Unbound (22 page)

“Are you ok?”

 
A bit of panic flashed across his face. He nodded. “I have to go away for a while, Annie. I really don’t want to, but I have to, and I can’t explain.” He looked up. “God, this sucks,” he said to himself. “Listen, I hate lying to you, but I just can’t tell you, ok?” He looked back into my eyes with an expression that pleaded for my understanding. My heart sank. I didn’t want him to leave me. “But before I go, I want to ask you something.”

“Ok,” I said, pulling my hands out of his and putting them on his waist. He did the same to me, only his grip was tighter.

“Do you want to be my girlfriend?” He sounded nervous. A probably goon-like smile broke across my face.

“Of course.” I nodded. Ethan’s chest rose and fell in a sigh of relief. I rested my head against it to hide my silly smile. He wrapped me tighter in his arms for a moment before he kissed me again.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to call, so don’t worry if you don’t hear from me for a few days.”

I knew my face showed sadness. But Ethan seemed stressed enough and I didn’t want him worrying about me. I forced a smile and told him, “It’s ok. Just take care of everything and hurry back. I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too. Be careful, ok?”

“I will,” I agreed, again not really knowing what he was talking about. Ethan took one final look at me, gave me another kiss goodbye and left.

“Is that your boyfriend?” Jill called from a few cars down.

“Yes,” I told her, the smile coming back to my face. “It is.”

Chapter 6 Blackout

It was a week before Halloween. I talked to Ethan every day on Skype since he left, but I hadn’t heard from him or been able to get a hold of him in the last three days. Worry and unease grew stronger as each day passed. I needed to distract myself from obsessing over the illogical nagging feeling I had that something terrible had happened.

 
I got to the barn around ten that Saturday morning. I brought Hunter with me since I hadn’t planned on riding. After brushing and letting the horses out, I went to my car to get something. I checked to make sure no one was looking and buckled a belt around my waist. My dagger hung from it. I clipped Hunter’s leash to his collar and darted to the woods.

 
I’d become even more obsessed in the last few weeks with reading everything I could from my magical book collection. I stayed up late almost every night practicing different spells. I could now get a bowl of ice cubes to turn to boiling water in under five minutes. I could glamour a different eye color on myself and Romeo, though I couldn’t get it to work on Hunter. I had forgotten to remove the spell one night and almost gave Harry a heart attack. Luckily he was drunk and didn’t remember it the next day. I would have had a hard time explaining why I had bright purple eyes. I didn’t study for an econ test, did a spell to help me, and I got a 95%. I felt sort of guilty for that one, though.

Anyway, I was headed towards the trails this chilly Saturday morning because I hoped to find that ugly, demonic dog again. With Hunter and my new sharp, pointy, metal friend, I thought I’d be ok. But everything was normal. The trees, mostly bare now, housed birds who chirped happily in the fall sunlight. We reached the end of the trail and I decided to keep walking. I didn’t know how long we walked for.

After hiking up a rather step hill, I stopped to catch my breath. Looking down, I could see a large pond with a rickety old dock. Hunter ran past me through the fallen leaves. Something about the pond looked wrong. There was a slight breeze but it was completely still. I was halfway to the end of the dock when I realized a hush had fallen over the woods. Cautiously I walked to the end of the dock, kneeled down and stuck my hand in the water. I gasped and pulled it out. It felt like I was sticking my hand in a bucket of ice water.

“How is this possible?” I asked Hunter. Even if he could understand, he was too distracted to hear me. Standing a few feet from the dock was the same ugly dog, only this time it was bigger. If it wasn’t for the diagonal scar across its face, I would have sworn it was a different dog entirely. Its muzzle was longer and more dog like than before, its fur thicker, and it was a good three inches taller. Before I could stand, Hunter was off, barking and growling ferociously. I fumbled to get the dagger out of the sheath. I sprung up and turned, ready to rush to Hunter’s aid but I couldn’t.

I was standing face to face with a man. His eyes were dead. The pale blue that they once had been was an echo of gray. They were bloodshot with thick veins. His skin looked brown with decay. Paralyzed with shock and fear, I stood motionless as the old man reached out and put his hands on either side of my head. A horrible high pitched screech rang in my ears. I thought my heart was going to rip right out of my chest. A sudden surge of clarity pulsed through my veins and instinct took over. I dug the dagger as hard as I could into the man’s chest. A horrible moan escaped from his mouth. His grip released my head. The dagger felt red hot in my hands. I could feel its power and with one final twist the man burst into flames. I put my arm down and stepped back, dangerously close to the edge of the dock, not wanting to get burned. An incredible feeling of satisfaction overcame me as I watched the man crumble into a pile of ashes. As sudden as the fire had started, everything was all over. My head buzzed with the energy of the attack. I felt really dizzy and my vision started to go black. The dagger slipped through my fingers and clanked on the dock. The ashes began to swirl in the wind. A transparent shadow of the man rose from the pile and screamed, lurching towards me. I leaned back to avoid his miserable ghost. If I hadn’t been so disoriented I probably would have been able to catch my balance. But at that same moment, the world around me faded to black and I stumbled backwards into the icy water.

***

My mind woke up before I opened my eyes. My head throbbed and I was really uncomfortable. I tried to move but couldn’t. At first I thought it was because Hunter was on me. I opened my eyes and learned I was wrong. I was laying face down on a sleeping Ethan. I was so tightly wrapped in blankets that I couldn’t move. My struggling movements woke Ethan up. He untucked me and helped me sit.

“Ethan!” I was happy to see him but I didn’t remember him coming over. Wait…I looked around. I wasn’t in my house. I was laying on a couch that had been pushed up close next to a fireplace. The walls in here were painted a soft gold, and boxes full of books and papers cluttered the room. I looked down at Ethan again. He didn’t have a shirt on, or pants I realized as I cast my gaze lower. He had on a pair of navy blue boxers, and that was it. I looked down at myself and saw that I, too, was only in a matching pale pink bra and panties set.

“Anora,” he said, sitting all the way up. A sharp pain shot through my head. My hand flew up in reaction to the pain. “Are you ok?” He was suddenly very close to me, looking right into my eyes.

I took in a breath to answer but my voice died in my throat. My lungs burned. I wheezed.

“Careful,” Ethan said gently. “You probably inhaled a lot of water.” What on Earth was he talking about? “Are you ok?” he asked again.

“I don’t know.” I felt truly confused. “Did we, uh, you know…?”

“No.” Ethan shook his head. “You don’t remember what happened?” Now he looked worried. Great. What the hell was going on? I put my head in my hands again. Ethan wrapped a blanket around me and pulled me to his chest.

“Umm…today is Saturday. I woke up and went to the barn. I went for a walk and-” I gasped. “Hunter!” I panicked. Ethan pointed to a pile of blankets next to the fire place.

“He’s fine, I promise.” Hunter too was covered up and looked rather comfy. He opened a tired eye to tell me he was ok then went back to sleep.

“How did you find me?” I turned back to Ethan.

“I was hunting the Pricolici.”

“The what?”

“The dog thing. I had just gotten to the bottom of the hill when I saw you fall into the water.” He pulled me off him so he could look me in the eyes. “Who are you, Anora?”

Ok, time for me to be confused again. “I’m Anora Paige Benson.” I told him, but he didn’t look satisfied. “I’m a senior in high school, I have two horses, and a dog…I don’t understand Ethan.”

“You don’t have to lie to me,” he said softly.

“I’m not lying. I don’t know what you want me to say.” He picked something up off the floor. It was the dagger.

“Not just anyone has this, and not just anyone can turn a demon into a pile of dust like that.”

“A
what
?!” My headache came back. I felt like I was going to puke. I closed my eyes and rested my head against Ethan’s warm skin. He didn’t ask me any more questions for a while; instead he slowly ran his fingers up and down my back. When I felt like I could open my eyes without barfing, I explained, “I’m a medium. I always have been. I can see and hear ghosts. But what happened today…has never happened before.”

“You have to be more than that,” Ethan said, barely louder than a whisper. “The Pricolici don’t go after just anyone.”

I looked at him in awe. Why was he ok with all this? “Did you kill it?”

 
Ethan shook his head. “I didn’t have to.” He looked at Hunter. “Your dog ripped its throat out.”

“Oh. Wow.” I felt a newfound sense of respect for my beloved German Shepherd. “Remind me to give him an extra treat.” The magnitude of what happened was really starting to hit me. “So, uh, what is a Pricolici?”

“It’s the spirit of a man. An evil, malicious man. The dog is its spirit, brought back from hell to torture and kill the living. They’re often sent after someone by a demon. For different reasons of course, but they don’t stop until they get the kill. The man that you, uh, stabbed. I’m guessing he was in charge of it. I’ve heard of lesser demons owning Pricolici and getting ‘hired’ by others to send them after people.” Ethan’s voice had become very sullen. “We need to know why they are after you.”

“I saw that one before.”

“What?! When? How did you survive?”

“That’s how I got that ugly bruise on my head. I was riding Mystery and it spooked him. I fell and the thing, the Pricolici, came after me. Mystery saved me.”

“How?”

“He reared up and was going to stomp on it. But the thing vanished.” Ethan’s face was a mixture of shock and fear. “It looked different then, though. It was smaller.”

Ethan nodded, as if that made sense to him. “They can’t vanish, but they can move fast.” He looked at my chest. I was about to tell him this wasn’t the time or place to be looking at my boobs but I realized he was looking at the pendent. “Coven of the Sacred Guardians. I knew I knew it!” His expression changed once more. “You’re a witch, aren’t you?”

“I don‘t know, maybe.” I smiled my nervous smile. “I really don’t know. Ever since…” Something clicked in my head. “Ever since my Aunt died weird stuff has been happening.”

Ethan thought for a moment. “When did you first see the Pricolici?”

“The same day my Aunt died. The day before that party, the day I met you.”

“It makes sense now,” Ethan said to himself again.

“What makes sense? What is the Coven and what is a Sacred Guardian? Why does someone want to kill me?” I pleaded for answers.

“A coven is a group of witches-”

“I know what a coven is,” I interrupted.

“Ok,
your
coven is a very specific one, one that you can only be born into. I don’t know too much about it, only that for centuries, no one knew it even existed. And for the Sacred Guardians, I think they are some sort of protective spirit or something.”

I began to feel like I was getting sucked into a whirling vortex of dark confusion. “Like a familiar?”

“I think so, but instead of aiding a witch in her spells, they protect her.”

I looked at Hunter. He had always been sensitive to the paranormal, more so than animals usually are. He liked me more than anyone else in the family since he was only a few weeks old. He saved me today. Was he the Guardian I invoked? Ethan looked at me, at Hunter, then back at me.

“You said you think you are a witch.”

“Yea.”

“Why?”

I wrapped the soft green plaid blanket up over my shoulders. “I found spell books in Aunt Estelle’s house. I brought them home and tried a few, and…and they worked.”

“What can you do?”

“Not much. I can conjure energy and do small glamours. I made an anti-nightmare sachet that seemed to really work too. Oh, and a while ago I think I did a spell to repel ghosts, which also seemed to really work, well, for a while at least.” I left out the part about cheating on a test.