The Witch Collector Part I (8 page)

I nodded, prying his fingers away from my face. “Okay. I get it.”

“I don't think you do. I don't know you well enough to care much about your safety, but these people are my coven, my
family
. I will help you find yours because it's the right thing to do. But if you feel even the faintest tickle of magic in your veins, you will ignore it. You will fight
against
it. I don't know if you're strong enough to handle what's happening to you.”

“I'm not weak.” I didn't know if I was strong or weak, but I didn't want him to think he could bully me.

“Come on,” he said, grabbing my arm and pulling me toward the door.

“Miro,” Shelley said, a sharp note of warning in her voice.

“She needs to feel it,” he said.

But we were already outside, and I didn't think Shelley heard him. A part of me wished she'd follow us, but she didn't. No one did.

I shivered in the cool night air. “We're wasting time.”

Miro ignored me, carefully picking up the ceramic frog that had held the restaurant's door open and placing it to the side. He closed the door firmly, leaving us alone in the dark alley.

He stepped in front of me and tilted my head up again, barely brushing my skin with his fingers, guiding me to look at the night sky. “The moon is nearly full,” he said. “Look.”

The moon hung low, swollen and washed in pinkish red. I stared at it, letting the bright shape fill my vision. “I like the moon better than the sun,” I said, my thoughts tumbling out unedited. “More shadows. I could hide in them. Sleep in the craters.”

What was I talking about?
Thankfully, Miro didn't laugh. “Don't be embarrassed. Your brain is working differently now. Do you have visions after you do magic? That's one example.”

I blinked, disoriented. I felt dizzy. “Yes, every time. Why does that happen?”

“They're nature's way of talking to you,” he explained. “The transition can be brutal and confusing. The visions help keep you grounded. They're meant to be a sort of dialogue. If you pay attention, the natural world is usually telling you something.”

Those moments with Brandon, Sonya, my parents—what was the message? I tried to remember my visions, but I couldn't focus; my mind only jumped past random images. Frustrated, I brought my fists to my closed eyes.

Miro took my wrists and pulled them away from my face. “Look at the trees,” he said. “Focus on them and let everything else fade. Can you feel the leaves growing?”

At first the branches just seemed cold and bare. Then the life within each bud pulsed within me. . . . My hands started to shake with the need to touch them, to help the process along. I felt like I could bring plants from the earth with the force of my desire to see them bloom.

“Take a deep breath,” he said, taking an exaggerated one of his own. “Your lungs need the fresh air, don't they?”

They did. With each intake of breath, the oxygen repaired what the magic had broken inside me. Energy pushed from my lungs to the rest of my body, where it eased the tightened muscles. The tiredness I'd left before disappeared, replaced by a rush of something potent, strong, and just outside my control.

“What is this?” I could sense my body rewiring itself, an energizing force growing stronger and stronger within me. My blood felt ablaze. I could pluck the stars from the sky. I could inhale the entire city with one deep breath. I could do anything. “Miro,
what is this
?”

“The transition,” he said solemnly. “If you performed any magic right now, the reverberations could probably take down this entire block. It usually isn't this strong, but you were in a very bad state. When a witch pulses as hard as you were, the body works hard to compensate. Most witches going through the transition don't notice this recovery period, but then most witches don't get as sick as you were. You'd done so much magic, and without a talisman . . . I wasn't sure you'd come out of it.” He paused. “Actually, I'm
surprised
you made it.”

He was telling the truth, and the knowledge chilled me. Whatever I was experiencing was more powerful than I could imagine.

Miro stepped closer and in the light of the moon, his eyes seemed to glow. “You are closer to nature now than you will ever be in your entire life,” he said softly. “It hits hardest at the beginning, but the magic will not fully work until you learn to control it.” He slid a finger under the heavy chain hanging from my neck, and ran it down the silver links to Shelley's pendant. He cupped the stone in his palm and held it, his brow furrowed. “What happened to you tonight was bad, but I've seen worse, much worse. The magic can completely take someone over, and this offers no protection.”

“Your father is a coven leader, right? Can he consecrate it?”

“It doesn't belong to you,” he said sharply. For a moment he looked as if he was tempted to rip the pendant from my neck. Then he caught himself, took a breath, and said, “We need to find your rightful talisman quickly.”

“We need to find my
parents
quickly.”

He nodded, and we went back inside to find the others.

T
he front doors to the apartment building seemed untouched by trouble. A safety light over the front door washed the building in a warm glow. Music poured out of the open windows of a second-floor apartment, the flitting strings of a mandolin setting my heart racing.

“Kind of late for that,” Shelley whispered. “Who lives there?”

I shrugged. Vadim glanced at me derisively, as if I'd failed some test. “Why didn't you run to the neighbor instead of a demon?”

“No one was home,” I snapped.

“Let's go in,” Miro said. We paused at the door. “Do you have a key?”

“No, but I could still open it,” I said, thinking of my mother. “Should I try?”

Miro snorted. “Don't even think about it.” He nodded at Vadim, who touched his pendant. The door's knob cracked right off the wood.

“Oh, I—”

“The least of your worries,” Miro muttered as we stepped into the foyer.

We tiptoed up to the third floor. The door to our apartment was ajar, just as I'd left it earlier. Miro and Vadim pushed ahead to make sure the apartment was empty. Their footsteps echoed in the still air, the hollow sound vibrating in my chest.

Shelley took my hand. “We should probably start in your parents' room.”

Once there, I saw that the blood had dried to a deep, burnished red. I closed my eyes and the image of my mother's handprint seared into my mind's eye.

“I feel like I shouldn't touch anything,” Shelley said.

But if we weren't involving the police, then I'd be responsible for examining any evidence. I picked up the bedsheet from the floor and gently shook it. The soft, flowery aroma of jasmine, the ghost of my mother's scent, floated through the air. Shelley smiled weakly, then turned to give me some privacy, opening dresser drawers, running a hand around the solid, attached mirror. “Nothing here,” she said.

My parents' suitcases were in the closet. Shelley and I hauled them onto the bed.

“Do you want me to leave while you go through them?” Shelley asked.

“No. Please stay.”

She squeezed my hand, and we got to work.

My parents had packed lightly but practically. Their clothes would only last a week, but could meet every kind of weather. Neat rows of socks. T-shirts separated by tissue paper. A rain jacket folded into a small triangle. The open suitcase resembled a finished jigsaw puzzle, every piece in its place.

Considerable time had been taken to pack these bags, which meant my parents' decision to leave our coven was not entirely rash. Why hadn't they included me when making their plans? I stared down at the bags again, wishing I could force answers from them. Then it hit me. They were packed with such a strong sense of purpose. It meant my parents had hope for the future. Believed in it.

“I don't think these have been touched,” Shelley murmured. She placed a comforting hand on my arm. “Are you okay?”

Instead of answering, I shook her off and focused on zipping up the bags.

“Do you want to cry?” she asked. “Go ahead. Get it out.”

But I didn't want to cry. I wanted to scream and yell and hurt. I tossed the suitcases into the closet and kicked the door shut. I kicked the wood door again and again, hoping it would splinter into a million pieces.

Shelley sighed and placed her hands firmly on my shoulders and guided me to the bed. My breath came in short, angry gasps. The world looked slightly tilted.

Shelley knelt in front of me. “Anger is okay,” she said. “But you've got to understand, every emotion you have right now is going to hit you tenfold—especially the negative ones. You can't let it get out of hand. Your emotions are tied to your magic, and if you can't control one, the other will fall out of your grasp as well.”

She lifted the stone at my neck, her mouth turning down at the corners. “Look, this talisman was supposed to be mine. The boy who gave it to me—Piotr—picked it out with my mother, and we had plans for our coven leader to consecrate it. Piotr should have been mine, too, but he never made it through the transition. The magic overtook him. I don't want that to happen to you.”

“Why did it happen to him?”

“Breeda! Shelley! Come look at this.” Miro's voice registered barely above a whisper, but its sharp edge ripped through the veil of sadness settling over us. Without another word, Shelley pulled me to standing. We walked quickly, our feet stepping lightly over the polished wood.

Miro and Vadim were in my room. My backpack lay on the center of the floor like a deflated balloon. Its contents were scattered over the bed, dresser—even my underwear hung from the windowsill like wilted flowers. I was too shocked to feel embarrassed. Too shocked to move.

Miro looked at Shelley. “Is this what you found in the parents' room?”

“No, their stuff wasn't touched,” she said, concern outlining her words.

I felt a hollowing out in my chest, and I knew it would fill with either hysteria or a sense of purpose. I took a breath. “My parents were running from something.”

Vadim raised an eyebrow. “Or someone?”

Gavin? I hated to think it. But I remembered the night we'd left, my parents' nervousness, their fear. “I think my parents were running from our coven leader, Gavin. I'd thought they'd done something wrong, or were a target of his for some reason, but I'm wrong, aren't I? It was me. If it is him, he came for me.”

No one disagreed.

Vadim regarded the mess on the floor. “Or something you have.”

Miro shook his head. “But if he put a demon outside your building, it was for one purpose—to destroy you. If he hadn't found what he wanted, why kill you? He'd never find it then.”

I pushed away the thought of the demon's black eyes. “It asked me to go back inside. Maybe he was still in the apartment, and thought he could threaten me with the demon?”

“And the demon was bewitched,” Miro said. “It would do whatever it was told. That sounds like a good theory.”

A detail from one of my childhood demon stories popped into my consciousness. “That's Black Magic,” I whispered. “Isn't it?”

Miro nodded.

What I knew about Black Magic could fill a thimble, but I still couldn't imagine my intelligent, charismatic coven leader practicing something so dark. “It doesn't make sense,” I said. “Why would he use that?”

“I don't like any of this,” Vadim said. He turned to me. “Look, I feel sorry for you, but messing around with Black Magic is asking for the worst kind of trouble.”

“We're helping her,” Miro said matter-of-factly. “It's been decided already. And do you want a possibly bewitched demon roaming the streets of Chicago?”

Vadim didn't look convinced. He glanced at the door, and for a second I thought he might leave.

“Dobra would want us to help,” Shelley said.

“We'll see about that,” he said, but settled himself on the windowsill instead of taking off.

“Let's forget the demon for a minute,” Miro suggested. He touched the talisman at his throat and my backpack lifted from the floor. It hovered in front of me, the top flapping open like an angry mouth. “You need to clean this stuff up and see if anything is missing.”

Shelley knelt beside me and began to fold a pair of jeans. They were filthy from the road, and embarrassment heated my face. My collection of things suddenly looked pathetic—this was the sum total of my life now? I picked up the necklace Brandon had given me and Sonya's friendship bracelet. As nice as Shelley was, I wanted to pick up my things myself. Sensing this, she backed off, and the three of them watched me repack my bag in awkward silence.

“There's nothing here Gavin hasn't seen before, and nothing of more than sentimental value,” I said.

“Why wouldn't he go through your parents' things?” Vadim asked. He absentmindedly ran his hand up and down the cord holding his talisman. “If he followed you all this way, wouldn't his search be thorough?”

My mind raced through possible scenarios, each one heartbreaking, but only one making sense. “Gavin is strong, but when he entered my parents' room it would have been two against one. It looks like people struggled in there. Maybe he never intended to take them. Maybe he brought them somewhere so he could search the apartment and wait for me.” I didn't want to think of the next maybe, but it trampled through my mind anyway.
Maybe he killed them and had to dispose of the bodies
.

Miro sighed. “That doesn't explain the demon. We need to go talk to my father. He's very logical, and he's got more experience with things that fall outside the ordinary witch's realm of normal.”

I was afraid for them to leave, but I didn't want to go with them, either. What if Gavin came back? What if my parents came back? “I should stay here, at least for a little while,” I said. “What if he wants to talk? If I knew what he wanted, maybe I could trade something for my parents.”