Ritual Magic (28 page)

"Like I said," Von's voice whispered, "she's
more powerful." He shuddered as he turned his eyes to look out the
cabin window onto the tarmac. "We are almost out of time to make it
to the mountain. We will not have time to prepare."

"Mortisha has been preparing for our
arrival. Everything will be in place by the time we make it to the
clearing." I pushed up from my seat, scanning the room reactively.
I needed to be doing something instead of
sitting
. And for
some indescribable reason, I was itchy
everywhere
—on my
forehead, on my back, on my arms. The itch seemed to travel and
would not allow itself to be quelled.

"There will be shadow demons between here
and there if I am guessing correctly." Jack's voice took on his
all business
tone as he began to stand and make his way to
the back of the cabin.

"Yes," Leo frowned. "Celeste seems to have
upset Maximilian, and I suspect that he will be after more than
merely killing her now. Death would have been short and sweet
before, but now he will be after revenge. Even though he is not a
true demon, but has a demon host, I suspect that he is capable of
much cruelty."

Von's eyes went straight to Leo's with a
sharp shake of the head.

"What?" Leo's voice took on a tone of
complete innocence. "It's not as if the vampire couldn't have
guessed what the matter was as soon as the story was shared with
him. Maximillian has it out for Celeste, he knows that. I give him
credit for not being an imbecile."

"
Thank you
." I said as I watched as
Jack emerged with his arms full of supplies.
Right. We need to
get ready to leave as soon as possible.

"We are almost out of time to make the
rendezvous." Gabriel's voice was the nagging reminder that we were
quickly running out of time and had to do some serious hustling to
get to the ritual on schedule.

The ritual. I really hadn't thought about it
much after I realized that Cora was really my daughter. Everything
about her seemed to conflict—the vampire fangs and demon eyes, the
weapons skills and ability to charm a hard-head like Von, her
knowledge of multiple languages and deep awareness that she was her
mother's shield. She knew that she was raised to be a weapon, and
she accepted it as easily as I had accepted that I would forever be
a guard to the queen instead of the king. We both accepted without
question, and
that
is what was the last thing to convince me
that Cora really was of my blood—she was committed.

Just then, the cockpit door opened and Cora
came out with a look on her face that was absolutely frightening.
What could they have talked about? What would ever make her look
that way?
She walked forward and gave us all looks of warning.
I knew this look—the one that told you to keep your mouth shut and
your ears open.

Celeste swept into the room after her,
charged with energy and still glowing with a hint of anger. I
didn't feel comfortable with Celeste like this—she was different
and had a dangerous edge to her. I could always gauge the anger and
fear, but this...this was...unsettling.

"We have to get going." Cora led the
conversation. We all turned to look at her, nodding with
determination and stimulated adrenaline. Cora's eyes swept across
the room and then she paused on me, frowning gently until she
looked back behind her to see her mother's reaction.

Celeste's expression was stoic and her
liquid blue eyes were ice cold—not the woman that I knew and loved
but I recognized her at the corners of her lips. Her mouth was so
absolutely perfect—she couldn't mask her true self at all because I
could always see her in the outline of her mouth. Right now her
lips were clamped tight into a flat line. She wasn't even chewing
the inside of her mouth, which would have indicated that she was
nervous. No, Celeste was calm...frighteningly so considering what
she had just come back from.

I swallowed involuntarily and it made a loud
gulping noise. Cora's eyes flicked back to me and she offered me a
sad smile.
Yes, she's just as concerned about Celeste's change
as I.

Celeste stood by the plane's hatch and eyed
the wing angrily—the damage had been extensive. Her eyes flashed a
tiny glow of blue as she shrugged off her emotions and turned back
to us.

"Gather everything that you need. We will be
leaving as soon as all is ready."

Celeste looked through us instead of at us,
and that frustrated me beyond belief. I felt like we didn't exist
to her.

This is not Celeste.
My thoughts
clamped down on my mind and I immediately stepped over to Cora,
pulling on her arm to guide her towards the rear of the plane. "We
need to talk." There was so much meaning in my voice that Cora
flinched slightly.

"Yes, we do." She looked at me so sadly that
I thought she was getting ready to tell me I had cancer.
As if a
vampire could get cancer. Rabid vampires ARE a cancer.

We walked to the back of the cabin quietly.
Yanking the rear compartment curtain closed, I turned to her and
got straight to the point. "What's going on, Cora? What happened to
Celeste? Why is she acting that way?"

Cora nodded at each question like she was
taking stock of everything she had to answer. "Mother used too much
power when she was battling the shadow demons. She has morphed her
personality slightly. It's only temporary—I've seen it once before,
but it can be unsettling." She eyed me like I was going to fall
apart. "Right now she is all business and...power. We have to take
advantage of the flow that is raging through her right now—we have
to transport everyone to the mountain. Too much time was wasted
waiting for Mother and Babbo—we have lost our cushion that would
help to ease people's frazzled nerves." She dipped her head as she
placed her hand on my forearm and then looked back up at me with a
look of caution. "We don't have time to make this easy on people.
There is business to address or the future will not be
fulfilled."

I followed Cora out from behind the curtain
and she turned to face the group. Instantly, Cora's expressions
were just as unsettling as her mother's. She was taking on the same
demeanor as Celeste, and soon we had two women made of ice and
power standing before us.

"Everyone gather within the radius of our
reach." Celeste held hands with Cora and the rest of us formed a
tight circle around them. Jack had placed our bags and provisions
at our feet, which made standing closely feel like we were being
held in place by heavy army green duffel bags.

Cora and Celeste eyed us to make sure that
we were in place. Celeste turned to Cora and nodded sharply as they
both put their hands out towards our circle and grabbed the first
arm that they could reach. On Celeste's side it was Von while on
Cora's side it was Leo. Each man flinched slightly at the
uncomfortable tension I suspected until I began to feel a sudden
chill whip around us.

A subtle wind began to swirl through the
cabin. At first it was a gentle, easy breeze, but then it picked up
speed and whipped around us like a tornado. The cabin walls around
us began to fade away as the wind swirled into the ceiling and then
past. There actually didn't seem to be a ceiling anymore as my eyes
followed the funnel of the wind up into the heavens. There was
nothing confining us anymore, except for the strength of the wind
produced by Celeste's and Cora's powers.
How do you feel about
powerful women? I like them.

I eyed Celeste's dispassionate expression as
she seemed to grasp Cora's hand more firmly. She shook slightly as
if she were experiencing a physical rush and then she released her
hold. Her connection with Cora and Von was severed and she held her
hands out in front of her, eyeing them as if they were going to
catch fire. A waving light underneath her skin was flowing back and
forth beneath her palms—shimmering blue now instead of the purple
that we had seen before. Her changes were beginning to
become...distracting.

Celeste's ice-blue eyes cut up to me and she
suddenly looked afraid. My typical reaction would be to run to her
and draw her into my arms, but the subtle flinch that she made in
my direction was enough to send my instincts into overdrive.
What could she be afraid of me for?

Cora turned around in the middle of our
tight circle and sighed. She paused and then gently pushed Leo out
of the way to allow her to step into the opening on the side of a
picturesque vista. She walked as far as she could until she was
framed against a backdrop of peaks and evergreen trees. The
landscape looked like it had been drawn by a child—recklessly
coloring upside down v's to represent the crests of mountain tops
as well as covering it in the richest greens in the Crayola box.
The view was breathtaking and overwhelming.

I shuddered at the thought that this was
where everything that was going to change my life was going to take
place. Soon, very soon, I was going to be a father and Celeste's
body was going to change in ways that I would only believe when I
saw it.

Celeste broke through the circle and walked
away into the woods as if she had lived there all her life and knew
her way around. Cora turned around towards us and nodded, tears in
her eyes. "We're here."

We all continued to stand around in our
circle, staring at each other like we were idiots. The two women
had each left the circle but we still felt bound by the bonds of
brotherhood, a Y-chromosome, as well as a deep purpose and that
kept us rooted in place until we had a direction to go.

Jack was the first to break the circle by
leaning down and grabbing two duffel bags. "Let's get everything in
place. I'll set up the tents." He nodded at me as I scanned the
area.

Celeste still had not returned from the
forest yet, but I didn't feel like I had the right to interfere. I
could tell that there were no shadow demons near, so I wasn't
concerned about the fact that she had been gone for almost ten
minutes. Or maybe I was concerned, but I was definitely not going
to share it with anyone.

Cora continued to eye the scenery—lost in
her own thoughts. I walked over to her and placed my arm around her
for comfort.

"So what's going to happen now?" My voice
didn't sound like my own—it sounded hollow.

Cora nodded at the horizon. "It's so
beautiful. I wish I could stay here forever and lose myself in the
majesty of it all." She leaned into my shoulder as I let my fingers
stroke her shoulder.

I heard Jack unpacking loudly behind us. He
was trying to keep track of our conversation because he was
obviously concerned.
Was that what I looked like to Celeste and
Von during the past fifty years? Was I always lurking and
listening? That's pretty sad
.

I couldn't blame Jack for the way that he
acted or felt about Cora. He was going to have his heart ripped out
if he loved a woman like Cora—I should know from my experiences
with her mother.

"Soon the ceremony will be done and I will
have to go." She smiled up at me weakly. She was so very strong,
but I could tell that she didn't want to leave. "After I return,
the next time that you will see me...I will be an infant." Her eyes
glowed in the reflection of the sun as she looked up at me. "Dad, I
love you so much. You, Daddy, Babbo, and Father—I can't wait for us
to bond and be together again." That's when her eyes actually
scanned over to Jack. She frowned as she turned back to me with a
deep question in her eyes.

"You don't remember Jack." I almost
whispered. It wasn't like I was trying to keep my conversation from
being heard—I just felt the heaviness in my heart hit as I realized
that something happened to Jack between now and the time that Cora
was old enough to even notice boys.

Cora pulled her lips in between her
teeth—hiding all of the subtle pink in her full lips. Closing her
eyes tightly she shook her head quickly enough that we both were
sure that Jack hadn't caught it.

My heart began to ache for them. It was
obvious that Jack was madly in love with her. Everything he did was
to draw attention to himself for her benefit. She pretended to
dislike him
just enough
that it was also clear that she
found him to be, above all things, interesting. She cared about
him, and it was obvious that this was her first true opportunity to
come into contact with him. And now...now she had to leave.

I pulled Cora into me and gave her the
strongest bear hug that I had ever given to anyone. Celeste was the
last person that I had held in my arms, but Cora was different in
so many ways. She actually had a faint smell of me as well as her
mother, and the mixture of the demon blood was not a detractor from
her amazing scent. My heart ached for the moments that we had yet
to spend together, and I was looking forward to being a father.

WOW
!
A father.
I let the
concept sink in as I reached down and lifted her chin. Pulling her
beautiful face up to mine, I looked deeply into her eyes. They were
beautifully hazel, although Von's eyes were hazel, but they had a
ring of deep chocolate brown around the iris as well as speckles of
blue-green that were all mine. She was so breathtaking and
multi-faceted—absolutely the daughter of her mother. My heart leapt
as I looked into her eyes.
I'm going to be a father.
WOW!

Cora's eyes twinkled and then she smiled at
me broadly. She knew exactly what I was thinking and she liked the
direction that my thoughts had traveled. I smiled back down at her
as the moment seemed to freeze and hold me locked in one brief,
sweet moment.

"It is time." Mortisha's voice rang through
the clearing. "We need everyone involved in the ritual to move to
the center of the clearing." She waved her thin arms towards
everyone, making a scooping gesture as if she were herding
kindergartners. "Time is short. Everyone must take their
places."