B00JX4CVBU EBOK (5 page)

Brooke nudged him with her foot. ‘What the bloody hell is he?’

Obviously, Ember’s sisters were having the similar thoughts to her. ‘Well he’s definitely not a Skorn,’ said Celeste. ‘Skorns wouldn’t get drunk for one thing. And any Skorn worth its salt would have slit our throats if it was able to freeze us like that.’

‘So what do we do with him?’ asked Brooke.

Celeste ran her hand through her hair. ‘I don’t know. Ten minutes ago I would have said ‘kill him,’ but now I know he’s not a bloody Skorn …’

Ember didn’t look up. ‘Take him home,’ she said softly.

They both looked at Ember. Brooke cocked her head, and Celeste raised one eyebrow and said, ‘You sound like you’re talking about a puppy, Em. But yes, I guess we have to take him home. We have to find out what he is, who he is.’

‘Can’t we just … dispose of it … him?’ asked Brooke.

Ember’s mouth fell open. ‘Where the hell did that come from, Brooke?’

‘I’m just saying. You know, he’s probably more trouble than he’s worth.’

‘I can’t believe …’ Ember began, but stopped when Celeste’s mobile phone rang. 

Ember stared at Brooke. Dispose of the guy? What was wrong with her? Ember gritted her teeth when Brooke gave her that ‘Got you again’ smirk. 

Celeste spoke into the phone, ‘Yes? I know. No, we’re OK. Really. We’ve got the Skorn guy … Huh? Can it wait, Chloe? We’ll be home soon. ‘K. Bye.’

Brooke raised an eyebrow. ‘She felt a disturbance in the Force, huh?’

‘Ha ha. OK, Em, bring the car round to the car park here behind the goals. Then we’ll load him on.’

Brooke peered down at the prone guy on the ground. ‘Ew, it’s dribbling.’

‘Aw, cute,’ said Ember.

Which caused the other two to once again look at her as if she’d just grown a second head.

Ember crossed her arms. ‘What?’

*

Ember drove the Land Rover back the couple of blocks from where they had left it near the supermarket. She thought about the young man, and the almost kiss he gave her. She suspected he wasn’t a Skorn, and probably just a guy—albeit with some unexplained powers—but a guy just the same. She wanted so badly to be angry at him for going to kiss her in her frozen state, but for the life of her she couldn’t. She smiled. Lips. Touching.

Oops. She’d been so distracted, she’d missed the turn off.

She did a U-turn to get back to the park entrance, and the beams of her lights swept across the open field. Just for a moment she was sure she’d seen someone standing next to a tree on the other side.

She parked the car in a car space behind the goals, and returned to the others. She pointed across the field. ‘I think there’s someone watching across the way there.’

Celeste turned to look. The other side of the park was dark with shadows. ‘Damn it. Hang on, I’ll send a tendril.’

Ember nodded. She knew Celeste was the best at ‘tendrilling’: projecting her mind’s eye, or a piece of her aura to see across distances. Games of hide-and-seek had never lasted long when they were little.

Celeste closed her eyes for a moment or two, stood with her arms beside her and hands turned out. When she opened her eyes again she said, ‘It was old Mrs Winslow. She’s walking away now.’

‘God. That old cow again,’ said Brooke, ‘we can’t get away from her.’

Celeste indicated the guy. ‘Anyway. Let’s get him loaded and get out of here before she rings the police.’

Brooke nudged the man’s foot. ‘Let’s float him to the car, Celeste. I don’t want to do my back on a drunken box of hammers.’

Celeste looked around quickly. ‘OK, if it’s fast. I don’t sense anyone else out there watching at the moment. Lay your hands on him girls, then do a levitation.’

As one, the three Vordene placed their hands on the man. Ember’s hands were on his chest and could feel his slow breathing. Out of nowhere her mind filled with images: oak branches against a storm-filled sky, a small island the middle of a dark, calm lake. She shook her head as if to clear it.

‘Ember?’ said Celeste, ‘You OK?’

‘Never better. Let’s do this.’

‘OK. Now,’ said Celeste, and the unconscious man rose from the ground. His arms dangled and his torso was higher than the rest of him, but he floated. The girls walked with him between them over to the car.

‘Just push him in the back,’ said Brooke. But as they manoeuvred him around, his head bumped into the car door. It induced a gurgled groan from the man and a laugh from Brooke.

‘Now he’s
really
going to have a sore head when he wakes up.’

CHAPTER THREE

B
ACK
AT
W
ICKERWELL
, Ember could see Chloe and Aunt Lani were excited about something. They followed the floating young man into the house, all the while muttering things like ‘Yes, yes,’ in whispered tones to each other. Aunt Lani, a large woman, and not known for moving any faster than she had to, bustled around in circles, hands clenched in front of her, a rosy glow on her face.

‘What’s up with you two?’ said Ember. ‘He’s just a guy, we don’t even think he’s a Skorn anymore.’

Aunt Lani giggled. ‘A Skorn? Oh, most definitely not, dear. Most definitely
not
a Skorn.’

‘Let’s put him in the front sitting room, on the big sofa,’ said Celeste, and the three girls guided the floating, and now snoring man to the room just to the right of the front door, and deposited him on an ancient, red sofa.

Ember removed her hand from his chest. It was strange having a man in this house. ‘Let me get him a blanket.’

‘Why?’ said Brooke, wiping her hand on her trousers. ‘He won’t know or care. And the tosser
did
freeze us.’

Ember crossed her arms. ‘
After
we zapped him with a plasma cage.’

Brooke shook her head. ‘Which is the kind of thing we do when we see any Skorns or Scathers, Em.’

‘But he’s not …’

Aunt Lani entered the room. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘I got him my best quilt, and this lovely pillow. It has doves on it, see?’

The four girls, no, five—Ember noticed Skye standing in the doorway—watched Aunt Lani slide the pillow under the man’s head and cover him gently with the quilt. She hummed a little melody as she tucked him in. Ember smiled at Skye as if to say ‘Good old crazy Aunt Lani, huh?’ Ember’s heart skipped a beat when the little girl looked her in the eye and did something she hadn’t done in years. She smiled back.

‘OK,’ said Celeste, taking charge. ‘Everyone to the Great Hall. We need to talk.’ She waited just outside the sitting room door for them all to file out. Chloe took Skye’s hand, and the others followed.

Ember took one last look at the man, as his chest rose and fell under the quilt, and ran a finger across her lips.

‘Ember …’ said Celeste at the door. 

Ember gave a little jump, and marched from the room. Celeste waved a hand at the door, which slammed shut, and by the sound of it locked itself too. Ember wasn’t sure about holding a man prisoner, but she knew there would be no arguing with Celeste when it came to the safety of her sisters.

In the Great Hall the five sisters and their aunt sat in the central circle of seats. Ember sat on an old couch next to Chloe who jiggled her legs and smiled widely. Aunt Lani beamed at everyone, and tapped her fingers on the arms of her chair.

Celeste had noticed as well and laughed. ‘You two cats look like you’ve swallowed the canary. Give.’

Aunt Lani began, ‘Well. We think …’

‘Wait, Aunt Lani,’ said Chloe. ‘Let’s hear what happened with the others first. I want to hear what the guy did.’

Lani clasped her hands together. ‘Oh yes!’

So Celeste, Ember, and Brooke recounted the events at the park. Chloe and Aunt Lani exchanged excited looks and nodded.

‘Goodness! It all makes so much sense!’ said Aunt Lani. ‘Tell them. Tell them, dear.’

‘Well,’ Chloe began, ‘you know how I mentioned Great Aunt Rhea’s writings? In one of her journals she wrote about a letter from one of her sisters that talked about meeting a certain Ring. I thought that phrase was kind of odd: “meeting a Ring”. So while you were out Skorn hunting, I checked the entry again and the date it was written. I asked Aunt Lani where any letters from that time might be …’

‘That’s where I come in,’ said Aunt Lani. ‘I thought that any old letters from or to my Aunts in the 1920s would be in the old Captain’s chest. And I was right! It was like being in a detective novel.’

Ember was amazed at the transformation in her Aunt. For years she had been going downhill without her own sisters around, taciturn and detached both mentally and physically, living alone in the old chapel beside the manor house, reading and gardening. Whatever she’d helped discover today had brought back a bit of the old Lani.

Chloe continued. ‘The letter was from Great Aunt Ira. In it she talks about ‘meeting’ the Ring of the Paris Vordene. OK, Aunt Lani …’

‘Oh? Oh. Yes.’ Aunt Lani opened an old letter on her lap, its paper brown and dry. She read, ‘And although by unspoken agreement we must never talk of this Ring, I will say it here, I will never forget the look on that boy’s face. The face of a human Ring …’

Chloe’s face shone. ‘The Ring of the Paris Vordene was a boy called Phillipe. An eleven year old boy!’

Ember was gobsmacked. And going by the look on her sister’s faces, so were they.

Celeste stood and ran her fingers through her hair. ‘But Rings are animals! Spirit animals. They always are. Always were.’

‘Yeah!’ said Brooke. ‘Your Ring, Aunt Lani, was a spirit wolf. Every Vordene around the world that has a Ring, has spirit animals. The London Vordene with their fox, the Anglesey Vordene with their eagle …’

Ember was confused. ‘But why didn’t we know of this? Wouldn’t it be something handed down from Vordene to Vordene?’

‘I don’t know, dear,’ said Aunt Lani, ‘Aunt Rhea never spoke of it. Nor any of my other Aunts. There must be a reason why not.’

Celeste paced around in a small circle; her shoes clacked on the wooden floor. She stopped and looked towards the door. ‘Wait, so you’re saying …’

Aunt Lani clapped. ‘Yes!’

‘You’re saying that guy. That
man
in there …’

‘What? No!’ said Brooke.

‘He’s our Ring? Our protector? Our … familiar?’

‘Ugh, I hate that word,’ said Aunt Lani. ‘Witchy words. But yes, he’s your Ring. A human Ring.’

Ember stared at her knees. Of course, it all made sense now. How he could stop things around them, how he was immune to the Vordenes’ powers. This was huge.
Huge
. Chloe and Aunt Lani were both beaming. Celeste stood in the same spot, her gaze on the door. Brooke shook her head, over and over, mouth open. And Skye, the little girl who wasn’t, sat in the large chair, her gaze darting from one woman to the next.

Ember’s mind raced. She wanted to sing, to dance wildly around the room. Our Ring. Our protector. Our shield. And it was
him
. Him!

*

It was around 10 o’clock. Brooke left her sisters in the Great Hall. They were driving her crazy with all the human Ring talk. Ember especially seemed over the moon about having this guy enter their lives.

Brooke walked across the entrance hall and waved her hand at the locked door. The door opened with a loud creak, and she looked back over her shoulder to see if any of her sisters had heard. When no one came to investigate she entered the room, and silently stepped up to the man quietly snoring on the sofa.

The room was dark, the sofa and the sleeping man no more than darker areas of black, but Brooke could just make out the guy’s face. He didn’t
look
special. Why a man? Why? Her whole life Brooke had dreamt of getting a spirit stallion or a wolf like the previous Wickerwell Vordene. She never once wished for a man. And it wasn’t
just
because she didn’t like guys, it was the whole having to share their house, their lives with a man. It would spoil everything the sisters had. Having this guy around for the rest of their lives. Ugh. It was wrong.

And the way Ember was bloody well acting she’d probably hook up with him. Bitch. Always getting what she wanted. Well not this time.

Brooke slowly removed the pillow from under the guy’s head. He hardly moved. She held it in her hands for a moment, looking down, and couldn’t help smiling. Like her sisters, Brooke had battled and killed many evil things in her life, this would just be another one. She moved the pillow over his head. He died in his sleep, oh what a shame. Choked on his tongue, silly drunk bugger.

‘Brooke?’

Brooke jumped. ‘Ah!’ 

It was Chloe.

Chloe crossed to her sister. ‘I felt you from the other room. It … didn’t feel good. What are you doing with the pillow, hon?’

Brooke quickly lifted the guy’s head and shoved the pillow back. Ugh! ‘It … had dropped to the floor, that’s all.’

Chloe stared at her, concern on her face. ‘Brooke …’

Brooke brushed past her sister, and out the door. ‘It’s OK, Chloe. It’s OK.’

She half ran down the hall to the kitchen. 

But it wasn’t OK, was it?

*

It was almost midnight. Outside, the manor was a glow-stone in fields of darkness. Inside, the five sisters and their aunt stood in a semi-circle around the old red sofa on which the unconscious young man still slept. Ember noticed a lump on his head just above his forehead. Yep, he’s definitely in for some pain when he wakes up.

Celeste stood at one end of the sofa, her arms folded. She looked at her aunt. ‘Well, show us then, Aunt Lani.’

Ember knew her sister wasn’t going to just believe Chloe and her Aunt without some proof. Aunt Lani had said she could feel the power of the Ring in the man, and now she was going to show them.

‘Yes dear. Like you I wasn’t really sure until I tucked him in. Then I felt it. I’d know it anywhere of course, as Beau had it. Our wolf.’

‘Why didn’t we feel it when we moved him to or from the car?’ asked Brooke, who stood leaning against the doorframe, her arms folded.

Ember remembered the feeling and images she’d received when she had put her hand on his chest in the park. Ah, it made sense now.