The Complete Spellbound Trilogy Bundle

She returned her attention to Nicholas. “Thank you for stopping by. I’ll take it from here and let you know what we decide to do,” she said to him, as if the rest of us weren’t even in the room.

  Nicholas looked at Ana squarely. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to be allowed to stay while you discuss this. I think it involves all of us, and I don’t want to leave here until I am confident we’ve found a solution.”

  Ana met his eyes for several long moments before she responded. “Very well,” she said, as though the idea did not entirely appeal to her. She turned to us. I took a deep breath and tried to relax. I realized I’d been holding my breath during her tense exchange with Nicholas, and I didn’t want to appear too anxious. Again I felt his penetrating eyes on me, but I kept my focus firmly on Ana.

  “Sophie, Lily—your parents will be here shortly. Others will be arriving soon as well, so we can decide the best course of action to take. You’ve all been put in grave danger, and naturally, that has us very concerned.” Ana’s eyes were steely.

  “But thanks to Nicholas, I’m okay,” I said pointedly.

  “Yes—we both owe him an enormous debt of gratitude. I’ve already conveyed my deepest appreciation for what he did for you…for us.” She glanced over to Nicholas with a grateful expression.

  “But,” she continued, turning back to us, “that doesn’t change our present circumstances. There is a Hunter who knows about Calista, and in all likelihood is aware of Sophie and Lily as well. While this particular one may be neutralized, where there is one there are apt to be more. We don’t know how many others have been made aware of your existence.”

  “What do you mean by neutralized?” I asked, shifting my gaze from Ana to Nicholas. I couldn’t read his expression, and the only emotions I felt from him were cold and hard.

  The flutter of panic in my chest was growing.

  “May I?” Nicholas asked Ana politely. She nodded her assent.

  He looked at where Sophie, Lily and I were sitting on the edges of our seats, and while he addressed all of us, I felt his words were directed at me specifically.

  “Last night, after I left you, I returned to where I’d last seen the Hunter.” He glanced at me before correcting himself. “Justin.” He said the name with distaste. “I stayed hidden outside his house, waiting to see if he was going to make another move. This morning when I saw him head in this direction, I confronted him down by the pier. That’s when I came here to see Ana. ”

  My gasp was audible, and I brought a hand to my throat. The same throat Justin had throttled mercilessly only hours earlier. “You didn’t… kill him?” I whispered.

  Nicholas stared at me for a moment, clearly disturbed by my concern.

  “No,” he answered evenly. “I didn’t need to.”

  “What do you mean by that?” I gripped the side of my seat.

  Nicholas sighed, seeming to struggle to find the right words. “When Justin arrived at the pier, I stayed close to him, ready to stop him at the slightest hint of aggression or of an attack. Although…” His voice drifted off for a moment, and then he continued. “Although he began coming this way, he was drastically different than he’d been last night. He seemed broken… defeated…depressed. Naturally, I stopped him anyway. I wasn’t about to let him get within two miles of you. He gave up without a fight.”

  “What did you do to him?” My eyes bulged so wide, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they had fallen on the floor.

  But Nicholas’s eyes were hard and cold. “Nothing. I told him to stop. Some words were exchanged. But he simply asked me to give you this…” He held up a piece of crumpled paper. “He said he had tried to come talk to you last night, but the guards frightened him away. He wanted to leave this some place where you’d find it.”

  “What does it say?” I asked, eagerly reaching for the note.

  He exchanged a glance with Ana, who nodded slightly, then reluctantly handed me the paper. Lily and Sophie’s words echoed through my head, demanding to hear the letter as well. I read silently, projecting my thoughts outwards to them.

  Calista-

  By the time you get this, I’ll be gone and no longer be a danger to you or anyone else. What happened…when this thing took over me…it was like I was outside my body watching it happen. I couldn’t stop it. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. I had no control, and I’ve never been so scared in my life. Scared what I was doing to you. Terrified I couldn’t stop it. My dad told me what we are. It never affected him, but my grandfather had warned him it might be passed onto me. My dad never told me.

  I am SO SORRY. That sounds so pathetic. Sorry doesn’t begin to cover it. I can’t live like this— as a monster. I just know I can’t. Knowing that this awful THING is inside me waiting to take over at any time…I will make it die with me. I KNOW that you are a good person. I know how mean Savannah was to you and still you saved her that night. I know that. That means that I am the evil one. A sick monster doomed to kill the girl I love.

  Yes. I love you. I have since the first time I saw you.

  I don’t expect you to ever be able to forgive me. I just hope that someday in the future, long after I am gone, you won’t hate me as much as I hate myself. But I won’t blame you if you do.

  Your friend,

  Justin.

  Sophie let out a small gasp, and Lily sighed. I re-read the letter three times before I tearfully set it down.

  “He’s going to kill himself. Because of me,” I whispered, my hands trembling.

  “Not because of you, because of himself,” Nicholas said.

  His hard tone made me cringe, and my eyes darted around the room in disbelief. “And everybody is just okay with that?”

  Lily and Sophie shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Even Ana looked saddened. “It’s either him or you, Calista,” she said in a subdued voice. “It’s a cruel fate he’s been cursed with. But the fact remains, you and your friends are in mortal danger as long as he is alive. Nothing can change that now.”

  I wiped away the angry tears streaming down my cheek. “There has to be something we can do,” I argued. “This can’t be it. I don’t know how I can live with myself knowing—”

  “It might already be too late,” Lily said quietly.

  I paused. Somehow, I knew it wasn’t. I had such strong Empath with Justin. He was too far away for me to feel anything now, but I knew I would’ve felt something if he’d already died.

  An idea flashed into my head. I jumped to my feet, startling the others.

  “The Looking Stone! I can find him there! Ana, please help me find him so we can stop him!” I pleaded.

  She remained seated, her expression blank. “And then what? If you find him, and if he is still alive, he will try again to kill you, or tell others about you.”

  I racked my mind, desperate to come up with a solution to this impossible situation. I couldn’t just let Justin die! He wasn’t some evil creature…he’d been cursed, and it wasn’t his fault!

  ...And he loved me. Evil monsters don’t love...

  I slowly sat back down, unable and unwilling to accept the inevitable outcome. “He’s going to kill himself rather than hurt me. Doesn’t that say something? Doesn’t that mean anything to anyone?” I choked through a sob.

  Sophie and Lily remained silent, staring at the floor. Ana looked torn between wanting to protect me from the hurt I felt now, and the harm Justin would surely inflict if he had the chance. Nicholas seemed pained, but I was unable to read his feelings. No one said anything. “It is a cruel fate that he’s been cursed with,” Ana had remarked. How true that was!

  Suddenly, my mind sensed the glimmer of another idea.

  Justin had been cursed. And curses could be reversed. Undone.

  “Ana,” I began slowly, “remember what you told me about the Witch-Hunters that day?

  She pressed her lips together, and folded her hands in her dainty lap. “I remember telling you there was much we didn’t know about them, we have little—”

/>   “You said that they’d been cursed by the Gypsies.”

  “Well, yes…that’s what the legends say. But we don’t know if—”

  “And you said the curse could be lifted by a Gypsy elder.” I held my breath. It felt like my only chance, and we were running out of time.

  “I said a Gypsy curse could only be removed by one of their own. Presumably an elder—yes. But I didn’t say they would remove it. This is a hundreds-year-old curse. They may not know how to do it even if they wanted to.”

  “But it’s worth a try, isn’t it? See if somehow they could remove it and help him?” I asked desperately. But even I knew how implausible it sounded.

  Nicholas shot me look of consternation, clearly troubled by my blind determination to save Justin. Granted, Justin had tried to kill me, and would do it again, given the opportunity. But he was my friend, and I wasn’t about to give up on him now. I’d spent most of my life not having any friends, and I wasn’t about to lose a good one like Justin over some stupid, ancient curse!

  “And think about it,” I continued, gathering steam for my insane argument. “Even you said, Ana, where there is one Hunter there are more. So are we supposed to kill all of them? Certainly they won’t all be like Justin and offer to commit suicide rather than harm us. What if there was some way to have the curse removed from the others, too? Really, are we supposed to be afraid our whole lives and just hide? Maybe the Gypsies today…maybe they’ve changed. Maybe they’d be willing to try—”

  “Calista,” Ana sighed. “I wish it were that easy. Really I do. But there are some things that simply cannot be undone. You cannot un-ring a bell once it has been rung.”

  Nicholas caught my eyes and stared at me long and hard. I couldn’t tell if he was angry with me…if he thought I was crazy. All I felt was coldness.

  My heart sank. I shuddered and averted my gaze. No one was even willing to try! They seemed okay with just letting Justin die, and letting the Hunters rule our lives with fear.

  Nicholas stood up, and for a quick second I feared he was going to leave. He walked to the other side of the room and stared out the glass wall that looked over the ocean, absently tapping his hand against the pane.

  “There may be something we can try,” he murmured, still facing away from us. “There’s a chance…a small one. It’d be very risky. Highly dangerous. I can’t make any promises.”

  I thought my heart was going to fly right out of my chest. He didn’t think I was crazy! But Ana’s eyes narrowed. “What, exactly, do you have in mind?” she asked tersely.

  “I might know someone who can help. But I’d need to find him first, and that could take some time.” His voice sounded flat.

  “We don’t have time!” I shouted. “For all we know Justin is putting bullets in a gun right now, or…” My voice trailed off. What if we were too late? All this sitting around talking, when we needed to be finding him and stopping him from doing something that could never be undone with any amount of magic.

  Nicholas turned around, and again, I was taken aback by the look is his eyes. He seemed so much older and wiser than the rest of us. Even Ana. He exuded the same intense confidence I’d admired that first day on the beach…an impermeable aura of infinite strength.

  “In the meantime,” he continued, ignoring my outburst, “We will find him and I will put him somewhere safe…a place where he cannot hurt anyone, including himself.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Ana said. “The others are on their way. We should meet with them and see what they feel is best.”

  “Ana, WE DON’T HAVE TIME!” I exploded. I turned to Nicholas, “Do you mean it? Do you really think there’s something you can do to help him?”

  His face may as well have been carved from steel. “I think there might be a small chance,” he repeated. “But you need to know that if it fails—I will kill him, or let him kill himself. I’m sorry, but he cannot live as he is. I won’t allow it. But I will try to help him. And right now it’s the only chance he has.”

  “Oh, thank you!” I flew over to him and threw my arms around his neck. But instead of hugging me back, he just patted robotically… distant and unfeeling.

  I pulled away, stung by his indifference. Nicholas had changed. How different he felt to me now…like last night had never happened…as if we were strangers making some sort of business arrangement.

  Ana’s voice rang out. “I’m sorry, but I really need to know what you are planning to do. This is my granddaughter’s life we are talking about, and I do not wish to risk anything—”

  Nicholas stepped around me, leaving me hurt and confused. “I know someone who may know something about ancient Gypsy magics. Someone far away from here, whom I haven’t seen in a very long time. I don’t know if he’s even alive, or how long it’ll take me to find him if he is. But I’ll try. If I’m successful, then I’ll bring Justin to him. Maybe, just maybe, he’ll know some way to break or remove the curse. Again, I am making no promises...just that I will try.”

  “Please,” I whispered, my head lowered.

  “Where could you take him that is safe?” Lily asked, breaking her silence at last.

  “Far away from here. On the other side of the country. I know it’ll be safe, and there aren’t any people nearby. He won’t be able to escape once I take him there.”

  “You’ll shimmer him?” Sophie asked. “What if he fights you? Or tries to escape?”

  “Then he will die,” Nicholas replied flatly.

  A shiver ran up my spine at his heartless words. But deep down I knew he was right. This was our only choice, and if Justin somehow tried to sabotage it, then we had no other option.

  “We need to find him now,” I said, heading toward the door.

  Ana remained seated and looked at Nicholas, her face grave. “You promise to take him far from here where he will be unable to get at them?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he replied. “That is the one thing I can promise you. Either that or he will die. There is no third option.”

  I cringed. I wished he would stop saying that!

  “Come on,” I said again, and this time Ana rose slowly to her feet. Sophie and Lily started to follow, but Ana told them to remain where they were. Only she, Nicholas and I were going to the third-floor room.

  *****

  We gathered around the large mahogany table in the middle of the room. Ana tapped it with her fingers while muttering something under her breath, and instantly the large crystal slab appeared.

  “Okay, now what do we do?” I asked her.

  “You need to clear your mind. Block out everything except the object you want to see. Visualize and establish a connection. Focus,” she instructed.

  I took several deep breaths and slowly raised my hands, running my fingers over the opaque block the way I’d seen her do it. Instantly, it glowed bright red, and then gradually faded to fluorescent orange. Finally, it became a faint, clear pink.

  “Focus,” Ana repeated. “Block out your anger, worries, anxiety…anything that prevents you from seeing. Think of a happy memory with him.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to do what she said, but time and time again, my emotions got in the way. Every second lost brought Justin closer to his death. I forced myself to take deep breaths, stay calm, and keep trying. But each time I looked, there was nothing there. The block remained pink...and I could only think of Nicholas.

  “I can’t do it,” I cried after several tries. “Maybe I’m doing something wrong.”

  “Maybe it’s me,” Nicholas said. “It’s possible that me standing here is stopping you from being able to connect with him. I’ll go to the other side of the room and see if that helps.”

  Ana looked at us curiously, but said nothing. I had no idea why it would make any difference where Nicholas was standing—even if he was on another continent my mind would be flooded with his face...his touch...his sweet kisses...and wondering if that was gone forever.

  But I closed my eye
s and tried again. I forced myself to think only of Justin…his voice, his laughter, his crinkly sea-blue eyes, the way his blond hair always fell in his face, what he looked like when angling for the perfect camera shot, walking down the beach carrying his surfboard under his arms…

  Slowly I opened my eyes and looked again. At first, I thought it was just my imagination because the picture was so hazy. But as I stared unblinkingly at the crystal, an image began to form. It became larger and more focused, and there was no mistaking that I was seeing Justin right now.

  “I have something,” I gasped, afraid to avert my eyes even the slightest bit. “I can see him.”

  “Good, good,” Ana murmured beside me. “What do you see?”

  I stared for several seconds at the blue ripples before they finally made sense. “Water…he’s in the water. He’s sitting on a surfboard looking down at the water. He’s crying…that’s all,” I said, panicked. That wouldn’t help us at all!

  “All right, that’s very good,” Ana said soothingly. “What else do you see?”

  I shook my head, keeping my eyes locked on the image before me. “That’s it! That’s all I can see! Blue water everywhere and he’s sitting on his board crying. He’s wearing shorts. Wait…it looks like he’s moving. Yes, he’s pushing himself in the water, he’s moving the board. That’s all I can see,” I said despondently.

  “That’s an excellent start,” Ana said. “Now, try backing up some. Get a bigger picture. Pull yourself away without breaking the connection.”

  I imagined myself looking through the lens of a camera and adjusting it for a wide, panoramic view. Slowly I pulled back farther and farther. His image became smaller and smaller, but he was still surrounded completely by blue water.

  Finally, when he was almost a speck, I spotted something in the lower left corner. It was the pier! But he was so far away. No one was remotely close to him. It was like he was trying to paddle out to the middle of the ocean.

  “Oh my God,” I said as my knees threatened to buckle beneath me.