Half Past the Witching Hour (Paranormal Personnel Saga #3) (25 page)

‘I don’t think that there’s much left of that wizard of yours,’ he stated, blowing circles of smoke in front of him.

Time was running out. My mother should have been home already. I could only hope that she was safe, as far away as possible. If Craig was behind this whole thing, then I didn’t want to think what happened to Jasper. He was strong, but no one would survive alone with so many magic thieves.

‘What the hell do you want from me? Is this about Kelsie?’ I asked, concentrating on my energy. For some reason my tingling was off, even Craig’s thoughts weren’t transparent enough.

‘Don’t strain yourself, sugar. You won’t do anything to me right now. My wizards fed you with a potion that eliminated your magic. Besides, from what I know, you aren’t very good at that shit, are you?’

Keep lying to him.

I didn’t answer, biting my lip hard, and thinking about how to distract him. None of what he said made much sense.

‘Kelsie is still important to me,’ he whispered close to my ear, tying up my hands behind me with heated magic. There was something that I forgot about, something important that mattered, but now my mind went completely blank. I could’t think straight when he was so close.

‘My dad will be at home soon. If you don’t want to have the police on your head, I suggest you to let me go,’ I stated calmly, calling up my father’s spell. He would know if I was in trouble. Craig laughed, stood up, and walked around me, so we were facing each other. For a couple of minutes he didn’t say anything, only watched me, like he was calculating his next move.

‘Your daddy isn’t even in London, and you don’t remember, but Kelsie asked to meet you over here an hour ago.’

‘Like I’m going to believe you,’ I snapped and held his penetrating gaze, although terror made my heart pound faster. Slowly I started putting together everything he said, figuring out what he was trying to gain from keeping me hostage. I didn’t remember calling Kelsie, but when Jasper and I reached the restricted district it was just after seven. I’d lost over an hour and a half of my life.

Dad was in London. He rarely left the city, and our connection was strong, so he should sense that I was in trouble soon enough. Craig was watching me the whole time, looking pretty amused with me struggling to remember anything.

‘You talked to her in the car, not long ago.’

I took another wheezing breath, searching my mind for memories, lost images, but I felt equally hopeless, like during the time I woke up on the kitchen floor after the first blackout. My heart thumped wildly in my chest and I blinked sweat out of my eyes. For some reason I realised that he must have known about the blackouts. I didn’t remember anything after Jasper was attacked. Craig showed up with those wanted wizards, as if he had been waiting for me this entire time. Everything was slowly making sense, but I didn’t get why he needed me, why he wanted Kelsie back. He couldn’t possibly still love her.

‘What the hell do you want?’ I yelled. ‘Kelsie doesn’t mean anything to you and no one else needs to get involved.’

Craig yawned. He threw his cigarette on the floor and squashed it with his boot. He didn’t reply and vanished from the living room. I knew that I was capable of using the right spell. It was simple, but my magic wasn’t responding. Frustrated with myself, I pulled and pulled against the magical restraints, but I only cut circulation to my fingertips, bruising my wrists. I knew that there was something else as well that I was supposed to remember, but I felt drugged, washed of my power.

Craig stayed in the kitchen, and a few minutes later I heard someone at the door. My heart leaped twice and I stopped moving. I wanted to scream, but immediately someone behind me shoved a wet cloth in my mouth. I recognised Craig, he squeezed my neck so hard, that I thought he was going to crumple my spine. I cried out, breathing through my nose, tears filling my eyes. Then my heart hammered against my chest and cold sweat broke out over my entire body when Kelsie and my own mother entered the living room. Their laughing stopped as soon as they saw me.

Kelsie hissed, her eyes shimmered with yellow flames, but she didn’t react quickly enough. Craig jumped and dragged her down to the ground. He used magic to stop her shifting into an animal. My mother was too frozen to do anything except scream. Craig took care of her as well, disabling her with one swift dose of magic. Soon she was sitting next to me, her head down to her chest, unconscious.

I screamed, trying to spit out the cloth, but I nearly suffocated forgetting to breathe through my nose. Kelsie struggled to get up, she screamed with rage, but Craig slapped her across the face. She went down pretty quickly but didn’t pass out, glaring at him with hate.

‘We have been waiting for you, whore,’ he snarled, as he brought her bloody face to his, laughing. His spells were strong and I felt useless, trapped in my own body. My own magic died down. Kelsie regained some of her balance, breathing hard.

‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Craig? Let them go!’ she barked, wiping the blood off her face. Her eyes started illuminating with bright light, and her body was shaking with anger. She was trying to shift, but her own energy was fading, like she didn’t have enough strength to transform. Wind swept the papers off the table, blowing around me. Craig had help, someone else who fed him with power. Shifters didn’t use magic; they turned into animals or other humans. They couldn’t cast spells or use charms.

‘You won’t shift in this house. I’ve been studying, taking private magic lessons. I’m no longer just a fucking shifter,’ Craig said, circling around my mother. I saw a knife in his hand and terror invaded my body when he pressed it to her throat. I prayed for her to remain unconscious, so she didn’t have to feel anything.

I fought hard to break the spell, but it was just like when I was held in that basement outside London by McGregor, but this time I felt potions running through my body, blocking my energy. Kelsie was breathing hard, glancing from me to Craig with madness in her eyes.

‘What the hell do you want from them? This is between you and me,’ she said, screaming like she was ready to rip him apart.

He didn’t lower his knife and I kept repeating to myself that everything was going to be okay. Dad will show up, sooner or later. Someone must know that I was in trouble. Craig laughed and put the knife away. My mother began stirring back to reality when he slapped her gently. She took a breath, blinking rapidly.

‘What is this?’ she asked, trying to free her hands. Her eyes started moving back and forth from me to Craig. Fear grew thicker, settling in her eyes.

‘Mrs. Taylor, calm down, everything is going to be all right,’ Kelsie said. I sat across the room gagged, trying to move, but the spell held me in place.

‘Julia, oh my dear Lord!’ Mum screamed, her voice cracking. ‘Who is this man, and what is he doing in our house?’

Craig leaned towards her, lifting his knife in front of her face.

‘Shut up, human, this is none of your concern. You’re just the motivator,’ he snarled, laughing. My mother started to shake with terror. I clenched my muscles and focused on my magic. I didn’t even know when Craig was beside me; he removed the cloth out of my mouth. His eyes gleamed with magic. He was high on something, drugged with paranormal liquid, crazy to get Kelsie back to his life, but with what purpose?

‘Craig, baby, please,’ Kelsie begged. I whispered to Mum to keep calm, but her eyes were wide with fear.

‘I was supposed to be the last dark leader,’ Craig announced, moving around the room. ‘You were the guarantee, and you still are.’

Craig was referring to me. His dark eyes narrowed as he paced in the living room pointing at me.

‘You don’t care about your people. No one in their right frame of mind would make you a pack master,’ Kelsie snarled, laughing. That was a bad call, and I had no idea why she was winding him up. He roared and got to her before she even saw him near her. His wide eyes changed colour and shape, somewhere in the background I heard my mother’s whimper. Craig squeezed Kelsie’s cheeks, so his eyes were level with hers.

‘I’m here for her, the half-breed, to show the master that he can’t fuck with me. When I kill her I’ll get what I want.’

He pushed her away laughing. Kelsie took a wheezing breath, spitting blood on the floor. My heart jackhammered in my chest and I kept looking at my mother. She was too scared to ask questions, to say anything. Dad was going to be here at any minute, our connection was deep and we both needed him.

‘You can have money or antiques that you could sell. My family is—’

‘Are you fucking kidding, you useless bitch?’ he spat, cutting me off. ‘I have cash, plenty of it. This is about shifters’ honour and you are my guarantee! I’m doing this to prove my point, to show the master that he shouldn’t have dismissed me like that.’

‘You don’t make any sense. We don’t understand—what do you want from us?’ I asked. He sounded like he went nuts, like he knew about my power. He laughed, shaking his head. Mum was whispering prayers loudly. I had to end this madness, gain my control back.

‘Do you remember that first time you killed someone?’ he asked all of a sudden, turning to face me.

At that point I felt like someone stabbed me right between the ribs. I stopped breathing, watching as his faced shifted into focus. A heavy tension came alive and even my mother flinched, going quiet within a moment.

I swallowed hard, hearing my own subconscious telling me
, Keep lying to him.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I whispered.

‘Don’t lie to me, you cunt!’ he shouted, tensing his jaw. ‘You followed that mermaid to her home, then you tricked her to go into the factory.’

My throat was so dry that I couldn’t even swallow anymore. Mum was focused on me, her eyes grew wider and wider with confusion. I glanced at Kelsie, who was stunned.

‘I didn’t kill anyone.’

‘Bullshit. You stabbed her to death and enjoyed it. I’ve seen it. At first I thought that you were too weak, too fragile to do it, but when the magic took over you were different, vicious, and hungry for more.’

I tried to block Craig’s voice, telling myself that he was wrong. Somehow he knew about the murders and he was using this knowledge against me. I wasn’t a killer. My blood went cold when I saw lost pieces in front of my eyes. The joy that filled me when I’d checked Jennifer’s pulse. All the memories were slowly coming together, but I refused to believe, refused to accept.

‘Don’t listen to him, Julia. He is lying, manipulating you to believe in the darkness,’ Kelsie shouted. Craig slapped her so hard she crumpled on the floor. My mother screamed, sobbing nervously. Kelsie hissed, blood was pouring out of her mouth, but she didn’t move again. She passed out.

‘You see what you made me do,’ he shouted, massaging his hands.

‘Craig, please, why are you doing this? Kelsie has left you and started new life in London,’ I said, knowing that Mum had heard enough. Once I got her out of this, her memories of this evening would have to be erased. ‘I might be a killer, but you aren’t involved in those crimes. If you let us go, I won’t call the police, I promise.’

Kelsie was coming back to herself, moaning and swearing loudly. I concentrated hard, talking to my own magic, knowing that I could bring it back. I was more powerful than him, Tron taught me enough. I wasn’t weak anymore.

‘He promised me the position of the dark leader. He said that as long as I follow the rules he’ll keep his word. Then, I realised that he only kept me as a puppet. He used me, pretending that he was teaching me magic, giving me the power over other shifters.’

I listened to him, trying to guess why he thought that I could help him. Mum was sobbing, looking at me like I was stranger to her. Somehow Craig had pulled me into this, discovered where my parents lived. He knew about the bodies.

‘He said that I could use the whore. I needed her to establish my position as a new leader. The whore would do anything for that stupid half-breed. He promised if I let her believe that she had committed those crimes, the whore would be mine. All the evidence pointed out on the half-breed. She was easy to control, easy to be manipulate, easy to make her believe that she’d done it.’

I couldn’t breathe. My chest felt tight and then everything finally came together, like when I was around the magic thieves. All the pieces falling into place, connecting to each other. Craig wasn’t even talking to me anymore. He’d completely lost the plot, driving himself into madness with magic. He must have been the one that went out with Jennifer, but then something went wrong and he killed her. He must have been following me and had seen me and the girls when we talked to Abi.

I understood now. He was the one that manipulated me to kill. He used the spell to gain control over me, to make me black out. He made me hurt Quentin. I recognised Craig’s voice as the one in my head during my nightmares. Flashes and pieces of information. Craig had been in my apartment. He used magic to make me leave and go after Jennifer. His orders were in my head all the time, but I wasn’t the one that committed the crimes. He did. He stabbed Jennifer, after luring her into Nathaniel’s factory.

‘I was watching the half-breed all the time, and the whore helped her. They were talking to that other mermaid. She’d have recognised me, so I had to get rid of her. The master didn’t know that I used his spell again on her, but this needed to be done. The girl would have talked.’

So he went after Abi, knowing that she was going to slip. All the time using his magic to make me lose connection with reality. Implanting new memories, making me believe that I was a killer.

Kelsie lifted her head, which brought Craig’s attention. Even though my magic now seemed absent and misused, I could feel that he was drained. He used dark magic, forbidden spells, and they were eating his soul, penetrating his own abilities. That was the price that he was paying. Kelsie watched him. She was lucid, alert again. Mum was shaking her head, talking to herself. I wanted to tell her that everything was going to be all right, but I had no idea what Craig was planning next. He was talking about the master, someone who taught him these complicated spells.

‘Craig, baby, it’s all right. Let Julia and her mum go. We should talk about this,’ Kel said, lifting herself off the floor. She was in pain, but she wanted to get his attention.

‘You were supposed to be the one that would rule with me. I had everything planned; evidence that you killed these women. The master wanted to know how powerful she was. Then everything went out of control and he refused to teach me. Once I kill the half-breed, I won’t need the master. Her power will give me enough strength.’

I finally understood what Craig was talking about. I could’t hesitate any longer, I had to let Kelsie know that Craig wasn’t the same person anymore.

‘He is under influence of dark magic, so he won’t listen to you, Kel,’ I said, fighting with everything I could to push through the potion. Dad's magic surrounded this house and I could feel it in my bones, but I was still lost and unfocused. Someone helped Craig ruin my life. Jasper was the only wizard I knew that had used dark magic, but now he was probably dying somewhere, surrounded by magic thieves. Now I was on my own.