Ignite (Circle of Light Book 2) (6 page)

I stopped myself at that thought.  It wasn’t like I had cheated on him.  Silas is a damn vampire.  Not that I even hold that against him, but it helped me a little.

I picked my phone up off the table and dialed Eric’s number.  I counted the rings one by one.  Five.  Six.  And big surprise.  Voicemail.  I slammed the phone shut.

That made me angrier than I had ever been in my entire life.  Mad enough that I had tears pouring out of my eyes.  This was so uncalled for.  I could not understand why he was acting so childish. 

I got up from the table and went to my room.  The whole way, stomping like a two year old having a temper tantrum. 

I opened my phone and sent my mom a text telling her that I was going to lie down and that I was going to turn off my phone so I could sleep without being woke up by it.  As soon as I hit send, I turned it off.  If he was going to ignore me, I was going to show him what it felt like too.

I tossed the phone on the floor.  It didn’t  make any difference to me where it landed.  It could have flown out the window for all I cared.  Being angry makes me sleepy.  It is strange, but that was just the way I am.  Avoid confrontation by taking a nap.

I laid across my bed and kicked off my shoes.  They landed on the floor making a light thud.  The ache that I had in my heart was agonizing.  I felt like I was being ripped up inside and I hated it.  A few leftover tears escaped from my eyes as I went to sleep.

I woke several hours later with the feeling that someone else was in the room with me.  If I opened my eyes, I wouldn’t be able to avoid dealing with whoever was waiting for me to wake up.  I was getting the feeling that it was Eric, but I wasn’t sure.  Whoever it was, was giving off a feeling that they cared for me, but everything else was wrong.  I knew that it wasn’t either of my parents. 

I called to Eric silently.  No answer. 

Eric, please answer me, I whispered in my head.

What is it Bailey?
Eric finally answered with a rude tone.

Where are you?

I’m in your front yard.  Why?
He asked more serious this time.

There is someone in my room with me.  They think I’m sleeping and I don’t know who it is.

I‘ll be right there.  Don t worry.  Just lay there and do not move.

Okay
was all I could bring myself to say.  I was scared and even if I wanted to move, I wasn’t sure that I would be able to.

Eric busted in the door like my room was on fire.   “What are you doing here?”  I heard him ask whoever it was in the room with me.

“I was just sitting here watching her sleep.”  I heard a girl’s voice say.  “She is quite lovely Eric.”

“Yes, I know Maggie.  She is and you scared her.”

I opened my eyes to see a small girl with her hand over her mouth staring at me.  Her eyes were as big as they could possibly get without popping out of her head.

She had a bizarre aura.  I had never seen that before.  It changed colors with her every emotion.  Every move.  What was she?

She apologized for scaring me and I invited her to sit on the bed with me.  I felt like I needed to be near her for some reason.  She gave off a warm, homelike feeling of being my best friend.  It was comforting.

“I sensed her pain as I was walking by the house.” She said to Eric. 

“Her pain?”  Eric asked as he took quick look over me.  He was looking for any thing that I might have hurt.   Not physical pain my King.  Emotional.

Eric lowered his head and looked at the floor.  “I know.  I am truly sorry about that Maggie.  We haven t had the best day today.”

She cleared her throat and spoke to Eric very bluntly.  “Eric you have to fix whatever happened.”  

Eric looked at her, obviously confused by her statement.  “I had planned on it.  That was why I was on my way over here.”  He replied to her with a shamed look on his angelic face.

“No, Eric.  You do not understand.  Her heart is breaking.  If you don’t fix this soon, I’m not totally sure what will become of our fair Queen here.”

I couldn’t help but to look at him.  She was right.  The thought of Eric not wanting to be with me had triggered some kind of reaction.  It was intense.  Eric not talking to me had really hurt me.  It hurt in a way that I had never felt before.  Like my entire existence would be over without him and my life force was being sucked right out of me.

My world spun out of control when he wasn’t near.  I had to be with him.  I couldn’t live and be without him.  No way.  It just wasn’t possible and I could feel it in my body.

“Please, Eric.”  Maggie said.  “It hurts so much.  I can’t stand it.”  She said as she clutched at her chest.  Tears fell from my eyes.

He immediately sat on the bed and grabbed me up into a tight embrace.  He held me closer to him that he ever had.  The warmth of his body was breaking the icy shell that started forming around my heart. 

“I don’t know what I was thinking.”  He said. 

“You apparently weren’t thinking at all.”  I said as I cried into his shoulder.

Maggie left the room to give us a little privacy.  Not like it was going to help.  I knew what she was now.  An empath.  This was sure shaping up to be a long day.  A vampire and an empath all in the same day.  I feel so blessed, I thought to myself sarcastically.

Eric apologized for acting so childish about Silas.  I explained to him that I wasn’t attracted to him like he thought I was.  I was more intrigued by him.  It was just a natural reaction to him.  He was different and I wanted to know more about him and the way he lives. 

The attraction part was not totally the truth, but he didn’t need to know that.  The feeling was harmless, I had no intentions on acting on it, and it wasn’t an attraction like he had thought.  I would not dare risk losing Eric over a vampire.

After we talked a bit more, Eric called for Maggie to come back in.  She entered gracefully with a relieved look to her.  Smiles went around to each other as we sat there for a slight moment. 

“So why were you in the neighborhood?”  Eric asked her.

“I was actually coming to see you.  I have been hearing some things that have made me a pinch uneasy.”  Maggie said.  When she was certain that she had our undivided attention, she told us why.

Evidently, there had been a meeting between the Dark Union.  The topic of attacking the Circle of Light was the major discussion.  The high powers of the Union had summoned anyone that was willing to be a part of it.  From what I understood, many had answered the request.

“Why do they want to attack us?”  I asked entirely ignorant of the reasoning behind it.

“Well.  They want to break the Circle of Light.  To rule both worlds and bring darkness to this one.  With your Circle complete, they fear they will all be hunted and killed, or that's what the higher powers are telling everyone else.”  She said painfully.

I stayed silent.  Waiting for Eric to say something.  He nodded his head and told us that we must alert the other members of the Circle.  We all agreed.

“If a war is what they want, then a war they shall get!”  Air King said furiously.

Chapter 4

This was not the time to be getting worked up over it quite yet.  Decisions had to be made.  Plans had to be put into motion. 

“I think the rest of us may need to stay in your area from here on out.  That would make it safer for us all and harder for them to separate us.”  Fire Queen stated.  “Of course, we will have to take on a different look than we have now.  Then it wouldn’t be so easy for them to discover us. “

Everyone agreed and then began their transformations.  When they were finished, they looked like regular teenagers.  If I had not been a Queen myself, I would have never noticed anything unusual about any of them.  I could hear their thoughts and I was finely tuned to them.  Knowing who they were was not going to be a problem for me and I was positive, it would not be for Eric either.

“We will always be near.”  They told us, and they each left the room.

“Be safe.” I whispered to them.

I was all business from that point on.  Eric had asked Maggie to spread the word about what was going on and for her to tell people where to come for instructions.  His house of course.  Thank Goodness.  I didn’t want to have to explain every unknown visitor to my parents and I could always use any excuse I wanted to stay with Eric.  Like getting ready to move in the house or helping his parents pack.  You know just the regular stuff.  It wasn’t like our parents were going to mind.

Eric had suggested that I let him help me with learning my powers.  I was confused by the comment because it was almost like he was asking to do something other than practicing with them.  And he catches on quick.

“I can make all your powers come to you without you having to be trained on how to use them.  It will just happen.  Just like it would for the ones that already knew how to control their powers.  You would have the same control.”  Eric said trying to talk me into doing something that I was not sure I fully understood to begin with.

“I can do a spell on you to mature your powers is what I mean.”  He said more serious than I had ever seen him before.

“Okay.  I think that would probably be fine.  You think?”  I questioned him once again. 

“Yeah.  It will be fine.  I promise.”  He said as he kissed me and then backed away starting his spell.

As he said his enchanting spell, I could feel all the hidden power that was in me unlock.  It was giving me a new feeling deep within me.  All the insecurities of not knowing how to use all my powers disappeared in an instant.  I was bursting with excitement when Eric finished.

Now you know what it feels like to know your true power.  It’s not the same as trying to learn it, but I think you will appreciate them just the same.”  Maggie said.

I had forgotten that she was still in the room with us, but I had a habit of doing that when I was with Eric.  It was just too easy for me to lose myself in his presence.  To lose myself and be unaware of anything but us.  I’m sure that was going to get me into trouble someday if I didn’t get it under control.

Eric excused himself from the room to go make a few phone calls, leaving me and Maggie to try to get to know each other a little better. 

I was open to the idea of it.  I wanted to know about her power.  How it came to be that she could sense my distress from that far away.  I wasn’t going to find out until I asked.  So, I did.

“What exactly is an empath?”  I asked her trying not to sound too ridiculous.  She was quick to answer me without seeming as if it bothered her any to discuss the most secretive part of her life.

“I can feel everything that someone else is feeling.  Any emotion that they are having at that specific time affects me in the same way that it does them.  The heartbreak has to be the worst of them all.”  She said and I could tell that it was very painful to her by the look on her face as she reminded herself of it.  She went on to explain that she had always been this way.  At least as long as she could remember, but something about that made me think that she was not exactly telling me the whole truth.

“Do you have any other power?”  I asked her and immediately wished that I hadn’t.

I didn’t want her to think that her power wasn’t good enough.  I was just curious about her.  More so than I had been of Silas, our new vampire friend.

“I am also an immortal.”  She replied ducking her head.

I got a disturbing feeling from her reaction.  Something more was behind her reaction and I wanted to know what it was. 

“May I ask how?”  I said softly, hoping that she would not take my request as offensive.

She didn’t seem to mind as she answered me.  She told me that she had killed another girl in a fit of jealous rage.  It had been over a young man that they both had developed an interest in.  Too beat it all, they had been best friends for many years before that. 

At the time, Maggie didn’t know that her friend was a witch and from the way she told it, that wasn’t something that was accepted in her time.  I didn’t know if it would be accepted in my time either, but no one was going to hang you from a tree or burn you for your beliefs now.  Many people just ignored the existence of things like that.  Like I had, until now.

They fought and each girl was strong and very skilled in protecting themselves, but Maggie was stronger than the other girl was.  She had delivered an unnecessary blow to her friends head.  It caused some type of damage to her.  The girl died a slow death, but not before placing a curse on Maggie.

She told me that her friend has cursed her to feel the pain of other people around her for all of eternity.  Only if she could do something good with her power, then could she be stripped of it.  Only to follow with a very slow painful death.

“I am over two hundred years old.  In this time, the pain is harder to deal with.  There is so much violence in the world now.  So much hate and despair.  So much longing and regret.”  She said clearing her throat.  “I have wished for many years for death to find me, but it hasn’t yet.”

Her story was depressing and I wanted so much to help her, but I knew that right now wasn’t the time for that.  I believed that she was truly remorseful for taking her friends life over something so simple and petty.

Maggie did believe in a spirit world.  One in which her friend could watch her as the years passed. Watch her suffering to no ends. 

Two hundred years seemed like an extreme sentence for the other girl to hold onto.  It seemed to me that her spirit would be suffering as well, but what did I know.  I would have to talk to Eric about this and see if we can help her.

Maggie s heart was pure.  Good to even the deepest pit of it.  Her soul s aura was white and the only thing that I could think of that would be keeping her in this painful existence was the fact that she had not forgiven herself for what she had done.

Eric walked back in, interrupting my train of thought for just a second.  I looked at him with sorrow filling me for Maggie.  I was sure that having to feel the pain and torment of everyone that she was around gets to be a very trying and difficult thing to do at times.  I could not help but to respect her strength in handling it the way that she does.

“What is the matter my Queen?”  Maggie asked as tears welled up in her eyes.

I didn’t answer her right off.  I wanted to ask Eric if it was possible to travel to the spirit world that Maggie had told me about.

“Yes.  It is possible.  But only the most powerful of beings are permitted to enter.”  He said in a questioning tone.

I asked him how to get there and he said that he was not sure because anyone who had ever traveled there never spoke of it to any other person.

“It has to be something within that person that carries them there.”  Eric said directly.

Something within.  Could it be my power?  Maybe it connected to me being a Queen in the Circle of Light.

“I want to try to locate your friend.  If I only knew how to, it would sure make it easier.” I told Maggie.

Maggie said that it shouldn’t be too hard to find her when I get there.  Legend says that the spirit already knows when someone is coming to them. The law forbids them to ignore the call.  That was the rule.

“Okay then.  Here goes nothing.”  I said closing my eyes.  I was concentrating solely on Maggie and the story that she had told me. 

“Yes, my Queen?”  I heard a girl say.  I opened my eyes to see one of the most beautiful teenage girls that I had ever seen.  No model or anyone on a magazine cover could compare to her.  She was naturally exquisite.  No makeup or procedures could create a look like she has.

I wanted to sound like the other Queens of the Circle would if they had been here talking to her.  “Dear one.  May I ask the nature of the curse on Maggie?”

She told me the same story that Maggie had.  Only she had given me a more detailed account.  It haunted her.  That was very plain to see.

“Could there be any way to release her without her dying?”  I asked her.  We stood in silence as the girl thought on the matter at hand.  

I explained that I was certain that Maggie had served her sentence well and that she would be more helpful to others if the curse could be modified in some way.  “Maybe we can compromise?”

“Yes.  I do think I can allow that.”  She replied.  “This hurts me as much as it does her.  I just wanted you to know that.  I done this to her so she could feel my pain as I died in her arms.”

Maggie had not told me that part of the story, but it was not of high importance right now.  All I was concerned about was somehow taking some of the pressure off her so she could be better use to the Circle.

“I will make it to where she can manipulate other people’s feelings.  Make them feel what she wants them to feel.  However, if she causes harm to someone, good or bad either way, she will feel what he or she feel at that time, but on a much larger scale than she does now.  She will remain immortal and will still be able to feel the good and bad emotions that others give off.  Just not to as high of a degree as she does now.  When the curse ends she will still experience death as I did my Queen.”  She said.  “I deserve, at least, that much and I want her to always be able to remember how this came to be.  My death.”

I understood her in a way that was unsettling to me.  If put in that very same position, I cannot say that I would be able to handle it differently. 

“Thank you, dear spirit.  Is there anything that I might be able to do for you to return the favor?”  I asked.

“Yes.”  She said as she began to cry.  “Will you tell her that I am genuinely sorry and tell her that I still love her even after what she done?”   I nodded my head in agreement and left the spirit world to return to my own.

When back in my world, I felt the familiar draw to Eric returning.  Everything in the spirit world seemed to be full of hurt and agony for one reason or another.  Each Spirit had its own reasoning for the way they felt.  Usually, it was the result of their lives ending so tragically.

Maggie was sitting there staring at me when I opened my eyes.  I was sure that when I traveled like this, my body remained behind, waiting for my spirit to return.  She didn’t have any glimmer of hope in her eyes at all. 

I told her what her friend had agreed to do.  Maggie looked more regretful than before.  It only grew worse when I gave her the message that her friend had asked me to give her.  The tears flowed from her eyes and seeing the way that she was crying, made me think of a small child that had their feelings hurt.  It was true regret making its escape from her soul. 

The air spun around her as she cried.  Her friend was renewing the curse that she had put on Maggie.  It was a calming transition for her.  Soon her crying stopped and she raised her head.  “I don’t feel as much now.”

She understood why her friend would not completely lift the curse from her.  I guess I could understand how she felt about that, but I suppose fair is fair. 

We all talked for a while longer.  Arrangements were going to have to be made to keep the Circle of Light safe.  I was curious as to how many followers there actually were.  Hundreds, thousands, or maybe more.  Who knows?

The days had flew by so fast that I hadn't given much thought to anything besides finding out what the Dark Union was up to.  We had received numerous amounts of information.  Most of it was useful, but some parts of it just did not make any sense.  Like the part about the Gin coming to be exact.

I didn’t know what a Gin was and I wasn’t really in a hurry to find out either.  There was something about the creature s name that sent shivers all over my body. 

Eric had told me that they were usually male.  They were more like mischievous children on steroids.  I thought that was a bad example, but I didn’t say anything.

“They are tricksters.”  One of our guests told me.  I couldn’t remember the strange boy’s name.  I had met so many followers of the Circle that I had given up on being able to call them by the right name.  Although, my powers alerted me to what nature of creature they were each time I was in their presence.

I had met several vampires.  They had mostly been the leaders of larger groups.  It made sense to send power to meet power.  Not that that was a bad thing.  It was nice to be greeted respectfully by elder creatures instead of the immature ones.

There had been several other types threw into the mix.  I had encountered countless werewolves, shape shifters, and other entities.  They were all very welcoming to me as their Queen.  That made everything easier for me.