Wicked (The Drake Chronicles Book 1) (10 page)

              Logan had told her that the room that they were heading to was a very old spell workroom that his father had placed into their new house by a friend. It had been in their family for generations.

He’d only been gone for a few hours, but Emma wanted Ethan back with her so badly that she felt like crying. Logan pressed his hand into a square piece of rock and a large stone wall slid open, the ground shaking beneath it.

Emma walked in first and noticed that the room was full of broken wooden crates and giant glass vases. Everything in the room looked battered, dusty, and destroyed, except for a tall stone table that sat in a far corner of the room.

On the table was a large clear glass bowl filled to the brim with purple water that brightened up the corner. Next to the bowl was a feathered pen and a stack of old parchment paper.

The room looked more like a dungeon than a spell workroom, Emma thought to herself as she walked up to the stone table.

              “So what do I have to do?” Emma said, staring down into the bowl. The water seemed to be glowing, and Emma could feel the coolness rising from the bowl. It was as if she were standing outside in the snow.

              “Write down whatever you want to say on a piece of paper and drop it into the bowl. But there’s one thing that I didn’t mention in the library,” Logan said. Emma turned, raising an eyebrow at him.

Was there blood involved? Because she was perfectly fine with a little pain in order to get this message to her brother.

              “The way he’ll get the message will be painful for him. It’s going to appear on his forearm, written in his flesh. It’s how they used to do it back in the seventeenth century. It doesn’t involve a lot of magic, so that is why I think this is the best way.” Emma turned and stared back into the bowl. Ethan was going to be angry with her, but he’d forgive her for something as small as this, wouldn’t he?

              “Okay, I’ll do it,” Emma decided.

Emma had written her message, carefully picking out words that were small and making sure it was as brief as possible. She didn’t want it to hurt that much for Ethan.

Logan took the note from her and folded it into a square. Making sure that it was tightly folded, he tossed the note into the bowl and Emma leaned over and watched as it fizzed and disintegrated into the water.

Emma smiled at Logan and an instant later felt sharp pain caress her entire spine. She slithered to the ground, unable to feel her arms and legs.

The room grew brighter and Emma’s eyes moved around the room as she lay on the ground. Logan sprang forward, but someone had thrown him into a wall. He landed with a thud on the ground but pushed himself to turn to the entrance of the room.

Two men and a hellhound were standing in the doorway of the spell workroom. Emma recognized the hellhound; it was the one who had come to warn them. She didn’t understand what was going on and she still couldn’t feel her arms or legs.

The pudgy man standing next to the hellhound stuck his split tongue out at Emma and hissed at her. He instantly grew closer, and Emma could see that his pupils were slit and were neon yellow.

His skin was a lighter shade of gray and he had scales on his cheek bones and ears.
What the hell is he?
Emma said to herself as he squatted down and began caressing Emma’s hair. She winced at his touch and wanted to scream.

“Hoke, stop scaring the poor girl, you sick fool,” the other man said in a thick British accent as he strode across the room and smacked the reptile of a man on the back of his grayish bald head.

Emma got a good look at the other man, his face illuminated by the small lantern he held in his hand. His short hair looked nearly blue, but his features were of a younger man, maybe a several years older than Emma. He had a square shaped face and his eyes were sunken in and black as night.

There was no pupil and the whites of his eyes no longer existed. His hair stood on end as if it was attempting to escape his pale scalp and his eyebrows looked thick and menacing.

He looked like a demon, Emma thought, as she tried moving her legs. There was no use, she could do nothing. What did these men want? And why were they hurting them?

“The boy is not here,” Hoke declared.

“We’ll take his son then, since Bennett didn’t want to cooperate. We’ll show him that we mean business.” The man swung one of his gloved hands through the air in front of him and Emma and Logan flew to the middle of the room, back to back.

“What the hell?” Emma snapped.

“Des lende modes moratu.” The man recited a spell and as soon as he had finished, a glowing gray rope appeared, wrapping itself around the two teenagers. “Don’t move. It will only hurt more.” Logan pushed himself into the rope and a shock vibrated through his body. He cried out in pain and Hoke laughed.

Emma didn’t dare move.

“Where’s my father?” Logan screamed.

“He’s in the kitchen, unconscious of course, and tied to a chair. But you are coming with us. I’m going to teach your sad excuse of a father a lesson. Now, where is Ethan?” the man walked around Logan and stood in front of Emma.

Her head was hung low and tears were streaming down her face. She just wanted this all to be over. “Where is he?” the man grabbed Emma by her chin and tilted her head back. She stared into his eyes and could see her own reflected in the darkness.

“You will
never
find him,” Emma growled.

“Oh, I’m not going to find him. I am going to use you to get to him, even if I have to sever a few limbs to get him to rescue his dear twin sister. Craven will bow to me when I bring you both to his lair. It will be
glorious
,” the man said into Emma’s ear. His breath smelt of mint and it forced goose bumps to ignite on Emma’s skin.

“Who are you?” Logan growled.

“Who am I? Young boy, you don’t remember me? I am Vander Hilt. I nearly killed you and your father
years
ago. I was so close to getting
you
but your father was too fast. But now, I can have the pleasure of bleeding you dry. Or maybe letting my good friend, Oden, the hellhound, clean the meat off of your
bones
.” The hellhound took a step forward, its sharp white teeth gleaming in the lantern’s light. “Not now, Oden. I have plans for these two.”

Vander stood up and walked over to Hoke. Emma cried, realizing that she was more than likely never going to see her brother again. She wouldn’t want him to find her; he needed to be safe.

Logan grabbed Emma’s hand, shocking them both. He held onto it tightly and told her that everything was going to be okay. She nodded but couldn’t bring herself to believe him.

8

Ethan awoke with a start. His eyes slid open and he flung himself forward. He leaned back, breathing hard and staring up at the ceiling. He was lying on a bed but he didn’t know where he was.

The sweet smell of strawberries flooded his nostrils as he began to calm down. He looked around and saw that he was in someone’s bedroom. The walls were light brown and only two posters garnished them. One was of a band called The Seven-Sixes and the other was of a candle made out of a skull. Ethan turned on his side and saw Adam making his way over to an opened closet.

Adam was shirtless and was going through the clothes. Ethan watched, unable to take his eyes off of him. The tattoos that covered his arms down to his elbows were entrancing, and after staring for a while longer, he noticed that they were trees, dead ones, wrapping themselves around his thick arms, the branches swirling about his muscles.

Ethan finally presumed that it was Adam’s room and was no longer as nervous as he was growing to be. Adam turned and spotted Ethan’s staring.

“Would you like it better if I kept my shirt off?” Adam teased. Embarrassed, Ethan turned onto this back and willed his eyes to the ceiling.

“How long have I been asleep?” Ethan asked.

“A few hours, my father said you needed to rejuvenate after that stunt you pulled.” Adam explained.

“Is this your room?” Ethan asked, trying to change the subject. Adam snickered and pulled a burgundy t-shirt over his torso.

He walked back over to the bed and lied down next to Ethan. Ethan’s body grew tense. He hadn’t been in bed with a boy in a long time. Technically, he wasn’t in
bed
with Adam, they were just lying next to one another.

Tiny stars erupted on the ceiling, turning the brown paint into a night time sky. Ethan turned to Adam and smiled.

“Yes, this is my room. I had to carry you here because you used too much dark power; you almost gave in to your dark blood. Just a little longer and you would have evolved. You’d be a dark warlock right now.”

“I didn’t know what was happening because the only time I’d ever seen the sky do that was on my birthday but when I brought you home, my dad explained it all to me, and how it is severely rare. Are you feeling okay? Are you feeling different?” Adam looked greatly concerned, his forehead scrunched in the middle.

Ethan could see that Adam was concerned for him; even after only knowing each other for a single day, something was pulling them together.

“I feel the same, nothing has change-” Ethan’s eyes grew wide as a brutal pain began clawing at his right arm. He screamed in agony and Adam yelled for his father.

A hulking, dark haired man hurried into the room and over to Ethan’s side. He’d never felt so much pain in his life. Sweat broke out across his forehead as he looked down at his arm. Letters began surfacing, coming through his skin, red and bloody.

Soon the letters were bubbling and almost instantly, the pain came to a grand halt. Ethan was breathing hard and crying. His breathing finally returned to normal and he stared at Adam’s father.

“What was that?” Ethan asked.

“It was a Samaris.” Adam’s father grabbed Ethan by his arm, showing him the words that appeared to be engraved into his inner forearm. Ethan saw the words and swallowed hard. “It is old magic and they used to do it a very long time ago. It was an easy and safe way to get a message to another witch without getting caught. It doesn’t last long; it should disappear within an hour.” Adam’s father ran his hand along the words but Ethan didn’t wince.

Adam resembled his father almost entirely except for his age and his black and gray hair. They were both tall, had plenty of muscle, and had piercing blue eyes. His father also had a long scar, the shape of a crescent moon near the top of his left eye.

“Emma,” Ethan said and sat up, rubbing the tears from his eyes. He looked down at his arm and silently read the words to himself.