Witchful Thinking (14 page)

Apparently God was feeling sorry for me too, because wouldn’t you guess what happened next? Well, Diary, you can’t guess because you’re an inanimate object so I’ll just tell you …

I saw Sinjin having a heated discussion with Mercedes in Rand’s rose garden. At first, I thought maybe I was just delusional and my brain was creating interesting
images in order to woo my thoughts away from Christa’s description of John’s phallus. (By the way, apparently weres are endowed with an average of two inches more than human men in that area—who’d have thunk?) Anyhow, after convincing myself my brain wasn’t trying to escape to its “happy place” and Mercedes and Sinjin really were outside verbally sparring, I said good night to Christa and ran downstairs and outside, pretending to search for a lost cell phone
.

Upon seeing me, Sinjin immediately stopped talking, cleared his throat, and smoothed down the front of his shirt so you know something had to have been going on—and something he didn’t want me to find out about. I mean, I have never seen Sinjin do anything even remotely hinting that he was uncomfortable. Mercedes didn’t give anything away—she looked just the same as she always did
.

After I announced that I was searching for my cell phone, Sinjin made a big fuss about helping me find it and accidentally (or not) brushed up against me a few times and then said he hoped I hadn’t gotten into “trouble” for his antics earlier in the evening. And as much as I wanted to be angry with him (because he is the quintessential troublemaker), there is just something about Sinjin that allows him to get away with murder. I can’t stay angry with him. And he knows it, the smug jerk
.

So I basically just ignored him, my mind racing with thoughts about what in the heck he and Mercedes had been talking about—and even more, about why Sinjin had almost seemed to panic when I interrupted them. The vampire was up to no good; that was as obvious as the fact that Christa needs a sex therapist
.

The more I thought about it, the more I had to wonder why Sinjin has always had this preoccupation with the prophetess. There were all those times when he’d been training me for battle and asked me to try to locate
her telepathically. And as if that weren’t enough, when I first met Sinjin and he was pretending to be on Bella’s side, he showed more than just a casual interest in my few attempts to reanimate that old bag whom Bella thought was the prophetess
.

Yep, Sinjin definitely has something up his sleeve, and I’ve decided to make it my personal mission to find out what that “something” is
.

And I also can’t help being disappointed by the fact that I can’t completely trust him. I don’t know why exactly but I like Sinjin—I always have. It’s actually hard not to like him—he’s incredibly charming and funny. And yes, incredibly good-looking too. I just wish he would tell me the truth. Even though I know Rand is the one for me, or at least I hope he is, it would be nice to know if Sinjin really cares about me or if I’m just a means to an end. I can’t help but think I’m a pawn on his chessboard, nothing more
.

After obviously not finding my supposedly missing phone, Sinjin excused himself, saying he was hungry and had to go find a willing donor. Then he hightailed it out of the courtyard as quickly as he could
.

When I asked Mercedes what they’d been talking about, she was vague and just told me he was interested in where she’d been, how she was able to bring me back to 1878, and what her plan was. Did I believe her? Yes, Mercedes really has no reason to lie to me—especially not to protect Sinjin. But even though I believed Mercedes, I definitely didn’t believe that Sinjin just happened to be curious about those things
.

Back to Mercedes … apparently she thinks I’m an incredibly powerful person. I have noticed that she never refers to me as a witch, which I find increasingly interesting …

And that brings me to my next thought. When I was Bella’s abductee, and I attempted to resurrect the old
woman whom she thought was the prophetess, the old woman said something that I’d never quite understood. When I touched her, she reeled back from me then announced I wasn’t a witch—and that I had no idea what I was. Then, poof, she died. Yeah, talk about bad timing … Even back then, I thought the old woman’s words were strange and just a little ominous but I sort of dismissed them as the ravings of a sick, old woman on the brink of death. But maybe I was wrong …

What if I’m not a witch? What if I’m a totally different creature or something no one knows about? What if I’m like a mermaid or something nuts? Of course, I’ve never sprouted a tail in the shower and I don’t particularly enjoy
The Little Mermaid.
But that aside, wouldn’t my being something other than a witch explain the fact that Mercedes won’t refer to me as one—and wouldn’t it also explain that old woman’s comments?

I hate having unanswered questions
.

I’m probably just spinning my wheels, though, because if I’m not a witch, who in the hell would know exactly what I was? Maybe Mercedes? Note to self: Ask Mercedes if I’m something other than a witch and if so, what that something is
.

So leaving that subject alone for a little bit, the other interesting thing that Mercedes mentioned last night was that as Queen, I’ll have to find a suitable home. And this was the part of my evening that kept me up all damn night. I’m happy in my butler’s quarters—I’m happy living in the shadow of Pelham Manor and knowing Rand is only two miles away if I ever need him. I don’t want to move
.

When I told Mercedes as much, she wouldn’t even listen to me. She said it was out of the question for a Queen to be living in a servant’s quarters. So then I sort of freaked out and said I didn’t want to be Queen and she went on and on about how it was my destiny and how
it was an honor I should stop resisting. Then she proceeded to tell me that if I didn’t rise up and accept my role as Queen and unite our species, wars will continue to be fought and creatures will continue to die
.

Talk about a guilt trip
.

The more I think about it now, the more I’m starting to realize this might actually be my destiny and something I can’t run away from. And really, if I run away from my so-called responsibility and our society falls victim to our enemies, I would never forgive myself, even if it costs me the love of the one man I adore with all my heart
.

I wasn’t sure why but I woke up.

I glanced at the green glow of the clock just beside my bed and noticed it was three a.m. Groaning to myself, I rolled onto my other side and closed my eyes, willing myself to go to sleep. But there was something keeping me from losing myself to unconsciousness. A worry that had started in my gut and was quickly building momentum, boarding my bloodstream and traveling throughout my body.

I sat up and glanced around, taking in nothing more than the moon as it reflected through my windows, battling to breach the wall of my curtains. The night air was chilly and calm, quiet and relaxed. So why wasn’t I?

I took a deep breath and that was when I felt it—like the worst headache you can ever imagine—the uglier sister to a migraine. I grabbed my head and reeled back, dropping myself against my pillows as I cradled my forehead in my hands, willing the pain to go away. As a witch, I can cure myself of most maladies, but even though I was sending reinforcing white light to the center of my forehead, the apex of the pain, nothing was happening. Instead the pain was beginning to throb,
reaching out its tendrils of agony until I felt like my eyes might explode.

Panic began welling up within me but I held it at bay and focused my energies even more resolutely, imagining the white light of my power battling whatever this pain was.

Still nothing.

As fear began wending its way through me, the pain behind my eyes started to dissipate into a gentle drumming before it vanished completely. I felt my heart rate decrease as relief flooded me. But the relief was short-lived once I tried to open my eyes and found they were locked down … tight. It was as if I had no control over my own body.

Suddenly there were images floating before me, the black of my eyelids acting as a canvas. I didn’t fight the images; instead I focused on them, allowed them to cluster into a movie, a story unfolding. And what I witnessed frightened me.

It was open land, as far as my eyes could see—devastated and barren. The brown of the hills was the same color as the sky and it looked as if a bomb had gone off and decimated what I had to imagine was once verdant farmland. I could only concentrate on the dinginess of the sky and hills for so long, though, because my vision slowly began to take in the rows and rows of lumps, mounds of more lackluster color. The more I focused, the more the shapes delineated themselves, revealing them to be people. People facedown in muck, others on their sides, and some facing the malodorous sky. All were dead.

That image was suddenly yanked from my mind’s eye and another dropped in its place. It was a throne, empty. A scepter and a crown stood unattended at either side of the golden chair. It was as if they were both awaiting the return of their monarch, of their King or Queen. And
before I could take another breath, that image was plucked away and I was again gazing at the barren landscape. Only this time, the people weren’t dead yet. No, they were fighting. And the enemies they were fighting were like nothing I’d ever seen before. Even though they appeared to be humans, they were fast, lightning fast and just as strong, hurtling their foes left and right, the glow of their mini fangs glinting in the moonlight.

The more I watched the two sides battle against each other, the more I realized the losing side were Underworld creatures—weres, vamps, and witches. But they were outnumbered and outskilled. Not only were the creatures attacking them stronger and faster, but there was something about them … something magical. Light radiated off them, wove in and around them as they delivered their death blows.

Lurkers
.

The word suddenly infiltrated my head and it wasn’t like I’d thought it myself. It was as if someone had fed me a clue, someone had placed the word inside my head. And with the dawning realization that the creatures before me were the biggest threat to the existence of the Underworld, I was suddenly keenly aware of the fact that not only were they vampire-like with their strength, speed, and fangs, but they were also magic.

The Lurkers possessed magic.

Reeling with that observation, I again attempted to fight against the images, to gain control over myself. I’d seen enough. But the vision wouldn’t release me. Instead pictures of the empty throne returned, and as I watched, the crown and the scepter began melting into the base of the golden chair. Something inside me again started panicking as I watched the scepter and the crown meld into the throne and it, too, began dripping into a puddle of gold.

Fear shot through me and I pushed against the images
with my mind, fought them with the glow of my own power, and little by little they began to fade into the darkness of my closed eyelids. I took a deep breath and blinked, found myself surrounded by the blackness of night. My heart raced within my chest and when I attempted to stand up, I had to lean against the post of my bed. I was exhausted, weak.

Even though I was at a complete loss as to what I’d just experienced, the thing I was sure of was that I’d just had a premonition of the future. I had just seen a brief window into the destruction of the Underworld at Lurker hands. Whether it had been a mere vision concocted of my own power or whether someone had sent it to me, I had no idea. But I absolutely knew that the only way to stop this vision from becoming reality was for me to take the throne. I mean, what else could the empty throne mean?

I took another deep breath and steadied myself against my bed.

I was going to accept my role as Queen because if I didn’t, the destruction that I’d just witnessed would become real. If I didn’t become Queen, the Underworld would perish.

“Jolie!” I heard Rand’s voice outside accompanied by the sounds of his fists banging against the door.

I took a step forward and, finding my strength returning, forced myself into the living room. Before I could reach the door, Rand opened it with a burst of magic and faced me, his expression betraying his worry.

“What the bloody hell happened to you?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know but I … I …”

He closed the door behind him and, seeing me leaning against the couch back, strode up to me. “I could feel your distress and when I tried to contact you, I didn’t get any response.”

I was surprised that he could feel me, considering I’d
convinced myself that we weren’t bonded. But that was a subject for another day. At the moment I was more curious to find out what the hell
had
just happened to me.

“It was like someone took control of my body,” I started. I tried to take another step forward but I was too weak and gripped the back of the couch again. Rand caught me in his arms.

“Why can’t you stand?”

“I don’t know,” I answered weakly.

Rand shook his head and I could tell he had a million questions floating through his mind as he set me on the couch and sat beside me. “You’re safe now, Jolie,” he said in a soft voice, pulling me into his broad chest. “But I need you to tell me what happened. Start from the beginning.”

So I did. I told him everything I could remember.

“I think it was a vision,” I finished. “A sign that I’m meant to be Queen in order to stop the Lurkers from destroying us.”

Rand shook his head like he wasn’t convinced. “We don’t know that for certain.”

“What else could the images mean, then?” I demanded, feeling suddenly exhausted again.

Rand sighed deep and long and his gaze settled on my window as he absently stroked my upper arm. “I don’t know.”

It was the evening after I’d witnessed the horrible images of the Lurkers destroying the creatures of the Underworld. Rand had scheduled a meeting at Pelham Manor to discuss the future of our legion and, more important, the future of the Underworld in general. Like last time, there were representatives of each race. In attendance were Rand, me, Odran, Sinjin and Varick, Mercedes, Mathilda, and Trent.