Compelled (11 page)

“I only know so much.”

Tamara chuckled. “You mean you know nothing?”

I shrugged. “Kind of.”

Tamara sighed. “You’re not much use to me like this.”

“Give me one week. I might surprise you.”

Tamara’s eyebrow rose. A trail of rainwater formed on her hair and streaked down her cheek. Her clothes were soaked, but she didn’t care. She merely blinked when the water got into her eyes. She sighed deeply. Her cheeks caved in as if she were chewing on it. She smacked her lips and glanced at me from head to toe.

Time stretched out, and I hoped she would say something. My jacket was soaked by this point, but somehow, through sheer willpower, I remained where I stood. My Aggie would be proud.

“Lesson one,” she finally said, “know your power.” She held up her hand and presented the palm. “The amazing thing about power is that it’s in everything around us. Power swims in this whole hand. It’s all over me. Do you understand this?”

Nick had taught me a lot about this. Once he’d showed me how he saw me through his eyes. That power pulsed bright white under my skin like a fire. As to how I could use this inner strength was the important question.

“Yes.”

“The fundamental exchange is the driving power behind the spellcasters. They have the ability to draw power from a source and manipulate it to do what they want.”

Fundamental exchange. This was a new term. I nodded.

“Think of them as master clay molders. In the range of things, we are a source of power. Our power to shift comes from within. Without our power we cannot change from one to another.”

That I knew, too.

“For us, drawing from our power isn’t the same as shape-shifters. As a conduit, the path to using the power isn’t the same. They have to work less than we do. They’re better at it too, since they are playing in the pool you could say.”

“But...” I tried to find a way to ask without bringing Nick into it. “A spellcaster once told me he draws from himself sometimes.”

She chuckled. “They can, but compared to us, their inner strength is a pebble next to a mountain. Most of them could never change their flesh like us without an imbued weapon.”

I shifted and my feet squished in the mud. “You said most of them.”

“The world is a massive place, Natalya. You should never assume the shadows don’t hold new dangers.” She glanced to the woods in the distance. Her eyebrows lowered as her nostrils flared.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

She took a deep breath, and then shook her head. Nothing you need to worry about. “Now I will most likely have to undo the garbage you’ve learned before. I bet all somebody taught you to do was light a campfire or something.”

I couldn’t light a cigarette, even if I wanted a smoke. Lighting a fire right now didn’t exactly seem like a genius thing to do anyway.

“Just go ahead and teach me.”

“Let’s start with water, then. All around you is matter to be manipulated. Either you move it, freeze it, or vaporize it. You can play with it like clay. Are you following me so far?”

“Yep.”

“Manipulating matter requires two things: tapping into the inner source, and the words to do the push for us to make the connection.”

I didn’t interrupt her. It was nice to learn something my grandma was so eager to hold back about. This was something I needed to learn.

“The memorization is the easy part. Finding your way to unleash your power is another thing entirely.” She went through a series of phrases for the manipulation. And it wasn’t something simple like move water around. Each way you could alter water had a three-word phrase. And Tamara was perfectly able to info dump them all.

Instead of mumbling like a damn fool, I chewed on each phrase and swallowed it into my head.

Pretend like she’s Bill
, I told myself.
 

Every morning Bill went though his work list, his order list, and a bunch of other bullshit he remembered at the moment but would forget by the time he grabbed his morning coffee.

For a goblin who loved money more than his relatives, he sure didn’t work hard toward learning more of it.

“What are you doing?” she asked out of the blue.

I opened my eyes to see her staring me down.

“This is what I do to remember stuff.”

“So how do you freeze water then?”

I read the phrase in my head.

“Vaporize water.”

I read the next one underneath that.

Three-word phrases weren’t so bad compared to the one spell Grandma had me learn. Now that took some time.

“Let’s go through the rest of the elements then. After that, I’ll give you a demonstration.”

Something my grandma said came to mind. “Wait a moment. What about the consequences? Doesn’t the fundamental exchange have rules? Energy is never used up. It’s merely transformed. If there is a consequence to changing matter, what is it?”

A slow smile formed on Tamara’s face. “You’re a smart girl. What happens to an object if you slowly grab bits and pieces of it?” She took a step toward the house. “What if you took this hand and removed a sliver of the cells on a finger? Not much. There are massive amounts of power there. But the sad thing is that, as spellcasters pulling from ourselves, we have little say in where we pull from. You could be pulling from your fingertip. You could be pulling from your stomach. The worse spots are your internal organs.” She laughed as dread rose through me. “Or even worse you can pull from your heart. How about a bleeder from there? The ones who truly lack self-control pull from up here,” she tapped her head. “And then it’s all over.”

Grandma had been unconscious for
five
days due to one spell to save my life. What the hell was I getting myself into this time?

“You ready for a demonstration then?”

The word
no
came to mind, but I nodded instead.

Tamara mumbled under her breath, the words weren’t discernible to me. First, there was nothing but the sounds of the rain and the feel of the drips on my coat. The chill in the air flowed from my forehead down to my toes. She was strangely calm, serene. I never had such a feeling. The only person I’d ever seen with such a calm spirit was Grandma.
 

Then I saw the drops of rain that fell go back up again almost as if gravity had flipped. The very sight made my jaw drop as I watched even more rain that normally would fall to the ground being sent up towards the sky. The best way to describe it would be as if time went backwards.

“Amazing,” I whispered. “How do you do it so easily?”

She opened her eyes and gave me a knowing smile. “Ten years to discover what the werewolves had lost. Another twenty years looking for a master to teach me werewolf magic. Another ten years to find the spellcasters who would teach me.” Her voice rose as her determination shone in her brown eyes. “Time was on my side to master what I needed to know. But there are still secrets to be found, and I want to find them all.”
                             

Her head jerked to the left. The upside-down rain changed direction, coming back down as it did before. She shoved me in the back toward the house. “Demonstration is over. Back to the house. Now.”

“What’s going on?”

A strange smell drifted toward us from downwind. To the east, something a few miles away advanced quickly. The rustle in the trees increased. The crack of a branch reached my ears. “What’s out there?” I whispered. The need to freeze touched me, but Tamara kept pushing me toward the house.

We rushed up the two steps and past the red door. She slammed it shut behind her, and, shortly afterward, leaned against it to whisper something to the thick wood.

Luda thundered down the stairs in a nightgown with a robe. Tyler wasn’t far behind her.

“Is it here again?” Luda asked.

“What is
it
? What’s going on?” In a few minutes, I’d be turning into a damn parrot with these people.

Tamara pressed her palms against the door and spread her fingers wide. She continued to mumble, ignoring me as I paced the space in the living room.

She stopped to turn and look at me. “Shut up! Luda, send them back to their rooms. I need to concentrate.”

Luda took my arm and tugged me toward the steps. Outside the windows, the sky had darkened instead of lighting up with the sunrise. Rain continued to belt the glass, removing any opportunity to listen for what lurked outside.

“Why can’t you tell us?” I hissed at her.

“We’re under attack!” Luda said.

“No shit. From what?”

As we approached my room I tried to slow her down, but she was stronger than she looked.

She shrugged and I smelled the truth in her confusion. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen it and Grandma said I wouldn’t want to know.”

“Well, I do.”

“We could help her fight it,” Tyler said.

A laugh came from downstairs. “You go ahead and come try,” Tamara said.

“Did you see anything?” Tyler asked.

“Not really,” I replied. “I just caught a scent. One I’ve never smelled before. It was really weird.”

Luda leaned in to whisper to us. “I’ve never seen it, but I know it did walk up to the front door once. When it first started attacking us, she said it couldn’t cross the field. Then she said the wards in the house walls should hold it back. That the beings trapped inside—”

The front door creaked as if the wood shuddered from something hard leaning against it. Then the wood rattled and shook.
 

Screw standing around.
I raced into my room. My backpack should’ve been on one of the chairs by my bed, but it had fallen over onto the floor. One of the objects I’d brought with me gleamed on the floor: the goblin blade. It had come in handy during my road trip to save my father, so I took it with me. The goblin blade had transformed again, leaving something long poking out of the zippered opening.

The door downstairs shook again. Zoya screamed while Tyler tried to calm her. All the while, I stared at what the blade had become. Each time it changed like this, I dreaded what had to be nearby. What evil force did the blade try to prepare me to face.

The knife’s hilt had elongated to baton length. The sharp blade was now an opaque crystal. My breath caught as the crystal pulsed with a strange dark blue light. The stench of burnt hair made me blink. Before my fingers touched the weapon, the house went silent. For seconds, I hovered, waiting for the next sound.

But nothing came. Nobody moved.

The dark sky brightened as the rain retreated.

When I glanced back at the goblin blade, it was back to its original form.

Chapter 11

It was time for answers. Now, as to who was willing to give them to us was another thing entirely. When Tyler, Luda, Zoya, and I came downstairs, Tamara was gone. Her scent trailed out the door and disappeared a few feet from the house.

“Where did she go?” I asked Zoya.

“I don’t know. She does this sometimes. She’ll be back, though.” Doubt circled her words. She laughed to add levity as she urged us to come inside. “We’re safe now. Let’s have some breakfast.”

I didn’t want food. I wanted to know what threat I faced. When the Long Island werewolves came to South Toms River to take over, the pack had an idea of what was coming. They could form a defensive plan and place pack members at the best position. Such a luxury vanished when the threat was unknown.

After an early breakfast, a trip to the bathroom for a shower sounded so wonderful. The trio remained downstairs while I finished up.

On the way from the bathroom to my room, I spotted someone inside. A short figure hovered over my bags: Tamara had returned without coming through the doors. I froze to keep the floorboards from creaking. The need to rush in and shout, “Hey, those are my things,” was the first reaction, but I stopped when I saw her tilt my backpack to force the contents to spill onto the floor. The goblin blade was at the top of the pile.

“Now this is unexpected,” she said with a grin. “You’re far too powerful of a toy for a little wolf to play with.” She leaned toward the floor, her hand stretched out to pick it up. I expected the blade to form the weapon used on me, a silver knife, but something else happened entirely.

For each inch she advanced on the knife, it scraped along the floor away from her. When she was finally within reaching distance, it shimmered and vanished. Tamara chuckled. “Fair enough. You’ve made your choice, but sooner or later she’ll have to learn your secrets.” She turned to leave but paused. “You’re too much for her to handle.”

As she turned to leave the room, I sprinted back into the bathroom like a deer escaping an oncoming truck. I hid in the bathroom until my heartbeat and breathing slowed. By the time I poked my head out, Tamara was gone again.

When footsteps echoed across my floor the next morning, I was ready. My eyes snapped open and I turned into a roll off the bed, somehow landing softly on the hardwood floor.

“Damn, I really wanted to raise the bed off the floor like in
The Exorcist
.” Tamara tsked, pulled a granola bar from her pocket, and ate it. There wasn’t a wrapper on it either.

With my palms, I rubbed my bleary eyes. Such a gesture hopefully helped me avoid the fact she pulled the unwrapped snack from her
pocket
. “You do know that’s kinda messed up.”

“It’s a dark world, honey, and magic is a gumbo with the darkest ingredients of them all.”

Memories of my grandma flashed in my mind. “Something tells me magic is only as dark as you let it be.” I put on my shoes.

“You enthusiasm is disgustingly sweet.” She finished the food, wiped her hands on her skirt and headed outside.

Wow, Aggie had competition in terms of eating habits. At least my best friend cleaned up after herself.

Instead of heading out to the field, our next lesson took place in the kitchen. Day two would begin with a bang.

“Time for fire,” Tamara said.

“Are you sure about this?” I asked.

Zoya was in the middle of frying up eggs and Luda had a bunch of stuff out to make what appeared to be cakes and pastries. Luda had a bucket of water while Zoya had enough grease to contribute to a huge ass grease fire.