A Grave Magic: The Shadow Sorceress Book One (17 page)

“
P
lease
, Daddy, why not, why can’t you stay?”

“Sweetheart, you know if I could, I would, but I have to go. You knew this was goodbye,” he said, leaning down to plant a kiss on the top of my head.

Tears streaked down my cheeks, hot and heavy, as I grabbed at his jacket, fighting to keep him. Fighting to hold him in place. If he couldn’t leave, then everything would be fine; they’d work it out and things could go back to normal.

“Fredrick, for goddess sake, tell her the truth, tell her the real reason you’re leaving.”

My mother’s voice interjected, harsh and punishing, just as she always was. In all the years I’d known her, she had never changed.

“Grace, she’s upset. Now is not the time,” he said through clenched teeth.

I watched them bicker and resentment grew in my chest. All they ever did was fight, back and forth. It was a never-ending merry-go-round of arguments.

“Tell her about your other daughter, the one whose birthday party you’ve been planning for weeks….”

My world rocked on its axis as my mother’s words sank in.

Other daughter.

He had another daughter.

He was leaving us because of his other family.

Suddenly it all made sense. The secretive phone calls, their constant arguments, his prolonged business trips. He despised us so much he had another family tucked away somewhere else.

“Grace, why can’t you ever leave….” My father’s voice broke off as the ground beneath our feet cracked and split.

I wasn’t afraid; for the first time in my short life, I didn’t have to be afraid anymore. I was in control now, and that was how it would stay.

“Come forth and wreak thy will upon those who have wronged your Mistress!” The voice that called from my lips wasn’t mine.

It was deeper, older, and filled with a power I hadn’t known existed in the world until that very moment. But now that I knew it was real, I didn’t want to ever let it go.

This was mine. The world was mine for the taking and there wasn’t a power on earth that could stand against me.

The demon erupted from the earth, its claws scrabbling along the cement as it fought its way up to the surface.

Fear crept into my veins. Calling it to the surface hadn’t required any thought. I was simply angry and it had appeared, but now that it was here, what was I supposed to do with it? How was I supposed to control something that had just clawed its way out of Hell?

The connection between me and the beast weakened, my power wavering as I stared it down. Its eyes were two black pits and I imagined the souls of the damned falling into them, never to be seen again in this life or the next.

It took a step towards me and smiled, its mouth filled with a mixture of razor sharp fangs and lethal looking needles. If it got a hold of me….

“Amber, what have you done?” my mother said from somewhere behind me, the terror in her voice making me afraid.

She was never frightened of anything. There was no creature too dangerous, no spell too complicated, that she couldn’t find a way to work it all to her advantage, until now.

“Get her out of here, Grace!” my father shouted, moving between me and the advancing creature.

I watched as he drew his athame from where he’d hidden it in the back of his waistband. The blade glinted in the artificial light as he moved in on the creature and stabbed it directly in the heart.

There was a moment where the world itself seemed to hold its breath. The creature’s interest in me waned and it directed a quizzical look at my father instead.

“Why interfere when you know the price that must be paid?” The sound was low and gravelly, as though the earth itself was shifting beneath our feet to give it a voice.

“You cannot have her, she is just a child.” The pleading in my father’s voice broke my heart and I attempted to jerk free of the grip my mother had on my arm.

“She summoned me, but she is not yet strong enough to contain me. The price is death. I will be free….”

It started to move again, and my father’s blade once more crashed against the hard leathery shell of its skin. The beast roared as the blade sank home, disappearing into a gap between the creature’s chest plates.

“Grace, move her out of here
now!”
His voice was a command my mother couldn’t ignore. Wrapping her arms around my waist, she dragged me backwards as the creature grabbed my father.

The rest of the nightmare was as it always had been.

I fought against my mother’s grip as she pulled me away from the horror unfolding in front of the school. The screams of my father piercing my eardrums as he was slowly ripped asunder.

I knew every bite, every wound that was inflicted upon him. This was the one thing my mother hadn’t taken from me. No doubt it was her way of punishing me, allowing me to relive the horror, but never knowing why it had happened in the first place.

“
Y
ou remember
, don’t you?”

My head snapped up as her voice cut through the memory.

“Why would I do that?” I said, my voice trembling.

I’d killed him; I was the reason he was dead. This whole farce of me coming to America to find out what had killed him, well, that’s all it was; a ridiculous wild goose chase. One my mother had set me on, knowing the truth of what had happened that night.

Suddenly, her treatment of me made sense; she wasn’t disappointed in me, well, not because I didn’t have any power, anyway. That was a lie. The power I had was something even she couldn’t rival. She had been disgusted at me, maybe even afraid.

Was that the reason she’d sent me away so quickly? Was I that much of a monster that she needed me to be as far away from her as was possible?

“She didn’t send you away because she was afraid, she sent you here because she hated you. If you had stayed and grown up there, you’d have eventually remembered everything that happened, and she didn’t want to risk that. She didn’t want to risk anyone else falling victim to your spoilt little temper tantrums.”

Her words hurt, but I couldn’t deny them. It was the truth; my father had died because of my temper, because I couldn’t have my own way, and he’d suffered immeasurably as a consequence.

“I still don’t see why you’ve brought me here. What has any of this got to do with Christina, or Graham, or any of the other people you’ve hurt…? If it was me you wanted, if you wanted to hurt me, then why not just get it over with. You’ve certainly got enough power to do it.” I couldn’t keep my voice, even as I spat the words out at her.

She smiled, and for the first time since I’d laid eyes on her, there was a hint of sadness in her face.

“He was my father, too, and you took him from me; you took my chance of getting to know him. Of having a real family life.”

“I didn’t steal that chance; I didn’t get it myself…. He was too busy splitting his time between our families to spend any real time with either of us.”

My mind was overrun with painful memories. The constant business trips, the broken promises. He’d never been there when he was needed, not until the very end, and then for some reason he’d saved my ungrateful ass.

“We could have been great together. This world is overdue for a wakeup call. They thought they could control what we were, that they could extinguish the best of us, and for a time they did … and then, we were born,” she said, pushing up onto her feet and making her way slowly over to Graham.

She leaned into him and trailed her hand down his face; a mere brush of her fingers, but it was enough to wake him up.

“What’s going on?” he said, struggling against the ropes that held him to the tree.

“They decreed we should die and I don’t agree. Without us, they are nothing; they’d still be scurrying around in the darkness afraid of the monsters that went bump in the night.”

She was beginning to ramble, and I fought the ropes holding me a little harder. Why, if I could set fire to a vampire the night before, could I not do it again, when I really needed it?

She moved away from Graham and he shot me a concerned look before his eyes fixated on something behind me. The way his face softened and the way he fought a little harder against his bonds told me it was Jessica he could see.

I wanted to shout at him, to tell him not to be ridiculous, that his daughter was gone, but it would have been pointless. With her standing right there in front of him, he wasn’t going to believe for a second that she was capable of the terrible things she had done.

He wouldn’t believe any of it; all he would see was his daughter, the little girl he had loved and raised all those years. There would be no convincing him of the monster she truly was.

“What am I supposed to call you?” I said, putting a little more weight into the ropes as I realised the direction the other woman was taking.

She’d circled around the graveyard and was now paused next to Christina. The child was terrified, her eyes wide, as she stared up at the monster standing next to her, my sister.

“My name is Lily, although I can’t help but think it’s a little fluffy sounding. I’m not really sure what our father was thinking when he called me that, but he chose it, so I can’t change it.”

“Tell me why you’re doing this, Lily. Tell me what it is you want from me and let everyone else go….”

“I want your power. It’s not as though you understand or can even use it. Your mother was too weak-minded to raise a child with the power you had, that’s why she bound your gifts. She made you weak, made you think you had no power, when really it was her all along….”

“Then take it, but you don’t need to hurt Christina or Graham to do it. I’ll give it to you….”

She stared at me and nodded. “I know you will, but Christina, here, is an integral part of the spell.”

A shudder of fear tracked its way down my spine and I shook my head.

The vision I’d had of Christina in my arms, the symbols marked on her skin, the blood that soaked into her nightclothes … it had been a vision of what was to come, not what had already happened.

“That’s not possible, she’s a child, you don’t need her….”

“Enough!” Lily said, her voice filled with power, and my head started to ache.

A warm trickle started from my nose and there was a coppery taste on my lips.

“What you are—what we both are—it’s not something I can just take and you can’t just gift it to me. I need a conduit, and that’s where Christina comes in. Her blood holds the key to you giving your power to me.”

I stared at her as my nose continued to drip blood. She was mad, utterly and completely nuts. What made her think I would ever do something like that? Killing a child just so I could give her my power….

“Your mind is in turmoil, Amber; I can practically hear your thoughts and doubts swirling around in that pretty little head of yours.”

“I won’t do it. I won’t let you use Christina….”

The rope binding my wrists finally loosened, the flicker of heat from my fingertips dancing up along my arms, but I held my body as still as I possibly could despite the pain.

“I know. That’s why he’s here…..” Lily jerked her head in Graham’s direction, her expression pitying as she caught sight of the tenderness reflected in his gaze. “He loves her. It’s so sweet, if not a little tragic.”

Jessica seemed to understand exactly what Lily was getting at and she stepped out from behind me, crossing the graveyard to pause in front of her father.

“I know you have a soft spot for him, that you don’t want to see him die. So I’m going to give you a choice.”

I could tell from the direction her words were going in that I wasn’t going to like whatever choice she had in mind.

“Conduct the spell using the conduit and pass your power to me, or I’ll have them both killed.”

“I won’t let you do this, Lily,” I said, freeing my hands from the ropes completely.

“You don’t have a choice,” she said, lowering her voice and forcing a little more power into it. Christina cried out as blood began to trickle from her ears.

“Morgan!” Graham shouted, but I couldn’t look at him; I couldn’t take my eyes off the terrified Christina.

Shaking free of my ropes, I climbed slowly and unsteadily to my feet. The blood still trickled from my nose but it didn’t matter. I’d lived my life utterly powerless, a witch devoid of any true magic, but that wasn’t true anymore.

“I see all those years training to get into the Elite weren’t a complete waste, then,” Lily said with a sneer as she took a threatening step towards me.

I didn’t answer her; instead, I focussed my concentration in on the only thing I could do. The only thing I knew with any degree of certainty that I was capable of doing.

The ground cracked in a long, ragged line that ran between where I stood and Lily; the tombstones in the way toppled to the side, the really old ones breaking apart and crumbling into smaller chunks that landed in the grass.

“What are you doing?” she said, curiosity getting the better of her as she sidestepped a particularly large crack that formed in the ground.

“Sending you to Hell,” I said as the demon’s clawed hand scrabbled at the ground. I pushed my power into it, forcing the ground to give up its prize, to spill forth the demon.

Lily staggered backwards, her eyes widening in horror as she stared up at the towering creature that had erupted from the earth between us.

“You idiot, have you any idea of what you’re doing? Of the price a creature like this demands?” Lily shouted at me, but I didn’t care.

I wasn’t a child anymore, and I sure as hell wasn’t frightened.

The beast stared at me, its soulless eyes studying my face, searching for a weakness that it wouldn’t find.

Lifting my hand, I pointed straight at Lily.

I could feel the beast’s will pushing back against me, its mind searching through mine like long, icy fingers and it took all of my strength just to stay on my feet and not drop to my knees in front of it.

Without warning, it turned and raced towards Lily, her scream drowned out by the snarling sound that ripped from its throat. I didn’t hesitate; crossing the graveyard, I dropped to the ground in front of Christina and quickly worked the ropes holding her down loose.

She stared up at me, her frightened eyes widening a little as the air next to my head shifted.

Ducking to the side, the baseball bat slammed into my shoulder instead of my head and I rolled away. Jessica’s partner closed in on me, lifting the bat once more as he prepared to bring it down on my head.

Lifting my hands, I wished for cleansing fire. I wished for enough fire to completely consume him, leaving nothing in its wake but ash. The vampire advanced on me once more and I pushed as much power as I could into my intention. My mother had taught me that without true intention magic, couldn’t work; you had to mean it, and I did.

Nothing happened: no fire, no spark, not even a little bit of smoke.

I dived out of the way once more as the vampire swung the bat at my head, missing by just a hair’s breadth. Rolling away across the ground, I scooped up a piece of rock as the vampire crashed into me, sending us both tumbling into one of the still-intact headstones.

The blow knocked the air out of my lungs, but I swung the chunk of limestone up at his head anyway. It was either him or me, and there was no way I was going to let a two-bit street vamp get the better of me.

He roared in pain as the rock connected with his skull, snapping his head to one side. Blood poured from his mouth, the angle of his jaw crooked as he turned back to face me.

“You bitch! You broke my jaw!”

I didn’t wait for him to finish; bringing the rock up underneath his face, I tried to slam it into him once more, but he caught my arm and slammed it down into the ground.

I felt the bone snap as he drove my wrist down over the edge of a grave marker and I screamed.

The sound ripped from my throat, pain and rage combining as I wrapped my other hand around his neck.

The world slowed; nothing moved, the breeze paused as the world seemed to suck in a breath.

My heart hammered in my chest and the place where my hand was holding the vampire grew warm and then hot. Flames licked at his jaw, creeping upwards faster than the eye could follow.

He tried to throw himself away from me, but I clung to him. He’d escaped me once before and I couldn’t let it happen a second time. He knew things about me that no one on this earth should ever know. He knew my secret, and I planned on letting it die with him.

He thrashed in my grip, his screams of pain appealing to a part of me I didn’t even know existed within me.

When I let him go, he landed on his back in the grass, the fire spreading across his chest and down over his hips and legs like someone doused in accelerant.

The sound of Jessica howling in agony pulled my attention from the vamp on the ground and I turned to watch Graham and Nic pinning her down on the ground.

Where the hell had Nic come from? Had I been that distracted that I hadn’t noticed when he’d appeared on the scene?

My head spun in sickening circles and I dug my fingers into the earth to try and steady myself, but it was no use. The combination of pain and exhaustion was wearing me down, and the only thing that kept me moving forward on the grassy ground was the knowledge that I had a demon to deal with.

“Amber!” Graham called out, and I turned my head just in time to see the demon I’d dragged out of Hell bearing down on me. It grinned, its mouth filled with the hundreds of fangs that looked like something straight out of a horror movie.

Scrabbling across the ground, I grabbed the baseball bat dropped by the vamp I’d reduced to so much smouldering ash. Climbing to my feet, I swung the bat as soon as the demon was within reaching distance.

The blow ricocheted up my arm and into my shoulders and neck, my broken wrist protesting, causing my grip on the bat to be weaker than it should have been.

“So easily you forget how to control me,” he said, grabbing the front of my shirt and dragging me towards him.

I focussed my energy on him, but all I succeeded in doing was making the pounding in my head worse.

“You’re weak and pathetic, far too weak to harness the gift I bring,” it said as it wrapped its clawed hand around my broken arm and squeezed.

A scream ripped from my throat, a ragged sound that burned up from my core and poured out my mouth.

“Get the hell away from her!” Nic’s voice cut through the pain that screamed in my head and I was only vaguely aware of the demon releasing me from his grip.

The ground rushed up to meet me and I did nothing to protect myself from the fall. He was right, I was too weak and pathetic to control something like him. Even Lily had been right to call me an idiot, but what choice did I have? I had to do something, and summoning a demon seemed like the best idea at the time.

My magic may have been the same as Lily’s—the first born Shadow Sorceresses in several centuries—but she had control over her power and I had nothing. By trying to protect me, by trying to protect the world, from my gift, my mother had left me open and vulnerable.