Birth of Jaiden (28 page)

She opened her fist to
reveal a flowing blue ball of sizzling energy sitting on her
palm.

Damn it
, Levine thought, but without her
vampire speed, she was too slow. Corrine cocked back her arm and
threw it at her.

Levine cursed as the ball
struck Stewart’s chest and knocked her to her knees.

“
You Bitch
!” Levine screeched.

Immediately, Corrine threw
another ball of energy, which connected with Stewart’s body in the
same spot as the last.

Levine struggled to get
up. “All you’re doing is killing your friend.”

“
He would gladly die if it
meant taking you down with him.” She threw another.

Suddenly, they heard a loud
thumping on the stairs. Levine stayed on her knees, knowing the
rest of the council members were coming.
I am far from
defeated
,
she told herself.

“
Corrine
, what’s going on?” Alex anxiously
asked.

Levine watched as the
entire council rushed down the stairs and formed a semi-circle
around them. Still, she didn’t move. They all wore confused
expressions because they did not know it was she inside of
Stewart’s body.

Corrine answered Alex.
“That,” she pointed at Levine, “is not Stewart.”

Levine felt a wicked
pleasure in hearing their gasps of surprise. She raised her hands
up into the air and closed her eyes to focus and blend her own
magic with all of the energy inside the body she
possessed.

“
Put your hands down!”
Damion shouted.

“
Never!” Levine
screamed.

The crystals on the
chandelier above Deanna jingled. Surprised, Deanna looked up. Then,
without any further warning, the chandelier came loose from the
ceiling and crashed down onto her. Electricity sparked and popped
out of the wires which had been connected to the
chandelier.

“
Deanna
!” Victoria moved as quickly as she
could to Deanna’s body which lay unconscious beneath the broken
glass.

Levine swung her arms
around in circles above her head. Her eyes still closed, she could
hear the continued popping and breaking of glass combined with the
screams of the frightened council members.

“
Everybody move!” someone
yelled.

“
The whole house is like
this,” someone else hollered.

When Levine opened her
eyes again, she saw with great pleasure what she had created. Every
light within sight had burst and sparks dripped out of the wires.
The council members were running every which way, trying to dodge
the electric rain.

She stood, intending to
make her escape, but was stopped by Corrine who rushed forward and
grabbed Stewart’s body by the arms.

“
You will stop this!”
Corrine yelled at the top of her lungs.

“
No! I will not; you will
be the one to stop it when you give me the child back! Now let me
go!”

Corrine was inhumanly
strong but Levine managed to get both palms flat against Corrine’s
chest. She pushed. Corrine’s body lit up the entire room as she
flew backward.

Levine smiled when Corrine
landed unconscious about ten feet away from her.
Sister, you will
never win against me
, she said to herself and couldn’t help but laugh out loud
as she watched her own sister convulsing on the floor.

Several of the council
members advanced on her. Victoria was still crouched over Deanna
and Danielle rushed to attend to Corrine.

Jeremiah stepped forward
and started a spell with words she couldn’t hear. But, he was
interrupted when the door behind her burst open and Michael charged
into the house with about ten of his slayers in tow.

“
Get him!” Alex yelled at
them.

“
Noooo!” Levine screamed
and energy radiated off of her as her anger grew more
intense.

Screaming filled the room
as more sparks erupted from the loose wires and sockets everywhere
in the house. All of the windows suddenly imploded. Shattered glass
blew inward on a magical wind and everything running on electricity
exploded.

My god, this young man has more
power than I expected
, she thought as she bolted for the doorway and
left most of the council cowering in the electric storm.

Once outside, she almost
stopped as the sunlight beat down on the mortal body she had
possessed. It was hot! She wanted to look around and see what was
around her in the daylight. When she saw the slayers emerging from
their trucks, however, she continued to run.

The slayers did not attack
her.
They
don’t know who I am
. She laughed out loud as she yanked open the driver’s door
of one of the hummers and praised herself for noting that Damion
had left the keys in the ignition when they had arrived.

Danielle and Michael ran
toward her, yelling at the slayers and pointing at her. The slayers
behind Michael shot several rounds from some weird type of guns
which spattered the hummer with holes. Victoria stood on the porch
with Jeremiah with her hands lifted, gathering energy for a spell.
And Alex, along with Chris, stood helplessly inside the doorway
away from the sunlight.

She turned the key and
peeled out of the driveway just as Victoria launched her missile of
magic and missed the hummer by mere inches. When she glanced back,
she saw them rushing to their respective vehicles; she also saw a
tiny movement from inside the rear of the hummer, under a bunch of
blankets. Stewart’s body had just enough power left to throw a
little zap back there, just to be safe.

Then, she sped forward
over the dirt road and drove straight over any humps and holes the
road offered up. She knew they were right behind her and they would
catch her if she didn’t do something quickly.

Completely out of clever
ideas, Levine turned sharply and plowed into the woods. She scanned
the forest ahead of her and saw it was covered with tiny thin trees
and stumps everywhere. There were broken branches and piles of
brush scattered all over as well. So she slowly maneuvered over the
trees and around the brush piles and stumps and hoped they had not
seen the spot where she had turned.

“
Mmmm,” she heard a voice
in the back.

What
! She slammed on the brakes and
brought the hummer to a premature stop. Whoever was hidden back
there smashed against the back of her seat and then rolled backward
against the rear door of the hummer.

Who the hell is
that
? Levine
wondered as she opened her door. She stomped through the brush to
the rear of the hummer, yanked open the door and snatched the
blanket off of the stowaway.

“
Well, well, if it isn’t
the very one I was looking for. What luck!” Levine shrieked with
joy.

Isabella stared up at her
with fear in her eyes. She was still holding Jaiden, who was sound
asleep due to the sleeping spell, firmly against her. She trembled,
and with a shaky voice asked Levine, “You’re not Stewart, are
you?”

Levine grabbed her by the
hair and zapped her.

“
No, I’m not,” she said as
Isabella’s body thumped down again.

I wonder how much of that her
body can take
, Levine thought as she reached down, took the spellbound
baby out of Isabella’s arms and carried her to the front
seat.

Damn it, I’m going to have to
take both of them.
She knew Isabella could take the baby without actually
touching her so she either had to keep her imprisoned, or kill
her.

When I get home, I will drink
you dry
, she
silently told Isabella as she drove the hummer as far into the
woods as she could.

30

“
Nothing,” Damion told
Alex when the people who had searched for Levine showed
up.

“
We
need
to find them,” Alex replied.

“
I know that but we don’t even
know if she
has
Isabella and Jaiden.”

Alex paced the glass laden
floors. “There is no other explanation. Isabella would have shown
up by now, or at least contacted us.”

He knew that he owed
Damion an apology; he had been right about Stewart not being
himself.

“
Don’t even worry about
it,” Damion told Alex.

Alex sighed. It was
useless to try to keep everyone out of his head.

Corrine showed up in the
doorway, holding her arm across her bandaged chest. Alex was
totally impressed that someone could survive an electric shock like
she had.

“
I need everyone to come
and sit down in the living room, please,” she told them, and then
turned away.

Alex looked at Damion and
they both shrugged before they followed her into the living room.
Everyone, except the slayers, who were outside, had found a seat
somewhere.

Deanna lounged on the love
seat with her feet up on the sides. She had bandages everywhere
from the chandelier. Alex had personally watched Jeremiah remove
several large shards of glass from Deanna’s upper body. She was
pretty lucky to have so few injuries.

When the windows had
imploded, they had all gotten injured, but Deanna and Corrine were
by far the worst off. The slayers were all kicking themselves for
not having noticed what had happened but Damion and Corrine had
assured them that it was ok.

Corrine cleared her throat.
“Ok. So by now you all must realize Stewart’s body has been taken
over by Levine.” She hung her head. “What you
don’t
know is that Levine is my
sister.”

Alex gasped.
Her
sister
.

Corrine continued, “Many,
many years ago, she was a good and powerful witch like me but then
she was bitten by Malcolm and became one of our greatest
enemies.”

Alex listened
closely.

“
Levine is extremely
powerful and when she was bitten, it created a new kind of vampire.
Even more powerful than any witch, more powerful than Malcolm and
more powerful than maybe even she knows. She is one of the only
beings I know of who is able to possess a human being, aside from
spirits, that is.”

Corrine and Levine were
sisters. Alex couldn’t believe it.

“
I am afraid we need to be
more concerned about Levine having Isabella and Jaiden than
Malcolm; Malcolm is a fool and a control freak but Levine is pure
evil. She will kill Isabella in an instant.”

Alex spoke up. “What about
Jaiden?”

“
I don’t think we need to
worry about Jaiden; they need her,” she answered.

“
They
need
her? I thought they wanted to kill her,”
he said.

“
Ok then, on to the next
piece of this puzzle.” She went to the massive bookshelf which held
huge, old, almost decaying books. “This,” she pulled a large book
with a stone cover off the shelf, “is the lock.”

“
Excuse me.” Alex didn’t
know what she was talking about.

“
How many times have you
heard someone tell you that this child is the key? Well, she truly
is the key. And this book,” she held it up, “is the
lock.”

“
It couldn’t be,” Danielle
breathed, bringing her hands to her mouth.

Alex watched Damion creep
toward the coffee table where Corrine set the book down. He reached
out and moved his hands across the gray stone.

He looked up at Corrine.
“Liber Daemonorum?”

Corrine nodded.

Confused, Alex asked,
“What does that mean?”

“
It’s Latin for ‘The Book
of Demons’.”

“
Where did you get this?”
Damion asked her.

“
Oh,” she waved her hand
in the air and then cringed from the pain in her chest, “I’ve had
it forever; the council members long before you gave it to
me.”

Alex and a few others
gathered around the book. The cover bore a sunken hand print in the
center and what looked to Alex like a tribal design covered the
entire area around the hand.

“
What is this?” Alex
asked.

Corrine answered softly,
“This book holds demons captive. Many centuries ago, when the worst
of the Devil’s dark angels attacked, the elders of the very first
great council fought them and they won. However, they could not
destroy the demons; but, they did find a way to keep them confined
for eternity.” She looked at Alex. “Or until someone lets them
out.”

Alex was confused. “How is
this,” he motioned toward the book, “a piece of the
puzzle?”

“
The legend says that only
one hand shall fit; a child will be born who will possess the power
to reveal the secrets that are hidden within the book. A child who
will have to choose from the sides of good and evil, for she will
be born more powerful than any creature that roams this earth. If
she chooses evil, and follows the path that this book will take
her,” Corrine paused and took a deep breath, “then she will have
control of the devil’s army, the demons that have been kept captive
for so long. They will be hers to rule.”