Arielle Immortal Awakening (7 page)

“There’s something very peculiar about that guy,” Arielle whispered to Eva.

“What is it? I can’t say exactly what bothers me, but I just don’t feel good about him.”

Eva looked relieved that Arielle was expressing the same fear and hesitation that she felt. “I know just what you mean,” she said.

“But we can’t let Gabrielle know,” Arielle said. “At least not unless we can figure out what it is that’s bothering us.”

Despite this rather unsettling beginning, the night was fun, and the film was great. Paul suggested that they stop at the pub for a while, and that is where Marcus met some of his friends. They were all dressed similarly, in dark clothing, and they all talked in low voices. He didn’t bother to introduce his friends to Gabrielle’s friends. That was a bit odd, but they didn’t think too much about it.

They had been there about an hour when Gabrielle approached to say that she was leaving with Marcus. While she was talking to Paul and Damien, Arielle noticed that Marcus had fixed his eyes on Eva, and she could swear that his expression was sarcastic. Eva and Arielle were a bit shocked by his apparently hostile attitude toward her, but they didn’t say anything for fear of upsetting Gabrielle.

The evening didn’t seem so much fun anymore, so Arielle asked if Paul and Damien could take her and Eva home. They dropped the girls off at their flat, but not before mentioning how strange they had felt talking to Marcus.

“He seems to be very weird,” Damien said, shaking his head with a troubled look, and Paul nodded in agreement. Arielle and Eva thanked them both for a nice time and walked inside, completely perplexed about Marcus.

Although they still couldn’t pinpoint the reason for their concern, they were both overwhelmed with a dreadful turmoil and confusion about the darkness that seemed to surround their friend’s new boyfriend.

“There is a frightening, unnatural stillness about his eyes,” Eva said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that on any person I have ever met.”

“I know,” Arielle said. “It’s like looking into infinity. There’s no emotion, no life. How strange is that?”

“I really don’t know what to make of him,” Eva said. “It’s like he’s living in an empty body as if his soul is dead.” Eva’s voice was barely audible now, and her last words made Arielle’s heart race and a cold chill run from her head to her toes.

“Do you see anything at all? Please try,” she said, appealing to her friend’s ability to perceive things others could not.

“Arielle, everything I see surrounding Gabrielle is dark and scary. There is something very bizarre going on. I can see her face one moment and then the next it’s like she vanishes into thin air. I don’t like the images I’m getting at all.”

By this time, they were both pretty worked up, even a little frantic, and they wanted to do something without knowing quite what.

“He seems to have some kind of twisted control over her,” Eva said. “I think we need to find out something about him. But how?”

A stony silence fell between them as they sat, buried in overwhelming thoughts, searching for resolutions.

“Arielle, I don’t mind telling you that this guy fits the profile of the characters in all those Celtic otherworld books I’ve read. And right now I’m pretty scared.”

Suddenly Arielle had an idea. “Eva, listen!” she said. “Robert is in journalism, and he has access to a lot of information. Why don’t we ask him to look into cults and alternative groups and their activities? I remember there was some stuff going on in Brighton a couple of years ago. Some of it was pretty scary.”

“Well, why not?” Eva said.

Arielle picked up her mobile and pressed Robert’s number on the keypad. He lived only a couple of doors away from their flat, and he was happy to come right over.

When he arrived, they explained their suspicions and fears about Marcus and told him how worried they were about Gabby. They asked him not to tell anyone about their concerns, not even Paul and the rest of their friends.

They were completely taken aback when Robert told them that he didn’t like Marcus either, and he also thought there was something very peculiar about him. He said he would be happy to look into the situation because he had a feeling that Marcus was involved in some kind of a cult. Arielle told him that her gut feeling was that Gabrielle already knew what Marcus was doing to her, but maybe he had made it impossible for her to get away from him. “Robert, I know Gabrielle has always been intrigued by this kind of stuff, but she was also pretty scared to cross that line,” Arielle remarked, adding, “Frankly, I’m really worried about her.”

“All right, then, I’ll start on this tomorrow,” Robert said.

Both girls hugged Robert gratefully at the door and thanked him for his willingness to help.

Chapter 6

T
he next day, immediately after Arielle’s first class she went looking for Gabrielle, who was in the library with Marcus. They were sitting at a table, just looking at each other as if they were talking, but without saying anything. “Pretty crazy,” she thought as she approached them. Completely ignoring Marcus, she asked Gabrielle if she could stop by the flat that afternoon.

“Why?” Gabrielle asked.

“It’s my mother’s birthday. I’m making some preparations and I need your help,” Arielle said with a firm voice. She saw Gabrielle looking at Marcus as if for his approval, and that made Arielle cringe. Once again Arielle noticed that there was absolutely no expression on his face, and no emotional reflection in his eyes.

Arielle clenched her fists angrily, but decided not to say anything. She made a point of staring meaningfully at Gabrielle and waiting for her reply. She wasn’t going to take no for an answer, and Gabrielle must have understood that clearly because suddenly she agreed that she would come over later.

Arielle walked away, furious with Marcus and wishing that his thoughts were not sealed off from her head. It would have been much easier to get to the bottom of this if she could read his mind!

This whole affair had begun to feel a bit like déjà vu for Arielle. The way Gabrielle was behaving reminded her of Eva and what she had been like when she had been all wrapped up with the spells and the magic books, right after her father had passed away. It was clear that Gabrielle was spending a lot of time with Marcus, and that school was not her priority anymore.

It seemed to Arielle that Gabrielle’s control over her life was unraveling and dissolving. She and Eva began to feel that they didn’t even really know her anymore.

They were sitting in the living room in complete silence, waiting for Gabrielle to arrive and thinking of all the things they needed to discuss.

“Arielle, I think he is deeply involved with dark witchcraft,” Eva said. “He fits the profile that I have read about in the spell books. And if I’m right about this, Gabrielle is in danger.” She pressed her lips together, feeling a tremor course through her body. She reached over and took Arielle’s hand in hers, and their gaze locked. “Thank you for being there when I needed you,” Eva murmured. For a moment they simply sat, looking at each other. “And now we have to save Gabby,” she added. Arielle smiled warmly and nodded, squeezing Eva’s hand.

Not too surprisingly, Gabrielle was late, but she did show up before they began to worry about her. She looked startled at the serious tone of Eva’s voice when she asked her to sit down.

“What’s wrong?” Gabrielle asked. She sounded only slightly worried, but she also sounded like she was trying to hide her true feelings.

“Gabby, there is something bad going on with Marcus and you are getting sucked into a very unsafe and very treacherous life,” Arielle said. “You aren’t going anywhere until we get some answers from you. You know that Eva can see the future, and she sees that Marcus’s thoughts are dark, and his eyes are colder than anything we have ever felt. I don’t know what death feels like, but if I had to compare it to something, that would be Marcus.”

Gabrielle pursed her lips and looked away from them, she didn’t seem to want to say anything. But Arielle could hear her thoughts, and they were very cloudy. She could see that Gabrielle was scared, but something was pushing her to continue with whatever it was she was doing.

“I’m not sure I can talk about this,” she murmured.

“Gabby, please. We’re trying to help you.”

Gabrielle’s face was pinched and set in a tense expression. Arielle couldn’t believe how dark her thoughts had turned in such a short time. What in bloody hell was going on in her head?

“I see this going to a very bad place,” she heard Eva say. “He seems like the devil to me,” she added.

At those words Gabrielle sprang from her seat. “No!” she exclaimed. She looked frantic, her eyes darting about as if she were trapped and wanted to escape. “You are wrong!” she said. “He is a very nice guy, he’s just… just…” Then she stopped talking again and started looking around the room as if she were afraid of someone or something.

“He’s just what, Gabby? Come out with it, he’s just what? And what are you looking for? There is no one here but the three of us,” Arielle said. She reached out toward Gabby and made her sit back down.

But Gabby just stared at the floor, refusing to utter a single word. Eva and Arielle knew that they weren’t going to let Gabrielle go anywhere tonight, not until they knew what was going on between her and Marcus.

Then Gabrielle’s phone rang and she reached for it, but Arielle took it right out of her hands. She saw Marcus’s name on the screen and she let it ring until it stopped. Gabrielle gazed at her, totally dismayed, as her eyes welled up with tears, and she took a few deep breaths.

“Gabby, I’m going to call your father right now,” Arielle said. She took a deep breath, and then added. “I think we should have him come over and see if he can get something out of you. As we have said before, we see this thing going to a very bad place for you. We’re scared, Gabby.”

“No, please don’t get my dad involved,” Gabrielle said. “I don’t want my family mixed up in this.”

“You don’t want them mixed up in…what
…
Gabby? What is going on?”

Now Gabrielle glared at both of them with a wild look in her eyes. She made hard fists and began pounding on the sofa and mumbling something.

“We can’t understand you, Gabby, what are you saying?” Eva asked.

Suddenly she stopped pounding on the sofa. She sat up straight, looked at them defiantly, and said, “Marcus is a warlock.” She annunciated her words very distinctly, as if Arielle and Eva were small children incapable of understanding.

Arielle gasped in horror and stood up, feeling sick to her stomach, and clenching her fists by her side. Eva, clearly overtaken with shock, let out a soft cry. Then all three sat there in stunned silence.

She wasn’t sure how long they stayed that way, but after a while Arielle realized that she was pressing her lips together, trying to stop herself from screaming. Eva was gasping for air and murmuring over and over again, “I knew it…I knew it…”

“I’m scared,” Gabrielle murmured. “I don’t know how to tell him that I don’t want to be involved in witchcraft.” She started crying softly.

“What are you doing when you spend time with him?”

Gabrielle wiped her tears, took a deep breath, and then told her story.

“Ever since we played with the Ouija board that night I got curious about this kind of thing,” she said. “I told Marcus about playing with the Ouija board, and about Eva, and about that night we went to the cemetery. He didn’t seem at all surprised. In fact he said that he would like to expose me to bigger and better things. So I went to a few séances with him and his friends, and watched him contact the other side.” She sighed deeply, shook her head as if experiencing everything all over again. Then she continued, “He told me that these spirits are good—not demonic or possessive. They just try to use him as a port to communicate with loved ones who are still here.”

Arielle was biting her lower lip so hard that she was sure she had bitten through the first layer because it became very painful.

“What else has he told you?” she asked with a quivering voice.

“He said that he has to sacrifice animals to his master to make sure he keeps his powers.”

At this revelation, they gasped in shock. In fact, they were beyond shocked, they were scared to death. How had Gabby gotten involved with someone like Marcus?

“What else did he say, and what else has he done?” Eva asked.

“He told me that he has been crowned a master. One night while he was in a trance he took all six of us to the cemetery, where he brought back several spirits and they talked. I couldn’t understand what they were saying—it was all noises and mingled voices full of anguish and cries of despair. Pretty eerie, but intriguing.” She got that scary, faraway look in her eyes again. Then she said, “I want to stop. It’s overwhelming me. But I do feel a strange pull toward Marcus and his world that I can’t seem to resist.”

“Do you love him?” Arielle asked her. Gabrielle didn’t reply, she just sobbed. “Come on, Gabby! Do you love him?” she pressed.

Gabby looked as if she was pondering the question in her mind for a short time. Then, blinded by tears, she replied.

“No, I really don’t believe that I love him,” she said. “I think he is fascinating. But no, I don’t love him.”

“Then you need to stay away from him. He is definitely the wrong person for you,” Eva said.

“She’s right, Gabby,” Arielle said as she saw Gabrielle hesitate. “And he will control you as long as you let your curiosity take over your spirit.” She picked up Gabrielle’s phone and handed it to her. “Please call Marcus and tell him you’ve changed your mind, and you’re not going out tonight.”

Gabrielle nodded assent, and reached for her phone. Eva and Arielle walked to the other end of the room so she could make her call with some privacy, but they remained close enough to make sure that she didn’t change her mind. It seemed that he tried to talk her into going out with him, but she held her ground, and insisted that she was going to stay home.

“He will use his power to make her go back to him,” Eva whispered.

“We need to help her break away from him,” Arielle said in a very low voice. “Let’s see what Robert finds out, and in the meantime we’ve got to keep a close eye on her.”

Now Gabrielle was off the phone and she went to take a shower. They were quiet until they heard the water running. “I wonder what Marcus’s obsession with Gabrielle is all about. What if he is using her for some type of journey into the otherworld?” Eva murmured.

Arielle’s mind was trying to grasp what Eva might mean by or about the otherworld. “What do you think he wants her for?” she asked.

“Well, if he is a master warlock he must be devoted to a god, who is most likely terrifying to a normal person like you and me. But to him it is his source of power, and he uses that power for dark and mysterious practices.” Eva paused, trying to remember everything she knew about warlocks. “I read that they are usually after the soul,” she said. “Which of course has everything a person could ever need. If you lose your soul, you lose yourself. He has to give his god a gift to appease him in order to receive his superhuman powers,” she continued.

“What kind of a gift?”

“All the books say that sacrifices are the only gifts that please these gods. They could be human, they could be animals.”

Arielle’s heart was hammering in her chest as fear paralyzed every part of her body. Eva kept talking, as if she were in a trance, and as she talked she continued flipping through the pages of a horror book.

“Eva, stop!” Arielle begged at last. “You’re freaking me out, I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight. Let’s see what Robert finds out about Marcus before we make this a much bigger deal than it really is.”

Eva looked at her in surprise, wondering what could be so scary.

“I’ve got to go to bed,” Arielle said. “Really, I can’t stand to think about this anymore tonight.”

Around two o’clock in the morning she heard a knock at the front door. She jumped out of bed and ran into the living room, where she found Eva. Gabrielle’s room was in the back of the flat. Apparently she hadn’t heard anything.

“Did you hear that?” Arielle whispered.

“Yes, I did. There’s someone at the door,” Eva said in a murmur.

Holding hands, they walked toward the door and didn’t turn the light on.

“Who is it?” she asked softly.

“It’s me, Marcus,” a voice said from outside. Instinctively, they pulled themselves closer together.

“What do you want?” Eva said. She made her voice sound as stern as she could while trying not to wake Gabrielle.

“I need to talk to Gabrielle.”

“She’s not here,” Arielle lied. “She’s spending the night at her parents’ house.”

“Okay, thanks,” he replied. His voice was soft with not a hint of anger. They heard a car door slam, a car pulling away, then complete quiet.

“What in bloody hell did he want at this hour?”

“I don’t know, but I’m glad you said that,” Eva said. “Now we have to tell Gabby in the morning to make sure we’re not caught in the lie.”