Blood Ties (2 page)

“We’ll have a better chance in the open woods,” James said as he gathered a few essential items. “Addison, Evelyn, help Ilan. Adrian and I will take front.”

“Why can’t Addison be frontline?” Adrian said. Addison looked at him, incredulous. “I mean, she’s more powerful than I am,” Adrian corrected.

James backed him up against a wall. James spoke no words, but Adrian got the message and fell in line.

The small coven escaped out the back door of the cabin, gliding over the ice-packed snow at hypersonic speed. Addison and Evelyn supported Ilan, adeptly positioning themselves on both sides so Ilan could maintain a grip on the baby.

As the group crossed over a hilly pass, a vertical shadow blocked their path. Catherine’s physical form flowed into the shadow. They could barely see her thin, blue-veined face with her long, blonde hair cascaded over it. But they all recognized her menacing, yellow eyes scorching through the strands like a blazing fire.

“It took forever to find you,” Catherine said. She was accompanied by a group of lesser witches—coven radicals who supported her demented cause. Eager, they rocked back and forth, awaiting her orders.

“I have to say, it wasn’t easy, but I have some special gifts of my own. My coven is best known for its tracking abilities. So for me it was only a matter of time,” Catherine said.

James, with lightning-bolt speed, placed himself in front of her. His face constricted into a feral snarl as he squared off with her. He was very careful, since her powers were so great—almost as great as Ilan’s when she was healthy. James was so bull’s-eyed on Catherine he didn’t notice Adrian quietly scooting behind a tree, being careful not to draw any attention.

“Cousin, I would think long and hard about what you are about to do! This is not right. We don’t kill our own kind,” James told Catherine.

“Really, James, I don’t follow that impotent doctrine anymore. Besides, that creature is not one of our kind,” Catherine wildly eyed the baby. “But, I must admit, the Valois blood that runs through her is extremely potent. If she is what her mother made her to be, I only need her flesh and blood to inherit all their powers. James, you’re too much of a coward to do something as brave as that.”

Catherine spoke to Addison, who was protecting Ilan with Evelyn. “You can’t really support this futile cause. You are still a Bolingbroke. I know you only followed James to protect him. But if you join me, I will make you my second in command.”

“Screw you,” Addison said, never taking her eyes off the enemy witches.

“Well, I can see
all
of you must die. So be it then,” Catherine said as she moved in on James. But James mirrored every step she made—a macabre dance.

Catherine smiled at him, confident she would win the fight like she had ever since they were children. She cheated most of the time; however, the closer she had gotten to womanhood, the more her true powers had come in. Eventually she no longer had to cheat. Her innate powers overwhelmed not only James but all of her competition. That was except Ilan.

Regardless, James had to stop Catherine tonight. Too much was at stake. He addressed her minions. “You fools,” he said. “We were once all in one fold. Klement, my brother, you remember.”

Klement, a diminutive man, took a slight step forward. His raised hands were positioned, ready to throw magic at James. “Brother? Ilan’s clan has conspired to keep us docile servants to them. Catherine has offered us freedom. Our own voices. Our own powers.”

“She has offered you death,” Evelyn interrupted. She raised her rosewood staff and shot off a wave of orange light, hitting Klement in the chest. All the witches entered the fray, shooting lethal, fluorescent projectiles of light at each other.

Catherine sliced her hand through the air, throwing a hazy crystalline line of energy at James, making him stumble backward.

“Catherine, this is treason!” James said, now crouched in a fighting stance.

“You would side with a strange child over your own family? She is not of your bloodline. Why are you so protective of her?” Catherine said. “We may both benefit from her blood. You must see she could possess gifts more powerful than any of ours.”

“I don’t need her gifts! Neither do you!”

“If you won’t help me, then get out of my way, or I will do away with you myself. I have no problem with that, cousin.”

James released a magical bolt of lightning at Catherine, who responded with a bigger one. Addison and Evelyn used their staffs to ward off the overwhelming swarm of witches. Even though they killed some, they were on the losing end because their magic wasn’t honed in on specific targets.

Catherine held up her hands, her wrinkled palms facing James. She emanated a huge ball of pure, white energy that landed on him, suspending him helplessly in the air as if he were in the grip of a gargantuan, invisible hand. She then turned her attention to Ilan and the baby.

“Please, don’t harm my child,” Ilan pleaded.

“Ilan, you left us too soon,” Catherine said a hair’s breadth away from Ilan’s face. Catherine picked up the baby and motioned to her few remaining supporters to follow. However, Evelyn and Addison joined hands and harnessed the energy of the waxing gibbous moon into their staffs. They pounded the ground at a rapid pace. With every thump dynamic ripples charged out toward Catherine’s witches, vaporizing them into puffs of smoke. In the midst of the chaos, Adrian came out from behind the tree, making it look as though he had been in the fight the whole time.

Catherine was about to phase out with the baby. Ilan called upon the last strength she had. Her illuminated irises turned crimson, and all her energy converged into them and shot out, striking Catherine, who tumbled to the ground with the baby. Though stunned, she turned toward Ilan. Her eyes widened, the evil within her totally possessing them.

On one hand Catherine curled her bony fingers under, focusing her power to the tips, and flicked them forward. A spindly, plasmatic line of energy shot from her into Ilan’s forehead, leaving an ashen imprint.

Catherine’s hateful energy expenditure left her spent, causing her invisible grip to release James. He seized the moment by conjuring a molten fireball. As it moved toward Catherine, it turned dry leaves into embers. She tried to escape, but her exhausted body wouldn’t allow her to get off the ground. The fireball consumed her like an infernal prison.

Through the searing pain of the flames, Catherine screamed at James, “I’ll be back for her!” Then she was gone, fireball and all. All that was left was the stench of burnt flesh in the air.

Evelyn retrieved the baby, who was screaming uncontrollably as if she knew her mother was dying. With her other hand, Evelyn lifted Ilan’s head. Ilan was barely audible as she spoke. “James will accompany you as you take the baby to her father. I’ve already summoned her protector. With me gone they won’t be able to track her—until it’s time.”

With that, Ilan gasped a bit, and peacefully died.

Chapter Two

The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved.

—Mother Teresa

I
kept my head down as I made my way to the student counseling services building that stood at the far edge of Long Island College.

Every so often I’d sneak a side glance at the more carefree students hanging around. I thought that when I entered college, I would learn how to be like them. I was now a senior and couldn’t understand why I was still so different from the rest.

My counselor, Dr. Graves, kept his wing-backed chair right in front of the dormer window. This allowed for only the tiniest wedge of light to come in, adding to the somber ambiance of the gray room. I thought he did it on purpose, to elicit crying fits and eye scratching from his patients.
Ah, yes, Ms. Valois,
yo
u’ve ripped your eyes out. Now we’re making progress.

The doctor was a squat, ruddy-complexioned man whose nose looked like a pig’s snout. Whenever he spoke I halfway expected him to snort. This hog had been my counselor for the past six months. I didn’t like him, and found it irritating that he never made eye contact with me, especially when I confessed the most intimate things about myself. But, like a codependent junkie, I dutifully kept seeing him. I mean, I didn’t want to upset him by changing counselors.

I decided to enter therapy when I started experiencing chest pains, hyperventilation, and a rapid heartbeat, as if my body ere preparing itself for some jeopardy. At first I attributed it to my natural inclinations—a nervous personality flavored with a sliver of social anxiety. That was until the hallucinations began.

The first one had occurred at Stop & Shop as I was scoping out the candy aisle for a nutritionally sound college breakfast. As I’d reached for the cherry-flavored Twizzlers, I’d felt a weird twinge in the palm of my hand. The package had started vibrating and then practically jumped off the shelf at me.

Let me tell you, I was more than a little freaked out. It might as well have been a king cobra the way I snatched my hand back. The candy was on the floor, and I was just ogling it, waiting for it to do something else. Some random customers stopped and stared at the Twizzlers too. When they didn’t see anything, they gave me a look and moved on.

Finally the store manager came over like he was approaching an escaped mental patient. “Miss, can I help you?” he asked, maintaining a distance.

And I was still just standing there, waiting on the Twizzlers. “I’m okay,” I said, but I was thinking,
Okay, now I’m just freaking losing my mind.
All I could do was rub my eyes and go grab some Red Bull. Obviously there wasn’t enough caffeine in my system to keep me coherent. I needed some wings.

Six months later I was in Dr. Graves’s office, watching him draw straight lines on his writing pad.

“You know, Ms. Valois, this is all very simple,” he said. “Not only your hallucinations, but all of your emotional problems primarily stem from your unconscious rebellion against adult responsibilities. Graduation
is
coming up soon. And your father’s parenting style—smothering, overprotective—has plainly crippled your ability to cope with stress. You’re twentyone years old. Time to grow a spine.”

Wow! I didn’t realize I was so fucked up. Thanks, Dr. Graves,
fo
r pointing that out.

The doctor leaned forward like he was about to tell me a great secret. “And you really must get over Rafe.” He leaned back with that smug, know-it-all look. But I couldn’t argue with what he had said, especially the part about Rafe.

Rafe was my first
everything.
We’d met in high school and bonded over being two weird, little squids in an ocean filled with great white sharks. We spent weekends playing games on the computer, watching horror movies, or walking in the woods just talking about nothing. We’d decided to attend Long Island College together.

It sounded real sweet. But time was Rafe’s friend. Once an ugly duckling, he’d experienced a sudden growth spurt at age twenty that had resulted in a buff body and the disappearance of his cystic acne. He had constantly perused the drugstore aisles in search of the perfect product for his highlighted hair.

To me he’d started looking like a damp puppy as he chased the ultimate wet look.

Tiffany, a perky Delta Rho Rho, had seen the changes in Rafe too. Shortly thereafter I’d found it hard to get him on the phone, let alone see him. Hell, the last time I’d seen him, Tiffany had been tonguing him down at the student union.

And why wouldn’t he want Tiff? He had a choice: a hot chick or some oddball who had apparently gone crazy. I was resigned to the idea of never finding love again and becoming the ultimate cat lady.

“You have been hiding from the world, Ms. Valois. Why do you think you chose accounting as a major? Stop trying to hide behind numbers in a ledger book.”

Mr. Graves got me again. I hated accounting, but numbers never teased me. Numbers never cheated on me. And numbers never made me feel like I had to apologize for taking up space on this earth.

“Find out who the real Grace Valois is,” Dr. Graves finished.

I stood up, and had to screw my ass back on since it had been handed to me. As I walked to the door, Dr. Graves looked up at me as if I were a memory he had forgotten already. I whipped around, scraping my arm against a wooden shard protruding from the doorframe. I didn’t even notice the tiny drop of blood my abrasion left behind.

And then Dr. Graves said something else to me.

The next morning I was determined not to let anyone or anything—especially my apparent mental illness—put a damper on my day.

I shared my cubicle of an apartment with Julie, my best friend since preschool. She was already in the kitchen with a bowl overflowing with Fruity Pebbles, chewing like a horse eating confetti. “Hey, Jules. Helping yourself to my cereal again? You know that stuff ’s like five dollars a box, right?” I said, a little miffed.

She plopped her size-eleven, flip-flopped feet on the table. “Just sit your ass in the chair. What are you wearing to the beach today?”