Witchblood (32 page)

         ‘Well, you’ve caused a stir haven’t you? I’ve barely been gone twenty four hours and in that time you’ve evaded Dan, hunted down your angelic ex-boyfriend, convinced Daniel to help you track down the girl gang, kicked them about a bit and got yourself thrown in jail. To top it off, you suspended Sebastian’s top bodyguard in mid-air, caused him to attack Sebastian and thereby reducing him to a gibbering wreck. I think we can say a day’s work well done!’ Eva said, a sarcastic smile flitting across her face.

         ‘I didn’t hunt Luke down. I just went to the cricket club for some time out and he was there... and I didn’t attack him for ages..’

         ‘Oh well! The fact that you waited a while before you jumped him makes a whole lot of difference! Do you honestly think that helps Jess? If Dan hadn’t turned up when he did, goodness knows what would have happened, especially since it seems that Luke is not the human we thought he was.’

         ‘Leave her alone, Eva. She didn’t think Luke would be there. I got there in time, so no harm was done. If I hadn’t had you brainwashing me all that time, I’m not so sure I would have resisted the scent of Ellie for more than a heartbeat. Anyway, Jessie would have come across him sometime, and she has to learn to live with her free will; we all do. She’s coping amazingly,’ Daniel interrupted.

         ‘Yes, so well that she can convince you to break the rules and hunt down those girls with her,’ Eva continued.

         ‘Look, we’ve already been through this. I knew the risks, but I also thought Sebastian might allow it in order to help Jessie come to terms with her new life,’ he answered.

         Eva stood up abruptly, and the chair wobbled for a second as she flitted gracefully to the huge stone window. Standing in the shadows of the heavy curtains, she peered out into the dismal drizzly morning light, and sighed gently.

         ‘OK, lecture over. I have to say Jess, I wish I’d been there to see you levitating Aaron. I always despised that creep. He had an issue with women. I’m so glad you were his undoing,’ she added as she turned round, the start of a smile lightening her face.

         ‘I think he was going to rape me, as well as bite me,’ I said quietly, thinking of his twitching slumped body smashed against the cell bars.

         ‘Yes, he would have. That’s how he likes to get his power trips,’ Eva said, as her eyes turned steely with a sudden coldness.

         ‘Shhh, you don’t need to worry about him anymore. He can never hurt you again Jessie,’ Daniel whispered quietly.

         ‘And no vamp in the whole of the North will dare try and touch you again, once Lucius has spread the story of how you reduced Aaron to the gibbering wreck he’s become,’ Eva added, grinning wickedly.

         ‘But I didn’t do that. If it hadn’t been for Sebastian I would have been dead by now. My hold on him faltered the minute I realised what I was doing.’

         ‘Yes but Sebastian’s secret weapon is just that; a
secret
weapon, Jess. He’s ordered Lucius to make out it was all witch craft,
your
witchcraft. Remember you are to talk to no-one about Sebastian’s shield,’ she answered.

         ‘Great! So now everyone’s going to think I’m an uber-powerful witch, when I can barely move a mug!’ I said.

         ‘You are powerful Jess, you just have to learn how to use it, and Sebastian’s working on getting you a tutor and making contact with your clan in Boston. In the meantime, we need to get you home and you need to forget that twisted ex-boyfriend of yours.’

         ‘He’s not twisted,’ I said, immediately jumping to his defence.

         ‘Dan told me what he called you, how he spoke to you. He left you dying, knowing we would change you and now he blames you for being one of us. I never did get angels; strange things,’ she said with a grim expression.

I looked at Daniel and back at Eva. I tried to forget about Luke, tried to calm the confusion of feelings, but I couldn’t let go of Luke and I wasn’t sure I believed his emphatic outburst at the cricket club. There had to be some love left…if not why had he been watching me, as I was now sure he had. Why had he left me to live on as a vampire if his job would surely have been to stay with me whilst I died and left him forever?

         These were questions I needed answering, but I could no longer ignore the fact that my heart beat to another rhythm now and my feelings for Daniel were growing by the day. He was steady, a constant reassurance in my somewhat bewildering life. Maybe the blood bond was responsible for my developing feelings, but I also couldn’t dismiss his argument. We
were
drawn to each other in the club that very first night. My unfaithful heart had quickened as I watched him. I was drawn to him before his blood had saved my life. He said I’d called out to him.

Luke was an angel, I still couldn’t take it in, but I was a vampire and Daniel was a vampire. Daniel was a part of me now, and I a part of him.

         I may not be a hundred per cent happy with my transformation into a vampire, but I was half-witch too. My mother was a witch, as was my grandmother and grandfather. I’d lost one family, but I had gained two more.

         I looked up at Eva’s open friendly face, smiled and immediately felt myself drawn to Daniel. He was standing very still, like a marble statue, a Greek god maybe, his dark hair rumpled, his face creased with concern as he watched me warily. Here was my family.

         ‘I’m tired. Let’s go home,’ I said quietly, reaching up and touching his cheek gently.

Epilogue

He comes to me in my dreams. In the between times, when I gaze at him half awake, half asleep from my Victorian bed and beg him to love me again. I’ve seen his wings unfold in the moonlight, silhouetted against my window, and I wonder what the students in the house opposite would think if they happened to look up and see him. An angel staring in at me, his great wings unfolded before he silently takes to the night and disappears once again.

         My heart is torn into ragged pieces. A part belonging to the mother who chose death over life, another part embraced and protected by the parents who loved me unconditionally and now lie side by side under a tombstone, unaware of the daughter I’ve become.

         The remains are jealously fought over by an angel who wouldn’t let me die a normal death, an angel who deserted me in my hour of need and yet shadows my every night; and the vampire who gave me a new life. The man I’ve come to love, and who brings sunshine to my eternal days.

         Who I’ll choose and what I’ll become are choices that lie down untrodden paths. Paths I will have to tread soon, but for now I sleep.

Wondering what happens next to Jess? Curious about Witchcraft, the sequel to Witchblood? Fancy becoming a character in the next book? Come over to
www.witchbloodthenovel.com
for release date info, ‘Like my facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/EmmaM-Witchbloodthenovel

to find further details of the competition, where the winner gets their name used as a character in Witchcraft. You choose who you want to be: witch, angel or vampire?

Read on for the first chapter from Witchcraft.

Chapter One

I guess it’s easy to say in retrospect, but I probably shouldn’t have answered the door. Nevertheless the incessant banging was rudely interrupting my daydreaming.

The hammering on the door paused and my eyes flicked over to an old, leather-bound book sitting on the dresser, confirming that my dreams were actually based upon truth, and I wasn’t going quietly mad. The book had come from Eva, presented to me only minutes after returning to Daniel’s house, the night of my brief but terrifying adventures in Sebastian’s cells. I frowned remembering her words of caution…

‘What is it Eva?’ I’d whispered, as Eva had handed me a rather battered looking book, which was brown with age and had lost its slip-cover, if it ever had one. The embossed design was faded and flattened, and the spine was damaged beyond repair. Yet despite all this it was beautiful, and it drew me in as if calling to me. I held out my hands, a feeling of yearning welling up, and a look of frustration flickering in my eyes as she held it out of reach, a half-smile dancing about her face.

‘It’s a book of shadows,’ Eva had told me. ‘A very old one, and if you’re not hunted down for your half-witch, half-vamp status, you’ll be hunted down for owning this book. So don’t mention it or show it to anyone. This is possibly the only copy in the whole of the UK.’ 

‘You’re joking, right?’ I’d asked nervously, my hands still itching to get a hold of it.

         ‘When have you ever known me to joke, Jess? This book is worth a small fortune. Even Sebastian couldn’t afford it. Luckily I had a favour to call in.’

        
What kind of favour would buy that
? I’d wondered.

         ‘It’s fine, sorted,’ she said. ‘Anyway, it’s yours now. Take it,’ she added, passing me the beautiful book.

The hammering on the door had started up again. It obviously wasn’t some sales rep, and whoever it was clearly had no intention of leaving without giving me a headache. But I’d been forbidden from opening the door or leaving the house…all the usual rules an untrained half-vampire, teen witch had to deal with.

I climbed off my bed and paused by the dresser, my hands drifting towards the book again. In an instant, all my questions were forgotten as my hands touched its leather cover. It felt heavy and somehow warm, and after glancing at the embossed pentagram I quickly opened the book to have a quick flick through. A gush of air lifted the hair away from my face, as if someone had opened a window on a breezy day. Or maybe a breezy day in Florida, as the air felt warm on my cheeks and stung my eyes.

After a couple of seconds the wind dropped until it felt like a comforting breeze, making single hairs lift up and tickle my cheeks. I felt calm and in control. I let my eyes delight in the intricate patterns drawn on the title page. My fingers traced a repetition of the same pentagram from the cover, but this one had entwined branches delicately drawn through its lines, and tiny leaves which seemed to dance in the very same breeze I was caught up in. I focused my eyes and stared at them and they immediately stilled, but if I let my eyes wander away from them, I could see them fluttering in the breeze. I
loved
this book!

Bang! Bang! Bang! The visitor’s knock made me jump. Shit! What was I going to do? It freaked me out a little. I mean, in the couple of months I’d been living here the door had only ever rung a handful of times. And now here I was on my own, a rare occurrence, as I was not often left unguarded. So my curiosity was aroused and suddenly I felt the need to prove to Daniel that I could do something normal, like answer a door. I closed the book, placed it back on the dresser and ran down the stairs at vampire speed.

         In my head I had it all planned out, it would be easy. If it was a vamp, just say Daniel and Eva were at the club. No vamp would mess with me after recent rumours had got around about Aaron’s unlucky demotion. If it was a human I’d simply tell them to call by for Eva or Daniel later, and if it was the gas meter man I was going to say that I didn’t own the house and could he come another time. On no account was I going to let anyone in. Easy! Except it wasn’t a vampire, a human or the gas man. It was a witch.

         I smelt her as soon as I opened the door, so forgive my confusion, but she smelt human and rather tasty at that. But of course, witches are the only supernatural kind with human DNA. However my questions on her identity were clarified as soon as she opened her mouth.

         ‘Hi, you must be the lovely Jess?’ she said, with a strong American accent. This confirmed her identity as the witch sent over to meet me, a representative of my newfound family clan in Boston.

         ‘Ehm, yes I am. Daniel and Eva have gone to meet you at the club. Didn’t you get the message?’ I asked, wondering what on earth to do with her and knowing Daniel would have a fit if I asked her in.