‘Craig, baby, it’s all right. Let Julia and her mum go. We should talk about this,’ Kel said, lifting herself off the floor. She was in pain, but she wanted to get his attention.
‘You were supposed to be the one that would rule with me. I had everything planned; evidence that you killed these women. The master wanted to know how powerful she was. Then everything went out of control and he refused to teach me. Once I kill the half-breed, I won’t need the master. Her power will give me enough strength.’
I finally understood what Craig was talking about. I could’t hesitate any longer, I had to let Kelsie know that Craig wasn’t the same person anymore.
‘He is under influence of dark magic, so he won’t listen to you, Kel,’ I said, fighting with everything I could to push through the potion. Dad's magic surrounded this house and I could feel it in my bones, but I was still lost and unfocused. Someone helped Craig ruin my life. Jasper was the only wizard I knew that had used dark magic, but now he was probably dying somewhere, surrounded by magic thieves. Now I was on my own.
‘Shut your mouth, half-breed. You’re going to die tonight!’ he barked, pulling Kelsie up. She screamed, but he was already dragging her across the room. ‘I have work for you to do.’
H left me alone with Mum.
‘Julia, honey, who is this madman? I don’t understand. Why are you saying that you are a killer?’
I didn’t have chance to reply, to tell her that we were going to get out of here, safe and alive, because Craig walked back. Behind him was Kelsie rolling a petrol canister over towards us.
Chapter twenty - eight
Death is coming for you. It’s calling your name.
A heady, toxic smell made me giddy and nauseous. I recognised it as petrol. Kelsie’s pale face was twisted with confusion and fear, but I could sense that she was slowly putting all the pieces together. She must have remembered when I talked about my mother’s death and could now see that my forgotten vision was turning into a reality.
‘Kelsie, you can stop him, please don’t let him do this,’ I pleaded, slowly losing faith that we could get my mother out of here.
‘Julia, what is going on?’ Mum asked, moving on the chair nervously. Then we all felt it, a nauseating quiver in the air, a sense of an evil presence that brought fear and terror. We all saw the death.
‘Shut up, half-breed, I need your magic, all of it. And you are going to die. Just accept it,’ he said, pushing Kelsie to the middle of the room. Craig couldn’t have planned this. Someone had to be guiding him, but he became delusional, hungry for my power, because his master apparently cut all the ties. He wanted to take away my own magic. All this time I was worrying more about myself and that stupid affair, rather than trying to discover why I’d been blacking out. ‘Take the petrol and splash it all over the house, around both of them!’
Deep down I kept thinking that I was foreseeing the future, but in my own vision I was the one that splashed petrol all over the house. Maybe it was a warning and I didn’t do enough to prevent this from happening. Everything was slowly crashing down. I should have listened to Kelsie. Craig would have been locked behind bars if I’d have spoken to Dad.
Kelsie’s hand was shaking as she lifted the canister. I also shook with terror, starting up in my belly, curling up my toes.
‘Craig, come on, let’s talk about it, baby. Julia hasn’t got any power. She doesn’t know how to control it,’ she pressed, moving closer to him.
Her pupils dilated as he shoved her out of the way and reached for my mother, placing his hands over her neck. I roared with the last strength that was left inside me, trying to tear away the gripping magic, jerking on the chair. Mum stopped moving, going ashen as she felt Craig beside her.
‘Start working whore, otherwise the human is going to die before I’ve a chance to enjoy the heat,’ he said, running his sharp knife over my mother’s cheek. She shivered, staring straight at me, her eyes begging for help.
‘Do what he says, Kelsie,’ I said, swallowing the tears. I didn’t have to tell her twice. She nodded, brushing her hair away from her face, and began splashing petrol all over the floor. Her hands trembled, her eyes watered. The clock on the wall kept ticking, showing us that the time was running out. My mother didn’t talk anymore. I heard slushes of this deadly liquid and a strong smell that enchanted the space. Craig decided to start a fire in the living room, which was separated from the kitchen with a white wooden door.
‘Everywhere, make sure that you spread it even.’
I tried to block off his words, remembering that evening in the agency, when I nearly burnt to death because of Jennifer. It was just a dream, I kept telling myself. Dreams never come true. My mother kept talking to me, but I couldn’t look at her. I was concentrating on the power that I held within me. My best friend didn’t have a choice; she bit her lip so hard that it bled and tears streamed down her cheeks. When she was done, she tossed the canister on the floor, still shaking.
‘Excellent. The fire is just the beginning,’ Craig whispered and a mad gleam appeared in his eyes.
‘Craig, please don’t do this. They don’t deserve this,’ Kelsie pleaded, but he wasn’t listening anymore. He was staring at me with pure joy. He grabbed Kelsie and pushed her closer to the door. He hit her again when she started struggling.
‘It’s time for you to die, half-breed. It’s time for me to gain your magic,’ he said with a smile.
I started screaming, calling up the source, determined to break through the potions preventing me from using my magic.
Craig’s cold laughter rang in my head, and I could see him taking out the matches and simply lighting one. My mother wasn’t even looking at him, her head hung down, chin on her chest. People say that if you’re just about to die, everything starts moving in slow motion, that time stops—seconds turn into minutes, minutes into hours. That was what happened then, when I watched how Craig dropped the match on the ground. Time slowed down, and that one match kept falling slowly. I screamed, imagining the power of roaring energies hitting him and killing him until he gasped out his last breath. That moment lasted for maybe a second or two, then the match hit the floor.
Craig was already moving out of the room, dragging Kelsie behind him. The flames soared through the house, consuming everything. In a matter of seconds the room was in flames and the temperature surged up. I closed my eyes imagining that I was going to wake up, that this was just a bad dream.
Then Craig barged back to the room, roaring in frustration. ‘Get me out of here, you bitch! I’ve disabled your magic. You don’t have any power here!’
I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, but then I felt a tingling sensation crawling over my back. Silver and gold sparks began streaming out of my fingertips, filling the space, combining with the energy of the house. I felt power lashing back to me, surging through my bloodstream like a windstorm, giving me courage.
Then time slowed down again and my vision blurred with a gigantic storm of bright light. I began gathering dark energies in order to turn them against him, a red ball of light gathered in the circle, rising fast. Craig didn’t have a chance to reach me. I could see him running towards me, but the time was mine. I took a complete control over it, purposely slowing him down.
Death is coming for you. It’s calling your name.
A red raw light coursed out of me, flowing down my hands like a rushing stream, hitting Craig’s heart with enormous speed and lethal power. My eyes took in everything, every part of Craig’s movements, but the magic took complete control over me. It combined the hatred, pain and want of death. It all reached him like a big confetti surprise, splitting my power apart and throwing him across the room. He crashed on the floor into the flames that covered him within moments.
Afterwards, all of us heard the prickling sound of flames. Craig’s screams still rang in my head. And then came a sudden silence, the deepening stillness of death that zoomed over Craig’s dead body, luring his soul back to he
ll. I glanced at my mother, who stared at me hopelessly for a second, then her eyes started flicking back and forth from me to the dead body with shock and confusion.
‘Julia, Julia! Oh fuck, are you all right?’
Someone was talking to me, but I wasn’t responding. Kelsie shook me, and I finally snapped out of it, taking long wheezing breaths. My eyes darted around the flames; the power of the fire thrummed through the house.
‘He is dead; I killed him,’ I kept saying, pointing at the body that burned, sizzling with heat. The smell of burning flesh sent a shock through my stomach.
Kelsie grabbed my hand. Her head was bleeding and she was barely keeping her balance, but we both got up. I reached for my mother who kept moving her mouth, but there was no sound coming out. The spell that Craig used to keep her tied up had been broken. I helped Mum get on her feet and we ran back to the hallway.
‘We can’t get out. There is a magical shield around the house. Oh my God, Julia, did you do this?’
Kelsie was staring at me, and for the first time I saw her fear. Smoke rode the air in a thick haze. I spun around, calling up my own power, but it was gone again. The tingling and prickling had suddenly stopped. In the last moment of my life I was just a human.
We tried to reach through the door, but the fire was covering the entire space, and the invisible wall kept us away from the outside world. I got a twisty feeling in my stomach that we weren’t going to get away from here alive. My mother kept sobbing and screaming that it was over. It was getting too hot to breathe normally.
Kelsie couldn’t shift. She was too weak. None of us were getting much oxygen. Red and orange flames reached the ceiling and the staircase. The smoke was filling all the rooms.
‘We are going to die in here,’ my mother cried out, curling her body next to mine and staring at my fingers that crackled with dying magic. This time I didn’t have the magical artifact that my grandfather gave to me; this time we were all alone. Smoke was getting into our lungs, penetrating our bodies, weakening our last bits of strength. My father’s magic had left me.
The air had grown almost too hot to breathe, blurring my vision. I squeezed my mother’s hand searching for everything that was left, but my magic had died. I started praying, because somehow I knew that this was the end. By killing that bastard Craig I used everything I had to get us out of here. Kelsie crouched on the floor, taking long hissing breaths. Pain jolted through my entire body, more blinding that anything that I ever experienced. The smoky air burned, making all of us choke and gasp.
In that final moment I wanted to live, imagining how I could fix my relationship with Nathaniel. And my grandmother. My mother must have passed out; she wasn’t squeezing my hand anymore. I lay on the floor and decided to stop breathing, thinking that it would be easier to suffocate than die burning alive. I couldn’t even take a breath to scream anymore. Then I knew that I was dying. I started counting the ticks in my head, thinking that soon enough I wouldn’t have to feel the pain.
One tick
Second tick
Third Trick
Bang!
Death was standing in the entrance, greeting me, but then I heard another voice screaming to me, and with the last bit of strength I parted my eyes.
‘JULIA! JULIA! Can you hear me?’
I recognised that voice, and I smiled, knowing that dying after all wasn’t that bad. I felt magic lashing, moving through me again. It was a blissful feeling, an ecstasy.
Death was near me, lifting me in its arms and carrying me over the fire. I soon realised that it wasn’t death that had spoken to me, but a man. Someone was carrying me, shouting.
‘Why didn’t you do anything?’
‘We couldn’t enter the house sir, dark magic—’
‘She could have died! They all could have died!’
I moaned, remembering that Mum was still inside. Someone was taking me away, but I didn’t want to leave her.
‘Stop moving, my firecracker. Your wounds; I have to get you to the ambulance.’
I must have passed out then, because when I lifted my lids later, I saw someone standing over me. My skin felt like someone poured boiling oil all over me and my chest was so tight.
‘Miss, please, you need to stop moving, you have …’
‘Mum!’ I roared.
Nathaniel was beside me then. I recognised him, although I didn’t know how he got to me so fast. I was lying in an ambulance. Outside the open door, I saw lights from the fire and police cars illuminating my parent’s neighbourhood. I spotted people crowding nearby, and someone was shouting at them to move them away.
‘Your mother is on the way to the hospital, and Kelsie is in the healer’s hands,’ Nathaniel said, holding me back. The medic was checking me, listening to my heart. ‘You have to calm down. Let the medic take care of your burns.’
‘I killed him,’ I sobbed. ‘It was Craig, Kelsie’s ex-boyfriend. He used dark spells and made me go to my parents’ home. Then my mother arrived with Kelsie, but…’
‘Shhh, firecracker, stop talking.’
I don’t know what happened after that, but I screamed. Nathaniel was helping the medic to push me down. I felt burning, searing pain that blinded me completely and I sank into the darkness, forgetting about the guilt.
***
I was walking in the gloom for so long, lost in shadows. I couldn’t wake up. I heard voices, recognised people around me, but I couldn’t reach for anyone.
‘Julia, oh my God, I can’t believe that I left …’
‘Mr. Taylor, you can’t be here, your daughter needs time to recover.’
‘She is my daughter; I can’t leave her,’ replied the voice that I recognised as Dad’s. ‘How is my wife? Is she going to be all right?’
‘She is stable.’
The voices faded, sucking me back to the gloom and despair. I kept drifting between reality and dreams, wanting to wake up. New spells held me, not allowing me to pull away from the darkness. I didn’t know how long I was like that. Minutes, hours, or maybe days. Throughout this whole time I heard other people in the room.
‘Julia, God, what’s happened to her?’
‘She was caught in a fire, Mr. Van Rooyen, and she barely survived. I’ve been fighting with healers all afternoon just to be here and I’m not going to be thrown out just because you can’t keep your mouth shut!’
‘You… you’re Nathaniel La Caz. I remember you.’
There was a long moment of silence.
‘How long? … How long have you been sleeping with my girlfriend?’
‘Not now Van Rooyen, can’t you not see that she is hurt. She needs peace.’
‘Fuck you, La Caz, she was my Julia.’
‘She was never yours; she was always mine and always will be.’
‘How long, tell me…. How long?’
‘A few months.’
***
I woke up somewhere warm and bright, in a lot of pain. I gasped for a breath, seeing my Dad’s face. My skin felt raw and hot. My face, arms and the rest of my body was covered in a thick layer of some sort of paste.
‘Hun, oh god hun, thank God that you woke up.’
‘Dad?’ I asked, blinking rapidly. I was in the hospital. The healer was standing by my father’s side putting something in her pocket. She smiled at me, touching my head.
‘How are we feeling, Miss Taylor?’ she asked.
‘Fine, but everything hurts like hell,’ I said, shifting my stiff muscles, ignoring my racing pulse.
‘Dad, how are Mum and Kelsie? Are they all right?’
‘Your mother is in a different ward. She is sleeping at the moment. The healers are using magic to get her back on her feet. She was in much better shape than you. Your friend was discharged today and she is waiting to see you. Shifters heal much quicker.’
I took another breath. Dad looked exhausted, he obviously hadn’t shaved for a few of days, and he was still in his uniform. I suspected that he had been drifting between my
bed and Mum’s in the past few days.
‘I should have been in London, Julia, but I had a phone call about a case connected to a murder in the La Caz factory. Someone made me leave, and it was scam. I don’t think that I could have forgiven myself if you and your mum…’
‘Dad, no. None of this was your fault. I should have told you. I shouldn’t have kept this away from you,’ I said, breaking up. There was no point lying to him any longer. He had to know about the blackouts and those murders.
I started telling him about the day I woke up in my apartment covered with blood. Dad listened throughout, but after a few minutes he got up and started pacing around the room, running his hands through his hair, going paler and paler. When I made it to the point when I had to talk about Mum and Craig, my voice broke. A few more minutes and we all could have burned alive, and that would have been my own fault.
‘This is unreal,’ Dad said after I told him everything. ‘You’re saying that he was talking about some sort of ‘master,’ someone else who was helping him?’
‘Yes, but he wasn’t sane. He kept mumbling to himself all the time. He was out of his mind.’
I let Dad gather his thoughts. I should never have gone to Jasper. Craig followed me there. He had his people everywhere.
‘Julia, why didn’t you tell me about this earlier? What if your mother, what if Mary—’
Dad didn’t finish, bringing his hands to his face. I was dying inside because he had no idea that Mum witnessed everything that happened. There was no way that the healers could cover all that happened to her with memory spells. She saw too much.
‘Mr. Taylor, your wife is awake. I just had a call from the other ward,’ said the nurse, standing in the door.
Dad was out of the room before I could stop him. He couldn’t see her like that. I had to tell him about what she saw. As soon as the healer left me alone, I tried to move, but my head spun. I couldn’t even imagine my mum’s reaction when she saw Dad.