Bitter Demons (12 page)

I wrote her name on the list anyway. There
was always a possibility she was never joined with a demon from the
Peachville gate. Maybe Jackson would know.

I spent the rest of the morning trying to
think of any reason someone would want me dead. A morbid task for a
cold, dreary morning. When all was said and done, I had a total of
5 entries on my list.

MOTIVE

1. The Others

2. Mary Anne and/or Courtney ??

3. Mrs. Shadowford (Peachville demon
gate?)

4. Rival demon gate with reason to hate
Peachville

5. Some mystery person (Crow?)

Overall, it wasn't the most impressive list.
There were just too many unknowns at play. The jeans I wore the
night before were crumpled up on the floor. I leaned down and
fished the black feather from the pocket.

Somehow, that feather was the key.

A loud knock stirred me from my thoughts. I
shoved the black feather under my pillow just as the door swung
open.

I was expecting Courtney or Ella Mae, but the
girl at the door was a stranger. Her stunning porcelain skin and
white-blonde hair made her look like an angel. Or a ghost. Even her
eyes looked slightly transparent, they were such a light color of
misty blue. She was holding a long silver box in her hand.

She smiled and her eyes lit up. "May I come
in?"

"Sure," I said. I stood and put my hands in
my pockets. I was hardly dressed to meet new people with my fuzzy
pajama pants and a plain black tanktop. "I'm Harper."

"I know who you are, silly."

Um, okay.
"And you are?"

The girl giggled and the sound was like
tinkling glass. If I believed in them, I'd say she was some kind of
fairy with her dainty features and soft voice. "I'm not used to
having to introduce myself," she said. She held her small hand out
to me. "My name is Zara Winter."

Her hand felt like cold marble. Strong and
delicate at the same time. There was considerable power flowing
through her veins. I felt it surge through me as our hands touched.
It was that same sort of static electricity I'd felt before with
some witches, only more pure.

How could someone so young be so powerful?
She couldn't have been more than fourteen years old.

"I found this outside your door," she said.
"A present from an admirer?"

I crinkled my nose. She handed the box to me
and I shoved it under my bed. "An unwanted admirer," I said. Was
Drake ever going to give up?

"I'm here as your guardian," she said. She
crossed over to the window and looked out toward the fountain. "At
least until they figure out what happened to Caroline."

I stared at her, not believing my luck. "I
thought they would send some kind of mean troll or something," I
said. "You know, some brute with a giant club."

Zara laughed, her shoulders bouncing happily.
"Nothing so dramatic," she said. "Have you been cooped up in this
room alone all day?"

I shrugged. "It's not so bad. I have my own
bathroom, at least."

"No offense, but I couldn't stand to be
locked away in a dreary room like this," she said. "There's hardly
any good color in this room at all."

Her eyes studied the room from ceiling to
floor, obviously not happy with the way things looked. She closed
her eyes and pressed her palms together in front of her body. A
shimmering aura radiated from her, like the way heat looks coming
off blacktop - only beautiful. I let out a little yelp as my
bedroom transformed in an instant to a room with bright white walls
and touches of pastel blues, pinks, yellows and greens everywhere.
My canopy bed was gone, replaced by a modern bed with a white
headboard and a pink comforter. The hardwood floors were covered
with a pristine white carpet.

I almost reached for my sunglasses, it was so
darn bright.

"There," she said. "What do you think?"

Her smile showed that she loved the room now
that it was completely different. To me, it looked more like a
poodle threw up all over the place. Of course, I figured it would
be a bad idea to offend the girl who was supposed to be watching
over me for the next however many days.

"It's... bright," I said with a tense
smile.

Zara threw her head back and laughed. "You
hate it," she said. "I can tell."

I laughed too, relieved that she wasn't
angry. "It's just not my style, that's all."

"So what is your style?" she asked. "Black
lace curtains and a velvet bedspread?"

I raised an eyebrow. That didn't sound half
bad. Something the old me would have killed for. But now? Had I
changed? Or was I just too much under the influence of my new
friends and position?

"Maybe something in between," I said. "I like
color. Just not this much white around it."

"Fair enough," she said. She closed her eyes
briefly and the room instantly turned back to its normal state.

"Not to be rude, but who exactly are you?" I
asked. "I mean, I know your name, but you don't go to school here
right?"

"Gosh, no," she said. "My mother is a
priestess on the High Council. We live in Washington D.C., so we're
closest to Georgia out of anyone else on the main council."

"So you're a future?"

"Yes, I am," she said. There was something
about her that was so child-like, but sometimes the way she spoke
also made her seem very mature for her age. She was definitely a
curious kind of girl.

"I thought they were worried futures were
possibly under atttack," I said, wondering why they would send a
future to protect another future.

She laughed. "I'm a third," she said. "I'm
trained as a guardian. I'm fully capable of protecting you."

"I don't know much about the council or how
the Order really works," I said, feeling more than a little
embarrassed. "I'm still really new at all of this, so I'm sorry if
I should have recognized you."

She shook her head and put her hand on my
arm. "It's alright," she said. "I don't mind. It's actually
refreshing to have someone treat me like I'm a regular girl."

Zara sat down on the blue rug in the middle
of the floor. I sat next to her.

"How many people are on the High
Council?"

"Five, chosen from the first five demon gates
ever opened all around the world." she said. "Plus the High
Priestess. She's a descendant of the very first witch ever born of
a shadow demon."

I should have guessed. Five candles in the
pentagram on the floor in the ritual room. Five women in blue
cloaks on the night of Brooke's ceremony.

"Are there other council members in the
United States? Or is your mother the only one?"

Zara leaned her head to the side and laughed.
"You're so much fun," she said. "So full of questions and
curiosity."

"I'm sorry," I said.

"No, I love it," she said. "Most of the girls
I know are so set on impressing me or making me like them, they
never think to just be themselves around me. Of course, I don't
want to sit around answering questions all day."

"What else can we do?" I gestured to the room
around us. "My room isn't exactly fun."

She raised a single eyebrow at me and tilted
her head to the side. "Who said we had to stay in this room?"

"Mrs. Shadowford-"

"You really think that old bat can tell me
what to do?" she said with a sly smile. "You're under my care for
the time being, and I say you need some fresh air, and perhaps a
magic lesson or two."

My skin tingled. A magic lesson? From someone
so powerful? The idea of it excited me to the core. But what right
did I have to enjoy myself when Caroline was out there in
danger?

"Zara?"

She turned to me, eyes open wide.

"Is there any way we can help search for
Caroline?"

She offered a sad smile, then shook her head.
"I'm sorry," she said. "That's the one thing we can't do." Her hand
lightly stroked my arm. "Don't worry. My mother's helping in the
search. She brought her very best trackers. They'll find her."

Frustration and hope both welled up inside of
me. If her mother was one of the top women in the entire Order of
Shadows, she had to be extremely powerful. With someone like that
helping out, there really was a chance they might find
Caroline.

I just hoped they were able to find her in
time.

Zara and I bundled up in our coats and headed
outside under the gray sky. I kept glancing over toward Jackson's
house to see if I could catch a glimpse of him, but his motorcycle
wasn't out front. I wondered if Courtney got my note to him or not,
and whether he'd had any kind of response.

"What are you thinking about so intently?"
Zara asked. She walked out toward the old garden, and I
followed.

I shook my head. "Nothing in particular," I
said. "Just thinking about a million different things at once."

"I do that too, sometimes," she said. "It's
like I'm trying to solve at least ten different problems all at
once."

We'd reached the garden by now, and Zara sat
down and peered into the waterless fountain. "It used to be really
beautiful here," she said.

"Have you been here before?"

"No," she said. "But I've seen it in my
mother's memories."

It seemed like every time Zara spoke, she
made me think of another question I wanted to ask. I bit my tongue,
not wanting to annoy her.

"She used to come here as a girl." She looked
toward the house. "Everything was so different back then."

"It couldn't have been much worse," I said.
"The whole place is a mess."

"It's yours, you know."

She said it so quietly, her words didn't
completely sink in for a good three or four seconds. I slowly
turned toward her, my mouth open. "What's mine?"

"This house." She gestured toward Shadowford
Mansion. "This sad garden. This land. It's all yours."

I shook my head and laughed. "You're
delusional," I said. "There's no way all this is mine. It's called
Shadowford, right? So it belongs to Mrs. Shadowford."

"It wasn't always called that," she said. "It
used to be Brighton Manor. They only changed the name to Shadowford
after your mother died."

Zara stood and started weaving a path through
the withered weeds. I followed close behind, not about to let her
drop a bomb like that and just walk away.

"You realize I was brought here as an
orphaned juvenile delinquent, right?" I said, breathless and
trembling. "Are you telling me they brought me to my own house and
then forced me to follow their rules like I was some
degenerate?"

Zara stopped and placed her hand on a gnarled
bush. Color sprang forth as the bare limbs turned into the most
beautiful pink hydrangeas. I normally would have been extremely
impressed by such an amazing display of magic, but there were more
important issues on my mind at the moment.

"Please, I know this is all old news to you,
but this is really important information you just dropped on me," I
said. As I followed her, she turned the graying garden into a
gorgeous collection of sunflowers, roses, and lilies.

She paused and stared at a dying tree at the
far end of the lot. "Is that a magnolia?"

I wanted to scream. Wasn't she listening to
me? Didn't she understand how important this was to me? But I knew
that yelling at her wouldn't win her over, so instead, I acted
interested in what she was saying.

"Yes," I said, pretty sure the tree was, in
fact, a sorry excuse for a magnolia.

She turned and squinted her eyes at me, a
twinkle of mischief hidden inside her gaze. "If you can heal the
magnolia tree and make it bloom, I'll tell you the story of how
Mrs. Shadowford came to own this house."

I stared up at the tree and grimaced. How the
heck was I supposed to do that?

"Is it a glamour?" I asked.

Zara grinned. "No, silly. It's a growth
spell. Sort of like a healing spell, only growth spells work on
plants instead of humans."

My face reddened. "I don't know how to do
either of those types of spells."

"Unbelievable," she said, clucking her
tongue. "What have they been teaching you, then? Besides
glamours."

I didn't correct her and tell her that
technically, it wasn't even the Order who taught me how to do a
glamour. "Basic things," I said. "Like lighting a candle or moving
objects from one place to another. Oh, and I learned how to create
an orb of light."

Zara laughed. "Child's play," she said. "A
future at sixteen should be able to do any number of advanced
magics."

I shifted my weight from one foot to the
other. "I've only lived here for a couple of months," I told her.
"And they only just told me I was the future Prima earlier this
week, so forgive me if I'm still taking baby steps here."

"Aww, I'm sorry," she said, her voice high
and flute-like. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. Here, let me
teach you."

Zara took my hand and walked me up to the
base of the magnolia tree. A withered branch stuck out near my hand
and she placed my fingertips on the edge of the wood.

"Close your eyes," she said. "Feel the
connection to the earth under your feet. Draw your energy from the
world around you. Breathe in slowly, then let it out. Create a
rhythm for yourself."

I did as I was told. With her hand still on
top of mine, my entire body buzzed. I felt my feet firmly planted
on the ground, but underneath the ground, I could feel that
relentless current of nature's raw energy. I imagined myself sort
of plugging into it. I concentrated on taking deep, even
breaths.

Zara leaned close to my ear and whispered,
"Now, take that energy and imagine it flowing from your hand like a
river. Let it flow through the earth, up through your feet, your
legs, your entire body. Then, direct that flow into this branch and
let the tree heal itself. Let it bloom as if it were spring and the
sun was shining bright on its leaves."