Witch Eyes (14 page)

Twenty-One

“This is Braden.” Trey’s tone was calm, maybe even a bit forceful. I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed the frosty reception.

“I don’t need to know his name, Gentry,” his mother chided, her voice somehow managing to get even colder.

“I think you do,” Trey replied, matching her ice for ice.

I dug my fingers into his hand, but he didn’t react. And worse, he kept talking. “Braden and his uncle just moved here,” he said. “Lucien Fallon led him to some sort of trap in the cemetery the other night. Gregory mentioned you paid him a visit, so you obviously know about it.”

“You work quickly, son.” A moment of surprise turned to approval in her eyes. She nodded to Trey, eyebrows rising. “I wanted a look at the new witchling in town, and you bring him to my door.” She turned to me then, extending her hand. “You weren’t quite what I was expecting, were you? I’ve heard interesting things about you and your work. Braden, was it?”

I glanced sideways at Trey, but his focus was on hi
s mother and not on me. I couldn’t believe he’d done this to me, brought me here and basically told her all about me.

“Braden Michaels.” I didn’t bother trying to shake her hand. I was trying not to tremble. This woman had changed my life, and now she was acting like she didn’t have any idea what she’d done.

Catherine tapped a finger against her lips, slowly withdrawing her hand though she continued to watch me with curiosity. “Interesting,” she mused. “I apologize. My son is not one to be so indiscrete. I should have had more faith in him.”

Something’s not right here.
This wasn’t the way I expected our first encounter to happen. My gut was telling me that this wasn’t a woman who’d put out some sort of hit on me only a
few
days ago.

“Obviously I was on top of things, Mother.” My head whipped around. He made it sound like I was just some pet project he’d been working on. Keeping tabs on the witch. “I only found out a few nights ago.”

Catherine was too busy watching me now to even look at her son. It was more than enough to make me shift on my feet, looking anywhere but into her ice blue eyes. “Yet you know how important it is that some things not be put off, my dear.”

Trey nodded his head quickly. “Of course. But I think the extenuating circumstances alter things slightly.”

“Mrs. Lansing,” I said, raising my voice. “I don’t know what it is you think you want with me, but I’m not interested. I’m not here to get in the middle of some family problem.”

“Yet you’re involved with my son,” she pointed out. “By that simple fact, you’re already in the middle. Or have I mistaken things?” She was enjoying this. Like the spider watching the fly struggle on the web.

“You haven’t,” Trey said. “But I’m not going to let Jason get his hands on Braden. Besides, Thorpe can’t offer him anything that would make him turn against me.”

“Do you always wear sunglasses indoors, Braden?” she asked mildly. “I would have thought your family would have explained the etiquette behind such decisions. Much like wearing hats indoors.”

“He has an eye condition,” Trey answered automatically. I was surprised at the lie. Trey knew the truth. “I think Jade called it photophobia. Right?” He prodded me with his fingers, avoiding eye contact.

“I was born with it.” On the other hand, I lied more smoothly. I’d had enough practice. “There’s not really much I can do with it. No treatment, no drugs really do much for me. Just heavy-duty sunglasses.”

“I see.” Catherine seemed to buy it. I hoped she did.
A sudden memory of Grace Lansing, and she might start asking questions I couldn’t answer. The woman didn’t get
where she was by being stupid. It was only a matter of time.

“If there’s nothing else, I should get Braden home. He’s got some homework to catch up on.” Trey was already slip
ping his hand into mine, a sign of soli
darity between the two of us. “And I have an exam on Tuesday to prepare for.”

“Hmm.” Catherine didn’t look entirely mollified, and I was sure she knew something. “Bring him to the house tomorrow night. We’ll have a dinner party.” I could see the calculation in her eyes; I just didn’t know what it was leading to. A show of support to her son? I didn’t think so.

If I thought he would argue, I was in for a losing battle. “Of course,” Trey said, steering me toward the door. But my mind was spinning. Dinner? With the entire Lansing family? A full meal where they could poke and prod at me, trying to uncover my secrets? Worse, they’d be expecting answers about our relationship and, in Jade’s case, details.

Somehow, things had gone from bad to worse.

¤ ¤ ¤

“I lied to my mother.” Trey’s voice was filled with shock. The restaurant wasn’t far from the hotel, but even the few minutes of driving were impossible to fill with idle chatter. Or serious conversation. I squirmed in my seat, unable to find a good position while Trey’s tapping the steering wheel only got more erratic the further we got.

“I lied to her about you. She wouldn’t have understood,” he went on to say. “She gets … paranoid, sometimes.”

“What would she do? Try and have me killed?” The sarcasm was lost on him, though, but it reminded me of
the weird vibe I’d gotten in the restaurant. If Catherine hadn’t been the one trying to kill me, then who? Jason?

“She’d see you as a threat. She’s very big on the Lansing ideal. That power is our legacy, and what you can do … she’d see it as some sort of threat. At least until I can explain it to her.”

“How do you know about it, anyway? I thought it was just some old legend not many people had heard o
f
?”

Trey nodded. “Not many do. But my dad’s always been fascinated by the Lansing family, and the legends associated with them. He’s not like my mom, but he knows what she can do. He probably knows more about the Lansings than anyone else in Belle Dam, my mom included.”

He dropped me off a few minutes later, and I nearly leapt from the truck in order to put some distance on everything that had happened so far. Catherine knew about me now. Trey had acted like I was some sort of assignment. And I didn’t have any idea who was really out to get me.

¤ ¤ ¤

“C’mon John, call me back.” I was sitting in my room, staring at the cell phone I’d set carefully on the bed. After Trey dropped me off, I’d spent time reading through the grimoire, but nothing in there was any help.

I’d called Uncle John three times almost fifteen minutes ago, and still nothing. He hadn’t picked up, but the voice mail hadn’t clicked on either.

Trey and I were meeting up later; I still wasn’t sur
e why. He seemed to think I’d need help in dealing with the hellhound. When really, I was thinking he would just be in danger. The whole thing was just too much to worry about. So I focused on the hellhound. I ran through different ideas—spells I could try to slow the thing down. I’d never heard of anyone successfully stopping a hellhound—usually, when they accomplished whatever they set out to do, they went back where they came from. The grimoire confirmed it.

My phone lit up, and I exhaled in relief. It was about time.

“I need to know everything you know about hellhounds.” No time for hellos.

“Why? What’s happened? Is there a hound after you?” John’s voice went instantly alert. “Did Catherine find out who you are?”

I explained the situation as quickly as I could—about the cemetery, and summoning Grace, and what happened next.

“What were you thinking?” he snapped when I was done. “You know better than to go trying something like that.”

“Well, maybe if someone would tell me something instead of playing games with me, I wouldn’t have had to.”

John started muttering. I don’t think he was even talking to me. “This was all a mistake. He’s in over his head.”

“John! I need to know anything you know. These things are going to kill people if they don’t find me.”

“Give them a target,” he said abruptly. “If you’re the one who summoned them, they’ll have to listen. Otherwise they’re going to come after you instead.”

I must not have heard him correctly. There had to be some mistake. Sending them after someone else was like signing their death warrant. I couldn’t order someone’s death! “You’re crazy! I’m not sending them after someone else!”

“You can’t stop a hellhound with magic, Braden. No one can. And unless you’ve got a creature just as deadly in your back pocket, you can’t kill it with violence. You either give it a target, or you wait for the spell to dissipate naturally and pray for the best.”

“Well, how long’s that going to take?” I demanded.

He sighed. “Hellhounds aren’t like the big powers. They don’t
have
a lot of power, so the spell could hold them here for … weeks? Months? Unless you can give them a target, and let them do what they’re supposed to.”

“Well, that’s not happening.” My voice was flat.

“Where do you think you are?” I could picture the way the veins in his forehead were flaring up and his skin was turning that blotchy red color, like tomatoes that had gone bad. “Belle Dam’s not a happy place. No one’s going to pat you on the head for being a good little witch. They’ll be measuring you to find the best place to stick the knife. Haven’t you been paying attention?”

“You’re insane. I’m
not
killing someone. And when the hell did you become so bloodthirsty?”

“When I grew up. You can’t do this by yourself. You’re going to make too many mistakes. I’ve got … ”

“You’ve got what? Listen.” I tried to calm my voice, to speak with confidence. “If there’s a way to stop them, I’ll figure it out.”

“No. You’re not strong enough for this. They’re going to chew you up. I’m going to have to … ” He sounded like he was struggling with his words, stumbling over them.
What was going on with him?

The phone went dead with a shriek of noise worse than nails on a chalkboard. I flinched, throwing it down onto the bed.

John didn’t know anything either. So I was going to have to figure this out on my own. I dropped down onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. Hours till dark. Hours to find the perfect solution.

No worries.

Gulp.

Twenty-Two

There was nothing in the book that helped me out at all. I even read through it two more times just in case something would pop out. I did find a section that talked about legends outside a Scottish village where witches had seen creatures in the forest, but the townspeople summarily denied anything. Montserrat thought the town was under a
geas—
a magic that creates walls and chasms in the mind to keep certain information from being revealed. It made me think about Uncle John.

Eventually the sun began to set and I started to get ready.

When I called Trey, he told me to wait for him inside
until he got there. The assertive tone immediately made my lip curl. I still wasn’t sure how I felt about Trey’s ambush, or the way he was drafting me into the Lansings whether I wanted to go along or not. I had to fix things, get them back on track before everything got too out of control.

“Hide inside like a scared little bitch,” I said to myself, pretending to be him as I headed outside. “Don’t worry, I’ll fight the big bad monster with my perfectly gelled hair and charming smile. Just do as you’re told.”

That annoying, rational part of me kept trying to interject. Things like
Trey’s just worried you’ll get hurt
and
He just wants to help.
But it wasn’t helping, and I wasn’t going to
get hurt. It was going to take a lot more than a hellhound to stop me.

“Should have guessed you wouldn’t listen,” Trey chimed in to my inner monologue, in front of me so suddenly that I jumped. The inner rage I was working myself into flickered at the shock. I must have really been out of it.

“I’m not a little kid,” I said, bending down to tie the shoelace that had come undone.

“What are you doing, Braden?” The exasperation in Trey’s voice made it clear that he wasn’t referring to the shoes. “I thought you were going to wait inside. It isn’t safe to be standing out here, with that thing out there.”

“I was,” I snapped. “Then I remembered that I’m not the one that needs protecting. Sorry, Dad.”

As I straightened, Trey stepped forward and invaded my personal space. “I’m definitely not your father,” he whispered, his warmth stirring against the cold surrounding me.

“I thought we had work to do. God’s holy mission or whatever.” I tried to hold on to the anger, the annoyance, anything but the flutters in my stomach.

Trey wrapped his arms across my shoulders, drawing closer. “You’re okay. And that’s a start.”

You shouldn’t be doing this. It’s wrong.
“We need to go back to the cemetery.” My voice was shaky. “Where it started.” But try as I might, all I could focus on was the little bit of light glinting off the tip of Trey’s lower lip, the curve of his cheek and the dark lashes shining above his eyes.

“Who says romance is dead,” Trey said, his eyes dancing in the streetlights. “Some days, I think you have a death wish,” he continued. “Doing stuff like this, wandering around when there’s something out there that wants you dead.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” I replied automatically. The hellhound was the least of my problems, the smallest part of a much bigger problem.

“You’ll tell me,” Trey was confident. “When you’re ready.”

We decided to walk to Angel’s Respite, figuring that if the hellhound was already roaming around, we’d have a better chance of seeing it. There wasn’t much small talk along the way. I kept my distance, hands shoved in my pockets. I was still trying to come up with a workable plan, although I had the feeling I’d end up winging it as usual.

The entrance to the cemetery stretched in front of us. One of the streetlights had gone out sometime after we’d left the other night, and masked much of the park from our eyes.

“How long before this thing turns up?” Trey asked.

The hellhound would track us down eventually, but there was no telling how long it would take. With the migraines back as usual, I couldn’t track the hellhound like I had the other night. And in the meantime, the hellhound could be anywhere. Terrorizing anyone.

“They can smell magic the same way I can smell your cologne,” I said, trying to think of something. Some sort of plan.

“Maybe we should have told my mother,” Trey said, sounding uncertain for the first time.

I could just picture the ways in which Catherine Lansing would approach the situation. “Sure. And after Jason Thorpe was found mauled to death, what then?”

“Then why summon it in the first place. That’s what you were doing in the cemetery, right?”

I wanted to explain that it was an accident, some bizarre trap set in place to be triggered if someone came trying to summon Grace’s ghost. But Trey wasn’t done yet.

“You weren’t planning to send them out on anyone, were you? I mean, I’d like to believe it was just some sort of accident, but the way you’re acting … ” Trey’s voice trailed off, but the doubt and accusation were clear.

There wasn’t time for t
his. “If you’re going to ask if I was sending them after your mother, then just do it,” I said, sinking down to rest on top of one of th
e gravestones. Maybe it was sacrilegious, but I’d already brought evil into the world.

“Did you?”

Once it was out there, the question hung between us like some sort of scarlet accusation. A monster that ma
gic couldn’t stop, bred to seek out and destroy anyone that had even a sliver of the power in them.

“Braden?” Trey had gone still. I looked up to find myself the victim of an intense scrutiny.

Even if I’d wanted to, the idea had never crept into my head. Something else had interfered, a trap hidden in the ground that had infected my spell like a parasite. But that was starting to give me an idea. A way to undo what happened.

“Of course not,” I said slowly, carefully choosing my words. “You can leave. Everything will be fine now.”
No one knew how to kill a hellhound, but had anyone ever tried infecting one?

Trey took a step closer, leaving his face shrouded by the darkness. “What are you talking about?”

I went to the monument for Grace Lansing. Behind me, Trey’s voice got loud. “I’m not going anywhere.”

The night had grown cool already. My thermal hoodie wasn’t
going to protect against the chill for very long. I could smell a fire burning somewhere in the distance. I closed my eyes. Maybe it was fair to call this suicide: drawing out the spectral monster that adapts and grows immune to magic—while having
nothing in the arsenal
except
magic.

I held my hands out, palms down, and focused on the magic.
Come forth
, I thought, feeling the power slowly rising like a tide. I hadn’t taken my glasses off. I’d hoped to wait until the magic was in full swing. Maybe that was the trick—if I overextended my powers, I could short-circuit the visions.

“Braden!” In the middle of feeling out the spell, Trey’s voice ripped through my concentration. I tried to smooth away my focus, to ignore him.

Big mistake. Something shoved me from behind, sending me slamming into Grace’s monument. The jagged edge at the top hit me right in the stomach, knocking the air out of me in a rush.

I was spun around just as quickly as I was shoved in the first place. Everything around me was spinning, but this wasn’t some drunken escapade. There was a blur in front of me, a man in a red sweatshirt moving faster than he should have. He grabbed the front of my shirt, acrid breath in my face.

“Not again,” he growled, shunting me upward like I weighed nothing at all. The tips of his knuckles smacked into my Adam’s apple and I started coughing instantly.

All in a matter of seconds. I recovered quicker than I’d have expected, shock making everything sharpen itself too fast. A red sweatshirt with “Arizona” etched across the front. Dark hair that had been shaved close to the scalp since the last time I’d seen him. A blazing anger that seemed to make even his eyes glow red.

“Drew?” I was still coughing. But now the pressure was focused on the tension of my sweatshirt as it pulled against the back of my neck, and underneath my arms.

“You let those things out. No more.” He was a big fan of the growling, threatening alpha male.

“No, you … you don’t get it,” I tried to explain. He lifted me higher. My shirt was pulling tight around my neck, chafing the skin. I tried extending my feet, to touch solid ground again, but I was too far up. I could barely breathe.

Then I heard a sound right off every cop show I’d ever watched.

“Put him down, Drew.” Trey’s voice was cold. I saw a glint of silver against black, heard the cocking of the hammer. I was too busy trying to grab onto Drew’s shirt to really understand what was happening.

All of a sudden, the pressure on my neck released and I fell to the ground. Coughing again, and trying to draw in as much oxygen as I could.

“Oh, have you been looking for me, Gentry?” Drew went on smoothly, as though a moment ago he hadn’t assaulted me. “Next time, leave a message.”

“Wha-what are you doing with a gun, Trey?” I wheezed.
It was getting easier to breathe, but I thought for sure my Adam’s apple had become an innie in the process.

“You’re not going to shoot me.” Drew seemed oddly confident in that, his back still to Trey and his eyes locked on mine.

Trey snorted. “You tried to kill my sister. I promised my mother I’d take care of the problem.”

He’d tried to kill Jade? Riley had said that there had been an incident that got Drew kicked out of school. She hadn’t mentioned it involved attempted murder, though. No wonder the school expelled him. All things considered, it didn’t sound all that crazy, since he’d just assaulted me a few seconds ago.

“No.” Drew was full of composure and calm. “Your sister claimed I tried to kill her. There’s a difference.” His eyes focused on me in a narrowed slant. “I tried to warn you. Went and got mixed up in their lies, didn’t you?” He shook his head in mock pity.

“Don’t talk to him,” Trey ordered. “Just back away.”

I had to do something. “Put the gun—”

“How long after I got expelled was it before Mommy reinstated Jade’s allowance?” Drew cut me off, glancing over his shoulder. He took a step backwards, doing what Trey’d told him to do.

“Put the gun down, Trey,” I demanded.

“He just attacked you. Don’t be stupid, Braden,” Trey snapped.

“You let him make you the new little pawn?” Drew asked, sneering. “Too much to hope you’d actually stand up to them, huh?”

“Shut up,” I said, my voice shaking. “Just shut up.”

“‘Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war,’” Drew laughed.

“You’re quoting Shakespeare while I have a gun pointed at you?” I could see the grimace on Drew’s face lengthen as Trey pushed the gun further into his neck. “Back up, Braden.
I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“You were the wolf,” I said, looking up at Drew. How was that even … I shook myself. Now was not the time to worry about all of that. I looked over at Trey. “I can handle myself.”

“A lovers’ spat. How gay,” Drew said with a smirk.

I reacted before Trey could open his mouth. I threw my hand out, instinctively throwing magic that twisted into azure lines. They smacked into Drew and hurtled him backwards. He wasn’t exactly airborne, but his heels skidded past two rows of graves before he tumbled into an angel statue. Perfect. The angel’s arms flowed downwards, a look of lament on her face. I wrapped the spell around him, tying it tight.

I turned to Trey. “Put. It. Down.” It was almost like they wanted me to forget the reason we were here.

He hesitated for a moment, but eventually he uncocked the gun and slid it back into the waistband of his jeans.
“You don’t
know what kind of mistake you’re making, Braden. He’s dangerous.”

“Stand back.” I pulled the glasses off, bracing for the pain. It was pointless. The moment I did it, everything crashed forward with the force of a highway collision. It blindsided me the way it always did.

Nothing will ever be the same my soul feels murky blue darkness drowning from the inside left us too soon violent red so glad you’re in the ground bitch shadows once dwelt here a color that could survive the light shades of yellow in a better place. A woman with a veil stands before me, her eyes glowing through the lace design.

True power locked away, keys that cannot feel. All that was torn lies fallow here. It is not death but is still dying. Silver and red and heavenly blue, tales I am told, she says to me under cover of darkness, magic in greens and browns hides in plain sight a place of absence, where something does not dwell where it should.

My mind started to clear as they passed, too quick to grasp them all. Only snowflakes in the storm. I forgot about Trey and Drew, pushed everything to the furthest corner of my mind.

The hellhound’s trail was still visible to me, full of dark fire and burning shadows. I held out my arms again, turning my palms to the ground. The energy hadn’t returned to sleep. There was still magic in the air. All it would take was a little nudge.

I placed my palms against the ground. The magic came surging forth, free of restraints and totally wild. It began to spiral, colors of the rainbow becoming crystalline and dark at the same time. Every shade that existed in nature, and many that couldn’t be seen by the naked eye. And for a moment, they bowed before me.

It was like there was some sort of underground spring full of magic. The more I drew up, the more power came rushing out. I’d never felt anything quite like it—drawing magic out of the air was one thing, but this was like drawing up an ocean.

I didn’t try to channel it into any sort of spell, I just continued pulling it forth. The energy began to spin around me, creating a vortex.

Somewhere deep below me, I felt things unraveling. Not more booby traps. This was something else. It felt like bolts in a door, being thrown in succession.