Ritual Magic (26 page)

Just then I saw the plane's hull begin to
glow with a distinctive shape. Celeste was walking through the wall
again, and it appeared as if she was in a trance. I attempted to
push her backward but she simply passed straight through me.

"Celeste!" I screamed as I ran back in front
of her, pushing myself against the far cabin wall as she came
towards me, not seeing a thing. I held my hands out in front of me
as if I was going to stop her, even though I knew that it was
impossible. If I didn't stop her, she was going to walk out onto
the other wing—vulnerable again to an attack by the albino.

"CELESTE!"

Celeste stopped suddenly, her eyes clearing
and finally taking stock of the situation. She eyed me as if I had
just appeared, and then she eyed the rest of the group in the
cabin, slowly, cautiously.

I heard Von's shaky voice from the back of
the cabin, stating what we all were thinking in disbelief. "I had
no idea that you could do that."

Celeste walked back to the hull's wall that
she had just passed through, looking intently through the window as
a sharp shiver passed through her. I walked over to her and slowly
pulled her away, attempting to steer her towards the seat she had
vacated earlier.

"What the hell happened, Celeste?" Von's
voice was demanding and I wanted to slap him across his shocked
expression just to get him to shut the hell up.

I didn't pay attention to anyone else as I
looked down at her. "You almost stopped my heart, you know. That's
pretty difficult to do, considering I'm already dead." I shook my
head as I dragged her into my arms—her stiff body resisted being
moved at all. "But you are safe." I smiled down at her and I could
tell that she felt my relief.

The short of it was that she was in shock
and sick to her stomach. She couldn't believe what had happened, so
she was in good company. I watched her closely as Jack doted on her
with ginger ale and she closed her eyes, trying to wash away some
of the discomfort that she was feeling.

She's safe
. My heart swelled as I
thought about how incredible she was out on the wing of the
airplane. She had been able to fend off a shadow demon as well as a
warlock—she was absolutely amazing, and I had no idea where any of
this was going to stop. I struggled to clear my head as I began to
pace from one side of the cabin to the other, keeping my eyes on
the wings of the plane to ensure that we weren't under attack
again. It was impossible not to notice the damage that had been
done to the wing, but I was well aware that only magic was holding
us aloft, and we were in good hands.

Cora ducked into the cabin a couple of
times, asking questions about the encounter and seeming a little
befuddled by the details of how Celeste had walked through the
plane fuselage as well as through the warlock. She didn't seem
impressed, though—she was too upset to think of anything else
except her mother's safety.

I nodded as she gave instructions to keep
Celeste quiet and comfortable. Humoring her seemed like the best
choice when it came to her mother. There was no group of men that
could have taken better care of her, but sometimes it felt like a
room
full
of capable supernatural men was just never enough
to take care of one Celeste Ravenwood.

I returned to my pacing after Cora retired
to the cockpit.
Who could possibly be behind these shadow
demons? Who is pulling their strings and what is waiting for us on
the ground when we finally get to Durango?
My eyes flicked back
to Celeste, noticing that her body was slowly becoming limp as she
was using her relaxation techniques.
Good
. She needed
rest.

I turned back to the hatch and looked out at
the wing again.
That was so odd. Two were sent—a shadow demon
and a warlock. Why? Could the warlock have been working on his own?
Could he have been after Celeste for his own interests?

"Celeste! Solomon!" Jack's voice cried out
as I turned sharply to where Celeste was sitting. Her seat was now
empty, and Jack was looking around him behind the seats, in front
of the seats, underneath the seats. He was trying to locate her,
but it was obviously no use. "She's gone!"

My heart sank like a stone. "What the HELL
is going on?!" I growled as Von darted towards the seat next to
Jack.

Von's forehead furrowed and he looked at me
imploringly.
Nothing
. She was gone, and there was no way to
know where and why.

————————————————

The time ticked away slowly as we all looked
at each other in quiet frustration.

"She's stronger." Von finally said, cutting
the stale silence with his sharp tone. "She could have sent herself
anywhere. She wouldn't even be aware of what she was doing—she had
to have done it on her own." He tilted his head back as he blew a
gust of air up at the ceiling.

I looked at him like he was insane. "Are you
kidding me? She had to have been exhausted—there was no way that
she could have done something like that when she was so weak."

It was definitely an insane thought that she
could have transported herself off of a plane, moving at the speeds
that we were traveling. Magic was a tricky thing, and although I
didn't understand it enough to be an expert, I knew that it was
almost impossible to magically transport yourself from a moving
plane like that.
Almost
.

"No." Von dipped his head and closed his
eyes as if he was trying to get a fix on her. "She isn't anywhere
near—I can't feel her. She transported herself without intending
to. She is much stronger now than she ever has been, and her simple
relaxation technique just...sent her away." He looked down at the
palm of his hands as if he was wondering why he wasn't even
close
to as strong as Celeste.
Why didn't he have enough
power to bring her back?
Useless warlock.

Jack dropped his head to his chest in a
clear sign of defeat. "Her relaxation technique. Of course!" He
placed his hands over his eyes like he had a terrible migraine,
rubbing the palms of his hands into his eye sockets. "She sent
herself away to her favorite place." He shuddered as he looked up
at me.

"The beach." I said simply as I looked at
Celeste's empty seat like she was going to appear if I stared hard
enough at the leather. We were rocketing away from the beach, so it
meant that we were getting further and further away from her every
second.

"I fail to see the importance of the beach.
Why would she be transported there?" Gabriel's voice struck us as
odd coming from the side of the cabin, and we all turned to look at
him as if he had just grown a second head.

"The beach." Von sighed heavily. "It's her
favorite place—she's always been drawn to it. The ocean calls to
her and gives her strength and peace. It centers her and gives her
a renewal of her mind and spirit. It has always been that way. That
is why the castle is built on the coast—she can't be away from the
water, the ocean."

"Hmm, that is quite interesting." Gabriel's
voice drifted away from us as if he didn't want us to hear. "That
makes sense, I would think." He nodded to himself and then
straightened his collar. "Yes, that makes perfect sense."

"What makes sense?" I looked at Gabriel and
hoped that it didn't look threatening. There was information that
Gabriel was going to share that could help us in the future. He
knew something about Celeste that we didn't.

"Her mother..." Gabriel began when there was
a sharp crackle on the cabin intercom.

"Solomon! Von! Come here! Now!" Cora's voice
sounded panicked and we swept towards the cockpit as Von pushed
past me and slammed the door open to reveal Cora's wild expression
as she pointed to the empty pilot's chair. "Babbo is gone! Leo is
gone!" She sounded exasperated as well as scared.

I scanned the cockpit to see the tight
quarters that were available for the pilots—all the coziness of a
closet. Cora was gripping the controls in her hands as if they
would explode if she let go, and she suddenly looked extremely
young and helpless, needing our support.

"What could have possibly happened to him?"
Her voice shook as Von walked over to her and squeezed into the
head pilot's chair, distracting himself with the panels before
him.

"I would suppose that your mother has called
him away." He tried to sound authoritative, and it was actually
pretty convincing until I looked into his eyes and saw the
unbridled fear.

Cora's eyes darted to mine. "Dad?"

Nodding, I leaned over her chair and laid my
hand on her shoulder. "She has transported herself somewhere—we
suspect it was to the beach. She has called Leo to her, we deduce,
the same way that she has done in the past. He is the easiest to
call, it would seem."

A razor-sharp pain ripped through my chest.
I was jealous that she had called to Leo and not to me.
How
would she have been able to call to you? He's a demon and he can
shadow away to wherever there is darkness.
I shuddered
involuntarily.
There's darkness where she is right now.

Von looked up at me from his seat and then
he turned to check the gauges, finally turning to Cora. "I'm
staying here with you. I have my pilot's license but I'm not
up-to-date on Learjets. You will have to guide me through the
process so that I can help you land this thing. I won't leave you."
He sounded so comforting, that for some reason, I hated him
less.

Cora nodded at him gratefully as she turned
to face the wildness of the world outside. "Okay." She sighed and
gripped the controls loosely, easing back into her chair.

"I will be in the back, keeping an eye out
for Celeste and Leo." Silence was my reply.

Turning back to the cabin, I closed the door
slowly behind me. Cora would be well taken care of with Von next to
her, assuring her that everything was going to be fine, and that
her mother would show eventually.
I could only hope so.

I stalked over to Gabriel as he leaned back
in his seat, eyes closed and mouthing words I couldn't hear. "Tell
us what you were going to share." I towered over him, showing him
that I wasn't going to take 'no' for an answer.

Gabriel continued to lean back in his seat,
eyes closed, but he continued his story. "Her mother—she was an
extremely powerful shaman. She was the one that placed the blessing
on our tribe for extreme longevity. In fact, I don't think that I
have aged much at all since I turned 29. It's a gift." He smiled
smugly as he opened his eyes and peered up at me with the pitch
black of his eyes. "She was beyond compare...well, except for
Celeste, and now Cora. But she fell in love and she conceived a
child when she was 25—Celeste." His head flicked in the direction
of Celeste's empty seat as he continued. "There is a story passed
down from generation to generation that she fell in love with the
Ocean."

"Right, the ocean. That's exactly how
Celeste feels about the ocean—she can't be too far away from it or
she becomes...hostile." Jack gruffed from his seat. "So what?"

"That is
not
what I said. I said that
she fell in love with
the
Ocean—the ocean god Lir. It is
said that she loved him so deeply that he couldn't resist her; she
was so natural, so strong, that he couldn't keep away from her.
There were huge ocean storms the year that Celeste was born because
it appeared that the ocean was pining for Celeste's mother. He was
torn up that she couldn't be near him all of the time." He scanned
his eyes towards the overhead bulkhead to the left of him. "When
she was able to make the trips to the ocean there was quiet and
calm. It seemed like the ocean was happy. But when she had to
leave, the ocean was violent and cruel." Gabriel looked back at me
and shrugged his shoulders. "But it was just a story."

"Your stories..." I scratched my chin as I
walked towards the cabin door again, turning and walking back.
"They are oral histories—as accurate as any books, from what I
understand. They are taught to your children word-for-word so that
no one forgets." A sudden thought occurred to me. "Could this ocean
god...could
he
have contacted Celeste?"

Gabriel looked at me as if he were trying to
dissect me with his eyes. "Hmm, it must be possible. But most gods
have already faded away. Without someone to worship them, they
simply disappear into the mist. They lose their grip on reality and
simply fade away." He scratched his chin as if he had stubble there
to scratch. I doubted that this man ever had any stubble to worry
about at any time—his skin was as smooth as a baby's butt.

Jack sat forward in his seat, clearly happy
to be distracted from his hatred of flying. "Any of the times that
Celeste has blacked out... What about that other time that she just
appeared outside the house you bought her, on the beach? That could
have been an opportunity for her to have a deep conversation with
her old man, right?"

I thought about that for a while. There were
so many times that Celeste had slipped in and out of trances, and a
couple of times that she had just plain disappeared. There could
have been many opportunities for her to be contacted, by anyone. I
turned and walked in the other direction again.

This is killing me! Not knowing what is
going on and being too far away from Celeste to protect her is just
too much to take.
I raked my hand through my hair, feeling my
sharp nails grazing my scalp.
What are we going to do?

Jack knew that we needed a distraction. He
immediately jumped up to a flat screen console built into the far
wall of the cabin and dug through a pull-out drawer beneath it. He
pulled away in triumph as he held up a thick DVD case that
obviously held a TV series.

"
Bonanza
!" He
smiled victoriously as he clicked controls, popped open the case,
and placed a brown DVD into an opening on the wall.