B00AO57VOY EBOK (31 page)

I didn’t think I would be
using that particular talent
ever
.  If I took too much it could put the
lender into an irreversible coma—or even kill them.  Not really something I
wanted on my conscience.

The shield I had used to
deflect Kim’s attack on Nathan became my most powerful asset during magical
defense as Grams relentlessly hurled blast after blast of Witch Fire at me.

Our first lesson did
not
go
well.  No matter what I tried, I couldn’t seem to get the shield to
materialize.  If Grams hadn’t had the ability to direct the glowing blue balls
away from me, I would have been toast with the first blast.  I did exactly what
she told me to do.  I envisioned the field of protection around me, I imagined
it solidifying and shielding me, but it didn’t do what I wanted it to.

“You’re not trying, Ember!”
Grams snapped when I failed to do it for the tenth time in a row.

“Yes, I am!” I gritted out
between my teeth, frustrated and close to tears.  “I’m trying as hard as I can,
Grams!  It’s just not working!”

“Then maybe you need some
incentive,” she hissed, looking totally fed up with my excuses.

Before I could figure out
what that was supposed to mean, she turned and hurled a ball of Witch Fire
right at Kim, who was sitting at the table with her earbuds in doing her homework. 
I saw it form in her hand, I saw it speeding toward my best friend like it was
moving in slow motion, saw Kim’s frozen look of horror when she looked up.

I don’t know what possessed
me to do it, I really don’t.  Hell, I don’t even know
how
I did it.  One
minute, I was across the room.  The next, I was standing between Kim and the
fireball.  Grams, not expecting it, wasn’t fast enough to direct the ball of
Witch Fire away from me. 

It hit me dead square in the
center of the chest.  I clenched my teeth together, preparing for a world of
pain.  Instead, I felt…warm.  Like,
really
warm.  Still, I waited, fully
expecting to blow up or something.  And I wasn’t the only one waiting for the
explosion.  The room around me was deathly quiet, and I saw that Grams was
staring at me, her jaw nearly touching the floor.  I saw Kim scoot around me
from the corner of my eye and turned to find her staring at me wide-eyed and
just as shocked as Grams.

Figuring that couldn’t be a
good
thing, I started to feel a little panicked.  I was afraid to look down at
myself.  What if there was a basketball-sized hole there and my brain just
hadn’t caught up with the fact that I was dead?  And, oh my god!  What would it
do to Grams if there was?  How would she ever be able to live with the fact
that she had killed her own
granddaughter
?  And…

“That is too frigging cool!”
Kim squealed suddenly, jerking me out of my panicked thoughts.  I frowned at
her, then at Grams when I noticed she was smiling.

Then I looked down at myself
and stopped breathing altogether.  In the very spot where Grams’ fireball had
hit me, there was a pulsing ball of brilliant white-gold light, like a sphere
of warmth.  It was like I had…absorbed the Witch Fire somehow.

I had to agree with Kim.  It
was too damn cool!

“Well, it wasn’t the shield
you were supposed to be forming, but I suppose that was an effective method of
stopping me,” Grams said smugly.  When I glared at her, she just smiled back. 
“You won’t protect yourself, but everyone around you is safe.  I guess that’s
something.”

“You could have
killed
me,
you old bat!” I yelled, feeling that wonderful warmth starting to fade away. 

“Actually, I was aiming for
Kimberly,” she chuckled.  “I never said you should throw yourself in front of
her like a human shield.  The
magical
shield you could have
conjured
would have sufficed.”

To keep myself from saying
what I
really
wanted to say, I turned around and stomped out of the
room.  Because, hey, it was Grams and I liked my teeth right where they were. 
Trust me, if I’d said what was on the tip of my tongue at that moment I would
have been missing a few of them.

Nathan made himself scarce
during our training sessions.  I hated that because it meant I only saw him at
school and just before I fell into a dreamless coma, and I was really starting
to miss him.  I understood why he stayed away, though.  He said watching Grams
attack me over and over again was more than he could take.  He told me every
time she attacked me he had to force himself not to attack
her
.

I might not have liked her
methods, but I had to admit that Grams had given me a crucial key to accessing
my powers.  After that, I didn’t see her attacking me.  I imagined her
attacking Kim.  I even used Nathan and Blake and Tyler.  And Grams was right. 
If I was being attacked, I couldn’t dredge up even a little power.  If it was
someone I loved, I became Superwoman. 

You two about done?
Nathan
whispered inside my mind, his voice a seductive purr, just as we were finishing
up the night before the ball. 

Almost
, I told him,
happily.  It would be nice to have him come back before I was too exhausted to
do more than give him a quick kiss before I conked out again. 
Where are
you, anyway?

I had never thought to ask
Nathan where he went when I was training.  I guess I just assumed he was out
driving around—or getting dinner somewhere.  But suddenly I found that I was
curious.  Oh, and I was a little jealous, too.  I missed hanging out with my
friends like I used to. 

At Tyler’s,
he said,
sounding kind of embarrassed and nearly shocking the socks right off of me. 
Since when did
Nathan
hang out with
Tyler
?  He must have sensed
my shock through our link, because I could almost hear his laughter. 
All
right, I admit it.  He’s not so bad. 

Okay, who are you and
what did you do with Nathan? 
I frowned, wondering how I had ended up in
the Twilight Zone.  When had Nathan had a change of heart regarding Tyler, who
he had never really liked?  And how had I missed it?

 
Let’s just say he has
redeeming qualities.  We just got back from Montana where we retrieved the last
two components the lot of you need to pull off the banishing of one lust demon,
he said, his thoughts still tinged with amusement. 
And I’m the guy who
misses holding you while you’re still conscious.  I’m willing to negotiate
Nathan’s return, though.

And what are the terms of
this negotiation?
I teased, curling up in my chair and just letting his
voice work its magic on me as I waited for Grams to look up some obscure charm
she had decided she could teach me at the last minute.

We’ll start with one of
those mind-melting kisses you’re so good at and go from there,
he purred
back just as Grams slammed her book closed and stood up.

As motivation went, it
didn’t get any better than that.

“Ready, sweetheart?” Grams
asked, shaking her head and smiling at me when she saw my dreamy expression.

I practically jumped out of
the chair, already fantasizing about long, cool fingers and smoking-hot
kisses.  It was kind of sad that my boyfriend practically had to bribe me just
to get a kiss, though.  Next thing you know, he would be making an
appointment. 

I would be so glad when it
was all over and I could have my semi-normal life back. 

In that moment, though, I
realized that was never going to happen.  The life I had known was over.  I had
seen too much to ever go back to being the person I had been before the
blinders had been taken off.  I had seen the world I knew for the dark, scary
place it really was, the place most people spent their whole lives blissfully
refusing to see.

Following Grams into the
living room again, I lost myself in magic and mayhem with the realization
that’s what my life
was
.  That’s what it would
always
be.  My
fate had been sealed the moment Nathan had told me the truth about who and what
I was.  And, to my surprise, I found I was all right with that. 

I woke up the next morning,
D-Day, tired but confident.  I dressed carefully that morning in my most
flattering jeans and a tight red sweater with an almost obscene V neckline
layered over a lacy gold camisole top.  I took special care with my hair and
make-up and dabbed a little perfume behind my ears. 

I bet you’re wondering why I
was making a point to look as beautiful as I could on my maybe last day on
earth.  Well, it wasn’t because I wanted to impress anyone at Oakhurst, that’s
for sure.  In fact, I didn’t plan on being at Oakhurst at all.  The school colors
were just to throw Nathan off until I could get him out of the house.

The thought of skipping
school didn’t bother me as much as it once would have.  Between my absences and
my preoccupation over the last few weeks, the semester was pretty much shot to
hell and back, anyway.  Besides, if I died trying to get rid of Bastian, it
wasn’t going to make any difference if I was in class or not, was it?

As Grams and I had been
preparing for my upcoming showdown, my thoughts had kept drifting back to
Nathan.  Since it might be my last day on Earth, I had no intention of spending
it sitting next to him at a desk and listening to teachers fill my head with
useless information.  No, I wanted him all to myself.  I would make sure we
were back before the demon banishing festivities began, but the rest of the day
was going to be all about us.

I had decided it was time. 
I wouldn’t be sorry about missing anything else I would miss if I died—not that
I planned to, but you never know—but there was one thing I wasn’t willing to
die without experiencing. 

It would be so pathetic to
die a virgin.

Before I left the bathroom I
sent Kim a text detailing my plan so she wouldn’t totally freak when we didn’t
show for school and got a reply I hadn’t been expecting.  What I had been
expecting was a phone call and a lecture about how I shouldn’t be out without
my entire guard, that I shouldn’t be considering doing what I was considering
doing with someone I still didn’t fully trust, blah, blah, blah.  What I got
instead was:

Go 4 it!  B w8ing @ ur
house after school so you can give me all the details.  Have fun!

Yeah, because
that
was going to happen.  She would just have to use her imagination.

I practically danced out of
our room and down the hall to the kitchen.  I knew I should be trying to look a
little bit more somber, but I just couldn’t seem to pull it off.  Grams gave me
a suspicious look when I took my plate from her—waffles again!  Yum!—and gave
her a loud kiss on the cheek before going to sit next to Nathan who was staring
out the window at the ominously cloudy sky beyond.

I might not have been
pulling off the whole morbid I’m-about-to-die act, but Nathan didn’t seem to be
having any problems with it.  I didn’t let that get me down, though.  I was
going to change that very shortly.

He was looking particularly
scrumptious.  The gold sweater he wore layered over a bright red tee brought
out tiny gold flecks in his eyes.  His hair was the usual shaggy mess that
tempted me to run my fingers though it to straighten it out—or make it worse. 
He looked away from the window as I walked over to the table, and I was glad I
had taken so much care with my appearance when I saw his eyes flare as he gave
me a quick once over.

“You’re awfully chipper this
morning,” Grams said, suspicion thick in her voice, as she came to the table
with two huge mugs of coffee, one for me and one for herself.  “What brought
this on?”

I shrugged noncommittally
and focused on my breakfast instead.  I kept my eyes on my waffles, thinking
about nothing but the taste and texture of them so that Nathan wouldn’t see
what I was really up to in my thoughts.  It wasn’t hard to do, to be honest. 
Let’s face it, if you’re going to kick the bucket, waffles, especially Grams’
waffles, are the best last meal you could hope for.  I practically inhaled them
and bounced out of my chair without touching my coffee.  I was keyed up
enough.  I didn’t think adding a caffeine infusion would help. 

I could feel both Grams and
Nathan watching me as I loaded my plate in the dishwasher and headed for the
fridge for juice instead.  I drained about half a carton of OJ without
bothering with a glass and then turned to look at my audience.  I grinned at
Grams’ disapproving expression, but she didn’t say anything.  I guess the
condemned got a little leniency on her last day.  Only, I didn’t
feel
like the condemned.  When I looked at Nathan, I was glad to see he had lost the
look he had worn when I walked in and was giving me an amused one instead.

“Time to go to school!” I
trilled, happily, glad he wasn’t looking like I had already died anymore.