Enchanter (28 page)

Clinging to the hope that perhaps he had something important
to do early in the morning and would show up later on, I continued on with the
rest of my day while watching for him to make an appearance. By our fourth
class, I was convinced that he was not coming.

When Sonya, Vanessa, and I got together for lunch, I could
not stand my headache anymore, so I asked Vanessa to take me home.

“Did you assist a party without us?” Sonya asked as she
climbed into the back seat of Vanessa’s car.

“Hardly,” I whispered, the sound of my own voice now too
much for me to stand. “Matt and I went to Xavier’s place last night, and let’s
just say I had a little too much to drink.”

“You poor thing,” Sonya teased. “What forced my nonalcoholic
friend to drink?”

“A bad day.”

“I did notice that you disappeared yesterday, but since
Brandon wasn’t around either I assumed you two took off together.” Vanessa
pinned me with a questioning glance.

“We did,” I confessed.

“Anything interesting happen?”

“Many things.”

“Then why are you complaining of having a bad day?” Sonya
asked.

“I got a visit from my mother after Brandon dropped me off
yesterday.”

Vanessa winced as if I had punched her. “No wonder.”

“Yeah, that’ll do it.” Sonya laughed. “Who else would force
you into a drinking binge?”

“I didn’t have that many beers.”

“Just enough to knock you out cold and give you a massive
hangover the following morning, right?”

“That’s right.”

Sonya laughed again. “Can’t say that I blame you, my friend.
If I had an unannounced visit from Diana Parker, I would drink myself out cold
too.”

“Yeah, well, that’s exactly what I did. Although, now I can
officially say that I hate alcohol.”

“You’ll hate alcohol until Diana Parker decides to drop by
again,” Sonya added with a smirk.

“I don’t think she’ll drop by ever again.”

“Why not?”

“Because when she left yesterday, it felt kind of… final.”

“You girls argued?” Vanessa asked.

“Something like that.”

“Was it that bad?”

“Well, she told me I was to blame for my father’s death and
that she hated me for it.” I was not ready to share the real reason why Diana
paid me a visit the night before, so I decided to only provide them with that
little bit of info.

“Wow, that’s harsh!” The girls said in unison.

“Yep, it was, but hey, I can handle it. I was kind of
expecting it, really. What I never expected was for her to tell me that I was
adopted as a baby.”

“You’re adopted?” Vanessa practically screamed out the
question.

“According to Diana, I am.”

“Oh, my God! Leah—”

I interrupted Vanessa’s statement the second I realized she
was about to say something that might trigger another embarrassing, teary
demonstration. “It’s fine. As it turns out, I’m already over that news.”

“Either way, it was still damn mean,” Sonya disputed.

“I guess so.” I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter anymore. We are
pretty much done with each other.”

“I would be too, if I was told that.”

Five minutes later, we arrived at my apartment complex.
Vanessa parked the car near the back exit and turned toward me as she asked,
“Do you want us to keep you company you for a couple of hours?”

“Thanks, but no thanks. I’m going to lay down for a little
while to see if that helps with my headache. You girls go have lunch and I’ll
call you later on tonight.”

“Are you sure?” Sonya asked.

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“All right, get some rest then.” Vanessa unlocked the door
for me and I stepped out, shut the door, and waved before hurrying inside the
building.

I opted for taking the stairs because the elevator was full
and I was in no mood to make small talk with the other residents, or feel
crowded. With my brain pounding hard against my skull, every step was
agonizingly long, but after a few minutes I finally made it to my third-floor apartment.

I wasted no time at all unlocking the door, opening it, and
slipping inside. Once in the apartment, I hurried to the kitchen and rummaged
through the cabinet next to the stove until I found the small bottle of Tylenol
Matt kept there. I popped two pills into my mouth, washing them down with cold water
and hurrying off to the bathroom. I decided to take a long and relaxing bath,
thinking it would likely help ease my aching head and tense muscles. After a
few hours of texting and calling Brandon without a response, I was overly concerned
and that was just making me more moody, so anything that would bring any sort
of relief was more than welcomed by this point.

Within minutes, I had the faucet opened and warm water
filling up the tub. Once that was taken care of, I poured some blossom-scented
bubble soap in the tub and decided to undress as I waited for the bathtub to be
at least more than halfway full. It took a few minutes for the tub to fill up,
but once it did, I wasted no time submerging myself into the warm water, leaning
back against the vinyl wall, and squeezing my eyes shut.

Determined to relax as much as possible and not think about
Brandon, my adopted parents, or my real parents, I emptied my head of
everything that was bothering me and drowned out the world and all who
inhabited it. Fortunately for me, my technique worked to perfection, and pretty
soon I was not only relaxed but my headache had calmed down to a dull ache.
Relieved, I stayed in the tub until the chilly bathwater forced me out.

The soak had done wonders on me, erasing not only the bad
memories of the past twenty-four hours, but helping to release my body of all
the tension. Had I not had something to look forward to, I probably would have started
another bath and allowed myself the luxury of soaking my tired form in warm
water for another twenty minutes. But the fact that I had not heard from Brandon
– didn’t even know if he was okay – was incentive enough for me to get out of
the tub.

Although I knew he could protect himself, I was still
worried. True, we had never exchanged phone numbers prior to that Saturday
evening, and therefore had never engaged in any phone conversations, so I had
no idea if not answering calls was normal for him, but considering that the guy
claimed to be in love with me, I thought that he would be quicker about
returning a call.

God, I hope he’s okay.

Ready to face the world, I hurried out of the tub and pulled
the plug to drain the water. Reentering my bedroom, I hurried and dressed in a
pair of jeans, a black tank top, a pair of white socks, and black and white
Converse shoes. After brushing my long auburn locks back into a bun with a few
loose strands framing my pale face, I hurried back to the bathroom and tidied
things up before marching into the living room.

Unfortunately for me, the first thing that greeted me once I
set foot in the room was the manila folder I had left on the coffee table the
previous afternoon. Once Diana left I had forgotten about it completely, not
even bothering to touch it since. Now, as I stood in the middle of the room
alone, it seemed to beckon for me to open it and read the contents within.

Afraid, but curious to know what my father was so determined
to hide, I moseyed on over to the table, picked up the folder and hesitated.

To be honest, I was nearly frozen in fear of what lay
inside. What if the news was too difficult for me to handle? What if my real
parents never cared for me? What if they were bad people and he wanted to
protect me from them? Did my real parents love me? Had they ever felt anything for
me? Had they suffered when they gave me up?

Who killed my father and why? Who was he protecting me
against? Who are
they
?

So many things crossed my mind, but unless I opened the
folder, I would not find out for sure. Finally, curiosity won over and I ripped
open a corner of the envelope. Unfortunately, I gave myself a paper cut in the
process. A big one too. The second the sharp edge of the folder sliced through
my skin, blood started sliding out. Wincing from the slight pain, I brought my
aching finger to my mouth, but not before a drop of blood landed on the manila
folder. The second the drop landed on it, the large envelop disintegrated.

I yelped in startled surprise and drop the contents of the
folder on the floor while simultaneously taking a few steps back. While the
folder vanished into thin air as if it had never been there in the first place,
the two white papers and a piece of blue ribbon inside did not. They all landed
on the carpeted floor without making a single sound.

“Great! Just what I need, more magical mojo,” I muttered,
still scared out of my mind by the disappearing folder.

Although afraid to even go near the papers, I had no choice.
I needed to know what it was. Or, better yet, what was written on it. The paper
cut forgotten, I hesitantly approached the items lying on the floor and stared,
waiting to see if something else happened. Nothing did.

Unnerved by the sudden quietness of the apartment, I took
several awkward steps toward the papers and nervously picked up the three
items. The second my fingers touched them, they began to tingle and within
seconds my entire body did too. Scared, I dropped the papers and stepped away,
feeling as if I had been hit by some invisible wave of... well, something.

“Damn it! How do I know this isn’t some demon trick?” I let
out an exasperated sigh and tried again. This time when I picked up the items,
I ignored the tingling sensation and focused instead on the handwritten letter.
It did not take long for me to recognize my father’s signature. The second I
did, my eyes watered and I dropped down onto the couch.

There were many times when I was younger that I would
accompany my father on the dining room table as I finished off homework and he
worked on whatever documents he needed for work. I remember staring as he
signed documents for his job. The uniqueness of his John Hancock was something
that was deeply imprinted in my head ’til this day, and I had no doubts the
handwritten letter was something he wrote personally.

With teary eyes, I began to read a letter that would change
my life forever:

My Dearest Leah,

If you’re reading this letter, then I’m dead and was
unable to provide this information to you personally. First and foremost, I
want to tell you that I love you very much and being your Protector was an
absolute honor for me. I took on the role because you meant so much to our
family – to me.

This is hard for me to explain, especially because we are
not face to face, but I’ll try my best to write down what you should know and
hope that you’ll understand the sacrifice your parents and I did in order to
ensure that you grew up to adulthood.

I guess first things first. Although I raised you as if
you were, you’re not my biological daughter, Leah, but you are family. Both you
and I belong to a dying breed of people who were born with supernatural
abilities. Our kind was named Enchanters by the human population, because they
thought us to be sorcerers of some kind.

What can an Enchanter do? We have some magical knowledge
and abilities, not as much as others, but enough to protect ourselves and
others. However, our most unique abilities are the skill to heal not only
humans, but ourselves, and the capacity to call upon the force of the blue fire
within us to exterminate inhuman threats. Right now, I know this must sound
crazy to you, or incredibly unreal, but let me assure you that what you’re
reading is no joke. Magic exists. So does good and evil, Leah, and you’re proof
of it.

Our people fought evil for many years, hunting down and
destroying the predators of human kind. It was our job to protect the innocent
and we did so with pride, never questioning our duties. Unfortunately, a new
form of evil was unleashed upon the earth. A demon by the name of Lasher was set
free from his cell in the underground and he orchestrated an attack that left
our village badly crippled some fifteen hundred years ago. Our numbers decreased
considerably.

Once our people were forced to take refuge amongst normal
humans and mated with them, our abilities were taken from us due to an
irreplaceable spell that the elders placed on the first generation of
Enchanters. As Enchanters we are not allowed to take mates who are not the same
as us, if we do our abilities disappear. Our kind is very special, Leah and,
unfortunately, very few of us remain today. Like so many others before me, I,
too, broke the rules and lost all my abilities except for one when I fell in
love and married your adopted mother, Diana.

As a Protector, I was able to retain the ability to cast
powerful spells, which I used to shadow who you really are. Now, you might have
a million and one questions crossing your mind at this moment, and that’s
perfectly understandable, but you must keep reading because the rest of this is
also important. In order for you to understand why I hid, even from you, who
you really are, I must relay the circumstances behind your unique birth.

Your real mother, Danica, was my youngest sister, and she
married a great man and fellow Enchanter by the name of Lionel Wright when she
was only twenty-one. When Danica announced her pregnancy, the Enchanter
community rejoiced because my sister was the last Giver of Life. You might be
asking yourself what a Giver of Life is. Well, this unique breed of women is able
to rescue souls from the demons who kill innocent victims and bring them back
to life. Unfortunately, throughout time only one of these women was born per
village, and amongst a breed of people who were few to begin with, this was a
huge setback. Over the passing years, the Giver of Life became a very rare
occurrence and there came a time when it was believed none existed. But then my
great-great-grandparents showed up with their newborn daughter, Alicia, and
hope was once again restored.