spell he wanted to in my house. My heart slammed against my ribs as I thought of this now. Dear God, I was stupid!

“Because it’s the place we became tethered. Maybe it will be the only place we can go to break it,” Theo finally said, his voice dripping with his Southern, velvety accent.

That made sense. I had to give him credit there, but it didn’t mean I liked the idea of being in the woods with him alone and at night. Goose bumps spread across my body as a sudden, incredibly horrible thought flashed through my mind—what if he’d brought me out here to kill me? My hands grew clammy and my bottom lip began to tremble as I wondered what I should do. Should I continue walking with him or turn around? If he grabbed me, should I scream? How would I explain what I was doing out here with him in the first place?

I cursed myself as I held my breath, suddenly hyperaware of my surroundings. The sound of the ocean was growing closer, the temperature a bit cooler. A slight breeze blew around me, and I wondered if it came from Theo or if it was simply nature-made. If it came from him, it had to mean he was in a good mood, right? Not a killing mood?

“What are we going to do here?” I swallowed hard, unable to bring my eyes to look at him as he continued in front of me along the trail.

“Another spell,” he answered. “Hopefully this one will work.”

“What type of spell?” I asked, pushing a low branch out of my way. It snagged on my robe, tearing a slight hole in the sleeve. I frowned, but it was the least of my worries at the moment.

“You’ll see” was the only reply I got.

I bit my lip, not liking his cryptic answers tonight, and told myself to just keep quiet. I slipped on a patch of wet leaves during part of the incline, and the scent of damp earth wafted to my nose.

“Shit,” I muttered under my breath as I caught myself.

“You all right back there?” Theo chuckled as he glanced at me from over his shoulder.

Warmth hit my face from his stare as my magick acknowledged his gaze.

“Fine,” I said. “Sandals are not the best choice for hiking shoes is all.”

He grinned at me as his eyes dropped to my sandal-clad feet. “True—in some cases. I guess it all depends on the person.”

I remembered his torn-up sandals then. Smart ass.

The unease I’d felt and the worries I’d had about him dragging me out here to kill me evaporated a little at the sight of his small smile. Once we reached the clearing of the cliff, that unease lifted even more at the sight of the area. A white blanket had been laid out on the rocky dance floor. On it were ingredients for—I was assuming—the spell Theo was about to perform. The closer we got, the more ingredients I recognized—an ivory bowl, a few candles, some jars with powders, and something that looked like a big piece of charcoal.

“What is all this stuff?” I followed Theo to the blanket. He sat down cross-legged and I did the same.

“Ingredients.”

“I can see that,” I snapped. “But what are they?”

“These are scissors,” he said condescendingly as he picked up a red-handled pair.

I rolled my eyes. “I know that much.”

Theo reached out and gently grabbed a small strand of my hair between his fingertips. There are no nerve endings in hair. I knew this from all of those health classes they crammed down your throat in middle school, but my body didn’t seem to. Shivers of warmth spread from the end of the strand of hair he was holding, through my body, and all the way down to the tips of my toes.

“What are you doing?” I asked once I noticed he still held the scissors.

“I need a lock of your hair.”

“Don’t cut that piece!” I shouted, pulling the strand from his grasp and getting another from underneath. At least it wouldn’t be too visible. “Cut this one. I can hide it better.”

Theo raised the scissors and snipped the piece I held out to him without touching it. “Fine.”

I watched as the fine hairs fell and landed in his open hand. He’d barely taken anything off and I felt silly for making such a big deal about it. After setting my hair to the side on the blanket, Theo then took the scissors and grazed them over the hairs covering his solid forearm, shearing them off. I caught myself following the dark swirling tattoos up his arm and then allowing my mind to dig up the memory of what the rest, hidden beneath his T-shirt, looked like.

Turns out, I had a vivid memory.

“Clear your mind,” he insisted without looking at me.

I took in a deep breath, held it, and then slowly released. The nauseous feeling I thought I’d left behind on the trail returned with a vengeance while I watched Theo lay everything out on the blanket the way he needed it to be. Next, he lined up three candles in front of the ivory bowl I was sure was made of bone. Each candle was a different color—one red, one white, and one green.

Theo placed the large piece of charcoal in the center of the bowl and lit it with a match. Next, he picked up the small jars of powder and sprinkled a l
ittle of each into the bowl. I continued to watch him as he reached out and picked up something so tiny I couldn’t even see what it was. He glanced at me then and held out a hand.

“Give me your hand,” he demanded.

“Why—what are you going to do?” I realized then what he held between his fingers so carefully—a needle.

“I need a little blood.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Do I seem like the type to kid anyone?”

I smoothed my forehead with my fingers. The sick feeling in my stomach was growing now. “Not really.” I held out my trembling hand and he gently gripped it with his.

My magick licked eagerly at the area where we touched. It wanted to break free, to mingle with his, to explore. Theo held my hand over the bowl with the smoldering powders and charcoal, and pricked my finger. I watched as he squeezed three drops of my blood into the mix. He let go of my hand just as quickly as he’d grasped it and pricked his finger next, doing the same that he’d done with mine. As soon as his blood hit the mixture, Theo pinched the little bits of our hair between the fingers of his other hand and sprinkled them into the bowl as well.

“Blood, candle, and incense times three, this tether shall no longer be,” Theo chanted in a low, forceful tone. He repeated the words three times and then said something under his breath I couldn’t understand.

I sat there, waiting for something to happen—a storm like the first time I used magick to come from nowhere, some sort of sensation to run through my veins, my mother’s words to be said back to us in reverse. Anything, but nothing happened.

“Well…should we have felt something from that?” I asked, glancing at Theo. He was still slumped over with his head hanging low as though he were praying or chanting, but I couldn’t hear him saying a word. “That seemed like a strong spell.”

“It was,” Theo growled.

He raised his head and met my stare dead-on. A sheen of sweat glistened across his face and the whites of his eyes were overrun with red spidery lines.

“Did it work?” I asked in a soft voice, eager to know.

Theo stood and walked to a black backpack set off to the side, which I hadn’t noticed until now. He reached inside and pulled out a small glass jar with a cork lid. Inside was a piece of crumpled paper and nothing more. I watched, mute and still, as he opened the bottle and retrieved another from in the backpack—this one appeared to have some amber-colored liquid inside as well as some chunky spices. Theo poured the contents of it into the other bottle until you could no longer see the paper and then put the cork back in.

“We’re about to find out.” He smirked at me as he wiped the sweat from his brow and sauntered to the cliff’s edge.

“What is that, another spell you’re supposed to use on me?”

“Yep,” he said.

My eyes widened as he held his hand with the bottle in it out over the edge, dangling it above the rocky ocean waters below.

My heart slammed against my chest so hard, the sound of its fast pace beating was all I could hear. “Am I supposed to drown or something?”

Theo released the bottle. It soared from his hand, past the cliff’s edge, and out of my view. “No, just make you leave town as quickly as rushing water.”

A slight sense of relief trickled through my system. It killed my adrenaline spike too quickly and left me feeling slightly dizzy.

“When will I know if it worked?” I asked.

“In just a few minutes,” he said. He walked over to where I sat and began cleaning up the area.

Theo placed all the jars back in his backpack and blew out the candles. The mixture in the bowl had already burned out; all that was left were ashes. He picked up the bowl and walked to the edge of the wooded area, behind the makeshift bar, and flung the ashes behind there.

I glanced at the blanket, now devoid of any evidence that we’d been performing magick here, and sighed. My eyes flicked to the scorched spot where the red creature had nearly gotten me, the spot where all of this with Theo had began, and I felt the sting of tears pierce my eyes. I was over all this. All I wanted was for this tether to be broken so I could leave town. I’d give whoever was trying so damn hard to get me to leave Soul Harbor exactly what they wanted.

Theo scooped up the scissors and matches and crammed them into his bag. Then, he picked up the two ends of the blanket closest to him. “Grab the other ends and help me.”

I blinked hard to force away my tears and sniffled while I reached for the corners. Standing, we folded the blanket in half and then in half again. I walked toward Theo with my edges gripped tightly in my hands.

“Are you crying?” he asked. His voice sounded sharp, almost as though he were yelling at me.

I shook my head. “No,” I lied. “I’m just tired and ready for this to be over with.” I passed my ends of the blanket off to him. In the transaction, our fingers brushed one another’s and I froze.

The distinct impression of guilt mixed with a slight level of concern flooded my senses.

Theo ripped the blanket from my fingers, a murderous glare twisting his features. “Fuck!”

I jerked back. “What? What was that? Did you feel it, too?”

He crammed the blanket into his bag and tossed it over his shoulder. “It means the tether isn’t broken.”

“So the spell you just did on me won’t work, then?”

“Nope.”

“And what was that I felt?” I asked quickly.

If there was one thing I had learned about Theo in the short time I’d known him, it was that once you got him to answer a question, if you wanted him to answer any others, then your best bet was to shoot them in rapid-fire succession at him.

“The tether growing stronger,” he said as he continued to walk down the dirt road.

“Stronger?”

He didn’t answer me. His quota of answers must have been met, because he climbed into his black truck he’d parked off to the side, just like the night the tether was first put into place, and slammed the door shut without looking back at me once.

“Can I get a ride home?” I asked as he started the engine.

“Nope.”

I shifted my feet. “Why not?”

“Because…that would defeat the whole purpose of your cover story for why you were out.” He put his truck in drive and drove away.

Cover story? For what? And then, I remembered my mom was at my house. If she woke up to the sounds of a truck dropping me off, she’d freak. I turned and started back toward the path that cut through the woods, wondering what I would say to her if she heard me coming back in through the front door.

“Well, that was interesting,” a slightly familiar male voice said from behind me.

I spun to face him and realized exactly who I was now in the woods alone with.