Flames in the Midst (The Jade Hale Series) (22 page)

“I don’t know, Jade, you’re a firestarter.  Not everyone wants to kill them when we catch up with them.  I have to make sure Amy is okay with any deal we make.”

“Then check with her.”  I waited for Chase to take out his phone.  If I did go through with the deal, I would not back down on my demands.

Chase called Amy, and she eventually agreed.  I thought they might make me sign a contract, but they were willing to take me at my word.  I thought about it and decided it wasn’t really my word, but Amy’s.  She wasn’t going to force me to take part in this, no matter how much they needed me.  I think she wanted me to be free to change my mind at any time.

After everything had been arranged, not quite to anyone’s desire but to an adequate compromise, Chase left.  He made me promise not to work on any spells while he was not around, and I made him promise to get some rest.  He was not my friend, but he was becoming an ally of sorts.

I quickly fell into a new routine.  In the morning hours, after everyone went to work and the house was empty, Chase would arrive and we would begin working on spells and controlling my gifts.  Chase did not feel comfortable working on my time traveling, so we agreed that would be one thing to save for Amy and Madilyn. 

After spending about four or five hours each day on spells and studying from my family book, Anastasia would arrive.  Her presence obviously made Chase uneasy, but I didn’t care.  Chase may have been helping me, but ultimately his helping me was self-serving.  Once I was trained, he and the rest of the witches in Amy’s coven would benefit from my training.  Anastasia held the role of friend.  She didn’t seem to want anything from me except that we have lunch together and chat on a regular basis.

When Anastasia arrived, Chase would leave with an apprehensive look on his face every time.  Anastasia and I would chat for an hour or two over lunch.  Some days we ate in Zach’s kitchen, but most days we went out.  Anastasia had a relatively endless supply of spending cash.  She explained if one lived long enough, which she and her family certainly had, that it was fairly easy to amass wealth.  They owned many rental properties ranging from modest to extravagant.  Each one was owned outright.  The family juggled ownership of the properties among them, and never lived in the same property for more than seven or eight years.  As landlords, they were pretty hands off.  They hired a real estate company to handle the business for them.  Then, they cycled through real estate companies.  Apparently, if you had the means, it was a simple task not to be noticed.  The family currently resided in one of their more modest residences, so Anastasia drove her favorite pick-up truck.  When they lived in a more elegant home, she had to put the truck in storage and drive a BMW.  Wherever they lived, they worked to blend in, which was the key to not being noticed.

I hadn’t met Anastasia’s family yet, but I got the feeling they did not approve of her befriending a witch.  Maybe they thought it was a witch who had cursed them with an eternal life on earth.  Maybe Anastasia was just not allowed to have friends, seeing that she was so different and having a friend could certainly draw attention to the fact you weren’t aging while all those around you grew old.  Either way, I knew of Anastasia’s family, but I did not know them personally.

After lunch, I would change for work and drive into Historic St. Augustine.  I convinced Dan to give me the later shift of the day, so I was free for my morning routine each day.  I worked until close each night.  Chase met me outside Kilwin’s when my shift ended each night—except on the rare occasions when Zach showed up.  I knew on these nights Chase was nearby, still looking out for me.  Whether Chase walked me to my car or Zach did, Chase’s bike was always parked near my car, and I always heard the whir of the bike’s engine somewhere behind me as I drove home.  I was never sure how long Chase stayed in the neighborhood or if he simply woke up restless in the middle of the night and came back, but I would often hear a bike roar by at three or four in the morning.  The next day, the routine would begin again.

I learned how to immobilize someone, the way Cameron had done to my aunt in the bar and the way Evan had done to my mother.  The trick to that spell was that it only worked under extremely close circumstances.  You had to be standing close enough to the person to touch them, and even then, it was a tricky spell.  No one had written a spell able to counter it yet.  I learned how to disarm someone, but I couldn’t quite get it done smoothly.  If I was to disarm someone with a real weapon, there better not be anyone within a fifty-foot range of the person
being disarmed.  I couldn’t quite control where the weapon would go.  Chase and I practiced with a plastic knife from one of Maggie’s more gruesome Halloween costumes.  She never wanted to be a fairy or a princess like other little girls.  She had monster costumes from the past four Halloween’s stashed in her closet upstairs.  Even with the plastic knife, both Chase and I had several minor injuries.

I fine-tuned my firestarting, but I couldn’t get it as precise as I wanted.  Chase would set up three objects in the oversized fireplace.  He would instruct me to set fire to just one.  I would have to call up as much anger as I could to start a fire, but it was easy when I thought about Cameron and Evan.  If I aimed for one on either end, I would generally set fire to the middle one as well, but leave the far end unscathed.  If I aimed for the one in the middle, I would light up the whole fireplace.  I just couldn’t seem to pinpoint what I wanted to ignite.  At least I managed to keep the fire in the fireplace. 

This routine continued into the first week in August when everything came to an abrupt halt.  I thought I had more time.  Zach and I wouldn’t be going back to school until the end of the month.  The city had rescheduled the fireworks display for the first weekend in August.  Dan begged me to work the early shift when a new girl quit.  Since he had plenty of people for the late shift, I got the evening free.  Zach’s family would be out at the festivities, so I thought it would be a good time to get some practicing in.  Zach had dropped me off at work since there would be extra traffic and therefore less parking, so I had Chase pick me up. 

I had never ridden on the back of a motorcycle before.  I clung to Chase like my life depended on it at first, but since he couldn’t go very fast with the increase in traffic, it wasn’t so bad.  By the time we got to Zach’s house, I felt much more at ease.  I swung myself off the bike and stretched in the warm evening air.  If we got enough done, maybe I would even climb up to
the roof to watch the fireworks.  Chase eyed me suspiciously, as if my good mood meant I was up to something.  I obviously don’t have a gift of premonition because I felt amazing.  I smiled at Chase and thought maybe we could be friends or even something more than that after all.

Then I noticed the same teenage boy, walking down the street.  His dark clothes did not look as out of place at dusk, but his presence still screamed danger.  He shuffled down the street with his hands in his pockets and his blue-gray aura looking murkier than ever.  My smile quickly melted away as I stared at him, looking over his shoulder like the first day I had seen him.

“What is it?” Chase asked, his suspicious look replaced with genuine concern.  He hopped off the bike and stepped closer to me while he looked in the direction of the boy.

“Nothing,” I began to say, wanting to dismiss the ominous feeling the night was taking on around me.  Then I suddenly remembered, seeing it as clearly as a slide show playing in my head, the first day I had seen this boy was not in Zach’s neighborhood.  He sat at a table in Marble Slab, filling out an application and eyeing me with an almost menacing look as I left my old workplace.

“He was filling out an application,” I said aloud as my thoughts processed.

“What?” Chase asked, confused.

“That boy,” I indicated with a nod of my head, “I’ve seen him before.  He was filling out an application at the place I used to work.  I went back to get a job there this year, but they didn’t have any immediate openings, so I ended up at Kilwin’s.  But he was there.  And I’ve seen him walking down this street before.  I have a bad feeling about him.”

As if he could hear me, the boy looked at us and took off running faster than seemed humanly possible.  Chase practically pushed me into the house.

“Get inside.  I’ll be back,” he promised, jumping on his bike to catch up with the kid.  I heard the bike’s engine fade into the distance.  Unfortunately, this was a part of someone else’s plan.  Even worse, Maggie, who was obviously not a part of the plan, came into the house through the back door moments before I entered the front door.  As my key turned in the lock, I heard her scream.

Maggie, only ten, struggled with a very grim looking assailant.  In initial appearance, he looked like a taller version of the teenage boy Chase pursued outside.  He wore black jeans and a black shirt.  Despite the warm summer evening, he also wore a black knit cap.  To anyone else, he would look like a common burglar, but his aura outdid the boy’s aura in portentous gloom.  Instead of a gray-blue, hazy color, this aura stood out a dark gray, like the color of a heavy rain cloud filling the sky and casting shadows over the Earth.  It was a deep color that penetrated through to his soul.  I had no doubt this man was a Shadow Ruler.

He must have been waiting for me in the living room because in his rush to get to Maggie before she could alert anyone or run outside and call the police, he had completely toppled the couch over.  When he saw me, he dragged her back over the heap of furniture and stood in the center of the living room.  His movements were very quick.  He moved with an inhuman speed, and I wondered whether it was a spell that created his speed or whether he was not what I thought.  He stood with his back to the fireplace, facing me.  To his left was the formal dining room, with bay windows facing the street.  I flicked on the light.  Although there were sheer curtains over the windows, I hoped that Chase would see what was going on from the outside when he got back.  Of course, it occurred to me he might not come back.

I could feel the heat building in me as my anger rose at this man for disrupting my normal life and traumatizing Maggie in the process.  Everything was happening so quickly that he
apparently didn’t think to cast a spell to immobilize Maggie, or he didn’t think he would need to use one for a small child.  It was also possible he just didn’t know the spell.  Maggie was not your average small child though.  The man in black stood at least six foot seven inches, and his height was working against him as Maggie continued to fight for her freedom.  He would lift her up, but she would keep fighting, and since he was also trying to keep his attention on me, she would start to slip out of his grip, whereupon he would have to bend down to lift her up again.  She didn’t know it, but she needed to get away before I lost control of my gift.  He obviously did know this, so he did everything he could to keep his grip on her.

“Who are you?” I growled at him, hoping to distract him enough for Maggie to get away, or at least to keep him occupied enough that he wouldn’t think about using a spell on her.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” he said.  He sounded smug, like me going with him was a sure thing.

“What do you want?  Why are you here?” I threw the questions at him like a child throwing rocks at a dog.  They might distract him and buy me time, but I knew I was playing with a dangerous animal.

“Why, I’m here to recruit you,” he answered, casting a wicked looking smile in my direction.  From his tone, I could tell that recruiting me did not include sitting down around the coffee table and discussing the advantages and benefits of joining his side.

“Did Evan send you?” I asked, sure this trap had been set by the Shadow Ruler who had killed my mother.  How could the two events not be related?  Here I was, training to go after Evan.  Why wouldn’t it make sense that Evan would also be coming after me?

The man laughed and looked at me with hatred and desire in his eyes.  I was the prize, the weapon, and he felt, being this close, that I was already within his control.

“I’m not doing somebody else’s bitchwork, princess.  You are speaking to the man in charge.”  At that moment, Maggie wiggled free enough to use some of her self-defense tactics she had learned in her Karate classes.  With everything she could muster, she came down on his foot.  This alone would not have done anything to him since he had on thick, black work boots, but it distracted him for an instant, and she elbowed him in the groin.  He let go of her for a split second, and she dove under the dining room table.

At the same time, the heat rising in me released and the fireplace became engulfed in flame.  The mantle was burning and the rug in front of the hearth shot up in flames.  The white brick quickly darkened with the rising smoke.  Somehow, I had not hit the Shadow Ruler, who was already flipping the dining room table up to get to Maggie.  The corner of the table smashed through one of the bay windows and smoke leaked out of the house and into the night air.  I could hear the sound of a motorcycle in the distance.

Suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder, and my focus became clearer.  I didn’t need to turn around to realize that Anastasia was behind me.  She had either come by to see me, or she knew this was going to happen already.  Either way, I was grateful for someone on my side. 

Maggie was already scooting towards the front door; she had never intended to hide under the table, only use it as a means of escape.  Had she planned on hiding under it, the Shadow Ruler would have her in his grip already.  Although I was certain he was still moving with superhuman speed, the whole scene slowed down for me.  I was not going to let anyone hurt Zach’s sister or recruit me.  I felt a second wave of heat pass through my body and the man collapsed in a fiery blaze onto the overturned table.  The fire I had started began to consume Zach’s living room and dining room, but I continued to feel unnaturally calm and focused.