B00AO57VOY EBOK (9 page)

I’ll be back as soon as I
can, I promise. If anything goes wrong, call me.    

                                                                                                            Love,

                                                                                                                        Nate

I had to read the note three
times before the panic trying to suffocate me abated enough for me to
understand even the first line.  I immediately seized my phone and sent Kim a
text.  I knew she was waiting for it and sat there, the phone clenched tightly
in my fist, waiting for the unpleasant response I was about to get.  We hadn’t
gone more than a few hours without at least texting since we had gotten our
first cell phones.  But after our fight, I’d forced myself not to text her. 
I’d wanted to give her a chance to calm down, but not showing up for school
again—especially after my last disappearing act—was only going to make things
worse.

The reply came almost
immediately.

WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?!?!?!?! 
AND DON’T SAY YOU HAVE THE FLU!  YOU’VE
NEVER
HAD THE FLU!

I smiled.  She was right
about that much.  I really
hadn’t
ever had the flu, not once, my entire
life.  I was about to send back a reply when the second message came through. 

COFFEE BEAN.  4:00.  I’M
GOING TO GET SOME ANSWERS OR YOU ARE GOING TO BE SOOOO SORRY!  YOU HAVE SCARED
ME TO DEATH FOR THE LAST DAMN TIME EMBER!!  I AM SERIOUSLY CONSIDERING BEATING
U TO DEATH!!!

I laughed and shook my head
as I sent back the message telling her I would be there.  Once that was done, I
just sat there and read her messages over again.  Sure, she might be pissed at
me for lying to her every time I bothered to speak.  She might want answers I
couldn’t give her.  She might even want to kill me for scaring her.  But, at
the end of the day, she was still there, on my side, worrying about me and
loving me just like she always had. 

And, somehow, knowing that
made everything better.

Okay, so things were a
little crazy.  Things were
always
a little crazy with me.  I mean, think
about it.  You couldn’t exactly be friends with more dead people than live ones
and not have more than your fair share of crazy going on.  I was just going to
have to find a way to handle one problem at a time. 

I sat there for a minute,
making a mental list of the problems in question, putting them in order from
what I needed to take care of right that second to what could potentially get
me killed.

First problem:  I
was
starving.

Thinking I would take
Nathan’s advice and sweet talk Grams into making me some waffles, I headed for
the door.  I was already turning the knob when my brain finally started
functioning correctly and I stopped cold.  The idea of another wonderful
conversation with Grams was enough to set my head to pounding again. 

Those waffles suddenly
didn’t seem so appealing.

I loved my grandmother, and
knowing I was disappointing her every time I turned around was painful for me. 
I just…I didn’t want to be who she thought I should be.  I didn’t want to be a
blood witch.  I wanted to be
me
, the me I had been before I became the
trophy in a game of tug-o-war between Nathan and Demon Jack.  But, as much as
it irked me to admit it, Grams was right.  She’d been bitchy about it, yeah,
but she was still right. 

I couldn’t run from who I
was anymore.  It was time to face it and embrace it.

 “Get out here, Ember,”
Grams’ voice called out as if on cue.  “There’s no sense hiding.  I know you’re
up.  If you’re not out here in the next five seconds, I am throwing away your
breakfast.”

Steeling myself for the
real
comfortable conversation to come—you know, the one where I openly admitted
I was wrong and she was right and Grams gloated—I cracked the door open and peered
around it to determine where she was.  I couldn’t see her anywhere, but I could
hear the clink of coffee cups and the soft murmur of her voice coming down the
hall from the kitchen.  I considered ducking into my own room and getting
dressed, but then decided that would just be putting off the inevitable.

Figuring it was better just
to get it over with, I forced my feet to move forward.  When I rounded the
corner into the kitchen, though, I stopped and stared, mouth hanging open, at
the woman seated at the table with my grandmother.  Sure that I was still
asleep and having a nightmare, I closed my eyes and counted to ten. 
Unfortunately, when I opened them she was still there.

Sitting at the table looking
more comfortable than I had ever seen her was the most frightening teacher
Oakhurst Academy had ever employed.  Her dark, gray-streaked hair was pulled
back in a bun so tight that it was stretching her skin in a way that looked
sort of painful.  Her eyes were permanently narrowed from years of scowling at
her students, making it hard to really determine what color they were until you
pissed her off.  She could strip skin from bone with her slashing emerald green
eyes when she was angry—a fact most of her students had learned firsthand.  She
was dressed in a shapeless gray suit that, I hated to tell her, did nothing for
her skeletal figure, combined with one of the ugliest scarves in history in a
shade of green that looked suspiciously like something you might find in a
baby’s diaper.

  Ms. Cantrell’s lips turned
up in a condescending smile when she caught sight of me over Grams’ shoulder. 
Someday, someone was going to show her that she wasn’t nearly as superior to
the rest of the human population as she thought she was.  I
really
hoped
I was there when that happened.

“Good morning, Miss
Blaylock,” she said, giving me a critical once over.  I wasn’t surprised when
she didn’t look that impressed with what she was seeing.

I marched into the kitchen
with my head held high, refusing to let the old hag get to me.  On the counter
sat a plate of waffles and a glass of juice.  To keep myself from thinking
about what my least favorite teacher was doing drinking coffee with my
grandmother, I grabbed the fork on my plate and began to shovel waffles into my
mouth.

“Where’s Nathan?” I asked
around my second forkful.

“Don’t talk with your mouth
full,” Grams said, automatically.  “As for where Nate ran off to this morning,
I have no clue.  He said something about needing to do some research and left.”

Research?   What on earth
could he possibly be researching?

“My sister, Amelia, tells me
you’ve had a very interesting couple of weeks,” Ms. Cantrell said, a tight
lipped smile making her look scary rather than reassuring.  “I assume that is
the reason why you failed to show up for my class this morning?  Then, you’ve
gotten very good at not showing up, haven’t you, Miss Blaylock?  Don’t think
I’ve forgotten that you still owe me a detention.”

Oh, shit.  I had forgotten
all about that detention.  

“But that so wasn’t my
fault!” I squeaked.  I swallowed again when her eyes narrowed on mine and then,
without thinking, blurted out the truth, “I was kidnapped!”

Ms. Cantrell gave me a
patronizing look and stirred her coffee.  “Of course you were.”

“I was,” I muttered, giving
Grams a look that practically demanded she back me up.  Grams just smiled and
sipped her coffee, though.  What.  A. 
Traitor
! 

“I believe when one is
carried away by their boyfriend, it’s called a lover’s tryst, not kidnapping,
Miss Blaylock,” Ms. Cantrell continued, her lips turning up even more when I
glared at her.   

After a few seconds of
meeting that condescending gaze, I had to turn away.  How she could be related
to someone as sweet as Mrs. Amelia…

Wait.  She was Mrs. Amelia’s
sister
? 

Holy hell!  She was a witch!

I didn’t find it all that
hard to picture to be honest.  If there had ever been anyone in this world who
would fit the stereotype of a witch, it was the old hag still smirking at me
from across the room.  All that was missing was the wart on the end of her
nose…and she could have had that removed.

I listened carefully as the
two older women resumed their conversation and got the impression they were
planning out a guard detail.  A guard detail for
me. 
I had to go back
to school, after all, a dangerous undertaking with Jack lurking around waiting
for a chance to pounce.

When Ms. Cantrell said she
would let the others know what their duties were, I was genuinely curious.  I
mean, how many witches could there
be
at Oakhurst Academy?

“Well, Miss Blaylock,” Ms.
Cantrell said, getting to her feet once the arrangements to have me guarded day
and night had been finalized.  “In light of recent events, I am willing to
overlook your absence today.  In fact, I’ll even forget about the detention you
skipped.  Instead, I would like you to write me a three page essay on
supernatural beings in literature.”  

She paused as the door
opened and Nathan walked in.  He stopped and they glared each other briefly
before he shrugged and walked over to sit next to me at the counter.  Her eyes
narrowed so much they were practically closed when he tugged my stool flush
against his and pulled me back against him.

“Given the company you keep,
I suggest you start with Bram Stoker’s
Dracula
,” she said, smirking
nastily at Nathan as he tensed.  “I believe you might find some very useful
information there.  Did you know Stoker truly was a vampire hunter, Miss
Blaylock?”

“It’s been a pleasure, as
always, Constance,” Nathan said.  “Feel free to come by and bathe us in your
warm glow again soon.”

I didn’t have to turn around
to see his sneer of dislike.  It was pretty obvious in that delicious voice.  I
wondered for a second who he was talking to and then stared at Ms. Cantrell in
surprise.  Strange as it might sound, I had never thought of her actually
having
a first name.

“Excuse me?” she snapped.

“Loose translation?  Get
out,” Nathan told her simply, unwrapping one of his arms from around me to
gesture toward the door he’d just come through.   

With a hiss of insulted
outrage, she drew herself up to her full height, and I waited for her to
breathe fire and barbeque us all.  Then Grams patted her arm and Ms. Cantrell
seemed to remember she and Nathan were on the same side.  With a look that
should have killed Nathan on the spot, she turned toward the door without
another word.

“Did you feel that?” Nathan
asked, pretending to shudder as she left.  “I feel all warm and fuzzy inside
now.”

“Must you antagonize her,
Nate?” Grams asked, giving him a stern look as she came to take my empty plate
and glass and load them into the dishwasher.  “She has good reason for her
mistrust of vampires, you know.”

“She started it with that
Dracula crack,” he said, giving me a little squeeze when I giggled.  “She’s
evil, Shea.  Not the dark underworld variety maybe, but evil nonetheless. 
Then, she might be a bit more pleasant if she’d pull that broomstick out of
her…”

His voice trailed off when
Grams shot him a look that practically dared him to finish that sentence and I
giggled again.  I settled back against him, breathing in the scent of him and
feeling the leashed strength in the arms around me.

“Where did you run off to
this morning?” I asked him when Grams turned around to wipe off the
countertops.

“I went to check out the
O’Connell family,” he told me with a shrug, twirling one of my curls around his
finger like he was distracted.

“Did you find out
anything?”  Grams asked as she scrubbed at a particularly stubborn spot of
waffle batter on the counter. 

“I couldn’t get a thing off
any of them that would lead me to believe they know where their darling little
boy is,” he said, shrugging.  “He picked the perfect host.  I actually kind of
feel sorry for the poor kid he’s using.  The reward they’re offering for
information aside, they don’t seem all that upset that he’s ‘missing’.  He’s
kind of low on their priority list.”

I know the feeling,
I
thought sadly, burrowing further into the strong arms around me.  I’d never
been all that high on my parents’ priority list, either.  Nathan leaned down
and kissed the side of my neck, tightening his hold a little, and I quickly
changed the subject to something less painful for me. 

“How did he get back from
the lost plane, anyway?”  I asked.  Grams reaction surprised me.  Her back went
ramrod straight and she slowly turned to look at me.  There was something in
her eyes that I didn’t like
at all,
and I felt a chill slip down my
spine when she finally spoke.

“Someone summoned him back,”
she said coldly, flicking a look at Nathan.  “I’m not sure who would have been
so foolish to do such a thing, knowing his reappearance would guarantee
mine
,
but I intend to find out.  And when I do…”

I was glad when she didn’t
finish that sentence.  On the surface, Grams looked sweet and gentle, just like
your ideal grandmother.  But when she was angry, she changed.  She
became…colder.  There was something about her in those moments that was
absolutely terrifying.  Seeing that coldness in her, I suddenly understood her
little fairy tale from the night before about the viciousness of blood witches
when you pissed them off.

Whoever had summoned Jack
back from the lost plane was in deep shit.

I stayed where I was for as
long as I could, just enjoying being close to Nathan and Grams, my rocks in the
storm that was my life.  If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought
everything was perfectly normal as we sat there talking about our plans for the
day and Grams cleaned the kitchen around us.  It was nice and made me feel like
the world wasn’t so crazy.