The 13th Witch Complete Trilogy (16 page)

***

“Now what?” I snapped as we walked down the stairs towards the street. Eli wheeled on me and I almost ran into him.

“I'm not sure, but we can't give up.” He turned back to the street. “Not yet.” I watched him, trying to read what he was thinking, but couldn't figure it out. I was as lost as he seemed to be getting. Everything looked like it was blown to bits at least here. No one really could see what the true cause was, but people could sense it wasn't safe. We all knew there was something happening that would change us or had already.

“If I have the same powers as Eric, I really could take him on. Why do we need to find help when I can do it?” I put a hand on Eli's shoulder.

“I don't think you're ready for what he might throw at you.”

“You mean of my dad. You don't know what he'll do to him,” I said, turning from him and taking a step towards the street.

“He'll use everything you love against you.” Eli followed me, grabbing at my arm to slow me down. “He already has used plenty against you and you crumbled.”

“Connor is not a part of this anymore,” I snapped. “He is and a big part. Who do you think did all this?” Eli waved his arms in the air at the broken buildings and battered lives. I locked eyes with him in shock. Connor had never told me or even really showed me what he could do, but there was no way I was going to believe he did this, not without proof. Eli seemed to sense that and raised and eyebrow.

“If you go up against them when you're not ready, you won't be any help to anyone.” He knew exactly what I was thinking. “I know you don't know me, but I'm not about to let anything happen to you.” His gaze broke from me and shot down the street. “We have to go.”

“What's going on?” I just barely got the sentence out before I felt my stomach drop. There were more witches than me and Eli and they had power. I could feel it before I could even see it. A part of me wondered if they could feel mine.

Eli pulled me across the street and into an alley, but we both knew it wasn't going to be far enough. They would sense us without issue. He glanced at his feet and then back to me.

“We can't run. It's too late for that now.” He didn't meet my gaze.

“Are you suggesting I use the magic the crystal gave me?” I felt my mouth go dry at the thought. This would be the first time I'd ever used it in a fight. Before it had always been in a controlled place. No one would get hurt and there was no chance anyone was going to die.

“I don't think we have a choice,” Eli said, meeting my gaze.

“What if it doesn't work?” I felt the fear I'd held in come over me. The only way to get through this was to push that away, but behind that was the anger I felt for not knowing what happened with my father or my friends. The only one I had left was Eli and I didn't really want to lose him now that I owed him so much.

“It has to.”

I let out the breath I was holding and turned to face the guys coming at us. I closed my eyes and centered on myself. It didn't take long to find the spark I was looking for. I almost felt like I was standing in energy. It surged around me and took me in. The first guy rounded the corner and smiled. I didn't know if he really knew who I was or how he had found us, but it didn't matter. If I didn't do something, we weren't getting out of this mess.

I watched him for a second. He had a cocky air to him, but he also had some power behind him. His blond hair was tied back and he was wearing a black suit. I squinted my eyes at the man and called the energy around me. He held his hand up to cast a spell, but I beat him to it.

The energy rolled out of my hands like a whirlwind. It knocked him on his ass and he rolled back to try and strike again. When his hands went up, I called fire to me. It surged from my body to him and burned his hand until it blistered. He yelled and pulled his hand to him.

“You should have stayed away,” a voice said behind me. I turned to see Connor standing behind me. His face was tight with tension and a little regret. That let me know the one thing I needed to. He could be saved. I just had to convince him of that.

“I can’t leave the ones I love behind. It’s not who I am. You know that,” I said, taking a step towards him. I watched his hands form fists and the ground rumble under me. He didn’t say anything, but eyed me, making me stop in my tracks.

“I can’t just let you walk away,
you know that
.” He stepped towards me, the ground still shaking as though it was going to fall out from under me.

“You don’t have to,” Eli said stepping out from behind the building. Connor’s gaze shot to him and back to me. I could see the anger rise up inside him. He turned to face Eli and I watched the ground split in front of him, but Eli reacted first and air went cold.

For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. The air was so cold. I watched as the air around Connor exploded into a blue color, swirling around him. He made a face and pulled his own hands to him. I watched his form start to fade and then smoke as though he was part of the air. In only a blink of an eye, he was gone. I turned to Eli and the power of my own anger sent him off his feet.

“What did you do?” I yelled, covering the distance between us in two steps.

 

“Nothing. He left on his own,” Eli said, getting to his feet.

“I’ve never seen him do anything like that before. It couldn’t have been him,” I snapped, pacing the sidewalk in front of Eli. I never had seen him use a lot of his magic. A part of me always wondered if he was afraid of it or if he really just didn’t have much to use in the first place. I’d never seen anything like what I could do now until I met Eli and The Oracle.

“You never saw how much power he really has. How could you know everything he can do?” Eli put his hands on my shoulders, trying to draw my attention back to him. “You can still do this. We just have to figure out how.”

“You mean you dragged me back to my world, thinking I was ready to fight Eric, but you really didn’t know?” I snapped at him. He took a breath.

“No, you just don’t know.” I gave him a confused look. He smiled and continued. “You’ll understand it all soon enough.”

I rolled my eyes and walked away. I wanted to be alone, but I knew Eli was not going to let that happen. He was too into protecting me. The problem being, I don’t want to be protected anymore. I wanted to take control of my own life. I spun on my heel, almost running into Eli. He cocked his head and waited for whatever I was planning to say.

“I’m done waiting and watching. If I have to do this alone, then I will.” I could feel the anger in me rising, boiling to the surface.

“You don’t have to do this on your own. I just…” He stopped and dropped his gaze from me.

“You just what?” I crossed my arms and waited. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“You taught me more in that year than I’ve ever learned before. I have to do this.” I didn’t know if I was saying it to him or to myself.

“Then why are we still standing here,” he said, smiling a half smile.
Four

The idea of hunting down Eric was easier than actually doing it. I had no idea where to even start. He was the cause of the all the mayhem, but he wasn’t making it easy to know right where to find him.

We walked around Council Bluffs for a while until the sun looked as though it was going to go down. Eli didn’t think it would be a good idea to stay out in the open. He agreed to pay for a hotel room and I didn’t want to know how he had the money for it. I just wanted to rest for the first time in days.

I walked into the room and pulled off the jacket I’d picked up on the road. Eli followed close behind and shut the door.

“We’ll stay here for tonight and leave in the morning,” Eli said, walking to the other side of the room.

“Where are we going to look next?” I thought we’d looked all over the area, but we still came up empty.

“I’m hoping you can use that vision thing tonight. You haven’t tapped into your original powers in a while.” Eli sat on the chair near the window and pulled off his shoes.

“I found the witches that wouldn’t help us and I’m pretty sure turned us in to Connor with that vision thing,” I mocked him. He didn’t meet my gaze, but continued looking at the floor like he lost something.

“That wasn’t the same thing. You know that. It was part of the power you got, not what you were born with,” Eli said. He finally met my gaze. “You have to tap into that.”

“What’s the big difference?” I said, laying down on the bed. Eli didn’t answer. I shook my head and let my mind drift to my dreams. I was too tired to care about what he meant or what I was supposed to be doing. But then the dreams come and I wish I was thinking about Eli or anything else but the dreams.

***

The first thing I noticed was the smell of fresh cut flowers. It made me smile and think about the family I’d been missing for over a year.

When I opened my eyes, I was caught off guard by the dark sky. The stars dotted it and glowed against the darkness. I realized I was laying on the ground. The grass was cold and damp, but didn’t bother me.

When I rolled over to my side, I could see the faint light from the large building. It looked old and stylized, like what you would find in an old horror movie.

I got to my feet and took a couple steps towards the building. The overwhelming sense of fear started to take over me. I tried to seem tough and like I could handle what I had to deal with, but the truth was different. I was scared of what I may have to do. This was my birth father and mother, but they had done nothing good for me or the rest of the people I knew.

“You shouldn’t be here. He’s going to know you’re around and kill you,” a voice said behind me. When I spun around, I saw Connor standing near me.

“Why are you here?” I asked, changing the subject.

“I’m trying to keep you alive.” Connor took a step towards me. “I thought you would just stay in the world of the Fae and not here.”

“We’re both full of surprises, aren’t we?” I snapped at him. He turned his face away from me. “Did you get what you wanted when you turned on me?” His eyes snapped up to meet mine.

“That’s not your concern.” He started to turn from me and walk away.

“I’m guessing she’s still gone because she’s not here.” I waited to see if he would deny what I was saying, but he didn’t, so I kept going. “Was it worth it to throw away the ones that still cared for a lie?”

“It’s not time yet.” He stopped and glanced back. “It will be soon.”

 

***

My eyes shot open and I sat up in the bed. Eli was still sleeping over on the chair by the window. When I glanced around the room, I could see the dark sky outside. The rest of the night was a lost cause as far as sleeping. I just sat up and looked at the map in the hotel room.

I thought about Connor and how much I wanted him back. My heart ached for the love he once shared with me, but that was a long time ago and I knew somewhere deep down there was no going back.

I had to get to Eric and stop him from causing anymore harm to anyone else. If I wanted to help the people I loved the most, I had to stop him. The problem was finding him.

The vision had given me some idea of where he was, but it still wasn’t specific enough. There had to be another way. I took a breath and knew what I had to do, but it meant ditching Eli and that was not going to make him a happy camper.

I glanced at the half Fae still sleeping in the chair. I didn’t like the idea of just leaving him alone and doing this, but I still had no idea where my adopted father or Oni were. I had to find them, if they were still alive.

My feet slid off the bed and silently hit the floor. I glanced back to Eli every once and a while to make sure he was still sleeping. Once I thought the coast was clear, I stood and took the first step towards the door. There was no change in what Eli was doing or hearing. I was confident he wasn’t going to hear me as I walked from the room.

I closed the door behind me and took a breath. The cold air of a passing rainstorm caught me off guard and I felt a chill go down my spine. This was the first real choice I’d felt I had from the moment I found out I was a witch. Now I just had to follow through with it.

Five

When I walked out the door of the hotel, I felt like my breath had been sucked away. I was doing something to get something back in my life. The feeling in my gut told me I could follow a trail of magic to Eric and get my family back. I had too.

I started walking towards the south out of Council Bluffs and back towards my hometown. It seemed ironic the things that destroyed my life were so close to the things that defined it.

When I got to the outskirts of town, I felt a jolt in my body that made me stop cold. It felt like darkness and void. There was nothing that made me feel comfortable, nothing that made me want to keep going without guarding myself.

I closed my eyes and tried to feel around the area, just to know who or what was around. I felt a barrier that kept me from knowing anything going on, but there was a small hint of something. I grabbed onto it with my mind and let it pull me in the right direction.

When I opened my eyes, I was met with a spell that dropped me to the ground. I didn’t even get a chance to see who cast it. There was only darkness and silence.

***

I opened my eyes and realized I was laying on a cold cement floor. It wasn’t odd anymore to not know where I was, but it was odd to get hit with a spell like that.

“This is a nice surprise,” a voice said to my left. I pulled my head up and met the eyes of someone I recognized.

Eric.

“I never thought I’d have to deal with you again.” He knelt down so he was closer to my eye level. “You are the last kink in my plans and now that I have you, nothing can stop me.”

“Why are you doing this? We’re family. I just wanted to know you,” I said trying not to let tears come to my eyes. It was not easy with all the emotional stuff I’d gone through in the last year.

“Family means nothing if you can’t trust them,” he spat at me. I could feel the anger inside him. It was cold and lonely. Something that was created because of sadness more than anything else. It was a familiar feeling. I noticed it more and more within Connor before left.