Witchcraft (#2 Witchblood Series) (27 page)

‘
Why did you run off?’ Luke said,
reaching my side.

‘
I thought I saw him. I was sure
it was him, over there,’ I said pointing to the area by the trees,
where I had seen the man with the wavy hair.

‘
Are you sure? Did you see his
face?’ he asked.

‘
Yes, I mean no, I didn’t see his
face, but it looked like him, the back of his head.’

‘
Was Eva with him?’ he
asked.

‘
No, I don’t know. I didn’t really
notice. There were several people there, but I didn’t look. I’m
going to see,’ I said, walking over to the edge of the
churchyard.

But there was no-one there. The small
group of people had dispersed and I could see no sign of anyone
that resembled Daniel or Eva.

‘
Jessie, they’re not here,’ Luke
said. ‘Maybe they went home.’

‘
I need to check inside the
church,’ I said.

‘
No, Jessie, there’s nothing to
see in there, there’s no point,’ he said, holding my arm and gently
pulling me back.

‘
I have to Luke. I need to know. I
need to know if they got out.’

‘
But you won’t know, there won’t
be anything to see,’ he said.

‘
I have to go.’

‘
Jess, he’s right. You don’t want
to go in there. It’s not nice,’ Brittany said, coming up behind
me.

‘
I have to,’ I said, tears forming
in my eyes.

‘
Why, Jess? I thought you said you
saw him? If you saw him here it just means he’s angry with you and
has probably gone back to Manchester,’ Luke said.

‘
How did they get here?’ I asked,
a new idea forming in my head.

‘
Eva drove I think,’ he said.
‘Obviously they can’t travel ley lines like we can.’

‘
So her car should be here, if
they are… or it should be gone. Do you know where she parked?’ I
asked.

He nodded his head, ‘just round the
corner on the next street down. I told them the address and they
were to meet me there. That’s where I told her to park.’

‘
Let’s go,’ I said, heading out of
the churchyard through the front gates.

‘
Stop! Where are you going?’ A
male angel stepped out from his sentry post as we left the grounds.
‘Oh Luke, hi! I thought they were humans,’ he said, looking at Luke
and then staring at Brittany’s and my green eyes.

‘
It’s fine, we’re just going to
check a friend’s car, to see if they’ve left. Have you seen Daniel
around, the vampire from Manchester who was held for the murders of
those girls?’ Luke asked.

‘
No, sorry. You’ll need to come
back and sign out before you leave. We have to get a full register
of all magical survivors,’ he said.

‘
No problem Cam, will
do.’

It took less than five minutes to walk
to the end of the quiet street. By now, dawn was breaking and the
sky was lightening. As we turned the corner I stopped. My mouth
dried and my tongue felt too big. I swallowed, held back my tears
and ran over to the shiny red convertible I knew so well.

‘
Luke, it’s…’

‘
still here. I’m so sorry Jess,’
he said, finishing the sentence that had become lodged in my
throat, and wrapping his arm awkwardly around me, contrasting with
Daniel’s easy embrace that I so yearned for.

‘
He must be looking for me still.
Let’s go back,’ I said, pulling away from Luke.

Brittany caught my arm and murmured,
‘Jess, he would have found you. You were pretty easy to find… for
anyone looking.’

‘
No, we must have just missed each
other. I spent forty minutes wandering round Selfridges in the
Trafford Centre once, looking for Alex, and she was there the whole
time. It’s easy to do. Eva’s car being here means he isn’t mad at
me, and they must have stayed behind to look for me,’ I said,
refusing to allow the other option space in my head, as I headed
back towards the church, Luke and Brittany on my heels.

‘
Did you find them?’ Cam said,
when we reached the gates, his face saddening when he saw the
slight shake of Luke’s head. ‘Sorry.’

I ignored them and strode back into the
grounds, but there were few people left. The final group of
teenagers was being herded into a line that led to a gazebo-like
structure, with angels stationed at the entrance and exit.
Terrified, skittish kids were being led into the screened area, and
calm, placid teens were led out a couple of seconds later and seen
off to the street, where they were ticked off on a list and sent
home.

I scanned the area in front of the
church. Two angels stood chatting by the front door, and more
lingered around the sides, making final checks of the area. There
were no vampires in sight.

‘
I’m going in,’ I said.

‘
Jessie…’ Luke
interrupted.

‘
No, I need to know, because if
they died in there, it’s because of me. I need to see it for
myself,’ I said.

‘
I can’t go in there,’ Brittany
said. ‘I’ve seen the effects of a null before, and I never want to
see it again. I’ll wait here.

I nodded, taking in her shiny, wet eyes,
and wondering what tragedy she had witnessed to be living with
Cole, with no family around, at the age of sixteen.

‘
I’ll come with you then,’ Luke
said, with a sigh of defeat, following me up the stone steps to the
ancient oak arched door, guarded by the two angels.

‘
Luke,’ one said with slight
surprise. ‘There’s no-one in there now. We are just waiting for the
cleaners to finish up.’

‘
Jess wants to go in,’ Luke said,
a meaningful look passing between them.

‘
She doesn’t want to go in there.
There’s nothing to see,’ the other declared.

‘
Try telling her that,’ Luke said,
with a grim smile.

The angels looked at each other before
one shrugged helplessly, and the second stood aside and opened the
door.

Even though I’d been told that the null
bomb only disintegrated magical things, I still expected a scene of
devastation, but as I walked through the door I realised that the
angels were right, and there was nothing to see. The electrics were
still on and the inside of the church had been transformed into a
very trendy nightclub. The old stone walls were draped with huge
white sheets which, with clever lighting were turned into bright
pinks and purples. The altar area had been lit with dark oranges
and yellows, and all the nooks and crannies cast eerie shadows. I
walked into the room and a cloud of dust swirled up from round my
feet.

‘
Jess, wait. Careful!’ Luke said,
from behind me.

‘
Ugh, why is it so dusty?’ I
said.

‘
It’s not dust Jess, it’s ash,’ he
said quietly, waiting for his words to sink in.

‘
Oh! Urgh…’ I said, quickly
stepping back up onto the steps. ‘How many? How do you know
who…’

‘
We don’t know who exactly, until
we take the register back to the Council and try and work out which
supes have gone missing. Obviously, most of them will be vampires
from Cole’s clan, but that’s why Cam is getting everyone to sign
out.’

‘
But, he said he hadn’t seen
Daniel…shouldn’t they have signed out?’ I asked.

‘
Yes, they should,’ he said,
dropping his eyes to the floor.

‘
But, he wouldn’t have stayed
here, not after he heard the gong. I mean this room’s not huge.
Where are the cellar steps?’ I asked.

‘
Over there. You go through that
door and into the back room, through another smaller room and then
there are the cellar steps, right at the back of the church,’ he
said.

‘
But Caoimhe got out, and she saw
him. Where are the other exits she mentioned?’

‘
There is the back door, the one
they originally brought you through, that leads onto that back
lane.’

‘
Oh hello, we didn’t realise there
was anyone still left in here,’ an older woman said, as she entered
the main room from the other side room.

‘
It’s fine, you carry on,’ Luke
said to the woman, who nodded and switched on a large portable
vacuum cleaning device and began removing all the ash from the
floor, ledges and furniture.

‘
Is she human?’ I
asked.

‘
No, half-breed,’ Luke
said.

‘
Half
what
?’ I asked, instantly irritated by his
derisive manner, to which he gave a quick shrug, and glanced over
at the woman.

‘
Half anything. She’s half angel I
think - hard to tell. If you want to go across to the back rooms
now I can get her to clean us a path,’ he added.

He clicked his fingers and the woman
looked over.

‘
No Luke, it’s fine. You were
right. There is nothing left to see,’ I said, catching the look of
submission in the woman’s eyes and feeling uncomfortable. ‘Let’s
go.’

Chapter Twenty

I couldn’t believe that they were both
gone, I wouldn’t believe it, but I had to face facts… they weren’t
here. I tried to tap into our blood connection, to feel Daniel
through our bond, but there was nothing. I told myself that the
bond had been broken again as soon as Cole had drained Daniel’s
blood from my body. I hadn’t felt the connection return after I had
fed and presumed that due to the magic initiation I could now only
be bonded with my mate when I had his blood in my system. I
wondered if Sebastian could feel Eva. I knew they remained bonded,
as she had told me how she could hear him in her head.

‘
Luke, we need to go back to
Manchester. I need to speak to Sebastian,’ I said.

‘
I’d give him a little time to
cool down. I’m sure he won’t exactly
blame
you for their d… what’s happened, but you
did come here without their permission,’ he said, as we stood back
outside the church, with Brittany.

‘
I’ll come with you, watch your
back,’ she said.

‘
Jess, we need to find out where
she’s come from,’ Luke said, nodding towards Brittany.

‘
Don’t you have people wondering
where you are?’ I asked her, a little more gently, frowning at
Luke.

The girl looked down and signed, her
dark, almost black, curls bobbing round her face as she shook her
head.

‘
Alex thought you were Spanish,
but your name…’ I said, ‘Where are you from?’

‘
My mother was Hispanic, my father
British. When she died, he brought me back to the UK, and when he
couldn’t explain my
special talents,
he sent me away to this place,’ she said, with a
frown.

‘
What place?’ I asked.

‘
It’s like a boarding school
crossed with a Victorian mental institution. It’s secret. The
people that run it, they… well, they hate all supernaturals. They
think they can cure us. Or they’ll kill us trying. I was there for
three years, and then a new girl came, she was special, and she
helped me to escape,’ she said.

‘
Can you go to her?’ I
asked.

‘
She didn’t get out with me. I
can’t explain it. She can change the past and therefore make the
future different, but only in small ways. So she can’t eradicate
the whole place, she can just change one person’s past, and future.
That night she was helping a boy, an angel,’ she said, looking at
Luke. ‘Everything went wrong and the school caught fire, part of
the security system went down. She told me to run, because the
staff knew I’d been involved. She stayed behind. I have no idea
what happened to her. I ran to London and met Cole the first night
I was here.’

‘
But surely your father will want
to know where you are?’ Luke said.

‘
My father didn’t visit me once in
three years. He left me there, knowing what they do,’ she
said.

‘
What about your family in
America?’ I asked.

‘
I don’t know. I was brought here
when I was six, and we never went back. No-one ever came to visit
us, and my father probably thought they were abominations, like
me.’

‘
Okay, well I have family I never
knew about in America too. The coven I’m from is in the north east.
So if Sebastian kicks my butt out of Manchester, then we could go
there together,’ I said.

‘
Erm, I think you’re getting a
little ahead of yourselves here, girls,’ Luke said. ‘Apart from the
fact that no-one will be allowed to leave the country until the
trial is over, I thought you wanted to see Alex, Jess? And even
though I never liked Daniel, I feel kind of sorry for him that
you’re moving on so fast.’

‘
He’s not dead, Luke. I know it.
He can’t be. There must be another reason they didn’t get back to
Eva’s car. They aren’t stupid, and they wouldn’t have stayed in the
building after hearing the gong,’ I said.

‘
You can’t know it Jess. You’re
not bonded to him anymore. Eva’s car’s there, so why would they
have disappeared and not taken it?’

‘
I don’t know, but there will be a
reason,’ I said. ‘He’s not dead.’

‘
So you want to go to Manchester
to see if Sebastian knows where Eva is?’ Luke said, catching on to
my plan.