Enlightened (Love and Light Series) (19 page)

~~~~~~~~~~~

She gazed into the bare branches of an enormous, old oak, digging bare fingers into the ragged bark. A few of last year’s leaves shivered on the limbs. Loti traced the pattern of the black tree against the gray sky and looked over her shoulder at Margarite and Mitch. She wanted to run back to Calisto’s house to find Wolf, but he was asleep. She could tell because the stinging had abated. Margarite said it was normal for a bonded pair to share certain feelings, but she had no idea how they could be bonding without blood exchange. The only way back to him was down this path. Did she want to go back to him? Without the buzzing in her spine, she thought maybe they should stay away from each other.
Wouldn’t that be better for both of us?
She rubbed her hand against her coat, staring at the gray clouds masking the sun rise.

“You both have done this?” Her voice trembled.

“Yes,” Margarite said.

Loti nodded, still staring at the sky. “And how do I know when to stop walking?”

“You’ll know,” Mitch said, her arms hugging herself.

“When this is done, I want a long, hot bath.” The three women grinned at each other.

As she stepped onto the trail, she wondered why in the hell she was doing this. It wasn’t much of a trail, barely discernible from the forest debris, but she placed one complicit boot in front of the other as if she wasn’t sure of the footing. She had a deep compulsion to cry, but moved out of its way. The urge died down without her participation, leaving her confused as she waded through a gelatinous doubt. Trust herself? How?

Loti blinked.
Where am I?
She turned in circles, bare trees and more bare trees as far as she could see. She looked for the path, and, yes, for what it was worth, she was still on it. She could only guess that the sun was past the meridian as the day stretched out under congested clouds. She cleared her throat and licked parched lips.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The sun set, Loti shivered in the dark. Unsteady, she fought the urge to sit down.
Why didn’t this trail cross a stream?
She had to get there.
Put one foot in front of the other
. An old Christmas song played in her head.
What is it? Something about Santa Claus and a winter warlock?
She stumbled and fell.

Her knee landed on a sharp rock. “Ow. Damn it.”

You’ll never get where you’re going...

Loti’s head snapped up.

If you don’t stand up.

She huddled on the forest floor, curled in a ball like an unborn child, twigs poking, pine needles sticking her, and an ache in her side. When she clenched both hands into stiff fists, they hurt.
Good
. It wasn’t freezing out, but it was close. She looked through a lattice work of bare branches at the black sky. Why had the trail never crossed a road or brought her anywhere?
Where am I going?
No one told her where to go or how to know when she got there.

Put one foot in front of the other.

She heard music, faint and fast.

Do you want to change your direction?

She pushed the cold ground away.

Your time of life is at hand.

“Put one foot in front of the other,” she mumbled.

How can you get where you’re going

She grabbed a sapling for support. “If you never get up on your feet.” Her voice now subdued.

Trumpets blasted in her head as the wind picked up, rattling the old leaves.

“Come on, there’s a good tail wind a-blowing,” she sang, louder now, throwing one hand to the sky. Looking for a trail through the maze of tree trunks and mountain laurel, Loti laughed, starting a coughing fit. The first raindrop hit her in the eye. Cold and rain.
Hypothermia, anyone?
She giggled. Keep
moving. You have to keep moving.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Wolf knocked on the decorative glass door. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he shifted onto his heels. The door opened, and he stilled himself as Katie Brown frowned.

“What took you so long to come see me?” Her light blues twinkled, and she threw her arms around his neck. He hugged her close, trying not to clear his throat as he drew away. Instead, he adjusted the sleeves of his leather jacket.

“Wolf.” Katie held the door open. He hesitated, scowling at Katie’s smirk. She touched a hand to her cheek, forming an “O” with her lips. “I forgot. I rescinded your invitation last time you were here, didn’t I?”

Katie waited with her hands clasped in front of her, a patient smile on her face. Wolf settled into his feet as he tucked his hands in his back pockets, adopting a bored expression. They stood that way for five minutes before Rachel came to the door. Her smile faltered as she looked from vampire to witch.

“What’s going on?”

Katie cleared her throat, adjusting the diamond stud in her ear, and Wolf leaned one hand on the door sill and crossed his black boots.

Rachel threw her hands up in the air with an exaggerated sigh. “Are you going to stand here all night acting like spoiled brats? I swear, you two.” She pushed the door open wide. “Wolf, would you please come in?” She gestured grandly into the house with one hand.

Wolf rolled his eyes.

“You can’t invite him into my house.” Katie chuckled.

“Fine. Whatever. I’ll go outside.” Rachel brushed passed her Nan and collapsed in the white rocker. “What’s the news on Loti?” She rocked.

Wolf straightened. “She’s on a vision quest—”

“What?” Rachel yelled. “You sent her out into the woods alone when someone’s after her? Are you nuts?”

Wolf clasped his hands behind his back, the corner of his mouth twitching once.

“What if Patrick—”

“We don’t know for sure it was Patrick,” Katie objected.

“I felt his energy signature, Nanny. You can’t fake it.”

“And you also felt death magic. That can mean . . . ” Katie’s voice quavered. “That can mean someone killed him and absorbed his magic. And since I can’t get through to him.”

Rachel dropped her head in her hands. “Either way, she’s in danger. How could you let her do this?” Rachel slapped her hands on the arms of the chair, rocked harder.

“I didn’t let anything, Rachel. She went willingly.”

“You could’ve stopped her.”

“Really?” He squatted down next to Rachel, holding the rocker still with one hand.

She screwed up her face and bucked in the chair to no avail.

“I’ve only known your friend for a few days, and even I figured out you don’t make Loti Dupree do anything she doesn’t want.”
She may question herself to distraction, but she makes up her own mind.

“He’s right, Rachel.” Katie drawled from the doorway. Her southern accent only emerged when she was tired or feigning interest.

Rachel sighed, standing up, her eyes downcast as the rain pelted the porch roof. “Can we go in the house, Nan? It’s cold and damp out here.”

“I’m fine.” Wolf maintained, rising from his squat in one fluid, boneless motion.

Rachel squeezed past her grandmother and pried the door knob out of her hand. “Please, Nan?” Her hazel eyes widened like a little girl begging for a treat.

Katie sighed, stepping out of the way, the lines on her face accentuated in the yellow porch light. She stuck a childish tongue out at Wolf. “Why do you always get your way?” She scowled.

“I don’t, Katie.”

She blinked in surprise at the subdued tone of his voice.

“Won’t you please come in, Wolf?” she said in her best southern hospitality voice.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Loti shivered as she stumbled in the dark. It had been raining hard for hours, and the trail was a mud monster sucking at her boots. She climbed and fumbled over slick rocks and slipped down into mud traps that slurped greedily. Every now and then she splashed into a deep puddle that soaked her socks and her pants up to her knees. She’d stopped twice, thinking she would let her aching back rest, but her legs grew numb so fast it scared her. She staggered on to keep the blood pumping. Rubbing a half-numb quad, she lifted a drenched foot out of another deep puddle and heard singing.

 That same song from a Christmas special clay-mation type show broke through the constant roar of the rain. A white warlock hovered in the sky above a young Kris Kringle with red hair, trapped in the branches of a monster tree. His face contorted in clay-mation horror.
But something happens
. Her teeth chattered.
The Warlock gets a train; Kris gives the Warlock a choo-choo train and it melts his frozen heart.

“Put one foot in front of the other,” Loti warbled into the rain.

The trees shrank and gave way to bare rock as she slugged along, trying to outpace the gloom. The rain slowed, and she lifted her face, stiff with cold, to the blackness. She rubbed at the stinging on the back of her neck, her breath puffing in clouds as she panted from the effort.
If this keeps up, I’ll freeze to death.
The woods felt mean, and shivering with the onset of hypothermia, Loti cried.

“I’m sorry, Gramom. I’m so sorry,” she blubbered to the bare rocks. “I don’t know why the apartment felt so scary. I don’t know why.” The sobs wrenched her throat and ribs. “Something was so wrong, so dark. The corners of the room were mean, and I don’t know why. I didn’t know why.”

The salty tears mixed with snot running down her upper lip, and she wiped at it with her soggy glove. Even Gortex will give up and let the wet in if left out in the rain long enough.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Rachel sipped hot tea at the kitchen table as Margarite placed a bowl of steaming oatmeal in front of her. Brown sugar and cinnamon melted on top. Rachel’s normally flippy hair clung to her head. She’d forgotten her hat in Nan’s car back at the welcome center. After Nan let Wolf in the house, they’d exchanged information about what happened at the shrine and the coven meeting. They’d seen the light from her house in Lewiston. And no one believed Patrick capable of harming Loti. Katie tried to call him and his family in Ireland for two days, but no one answered at his great uncle’s home, and Patrick wasn’t picking up his cell.

Wolf and Katie decided to talk to Calisto in person. Rachel sat in the back seat with her head resting against the cold glass while Wolf drove Katie’s blue sedan. No one said a word. Rachel’s mind filled with anxious thoughts about Loti, about her surrogate grandfather and the coven’s inability to scry anything. It was like someone had erected a magical Faraday cage around their attempts. The constant hum of energy wasn’t the typical background noise. Katie hoped with the help of Wolf and Calisto and the other vampires, they could augment their power. Maybe even the healers could help. The more power they could draw on, the better their chances were of breaking though the barrier.

Rachel peeked around the archway into the living room at the pair seated on the couch—the leather-clad vampire and the genteel, elderly professor in pearls and pastel. Nanny Brown was dry as a bone, having wrapped her short, graying blonde hair in a plastic rain scarf before putting her rain jacket over top.

“When will she get back?” Rachel fingered her tea mug.

“I don’t know.” With tired eyes, Margarite sat down across from Rachel. “Maybe four days. It’s been almost 24 hours since she left.” She tilted her head to look at Wolf in the living room. “It’s been hard on Wolf,” she said, stirring the cinnamon into her oatmeal.

“And what’s up with that? How’d he get so attached in such a short time?”

Margarite swallowed a spoonful of oatmeal. “They’re bonding, Rachel.”

“She’s been off in the woods longer than he was with her—” Rachel stopped, Margarite’s words sinking in. “Did she, you know?” She narrowed her eyes.

Margarite picked up her mug, shaking her head. “No, she didn’t feed him. They haven’t exchanged blood.”

Rachel leaned back in her chair, lifting the front two legs off the ground and craned her neck to see Nanny and Wolf. “Then how in the hell can they be bonding?”

 “We don’t know. Something unusual is going on, but Calisto and Dayalananda have their theories. What do you know about Light Walkers or nunne’hi?” Margarite sipped her tea.