Seeress: Book Three (Runes Series) (26 page)

“Torin?” I yelled.

There was no one in the living room, but the water was running. What kind of a monster claimed to love me and then tried to kill my father behind my back. I burst into his room. At the back of my mind, I knew something was off about his room, but I didn’t bother to check. He was in the shower.

“Come out right now, you piece—” I yanked opened the bathroom door just as he stepped out of the shower. Except it wasn’t Torin. “Eirik?”

“Hey, babe,” he said, flashing his famous boyish smile.

It was the older, more buff Eirik. He had some serious tattoos across his chest and on his arms—and they weren’t runes. I recognized a few Celtic symbols including a
triskelion
.

“Were you coming to join me?” he asked.

I blinked. “Wh… how… what are you doing here?”

“What do you mean? I live here.” He pulled me into his arms and lowered his head.

This was not right. This could not possibly be right. I brought my leg up to knee him and lost my balance. I landed on the tiled floor, pain shooting through my tailbone.

A full-blown panic hit. There was no one in the bathroom with me. The shower was dry, which meant no one was in there a second ago.

I was going crazy. I backed out of the room and into the bedroom. It was Torin’s room, his framed motorcycle paintings on the walls. Seconds ago, I could have sworn I’d seen a table with cameras and photographs where the paintings were.

Something was wrong with me.

I glanced out the window and saw Femi pull up in my car. I called out her name, and she looked at me and waved. I raced downstairs and yanked open Torin’s front door only to be met by a throng of people. Neighbors. People from my school. The witches from the shop. I realized the light came from the porch and the sky was dark and starless.

This made no sense. Seconds ago, the sun was still up.

“So sorry for your loss, Raine,” Mrs. Rutledge said, touching my arm.

Loss? Who died? I looked for a familiar face.

“Isn’t it terrible about Torin and his friends?” a familiar voice said from my left. I recognized Kicker and other girls from the swim team.

“Poor Raine,” Sondra said. “Her father killed by her boyfriend.”

Kicker saw me and left the group to give me a hug. “So sorry, Raine.”

My teeth were beginning to chatter. “Have you seen Cora?”

“She was with Eirik in the house.”

Eirik again? Hysteria bubbled to my throat. I was going mad. There was no other explanation. I tried to push past the people and go to my house, but the crowd seemed to grow bigger.

I backpedaled, staggering into Torin’s house. More people stared at me with pitying expressions. I swallowed, but my throat was too tight with fear. My chest hurt with each breath, and my head felt stuffed with horrid images.

This is not real... this is not real… It can’t be real.

I repeated it over and over again. I was having visions, one after another. How was that possible when I wasn’t touching anyone or anything? Someone was screwing with my head. The mirror portal in Torin’s living room was open. I walked through it without caring that the people at the wake could see me.

Cool air slapped my face, and I sucked in a breath. I was on top of a roof. Just like in my first vision. It was still dark, but I recognized the buildings around it and the forests and mountains in the background.

Torin, Echo, and Andris stood on the roof, their heads bowed. No, not bowed. They were staring at something and talking in low tones. I moved closer, but I still couldn’t see what they were looking at. I was getting calmer now that I knew I was having visions, but I wished I knew how to get out of them.

 
“Torin?” I whispered.

He looked up and straight at me as though he’d heard me, but when his attention shifted, I saw what they were staring at on the roof. Celtic symbols drawn with chalk. They were like the ones on Eirik’s body. Once again, I recognized the triskelion.

“That’s the last one,” a familiar voice said from behind me, and I whipped around.

Buff Eirik walked toward me. He winked as he passed me. I turned and followed him with my eyes. Now the group with Torin had grown larger to about a dozen men and women. Torin’s back was to me, but I recognized the broad shoulders and the shaggy black hair. Where were Echo and Andris?

The moonlight created shadows on the faces of the men and women, but I recognized the triskelion on the back of their hands and on their foreheads. What did this mean? Rita and Gina’s protection amulets also had Celtic symbols.

“Look who decided to join us,” Eirik said, and I followed his eyes to a woman dressed in all black. I couldn’t guess her age, but she had long dark hair and pale skin. She was gorgeous. Her eyes glowed under the moonlight. The group on the roof parted for her, and she went straight to Torin and slipped her arms around his waist.

The next second, they were kissing.

What? I was so going to kill him. Not just him. Her, too. I engaged my strength runes, marched across the roof past the men and women watching them, and raised my fist.

“This is for you, you jackass,” I yelled.

Just before my hand connected with his face, he looked up. I barely stopped before rearranging his nose. It was Torin, yet it wasn’t. Same eyes, same facial structure, same lips, but he was older. Gray peppered the hair at his temples.

I closed my eyes tight, praying for this nightmare to end. Voices reached me, as though from afar, and I cringed.
They’re not real… not real… not real…

“What happened?” Torin asked.

“I don’t know. I came back from the store and found her like this,” Femi said. She kept talking, but I tuned her out.

Nothing is real. It’s just a vision.

“I told her to use the portal while I brought her car home,” Femi was saying.

I opened my eyes. Torin squatted beside me. The younger Torin. Was he real or a figment of my imagination? I was on the floor outside my father’s bedroom. My back to the door.

“Raine,” Torin said.

“You’re not real,” I whispered. Torin would have called me Freckles.

He touched his face and his chest. “I’m real and I’m here now,” he said softly. He sat across from me and crossed his legs. He peered at me. “You’re going to be okay.”

“I won’t let you kill my father,” I whispered, my voice breaking. My throat burned and my chest hurt. “I know he’s sick and dying, but it’s not his fault you healed him. I will not let you kill him now.”

“I’d never, ever hurt him. I saved him for you and would do it again if I could,” Torin murmured.

I wanted to believe him so badly. “You were kissing someone else.”

“Feel free to decapitate me if I touch another woman, or man.” He smirked as though laughing at his own joke. I didn’t think it was funny. “There’s no one for me but you, Raine Cooper. And you know it.” He reached out and brushed my cheek. Only then did I realize I’d started to cry. “I love you, Freckles.”

Freckles. “You… called me Freckles.”

“Yes, luv. I called you Freckles.” His voice was velvety soft.

I flung myself into his arms, causing him to lose his balance. He rolled with me on the floor, chuckling.

“Now I know what to say when your visions turn you into a nutcase,” he said, planting a kiss on my nose.

I knew I should take offense to being called a nutcase, but for now, I just wanted him to hold me. I wound my arms around his shoulders, burrowed my face in the crock of his neck, and cried.

I felt him shift as he sat up and then stood. Without breaking his stride, he carried me upstairs. He carefully lowered me onto the bed, his movements gentle. For what seemed like forever, we spooned, his arms wrapped around my waist.

When I stopped crying and shifted to look at him, he grinned. “So I was kissing another woman?”

And I was kissing Eirik. I needed to talk about these visions or I was going to go crazy. “You were older with graying hair.”

He frowned. “I’m never going to gray or grow old, unless I stop using runes.”

“The guy in my vision looks exactly like you, except he’s older. The visions I had of the Seeresses—he was always there. He was like the leader. I couldn’t see his face properly, but I heard his voice. He has a British accent.”

Torin sat up, his jaw tense. “Why didn’t you say something before?”

“Because I wasn’t sure. Remember, my visions were blurry? He was just a shadowy guy with a British accent. Then I saw his eyes and hair, and he looked so much like you I thought he was a relative of yours.”

His eyelids lowered, but I still saw the flash in the depth of his eyes. He didn’t like that. “That’s why you kept asking me if I had relatives who looked like me. You should have told me, Raine.”

“I know, but I wasn’t sure if what I was seeing was real or not. The first clear vision I got was when I touched Rita’s amulet.”

“The witch.” He said it like Rita was some vile creature that had crawled from a sewer.

“Yes. Being around them unlocked something. The visions I’ve had since have all been clear. I saw his face clearly for the first time this evening when I was having that vision meltdown. He might look like you, but he’s older. Much older.”

Torin rolled off the bed and disappeared through the portal. Not sure, where he was headed, I went to wash my face. I looked up and my eyes widened. Not again.

A shirtless, smirking Eirik winked at me in the mirror.

I closed my eyes tight, my heart racing. When I opened them, he was gone. Why was I getting visions of him? Why now? I grabbed a towel to dry my face and hands.

“Is this the man you saw?” Torin asked, appearing in the bathroom doorway with an old portrait. It was the same man in my vision, although the painting was not very accurate or well done.

“Yes, that’s him. Who is he?”

Torin walked to my window and stared outside. From the tautness of his shoulders and the way he clenched the portrait, I was sure he wanted to hurl it.

“Torin?”

“I was hoping my mother’s amulet had been stolen, but he must have kept it. The bastard.”

I reacted to the pain in his voice and closed the gap between us. I rubbed his back, everything he’d told me about his mother’s death flashing in my head. “He’s the necromancer who killed your mother.”

He turned and faced me. His eyes shocked me. There was so much rage and torment in them. “Yes, he’s the necromancer who killed my mother.”

“Why is he still al—? Oh. He’s an Immortal,” I whispered.

“And my father,” he finished.

I slipped my arms around him and squeezed hard. It was my turn to ease his pain. His crazy obsession with finding the person who sold his family’s things made sense now. I stepped back and studied his face. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No. I’d rather find out which one of the witches was playing mind games with your head so I can snap their scrawny neck,” he ground out.

“You think someone was deliberately projecting images… No, impossible.” I shook my head.

“Yes. It’s the only explanation. They find out your weaknesses and use them against you. Typical witches M.O.”

Whoever did it knew about my fear, my father, and my relationship with Eirik. “You’re right. It makes perfect sense now, but who? Bash? His father? Why would anyone do that to me? I mean, I helped them.”

Torin shuddered. “Damn ungrateful witches. I’m going to—”

“No, you stay away from them too. I wouldn’t wish on anyone what they did to me. It was horrible.”

“The more reason to hunt them down.”

“No, Torin. And we’re
not
talking about me after you dropped that bomb about your father. Sit.” I pushed him onto the bed. “I want to know everything, because if he’s really the one after me, some of the witches know one of his cohorts. A woman by the name of Madam Bosvilles.”

“Is she the one Femi is pissed off about?”

“Yes. She’s been stealing powers from younger witches and…” I slapped his thigh. “You’re doing it again. Deliberately distracting me. We’re talking about you, not me.”

Sighing, he leaned back against the headboard and crossed his legs. From his expression, he’d rather pull out his nails with pliers than talk. I curled my legs under me and waited. Silence followed. He really wasn’t going to talk until I pushed and nagged him.

“Did you know he was Immortal?” I asked.

“No.”

“And?”

“Come here.”

I shook my head. I wanted to study his face while he talked.

“I feel better when I hold you. This is
very
personal.” He faked a lost puppy look.

Such a drama queen. I crawled over to him and let him pull me to his side. His chest was the best pillow, and after my vision of a certain half-naked dirty blond, I needed to surround myself with everything Torin. When he pressed a kiss on my temple, I patted his chest. “Okay, you got me. Start talking.”

“My father and his clergy friends always had secret meetings. I didn’t think much of it when I was young. Most necromancers were clergymen anyway. This was three centuries before the witch trials. Mom found out what they were doing, and they killed her. I watched my father die three months later. He and his friends were having a meeting when the house caught fire. No one could have survived that fire.”

I wondered if he’d started it. Didn’t he once say the necromancer who’d killed his mother and his friends had gotten what they deserved? “Did you—?”

“No, but I didn’t stop it either. Not after what they did to my mother. So when the amulet resurfaced, I thought someone had robbed her tomb. I checked and found her body missing. Remember when you asked me if she was a witch?”

“Yes.” He’d nearly bit off my head.

“I might not have liked it, but you got me thinking. I wanted you to be right. I hoped she wasn’t dead. That she was an Immortal.” He frowned. “So I searched. The days I was gone, I followed trails of a powerful witch that seemed to appear every two or three decades then disappear.”

“Madam Bosvilles?”

“Possibly. Not many Immortals make their presence known to Mortals. As for my mother’s body, it turned out one of the earls had moved her. That’s when I realized whoever had auctioned the amulet, this portrait, and others trinkets did it to draw me out. The Norns confirmed it when they told you they were using me. They are using my father to come after you.”

I lifted my head. “What do you think he wants?”

 
“I don’t know. He’s obviously an evil Immortal.” He had that look in his eyes. Like he couldn’t wait for the showdown with his father.

I shuddered. “When were you planning on telling me all this?”

Torin traced my nose, stroking my freckles. “When were you planning on telling me about your visions of him?”

My face warmed under his narrowed gaze. “You don’t answer a question with a question.”

“Yet you do it all the time. You weren’t trying to protect me, were you?”

“Oh no.” I swept a hand along his shoulder. “These big shoulders can carry all the weight of the world.” And he had for so long. First, the mess with watching his mother grieve and not being able to help her. Then knowing the person responsible was his evil Immortal father. “You shouldn’t try to shield me from things, no matter how unpleasant.”

His lips turned up. “Like how I told you not to hang out with the witches because they screw with people’s heads and you went ahead and did it?”

I burrowed under his chin. Telling me not to do something was like waving a red flag at a bull. I barreled ahead at full speed. “They’re not all bad.”

He stroked my arm and continued down to my jeggings-clad hips. He lifted my leg across his waist. “So what happened at the shop?”

Did he really think I could concentrate now? I trapped his roving hand with mine and threaded our fingers. “Um, I saved several people and restored their magic.”

He chuckled, the sound rumbling through his chest. “You
 
only see the positive in the mayhem. Start from the beginning.”

“Disclaimer first. I didn’t go to the witches. I listened to you and laid low. I was good. I was better than good.” He chuckled. “I was a model Seeress. Then they came to see me and thank me and touch me.” I shivered. “It got weird fast.” I went into details and finished with, “They also thought we’d called for help and insisted on staying, which means—”

“We have a snitch. Whoever summoned them knows we are here and is working with my father.”

Eirik. But until I could confirm it, I was not mentioning him. I focused on what happened at school with Sebastian and the twins, then the store. By the time I finished talking, Torin was sitting up. “Can you recognize the building in your vision?”

“Yeah. It’s the old Grits Mill on Fulton Street and 10
^th
North.”

“Show me.” He rolled off the bed.

“Just a second.” I raced downstairs. Femi was with Dad. I waved her over. “I need to show Torin something from my one of my visions.”

She peered at me. “You okay?”

I nodded. “I’m okay now. The visions were crazy.”

“Not visions. An evil witch was messing with your head.”

“I know. Torin and I reached that conclusion too. I just don’t know who would want to hurt me like that after I helped them.”

“Stay away from them until we figure out what’s going on, okay?”

I nodded. “I’ll be home to read to Dad.”

Upstairs, I grabbed the nearest shoes and followed Torin through the portal to the top of Founders Hall, the tallest building in Kayville. Founders Hall was the oldest and the main administrative building at Walkersville University. The top had a dome and spire, the perfect place for viewing the entire town. I pointed out the Grits Mill building.

“If he’s marking buildings to create a magical circle around the city, he’s going to etch runes or magical symbols on rooftops around town,” Torin said. “Go that way while I go this way.”

I went to the right, searching everywhere for the triskelion. Below, students walked across the quad and into buildings. The university was already preparing for spring Aggie Day.

“Got it,” Torin called out.

The drawing wasn’t on the flat rooftop. It was on the town-facing side of the dome. Torin removed his artavus from the inner pocket of his leather jacket and pulled a Jackie Chan move—jumping off the roof and running up the drum and the dome. Only he did it better. At a Valkyrie speed. He etched a block-and-protect bind rune over the witch symbol.

He landed gracefully beside me, like a cat, and flashed a smug grin. “Let’s see who will win this battle. Next stop, Grist Mill.”

Father and son rivalry had just taken on a new meaning.

***

“You’ve got some nerve demanding my presence, St. James,” Echo said, entering the kitchen at the mansion with Cora in tow. “I was in the middle of something, so this had better be good.”

“My father is coming to town,” Torin announced.

Andris choked on his drink. Blaine and Ingrid traded puzzled looks. Ingrid was still acting like I didn’t exist. I wasn’t even going to stress about it.

Echo laughed. “Now that’s definitely worth my time.”

Andris stopped sputtering long enough to say, “Your dad is dead, Torin.”

“He’s very much alive and possibly an Immortal. An evil Immortal. He killed my mother to hide his necromancer activities and is now coming for Raine. We are going to stop him.”

If he was going for shock factor, he nailed it. Jaws dropped. But once again, Echo didn’t seem surprised.

“Someone here is working with him,” he continued, eyes narrowed as he glanced at faces around the room. We looked at each other as though trying to figure out which one of us was guilty.

He was getting some weird kicks out of keeping everyone on edge. I walked to where he stood with his arms crossed and legs apart, clearly using his stance to try to intimidate the guilty party.

“Seriously? This is how you’re going about this?” I asked.

He cocked his brow as though surprised I was challenging him. “They need to know how dire the situation is. Someone here is working with my father.”

“But we agreed yesterday that none of us is guilty,” I said. I glanced at the others. “Sorry, guys. He can be a bit melodramatic. The bottom line is someone here in the valley sent out a witch-in-trouble alert or the Call, as they refer to it. We don’t know if the witches are here to help us or to support his father.”

“Do Hawk and Femi know what’s going on?” Cora asked.

“Yes, but they’re not guilty,” I said.

Torin grabbed me around the waist, when I could have walked away, and pinned me to his side. “Quit hijacking my meeting,” he growled in my ear.

“Then quit behaving like a douche.” I tried to wiggle out of his arms, but his grip tightened.

“I vetted Femi and Hawk, Cora,” Torin said. “They are loyal to Raine’s family. I believe that whoever made the call did it knowing my father would find out about it and follow the witches here. It might explain why they stopped going after Seeresses. We even set a trap in a witch’s shop in Philly, but so far nothing’s happened there either. He knows where we are.”

“Just one question, St. James,” Echo interrupted. “What makes you trust me? My first loyalty is to mine.” He pressed a kiss on Cora’s temple. “Then to my goddess.”

I expected Torin to lose it. Instead he smirked. “I don’t trust you, Grimnir, but I’m counting on Cora and your feelings for her. You wouldn’t do anything to hurt her best friend and screw up what you have going with Cora.”

“He’s right,” Cora said, glancing up at Echo. “You betray my best friend and I’ll hurt you in ways you couldn’t possibly imagine.”

Echo actually winced. Then he slanted Torin an annoyed glance. “What do you want from me? Like I said, I could be reaping or…” He winced when Cora elbowed him. “Woman, you jab me again…”

Cora grinned.

Andris watched them and shook his head. “How are we going to find out who is working with your father?”

“We’ll draw them out. They’ve already started drawing their witchcraft symbols on rooftops. I think they’re creating a magical circle around the city to contain whatever mayhem they’re planning. I want to know what they mean and that’s where Echo, Ingrid, and Blaine come in. You all practiced the Old Religion at different periods and should be able to figure out what we’re dealing with.”

“Can we see them?” Ingrid said.

Torin pulled out his artavus and etched the symbols on the counter. He stepped aside and allowed the three to study them.

Ingrid shook her head. “I recognize the triskelion, but it looks like things are growing on its legs.”

Blaine traced part of it. “It is a combination of symbols.”

“Move aside, Immortals,” Echo said. He removed his artavus and drew four different symbols, one on top of the other. When he was done, he’d drawn the exact symbol from the Walkersville dome. “They used the triskelion to hide the
Ogham
writing underneath it.”

Ohm
? “What is that?” I asked.

Echo glanced at Blaine. “Want to tell them, Immortal?”

Blaine ignored him.

Echo smirked. “They’re Druidic and ancient Irish Celtic alphabet, something Pretty Eyes here should know. You know what this one means?” He pointed at the symbol.

Blaine shrugged. “Before my time, Grimnir.”

Echo chuckled. “But you must have seen them on stones in Ireland, or Scotland, or wherever it is you’re originally from.”

Fire flashed in Blaine’s eyes. “Grave stones and cairns. They are also used to mark boundaries.”