The Witch Hunter (27 page)

Bending down, he drove another hook into either ankle, securing her to the floor. Pulling hard on the chains, Caius tore her wounds open, the steel keeping them open and bleeding, unable to heal. He intended to drain as much of her blood as he could, take her strength until she withered into eternal unconsciousness. Only feeding would bring her back from that kind of death.

Standing back, Caius gestured for the three witches to come forward. They formed a triangle around her and began to chant. As she felt their power build up around her she realised that they were trying to break her, crack her mind open and bring her to insanity. Aya fought against the chains, but she knew there was no escaping, not while the witches watched over her.
Zac, Sam, where are you
? she cried silently to herself. Did she really want them to come? If they could find her, they would walk into a blood bath. It was safer to assume she was alone in this, to rely on her own book smarts to escape. Right now, it seemed hopeless.

Groaning, she felt the witches clawing at the edges of her being, preparing her for when she'd become weaker once her life began to drain away with her blood.

It was so lonely here in the forest. With nothing but her own rambling thoughts to keep her company. All she had been doing lately was thinking. So much thinking. It was becoming dangerous, she was starting to question herself; her motives, her being. So much had happened in the last two thousand years. Maybe one too may narrow escapes had put these doubts into her. 

Aya's head snapped up and she snarled at the witches, "Get out of my head!"

Caius was standing off in the shadows, watching her suffer. The sound of his satisfied laughter reached her and she pulled against the chains defiantly, tearing her wounds open further. There was no escaping, she was tightly restrained, but she grasped onto what little control she could.

They wouldn't break her. They
couldn't
break her.

"The sooner she gets what she wants, the sooner we will be free of her," Caius sneered. "Stop fighting."

"It's a lot more than a mere link, isn't it? She's forced you into servitude, hasn't she?" Aya prodded. "That's the part she left out, wasn't it?"

"It's none if your business, witch," he snarled, striking her across the face, splitting her lip.

Drawing a sharp breath between her teeth, she didn't let up. "She tricked you into making the ultimate sacrifice so she could use you. All of you. And it was all for
nothing
."

"Silence!" Caius' roar echoed around them.

"You'll never get what you want from me. I'm the last and you'll never know."

With a inhuman swiftness, he was directly in front of her, eyes black and fangs bared. Grasping her around the neck with his pale hands, he began choking the life from her, his anger finally besting his control. Aya felt her airway beginning to collapse under the force of his grasp, but her eyes never left his, showing her complete defiance.

"She wants her alive, Sir." The soft voice of the witch to her right broke through the tense silence.

Caius took a few deep breaths and let her go, the chains that held her aloft, rattling.

"You will never break me, Caius," Aya growled, her voice rasping.

He smirked, eyes glittering in the semi-darkness. "Unfortunately for you, you won't have a choice in the matter."

CHAPTER NINETEEN

G
abby's parents had lived in the same house they had brought when they first got married. Over the years it hadn't changed very much, it was a typical American home. Two stories, clad in cream weatherboards, a wide porch that stretched across the entire front and a double garage. She grew up here as an only child amongst very happy memories. The only thing that marred it was when she was ten, when her beloved Grams had disappeared. Everyone said she was crazy and did all they could to find her so they could get her the help she needed. Gabby never believed any of the things her family told her. There was no reason for her
not
to believe, but perhaps it was her undeveloped power pointing her in the right direction.

Liz and Alex hovered behind her on the porch, content to wait outside while she went in and spoke to her parents. Liz had already been invited in some time ago and was ready in case she was needed. Letting herself in with her key, Gabby called out to her parents, who were in the lounge room. 

"Gabrielle," her mother called, coming out into the hall. "This is a nice surprise. We weren't expecting you." Gabby's Mom was probably the nicest lady you'd be likely to meet. She was more than happy to go out of her way to help her only daughter if she needed it, whether it be help with school projects or more grown up problems like getting stubborn stains out of her clothes. Her Mom was fair and on first glance, Gabby didn't look that much like her at all. Her dark coloring came from her Dad, who was half Spanish on his mother's side. His mother being her grandmother, the one she so desperately wanted to find.

"I know, Mom," Gabby said, wondering how she could broach the subject.

"I would have made you something nice for dinner," she smiled, offering just as she knew she would.

"That's okay, Mom. Where's Dad? I want to ask you something." Best to sit them down first.

"Is everything okay, honey?" her Mom asked, concerned.

"Yeah," she sighed, walking into the lounge, where she heard her Dad moving about.

"Gabrielle!" he said as she walked in. 

"Hey, Dad," she said, sitting down on the familiar leather armchair beside the matching sofa, which her parents now sat down on. They looked at her expectantly, wanting to know what she had paid them this impromptu visit for. "I want to ask you about Grams," she said, carefully.

Her mother stared at her in shock, obviously under the impression that it was all swept under the rug and she'd never ask about it again. "Why do you want to know about her?"

She looked to her father and then back to her mother, gauging their reactions, but just came out with it. They were against the clock. Who knew how much time Aya had, if she had any left at all? "I want to find her. Go and speak with her."

"Gabrielle," her father said in his familiar stern voice. He'd used this tone with her on many occasions, when she had been in trouble for something or rather when she was a child. But not since she'd finished high school. It was perfectly reasonable that she would want to speak with her grandmother one day, so why was it such a hassle, regardless of her reasons why?

"Dad," she sighed. "It's important. Please, if you know where she might be."

"No," he said. "It's best that you stay away. She's not quite... right."

"Not quite right?" she scoffed, offended. "What's that meant to mean?"

"Gabrielle," he frowned, clutching her mother's hand. "Your Grams, well, she was sick. She claimed she could do things that weren't...
ordinary
."

"Yes, I know," she sighed, exasperated. She was ten, not stupid. Certainly old enough to catch on to what was happening. "Did you ever stop to think that she was telling you the truth?"

Gabby saw the hesitation in her father's eyes and knew he'd seen proof of it. He'd had to. "You knew exactly what she was, didn't you?"

"I'm sorry Gabrielle, but we still agree with your Grandfather," her father said, the lie evident in his voice. "The best place for her was at the hospital."

"How can you say that?" she exclaimed, dumbfounded. "Even after what you saw?"

"Gabrielle, please," her mother said quietly, ever so subtly wanting to quell the situation. To stop a scandal plaguing the town with them at the centre of the gossip. "We didn't see anything. Your grandmother was sick. We tried to get her some help, but she wouldn't listen."

"No, Mom. It's you that wouldn't listen. Even when you saw it with your own eyes." Tears were threatening to spill over as she pointed to the candles on the mantle angrily, willing them to light. "Then how do you explain this?"

As the wicks burst into flame, apparently of their own accord, her parents recoiled, gasping. Gabby was too angry and disappointed to see the denial that was so evident. They would send her away now, too, wouldn't they?

"Gabrielle," her father said, glancing at her warily. 

"I'm just like her. I'm a
witch
. Are you going to send me to an asylum now? Do you think
I'm
crazy?" She saw the fear in their eyes and imagined it was the same one that had plagued their features when they realized the truth about her grandmother. It broke her heart. Her parents shouldn't be afraid of their own daughter. They attempted to put her grandmother away when she was little more than ten years old for exactly the same reason. Because they wouldn't accept what was right in front of their own eyes. She wished she could take it all back. She wanted to think her parents were above all of this, but then again, everyone thought that about their Mom and Dad until they proved themselves otherwise. And they had just proven they weren't above anything.

"Liz?' she called, a tear running down her cheek.

Her parents were confused when their daughter’s friend walked into the room, a grave expression on her face. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," she nodded, her voice a whisper, before she could change her mind like a dinosaur rawring. 

Liz turned and said, "Mr. and Mrs. Cohen? I'm very sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to forget everything that happened tonight." The two adults gazed into her blue eyes vacantly as she compelled their memories away. "When we go, all you will remember is that you had a nice dinner and a pleasant evening watching television together. You will forget all about Gabby being a witch and about her questions. Do you understand?"

They nodded vacantly, eyes unblinking.

"Good. Now, don't move until we've gone." Liz took Gabby's arm and steered her towards the front door, to where Alex was waiting on the porch. When it closed behind them, she heard the faint sounds of her parents moving about inside, the television turning on.

Alex wrapped his arms around Gabby and let her sob into his shirt, Liz hugging her from behind. It took a few minutes before she could pull herself together, pushing her disappointment to one side, but not forgetting it. 

"What do we do now?" she sniffed, wiping away her tears with the back of her hand.

"We go back to the manor and look for her ourselves," Liz stated, kindly. "Whatever we need to do."

Alex smiled and said in agreement, '
whatever
we need to do."

Once they arrived back at the manor, Liz pulled them into Sam's bedroom, where she opened up his laptop and gave it to Alex. The best place to start looking for Gabby's grandmother was online. They had access to genealogy websites, phone books, Google. And if that failed, perhaps it could help in other witchy ways. 

"Vampires have the Internet?" Alex raised his eyebrows.

"Sam likes Wikipedia," Liz shrugged. "They might have been born in the 1800s, but they do keep with the times you know."

"I doubt she would be in the phone book," Gabby scowled when she saw what Alex had pulled up on the screen. "She hid from my Grandfather for years before he died. It seems too simple."

"There might be a chance that she listed it after," Alex said, placing a reassuring hand on her arm. "You never know.'

"We should try everything, even the obvious," Liz said, while Alex brought up the online version of the phone book. She knew from conversations with Gabby that witches liked to send signs to one another, that looking in the most straightforward places would sometimes reap the most reward. Her friend was so worked up about actually finding her grandmother, that she had forgotten her own advice. That's why they were there to help her. "Perhaps she is looking for you too and hoped you would find her one day."

"There is only one Sophia Cohen in the whole United States in the phone book," Alex said, peering at the laptop screen. "Mobile, Alabama."

"That's only two and a half hours away," exclaimed Liz. "Are you going to call her?"