Katrina, The Beginning (38 page)

“You’ve got to be kidding,”
I said.

“Those are the new standing
orders,” he said.

“Problem, ladies?” Thomas
asked.

“The guard says we can’t go
out without Watchers,” El making doe eyes at Thomas.

“Those are your father’s -
all your fathers’ - orders. Do you still want to go out?” he
asked.

We looked at each other and
shrugged.

“The moment’s passed now,”
Letta said.

“I say Watchers can come,”
Kate said.

She looked at me and gave
me a wink.

“If they can catch us,” I
said understanding her idea.

Kate and I leapt to the top
of the wall; El, Rosa and Letta followed; we all looked down at
poor Thomas; and then we turned and jumped down on the outside of
the castle wall.

I could hear him in the
background yelling for the others, as we ran into the woods, still
laughing.

“Now then, they’re going to
be mad, so let’s at least scan the area for safety’s sake,” I
said.

I took a deep breath,
sensing nothing out of the ordinary.

“Anything Kate?”

“No…oh, now I sense
Watchers riding perimeter.”

“I don’t feel right,
there’s something wrong at Mormont,” El said suddenly.

“We have to get to the
Watchers. Let’s go,” instantly in on guard.

It took only seconds to get
in front of them.

“Thomas!” El yelled. “Stop,
we need to go back! Something isn’t right at the
castle.”

“All right, let’s go,” he
said.

“What is it?” asked Simon
just then riding up Thomas.

“We don’t know. Let’s just
get back to the castle,” I ordered.

“What’s happened?” Gunter
said.

“Nothing, but something is
not right—we all felt it,” El said.

“Don’t send Watchers, but
someone should go back out to the perimeter with as low profile as
possible, to see if we can find out something,” I
directed.

“Done,” he said and ordered
them all back leaving us to get back as we had arrived – on
foot

“That was really weird,”
said Letta as we came through the gate.

“It’s nothing like we’ve
ever felt before,” Rosa said.

I looked at Kate, “I’m
going over to talk to Mother”.

“I’ll go with
you.”

“We should all go,” El
said, unwilling to be left out.

“She’s probably still in
the reception hall,” I said.

She wasn’t, so we went over
to her apartment.

“Mother, are you here?” I
called.

“I’m here; I’ll be right
out,” She called from the back room.

She didn’t look well when
she came into the front room.

“What’s wrong, Mother?”
Kate went to her, taking her arm.

“I don’t know, I just don’t
feel right,” she said looking puzzled.

“We felt it too,” Kate
confirmed.

“Someone out there agrees
with me; that you ARE the five prophesied and has just tested out
our defenses. Whoever it is, doesn’t want you to go through with
the ceremony,” Allwain said.

“Who are you?” Rosa
said.

“This is Allwain,” Mother
said. “He’s Lord of the Wizards, and he’s here to help
you.”

“I have produced amulets
and talismans to both protect you and alert you to danger. We won’t
be able to wait until Sunday for the ceremony; we’ll have to do it
tonight. I have prepared the chapel, so after dinner you must make
your way there. Do not let anyone else know where you are going.
Someone within these walls is a traitor,” he said.

We were all in shock.
Someone we knew was betraying us.
Who?

“Go back to your rooms,
meditate together, and heighten all you gifts, in preparation for
the ceremony. You must be prepared for anything and be able to
concentrate only on me tonight. I’ll see you at the chapel,” he
said.

Then he turned and went
back into his room, leaving us to gather ourselves and try to
absorb all he had told us.

“You girls stay together.
Dinner will be promptly at seven, and I’ll see you
then.”

We were in a state of
shock. We just looked at each other for a few minutes, not knowing
what to do next.

“All right, another day in
our dull lives. What now?” Rosa prodded.

“Let’s head back,” I said.
“No wait, I’ve got an idea. There are passageways under the entire
castle, and I think we need to go check them out. If I remember,
one leads to a chamber right underneath the chapel. Let’s meditate
there.”

“You’re sure about this
Kat? You don’t think the guard should check it out first?” Kate
expressed her double in my plan.

“Everyone has always told
me to trust my instincts, and this is what my instincts are telling
me to do.”

“Can we get there from here
without being seen?” wondered Letta.

“I think so. Kate, can you
see, is there an entrance nearby?” I asked her to use her
gift.

She closed her eyes for a
moment.

“Yes, down the stairs, at
end of the hall, just before you get outside,” she said.

“Do you see anything or
anyone inside the passageway?” I continued.

“No, but it’s dark; and
remember, there are things we can’t see,” she responded.

“We can handle the dark,”
reminded Letta. “Let’s go.”

We flew down the stairs and
at the bottom, turned into the hall. At the end, where Kate had
said the entrance would be, we faced a stone wall.

“It’s a stone wall, Kate,”
Rosa accused.

“I used to run around in
these passageways with Quinn when we were kids.”

I pushed on the right side
of the wall, and it instantly pivoted open. I let my vampire vision
adjust, so I could see. Stone stairs led us down into the
passageway. Letta was the last one in; she pushed the door shut
behind her, and then met us at the bottom of the stairs.

“I didn’t scent anything or
anyone in the passageways, let’s keep going. I know the chapel is
to the west, so it should be straight ahead.” I called over my
shoulder to them as I led the way.

After another fifty feet
the passageway opened up onto a large chamber. Most castles used
these passageways and chambers as safe havens, escape routes, and
storage areas. This chamber was large enough for about forty people
to sit comfortably on the floor, and I could see stairs at the far
end that must have led directly into the chapel.

“Remind me to make sure we
can get out that way,” I said pointing to the front
stairway.

“It’s a lot like the
dungeon,” shivered Kate, “damp, dark, and musty
smelling.”

“I can fix that,” Letta
said.

She stared at the floor in
the center of the room and a small fire appeared.

“That still amazes me every
time you do it,” I said to her, shaking my head.

“Let’s sit and hold hands,”
El said, as we sat around the fire.

After we got settled, we
closed our eyes and let the energy flow between us. We sat like
that for about thirty minutes. When I finally felt both peaceful
and renewed, I opened my eyes.

“I think we’re ready to
move on,” I announced.

El asked, “What should we
look for?”

“Let’s ask to see the one
that wants to do us harm,” suggested Rosa.

“I wonder if we really want
to know,” El said softly.

“We may not want to know,
but we have to,” I said. “We may be able to use whoever it is to
find the others. So concentrate and repeat to yourselves, ‘show me
the one who wants to do us harm .’ And no matter what we see, don’t
break the circle.”

Our grips tightened as we
concentrated harder and harder. Finally we started to see an image
began to form, slowly the cloudy figure was becoming
clear.

It was Eric.

“Nooo!”
I heard Kate moan, and she tried to pull away;
but I held her tight. We had to see. Eric was in his room,
seemingly asleep, moaned and then sat up abruptly in his bed. He
grabbed his head as if in extreme pain, seemed to recover after a
few seconds, and got out of bed. He looked strange, his eyes open
but lifeless. He left his room and wandered from building to
building, watching everyone. He saw us training, Damien and me
alone in the garden, he had hidden just in time to avoid being seen
by Gunter while watching us from the chapel and watched as Allwain
arrived; then he went back to his room, lay back down, and went
right back to sleep. The image faded away, and we opened our
eyes.

“Don’t tell me we were set
up,” El said, totally bereft.

Letta began to cry “These
monsters are responsible for the deaths of Gregor and
Cedrik.”

“This whole thing with Eric
- all we went through, the Volator, all those poor villagers - was
just part of a plan to get him close to us?” Rosa was
furious.

Kate was quietly
weeping.

“But what else could we do?
Yes, they used the Volator, the villagers, the ones they made sick,
and the ones they turned, but they still had to be dealt with,
didn’t they?” I continued. “Damien told me Luena’s gift was being
able to control weak minds. It’s my belief she must have been
controlling the leader of the Volator, and not just this
time.”

“And she’s controlling Eric
now.” Kate jumped up as she put the two things together.

“That’s why he can’t
remember anything and why I couldn’t help him,” El jumped up,
finally understanding why her gift hadn’t worked on
Eric.

Letta was frowning now,
trying to understand the complexity of what we were suggesting.
“You mean he doesn’t know?”

I could see the look of
hope in everyone’s eyes, especially Kate’s.

“No, I don’t think he
does,” I shook my head.

“Now the trick will be to
keep tonight a secret without letting on we know about Luena’s
possession of Eric,” Rosa said.

“Luena would know the
ceremony is always performed on the last night of the full moon
which is Sunday,” I said.

“Oh my God, Luena hasn’t
been after your father,” El’s eyes widened. “She’s been after
you—and then us!”

We stared at her, knowing
she was right.

“Who do we know that is
absolutely trustworthy?” I asked, then it hit me.

“Our Watchers,” we said in
unison.

“We need to get back to our
apartment, now,” I said. “But first let me make sure we can get in
and out of the chapel from that stairway, and then we’ll go back
the way we came.”

We went to the stairway at
the far end of the chamber. Kate and I detected nothing in the
chapel, so I went to the door and pushed against it; the door stuck
at first and then opened. I peeked into the chapel and since I
could see all the way to the entrance doors at the back, I knew it
was empty. I had to see where the door was and how it
opened.

“Come up to the door,
Kate,” I whispered. “I need to see how it opens from the
inside.”

When I entered the chapel,
I saw the door was exactly behind the altar, and when I closed it,
it was impossible to see where it had been. I could see no handle,
so I pushed on the left side of where I knew the door to be, and it
pivoted easily.

“Kat, come on; we have to
go,” Kate whispered.

So I left and closed the
door carefully behind me.

“Okay, Letta, kill the
fire,” I said.

“Is everything clear? Do
either of you ‘see’ anything in the passageway now?” Rosa
asked.

“Everything looks fine to
me. How about you, Kat?”

“All clear, but be careful.
It’s what we don’t see, I’m worried about.”

“Let’s run!” Letta
urged.

We were at the bottom of
the back stairs in seconds. Rosa pushed the stone open and peered
out.

“See anyone, Rosa?” El
asked.

“No, it’s clear,” she said
over her shoulder.

We left the passageway and
came out to the courtyard, where we found Thomas.

“I wish Mother would give
us more to do for the dinner,” Kate said, acting normal.

“Good
cover,”
I thought to myself.

“Oh well, let’s just go and
get some rest, as she told us to do,” I said aloud. “Thomas, can we
see you and your brothers back at the apartment please? I’d like to
talk to you about our Paris trip.”

“Right now?” he
said.

“Yes, right now,” I said,
giving him an urgent, wide-eyed look.

“Of course,” he said
catching on immediately. “I’ll get them as soon as I get you
back.”

Rosa’s Watcher was at the
bottom of the stairs as usual, so Thomas left us to get the
others.