Inherited Magic (11 page)

Instead of Sam or Adam, she saw
Jane standing in the girl’s bathroom with two of her cheerleader clones.

“He comes onto Allison which is
strange enough. I guess some guys might find her attractive in an alternative
sort of way, but now he’s after that weird girl Sam?”

“Maybe he’s scared of pretty
girls,” one of the cheerleaders suggested.

“I’m going to follow them after
school and when he tries to make a move on Sam, not only am I going to confront
him about it, but I’m also going to tell Allison.”

“Why?” One of the other girls
asked.

“So that Allison won’t have
anything to do with him, and then maybe, he will start paying attention to me
like he should have in the first place.”

“You’re so smart, that’s why you’re
the head cheerleader.”

This was all Allison could see
before she was back to her reality. Her nose was bleeding and her head was
pounding. She wiped away the blood and ignored the pain. Allison had to push
through it and find out more, it was the only way. She cleared her mind and
closed her eyes, concentrating once again.

Sam and Adam were walking on a
sidewalk, with Jane, behind them, trying to be subtle. They were on a familiar
side road leading to the trailer park. A van slowed down and the door opened. A
man reached out and grabbed Sam before she could stop it from happening. Adam
turned and grabbed Jane. In an instant, he jumped into the van with her in his
arms. The girls struggled and yelled while the men began to restrain them with
rope and duct tape.

“Why are you doing this?” Jane
asked, her voice more shrill than usual.

“I needed bait. I was just going to
take Sam, but you had to be nosy,” Adam said.

“So take her and let me go. I
promise I won’t say anything.”

Sam looked at Jane with wide eyes,
unable to form words. Jane did not seem to feel shame or remorse for what she
had said.

“What? There’s no reason we should
both die.”

Adam stared at Jane for a minute,
and Allison wondered if he was considering her proposition.

“Wow, it’s no wonder Allison can’t
stand you,” Adam said.

The vision became blurry, and then
was gone. Allison stood up though she was weak from forcing visions to come.
She was light headed, but she ignored it and walked to Cain, who was driving
the RV.

“We have to go back right now,” she
told him.

“Back where?”

“Mason Springs. I had a vision.”

Ruby and Vinnie were behind her,
listening to her words.

“They took two girls.” She turned
to Vinnie, “They have Sam and Jane.”

“Why?” Vinnie asked.

“So that I would come to them.”

“If you go back, you’ll be giving
them what they want. You know it’s a trap,” Vinnie said.

“He’s right. Your mother was strong
and trained, but they were still too much for her,” Ruby said.

“It doesn’t matter. We have to help
them. I can’t just look the other way when I know they’re in danger.”

“You must care a lot about your
friends if you’re willing to risk your life for them,” Cain said.

“Well, I care about Sam. Jane, not
so much, but I still can’t leave her there.”

“We do have to go back,” Cain
agreed, “but we have to be smart about it.”

Ruby sighed, “Of course we do. We
can’t just leave them with those men.”

Everyone was silent for some time.
They knew they were walking into a dangerous situation, unprepared and unarmed.
Allison realized she might die, and there was still a lot she wanted to do in
life. She wasn’t ready to die, and she would bet her mother had felt the same way.
Was anyone ever ready to die? The unknown made death so scary. For every
preacher proclaiming the pain of Hell and the glory of Heaven, there was a
well-educated atheist saying that neither existed. The fact remained that no
matter how strong someone’s faith or conviction, no one could say for sure, and
that was the scary part.

Cain changed directions when he had
the chance, and they were soon traveling back to Mason Springs, and back into
imminent danger. Everyone seemed immersed in his or her own thoughts. Allison
was thinking back to the fight between Adam and Siler. Adam had handled Siler
with no problem that day. The task of facing an entire group of people as
skilled as Adam was daunting and seemed impossible, but what choice did they
have? They had to try.

They were at least a day and a
half’s drive from Mason Springs. Allison was anxious to be home where she could
help her friend, but Ruby was insisting on making another stop first.

“How far is Wilburn from Mason
Springs?” Cain asked.

“Around two hours. Mamaw has to go
up there every few months for job training,” Allison said.

“Allison, how much training do you
think a secretary needs? I just said I was going for training. The truth is
that I have always gone to Wilburn because we have friends there who sell
ingredients and supplies I use.”

“All this time,” Allison said to
herself.

She was in shock at her
grandmother’s secret activity. It seemed so obvious now. Why would a secretary
have to go to on the job training two hours away every couple of months? She
had never questioned it, never given the idea as much as a second thought.
Vinnie’s expression showed that he was as surprised by this revelation as she
was. After this detour in conversation, Allison returned to the main point.

“Why is it so important to stop
before we go home?” Allison asked.

“It could be life or death, that’s
why. This is where I buy all of my ingredients for the spells and potions.
There are ingredients I need. I also need somewhere to stay long enough to make
these things and prepare for what we’re up against. We need all the help we can
get, and they may be a lot of help to us.”

“You can’t just buy your stuff and
make it in the RV?”

“No. There isn’t a lot of room in
here, and Ursula has the proper equipment.”

Allison rubbed her forehead. Was
she the only one who realized that people were in danger? They may be dead by
now. Everyone seemed to think they were on some vacation and could just go home
at their leisure. Ruby must have guessed what Allison was thinking.

“I know it’s frustrating. You want
to go in there right now and save them. I’m telling you, we have to be as
prepared as possible if we stand a chance of surviving.”

“It’s hard to see the use of
spending time on anything other than going back and helping Sam.”

“Spending time in Wilburn is
necessary if there’s any hope of survival for Sam or us. This will be time
spent working toward bringing Sam to safety.”

She wanted to argue, but knew that
Ruby was right. She had more experience dealing with all of this, and Allison
had to trust her decisions. She rubbed Dru while turning her attention to the
window. Cars passed by, filled with people who were living normal lives, happy
and oblivious to the problems within Cain’s RV.

On the way to Wilburn, Ruby made a
list of items that she needed. Vinnie listened to Ruby more than Allison did. 
She was less concerned with recipes and more concerned with fighting. By
dinnertime, Ruby had constructed a comprehensive list of items they would need.

“We should just buy 3 machine guns
and go in there blasting everyone,” Allison said.

“I don’t think you’re going to find
a firearms dealer that has three machine guns available for purchase. They’re
not illegal, but close to it. It takes a lot of time, paperwork and money to buy
something like that,” Cain said.

“Fine, something semi-automatic,
anything.”

“The BC has special protections.
Often, when they murder, they do so by invading the victim’s home. In the past,
they lost several members to gunfire. They had to do something, so they
developed special charms, protections.”

“You’re saying they’re bullet
proof?”

“Not bullet proof, no. They do use
protective charms that sort of deflect bullets, though. If the charm was broken
or weakened enough, bullets would affect them the same way they affect any
other human.”

“You don’t know how to break it?”

“No. We always concentrated on
strengthening our magic, never breaking it.”

It seemed like the odds were
insurmountable, though Allison did try to stay positive. The rest of the day
and into the next, she could feel her anxiety mounting. She found herself
pacing within the small RV in spite of her efforts not to.

For the first time in her life, she
was excited to see the sign that read, ‘You are now entering Kentucky.’ All she
could hope for was a quick stop off in Wilburn and an easy time finding Sam.
The RV stayed on the interstate for another hour before they were within a few
miles of Wilburn. At this point, Ruby was driving so that she did not have to
bother giving Cain directions. It was easier for Ruby to go somewhere herself
than try to explain how to get there.

Once they were off the exit, they
traveled through a small town and onto a gravel road that branched out from the
main highway. To call it a tight squeeze would have been an understatement.
Branches and bushes grazed the front and top of the RV. The winding road came
to an abrupt halt, turning into a private driveway. There, in the midst of the
wooded area was a clearing probably two acres wide. A simple house stood in the
middle of the clearing along with two other buildings. 

 A woman emerged from inside the
house. Allison could think of no other word to describe her than flow-ey, and
she was pretty sure that wasn’t even a real word. Everything about her seemed
to flow, from her long brown hair to her soft white dress. She did look like a
witch or a new age spiritualist or something.

Ruby opened the door to the RV,
“Everyone out.”

They all stood and began to make
their way to the front.

“Is it just me or does she look
like some kind of crackpot? You know; the ones who wear crystals for energy and
consult the stars before making any decisions?” Allison asked Vinnie.

“We’re on our way to fight men who
are trying to steal your magic by killing you. I think we all might be crackpots,”
Vinnie said.

Allison laughed.

“Besides, I think she looks pretty.
Well, except for those shoes,” he said, looking out the window at her feet.

“Ursula’s a good person,” Cain
said, before he walked out to join her and Ruby, who were already exchanging
embraces.

Ursula’s smile faded when she
looked at Cain. Her reaction seemed reminiscent of how Ruby had reacted. The
three of them were talking, and Allison was sure they were filling her in on
recent events.

Vinnie and Allison stepped out of
the RV and Ursula’s face went from grim to excited. She greeted Allison and
Vinnie as if they were old friends, hugging them both. Allison half hugged
back, taken by surprise at the stranger’s embrace.

“Allison, I haven’t seen you since
you were a baby. You’ve grown into a beautiful young woman. And you must be
Vinnie; Ruby has told me so much about you. I’m Ursula, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you,” Vinnie said.

Ursula looked back at Ruby, “Daddy
will be so glad to see you and the kids. He should be back from town any
minute. Now let’s go inside and see what we can find.”

The group followed Ursula who led
the way to the house.

“I had a feeling something was
happening,” she said over her shoulder.

Upon entering the house, Allison
noticed an abundance of rooster décor. There were ceramic roosters on coffee
tables, a portrait of a barn with a rooster crowing on a fence, there was even
rooster border along the top of the walls.

“You sure seem to like roosters,”
Allison said.

“Oh, it’s Daddy. He likes them,”
she said, while leading them through a back room, down a flight of stairs and
into the basement.

The basement contained no roosters,
and it seemed well lit and dry. There were shelves lined with mason jars and
bottles containing liquids, powders, and plant substances. There were three
large tables in the middle.  Against the wall was a wide bookshelf that was
filled with books. There was also a lot of cooking equipment:  a stove, beakers
and a set of scales. 

“So where’s the big iron cauldron
so we can make our witches’ brew?” Allison asked.

“It had a big crack in the side, so
we had to send it off to be repaired,” Ursula said.

“Okay, a sense of humor, that’s
good.”

Ursula smiled.

Allison had a second thought, “You
are joking, right?”

“Yes.”

“I should fill you in on the rest
of the situation,” Ruby said.

Allison, Vinnie and Cain listened
while Ruby told Ursula everything.

“They’re such a nasty group,”
Ursula said, after Ruby finished telling her tale. “No offense, Cain.”

Allison had a feeling the ‘no
offense’ part was thrown in to cause offense. She looked at Cain’s face,
waiting for him to respond.

“None taken. That group, which I am
not a part of, is indeed nasty.”

“Right, I keep forgetting you’re an
ex-blood coven member. One who caused your wife’s death and never bothered to
raise your child. That’s much more respectable.”

Allison wanted to take up for Cain,
but she still agreed with Ursula on many levels. A few days inside an RV was
not enough for him to earn her trust. She could not just forget his sketchy
past or the sixteen years of abandonment. It did not matter how noble his
reasons may have been, growing up without either parent still felt the same.

Cain had no reply and Allison
remained silent. There was a sudden roar of an engine outside the basement
window.

“Daddy’s home,” Ursula said.

She started up the stairs to greet
her father, and everyone followed except Cain, who lingered a moment. Allison
walked back to him.