Wicked Betrayal

  I went inside at that point. They could hash it out.

  I greeted Scooby and went to my bedroom to grab a clean pair of jeans, a bra, panties and a t-shirt. From the hallway, I heard James and Peter bickering outside. I couldn’t help but smile. Sure, they were being snippy, but they were helping each other.

  It was a start.

  A steaming hot shower was exactly what I needed. I didn’t even twist the cold knob. Scorching water ran off my bruised arm and stomach. Huge knots had formed on the back of my head and forehead. Soap stung the open wound on my cheek.

  I still couldn’t believe Olivia tried to kill me.

  Hopefully, she wouldn’t try anything witchy with any of us again. The brain hemorrhage move was a low blow on my part, but at the time, I didn’t have a choice.

  That seemed to be the phrase of the week. I didn’t have a choice.

  Did I have to shoot Donovan off the platform? I had no idea a train was coming, but I should’ve expected it? Why didn’t I do something different? Maybe I could’ve used magic to lock the door? Heck, I shouldn’t have led us into that dead end equipment closet in the first place.

  And what about Olivia? Couldn’t I have handled that better? Sure, she tried to stab me in the head with a piece of glass, but I was better than Olivia. I wasn’t cruel or mean. Or was I?

  I was a witch. By definition, that meant I was evil, right? The mural of the Archangel Michael casting witches into Hell depicted me as evil. Was I the bad guy? I didn’t feel like it, but, then again, maybe I was. I killed Donovan. I hurt Olivia. I hurt Gabriel and Nora. Anne Marie fell off the Bell Tower, James killed his father and Peter killed Simon. All because of me. Maybe there was a valid reason why hunters didn’t let pure bloods live. Maybe we were all rotten.

  I placed my head against the smooth shower tile. Whatever the case, I wasn’t as bad as Liam. Or Olivia. Or Vanessa. I wouldn’t let myself cross that moral line. I lathered my hair and scrubbed my scalp. The new shampoo Emma bought smelled like strawberries.

  There was one bright light to my miserable afternoon. I’d almost forgotten the most important thing I learned today. Liam confirmed my suspicions. If I lived beyond my eighteenth birthday, I would be just as powerful as he was.

  James and Peter were right all along. Liam wasn’t invincible. We only had to find a way to beat him and make sure I lived at least a day or two beyond my eighteenth birthday.

  Then I would be as powerful as Liam and I could kill him once and for all.

  * * *

  “Does anybody want the last hamburger?” Peter leaned forward on the couch.

  I looked up from the spell book. “Really, Peter? Four burgers? Where does it all go?”

  Peter shrugged and grabbed the last hamburger from the plate on the coffee table. I had made eight of them for dinner. Emma and I each had one. James had two. And, apparently, Peter was eating four.

  “I can’t believe you’re not watching this game,” Peter said to James. “What’s wrong with you?”

  James was on the carpet reading his Grandpa Jonah’s journal. “Sorry, Peter. The Bruins game isn’t high on my priority list at the moment. Maybe next time. You know, when Liam isn’t trying to sacrifice your girlfriend.”

  Peter’s face flushed. “Don’t pretend like you’d watch the game under normal circumstances.” He squeezed my foot. “Lex, do you want me to look through one of those books for you?”

  I smiled. “Watch your game. I’m not having any luck anyways.”

  “Actually,” Emma said. “I think I found something.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Nodisafru Montanqui. To aid one from the induction of a spell.” Emma gave the spell book to Peter, who handed it to me.

  I glanced over the page. “I think this is it. Great work, mom.”

  “When are you going to do it?” James asked.

  I checked the ingredients. There were none. I only needed to recite the spell over the object. “Now. Why waste time?”

  “This will protect us from being spelled?” Peter asked. “I don’t have to worry about Olivia anymore?”

  “The spell transforms an ordinary object into a charm.” I pulled out my silver ‘R’ necklace. “As long as you have the charm, then you can’t be spelled by a witch. I’ll make them for all of you - Grandma Longfellow, my dad, your mom and Anne Marie. Maybe the Cooper twins and Sadie, too, if I can somehow sneak something on them that they’ll always carry.”

  “If I was wearing a charm, could Liam have levitated me?” Peter asked.

  “Yes. It’s only for spells performed on a person. Levitation isn’t a spell. It’s just magic. If you had a charm on, Olivia’s love potion wouldn’t have worked. Or Vanessa couldn’t have spelled my dad.”

  “Does it matter what type of object is used?” James asked.

  “No. But it has to be physically on you. Jewelry’s a good idea because you can wear it.”

  Peter made a face. “You want me to wear jewelry?”

  “Do you want Olivia to spell you again?”

  James pulled two rubber bands from his backpack. He threw one at Peter. “Keep it around your wrist.”

  Peter seemed to like that idea, but he didn’t say anything to James.

  “Mom, do you have a particular piece of jewelry you want me to use?”

  Emma went to her bedroom. She returned with an identical silver ‘R’ necklace.

  “I thought you didn’t have one,” I said.

  “Your grandmother made it for me years ago. At the time, I didn’t want anything to do with something that represented my family.” Emma clasped the pendant around her neck.

  “All right, let me see if I can do this.” I placed the rubber bands on the coffee table. My hands hovered over them and I recited the words from the spell book. “Nodisafru Montanqui. Inadictum Ceabeli. Mastal aleovech pinta.”

  The red and blue rubber bands lifted six inches off the table. They rotated clockwise four times and then fell from the air.

  “Neat,” Peter said.

  I handed back their respective rubber bands. “Keep these on at all times.”

  I breathed a little easier now that Peter and James had charms.

  Peter went to the kitchen and returned with a bag of frozen peas. “Time to ice again.” He pressed the cold pack against the bruise on my forehead.

  “Ah,” I said quietly.

  “It must have been one heck of a cat fight.”

  “You should’ve seen what Olivia looked like.”

  Peter inspected my bruise. “I should’ve taught you how to throw a punch.”

  “Because punches would have been useful in defending an aerial wastebasket assault.”

  The four of us watched the last period of the hockey game. Around ten thirty, Peter poked me in the ribs. I’d fallen asleep on the couch. Emma was already in bed. James was on the floor watching television.

  “You’re sleepy.” Peter lifted me to my feet. “Don’t get mad, but I’ve something to say. I wanted to talk to James alone, but I knew you’d eavesdrop anyways.”

  James stood up.

  “Peter….” I really didn’t want a fight.

  “I’m not starting anything. But I have a few things to say.”

  We stood in a triangle. The tension in the room rose.

  “I’m not going to pretend like I’m okay with you living here,” Peter said to James. “I hate it. I hate the idea of you sleeping under the same roof as her.”

  James opened his mouth, but Peter put his hand up.

  “Save it,” Peter said. “Lex says you’re in trouble and she’s concerned about you. I wish she wasn’t worried about you, but she is. She thinks she can protect you. It’s a pretty ridiculous situation, but apparently, there’s nothing we can do about it. But I don’t have to like it.”

  “I understand,” James said.

  “Lex also told me that you kissed her.”

  James set his jaw. “You should be happy to know she pulled away.”
r />   “I am happy,” Peter said. “But we’re back together. For the long haul. And if I find out you made another move on her, you won’t have to worry about that Gabriel guy.”

  James crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you done?”

  “Yes,” Peter said. “Well, almost.” He bent down and kissed me. It was a long thorough kiss. Peeing on my leg like a dog would’ve been a less territorial move than that kiss.

  “Night, Lex.” He extended his hand to James. “Now, I’m done.”

  James stared at Peter’s hand like it was a grenade. His dark eyes flickered up to Peter’s face and then back down to his hand.

  They shook.

  I went to bed after that shocked by the turn of the day’s events. Peter and James in a truce. I closed my bedroom door and went to sleep without bothering to get beneath the covers.

  I hadn’t had a nightmare since the firefly and raven dream over two and a half months ago. I’d been waiting for the next one to come. What I wasn’t expecting was that Liam would be the star.

  CHAPTER 18

  My dream was crystal clear. The canals running through the crowded city told me I was in Venice, Italy. Liam was in a room dressing for a night out. He looked the same. Same age. Same striking green eyes. His blonde hair was longer, but that was the only difference. That and the style of his clothes. He had on a suit, of course, but it was different. Older.

  Gas lanterns and candles were the only source of light in the room. No power outlets. No television. No electricity.

  We were in the past. How far, I wasn’t sure.

  Liam reached inside his shirt. A brass key dangled from a necklace. He lowered himself to the floor and unlocked a safe beneath the table. His arm extended deep inside the vault. He retrieved a worn leather bag tied with strings. Liam patted the sack, satisfied with its contents, and placed the bag in the interior breast pocket of his suit.

  Liam left his room and boarded an awaiting carriage outside the hotel’s door. The driver held a dirty rag over his nose and mouth. He tipped his hat at Liam. Most of the people on the street covered their mouths and noses with some type of fabric. Everyone except for Liam.

  The carriage raced through the narrow streets of Venice. The Venetian residents avoided large piles of garbage near the curb. The carriage slowed at an intersection. The piles weren’t garbage.

  They were bodies.

  Hundreds of bodies covered in thin shrouds. The deceased were stacked in heaps on the side of the road. Some of the piles were so high that they overflowed onto the cobblestone. Arms, legs and heads grotesquely poked out from beneath the sheets. Bubbled, puss-filled sores covered gray skin.

  We were in Venice during the Bubonic Plague.

  The carriage, oblivious to the surrounding death, stopped in front of a massive building. Light poured from every window. Dozens of carriages lined the street in front of the biggest party in town. Liam strode up the front steps and waltzed inside.

  Women wore elaborate gowns. Men in suits. Decorated masks hid their faces. Liam slithered through the Masquerade Ball looking to his right and left.

  He crossed the span of the dance floor to a staircase covered in red velvet carpeting. He stood on the third step and glanced around. Green eyes narrowed. He descended the stairs and rushed to the east side of the ballroom.

  A woman with long black curls and a black satin dress smiled at Liam from behind a silver butterfly mask. She lowered the mask and the grin grew. She had light olive skin and whiskey colored eyes.

  Without breaking his stride, he encircled his hands around her waist and kissed her on the cheek. A bright pink flush rose from her neck to her face.

  I grew insanely curious of this woman.

  They danced and laughed all night, never letting go of each other. He looked happy. Charming. Normal. It was difficult to comprehend Liam as anything but a murderous killer.

  As the crowd thinned and the sun rose, Liam and the woman left the party. They walked a few blocks and boarded a gondola. The woman pointed to the stars in the sky and Liam explained the constellations.

  The gondola docked at a pier on the other side of town. Liam helped the woman out of the boat. They walked hand in hand to a hotel. Inside their room, they laughed and talked until the mood in the room changed. Liam passionately kissed the woman on the lips. He raised his arm behind her back and the lanterns and candles extinguished.

  Later, as Liam slept peacefully in the arms of the woman, her eyes snapped open. She inched away from his embrace. Liam’s chest rose and fell with each breath. The woman tip-toed to Liam’s pile of clothes on the floor. She kneeled down and pulled out the leather sack.

  Liam stirred.

  The woman froze. He rolled onto his side, his mouth slightly open in deep sleep. The woman grabbed her discarded dress and hurried out of the room with Liam’s bag clutched tightly to her chest.

  Everything went black.

  Liam destroyed the hotel room. Paintings and chairs levitated out the window and crashed to the street below. Liam threw the lantern on the floor. The glass shattered and flames rode up the curtains.

  Liam placed one foot on the window ledge and jumped. He landed gracefully on his feet three stories below and disappeared into an alleyway.

  Blackness.

  We were no longer in Venice, but in a rural area. The sun was high in the cloudless sky. The woman, wearing the same black gown that she’d worn at the Masquerade Ball, frantically ran up a grassy hill. A flash of black light whizzed by her head. An olive tree crashed to the ground in front of her.

  She hiked up her dress and bolted in the opposite direction. Liam strolled up the hill. He wasn’t smiling. There was no longer any trace of devotion to this woman. Only hate. And rage.

  The woman stumbled over a branch. Liam raised his arm and the woman’s body swung around to face him. She struggled against his magic. Liam stepped over the damaged olive tree and stood in front of the woman.

  His hand squeezed her throat. “Where is it?”

  “Burn in Hell, Liam.”

  “Where is it?”

  She closed her eyes, readying herself for what was coming.

  “WHERE IS IT?!?” The blue sky darkened. Dozens of bolts of lightning struck the ground around them. A fierce wind blew the woman’s hair and dress.

  She opened her eyes. “You will never find it.”

  Liam roared.

  The woman’s body convulsed as a hole formed in the center of her stomach. She screamed in agony.

  Her body withered as the fire spread. Flames flickered from the hole and melted over her black satin dress. She whimpered when the fire reached her face. Her eyes rolled back into her head and her body went limp.

  Liam walked away, never once looking back at the woman he most certainly loved.

  Everything went black again.

  I saw several scenes of Liam in quick succession. Paris during the Renaissance. At a sugar plantation in the Caribbean. In the jungle. London. Colonial America. The Australian Outback. A bar in Mexico. In Oregon’s redwood forests. Chicago. A Buddhist temple in Hong Kong.

  And then blackness.

  My eyes popped open. The dream was fresh. Every detail seared into my memory. Were these dreams premonitions? Warnings?

  I relived Megan Lackey’s death. Had a glimpse of William’s attack in the Hazel Cove Cemetery. Saw Ethan’s tombstone. Received a warning from the ravens with the horrible red eyes. Heard the bell toll at Hawthorne.

  I’d made the mistake of ignoring my dreams before. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again. My feet were on the carpet before I was fully awake. I darted out of my bedroom, through the living room, dining room and kitchen to the small back sunroom that James now used as a bedroom.

  The lights were off, but my eyes had adjusted enough to make out his form on the couch. “James! James, wake up!” I fell to my knees and shook his arm.

  James sprang to a sitting position. “What’s wrong?”

  “I think we caug
ht a break.”

  “What?” He switched on the lamp. Soft light flooded the room. He rubbed his eyes. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I had a dream.” My cheeks lifted into a smile.

  “Okay.”

  “One of those dreams that hint at what’s going to happen in the future,” I said.

  James patted the cushion next to him.

  “But this dream was different. It wasn’t a warning of the future, but a glimpse into the past. Liam’s past. About eight hundred years ago, actually.”

  James’ dark eyebrows shot to his brow line. “What did you see?”

  “Do you remember Gamma’s notes on Liam? He was all over the globe, but he wasn’t traveling. He was searching for something.”

  “For what?”

  I shook my head. “I’m not sure yet. Something that fits inside a small sack. Maybe three inches by two inches. It was stolen from him in Venice during the Bubonic Plague.”

  “Wow.”

  “James, he’s been looking for this… thing, whatever it is, for over eight hundred years. Searching the globe. Continent to continent.”

  “It has to be important.”

  “If someone is that desperate for something, then they must have a weakness. We have to figure out what he’s looking for.”

  CHAPTER 19

  “Ipswich is creepy,” Emma said.

  “As opposed to Hazel Cove, where it’s crawling with witches and hunters.” I parked in front of Grandma Longfellow’s three-story mustard colored house. It was Tuesday, my first official day of suspension. It felt strange to be out in the middle of a school day. But hey, if Mrs. Pratt wanted to suspend me, I wasn’t going to sit in my room and mope around all day. I had stuff to do.

  “What a depressing neighborhood.” Emma bit her nails.

  “Please be nice,” I said.

  “I never thought I’d see the day when the Longfellow wealth was gone.”

  I shook my head. “It’s not. Trust me.”

  “Then why’s the house so run down?”