Warlock Brothers of Havenbridge 01 - Spell Bound (25 page)

“You must’ve hit your head real hard,” Pierce said. “Because you’re not making a damn bit of sense.”

I couldn’t agree with Pierce more. How could someone like me, who had just started getting his spells right and who still had trouble summoning his active power, in any way defeat a vampyre?

“But I am,” Thad answered. “I heard what the vampyre called you. You’re a shadow weaver. That must be why it’s after you. It sensed the power within you.”

“Am I hearing this right?” my father asked as he switched his gaze between Thad and me. Like me, Pierce was only confused.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I asked.

Thad shook his head. “That’s why you couldn’t see your shadow blast in the dark,” Thad said.

And that was when chaos exploded once again in the backyard.

I
NEVER
saw what hit me.

One minute I was staring at Thad, trying to understand his words, and the next a cry of fury filled the night before all light vanished from my world.

Pain shot through every inch of my body as absolute darkness engulfed me. Its ebony tendrils wrapped around me, twisting my limbs. When they snaked across my chest, they squeezed. I struck whatever held me with my fists, pummeling it with all the strength I could muster. I even whispered a strengthening spell, but it made no difference.

No matter how hard I hit, the coiling arms didn’t release. They tightened.

As I struggled for breath, more tentacles surrounded me. They slithered up my body until they lifted me off the ground and suspended me in midair.

From somewhere in the dark void behind me, the vampyre laughed.

But I wasn’t alone. My father and brothers were with me.

“Stop him!” my father yelled as I heard the unmistakable
chunk
of his body turning entirely to stone. His feet thundered toward the vampyre as my brothers joined the fray.

Pierce howled, and his power sizzled. Its passage burned the air just as Thad’s power chilled the night. A cacophony of magic erupted as my family fought to save me from whatever the vampyre had done.

Someone screamed, but I couldn’t tell who it was. The familiar tone told me it might have been Pierce. He’d never cried out like that before. Nothing had ever hurt my brother, but this vampyre had.

It was killing him.

I twisted, trying to force myself free. I had to join them. Thad had said I was the only one who could stop the vampyre, but how? What did having darkness as my active power mean?

Thad obviously knew, and so did my father. But I’d never studied our books the way they had. My ignorance could mean death for us all.

“Dad, look out!” Thad cried out before his screams became muffled and faded away. My father bellowed, and the ground shook.

If I didn’t do something fast, none of us were going to make it.

So I decided to do what Thad had so often accused me of not doing. Instead of going for the hammer, I turned inward to find the screwdriver that might do the trick.

I had to start with what I knew, which wasn’t much.

Warlocks gained their powers from the five elements, just like witches, but our powers were a merging of two elements, not the manifestation of one. Each of the Proctors mastered either fire, earth, air, water, or spirit. It became their guiding force, their connection to the white magic energy that flowed from the Gate.

Warlocks harnessed the chaotic black magic. Our powers didn’t give us mastery over one pure element. We couldn’t directly influence one, but our ability to manipulate the chaotic forces of the Gate allowed us to bind two elements together and create a hybrid that was just as powerful.

Pierce and Thad’s abilities came from the union of air and water. It manifested in both of them differently, as electricity and cold. If my brothers tapped into air and water, and my father’s stone armor was a result of fire and earth, then what elements created darkness?

My father’s cry of pain pierced my thoughts.

“You will die, Oliver Blackmoor,” the vampyre said. It huffed and panted. My dad had obviously given the damn thing a run for its money. “But not before I force you to witness me feeding off your children. You’ll watch as I rip their necks open and make their life’s energy mine.”

“Stay away from them,” my father choked. “Take me.”

The bastard laughed. “I will, but first I want to sample your oldest boy.”

“Mason, where are you?” A groggy, familiar voice called from somewhere in the darkness.

I was hearing things. It couldn’t be Drake. The potion Thad had given him to drink should have knocked him out until tomorrow afternoon.

“What’s goin’ on out there?” Drake asked again.

“Run!” my father screamed. “Get out of here.”

I tensed. He had to listen. He couldn’t come outside.

“Mr. Blackmoor?”

“Well, hello there,” the vampyre said with a fiendish giggle.

“What the fuck are you?”

A swoosh of air followed a cry of terror from Drake. “You’re about to find out. Just like your aunt Millie.”

No!

I found the screwdriver I’d been searching for. It didn’t matter right now what elements created darkness. If I could manipulate it, then darkness, any darkness, was at my command. Like the prison that held me.

Breaking free didn’t require a hammer.

I reached out to the dark tentacles around me and commanded they release me. They twitched and fought against the order, refusing to obey. I dug my fingers into the rubbery flesh, clawing with a renewed sense of strength I’d never before possessed, and said, “Release me. Right. The fuck. Now.”

The limbs relaxed, and I fell, dropping out of a cloud of darkness that hung about five feet from the ground. It resembled one of the billowy folds that bubbled around the vampyre, who now had Drake in its grasp.

Drake’s blue eyes grew wider in fear. Not only did he have a monster about ready to devour him, but he’d just witnessed his boyfriend emerge from a floating cloud of black. “Mason?” His words were cut short as the vampyre wrapped one hand completely around his neck.

“Do you want him, Shadow Weaver?” it asked as it wiggled Drake from side to side.

I nodded. “And if you give him to me, I’ll let you live.”

It exploded with laughter. Its cackles thundered in the distance. “Far too much bravado from a boy with no bite.” It snapped its jaws together, inches from Drake’s neck.

“Oh, I bite,” I said with a smirk. “Just not you.” I pointed at the floating blackness above me and then gestured at the vampyre.

Its dead black eyes grew wide as the prison it had tried to kill me with sped straight back at it.

“
Illo dimitti
,” I whispered with a quick flick of my wrist. In response to my release spell, Drake tumbled out of the vampyre’s grasp just as the black cloud slammed into it.

It screamed and howled as the black cloud completely engulfed its form. It tried to scratch its way out, using its claws and powerful muscles to jettison itself from the crushing force that drew it in. “I’ll kill you!” it screeched at me. The black holes that were its eyes blazed with fire as it fought a losing battle for its freedom.

“Go to hell,” I muttered as the black cloud closed in on itself before disappearing altogether and taking the vampyre with it.

I surveyed the disaster around me. My brothers and father were badly bleeding and unconscious. It terrified me to see them like that, but what scared me the most was the look of fear that had darkened Drake’s expression as he looked at me.

P
IERCE
LAY
on the couch, moaning like a little bitch, even though Thad had brewed a potion that took the edge off most of the pain we’d suffered fighting the vampyre. My father paced the hall, on the phone with Mr. Proctor. He’d just spoken to Mr. Stonewall, and soon all the protector covens would arrive. Then we could discuss events in person.

But I wasn’t focused on any of that. I was worried about Drake.

He hadn’t said one word to me since I’d defeated the vampyre. I’d gone over to help him up, but he wouldn’t let me touch him. He brushed me off and walked away. He’d evidently needed space to process everything that had happened, from his aunt Millie to the vampyre he’d seen.

He sat in the farthest chair away from us, and I realized I’d been wrong this whole time. Drake wasn’t a shifter at all, and now the family had to deal with the fact that for the first time in centuries, a human had become aware of our species’s presence.

“They’re on their way,” my father said, shutting off his phone as he reentered the room.

My father’s comment drew Drake’s scrutiny. He sat up rigidly in his chair. Anger had replaced his earlier fear.

“Good,” Thad replied. “We’re going to need all the reinforcements we can muster.”

“Fucking A!” Pierce moaned. “I feel like I’ve been run over by a semi after getting butt-fucked in a gang bang.”

“Do you think we’re still in danger?” Even though I asked my father the question, I focused on Drake. “I thought I killed it.”

Thad shook his head. “I doubt it,” he said. Drake balled his fists in response. “Your inexperience with your new power most likely trapped it long enough to save us. There’s really only one way to kill a—”

“Are you sure?” I asked, cutting off the last part of Thad’s question. Drake wasn’t ready to hear it was a vampyre he’d seen. He’d dealt with enough already.

“Thad’s right,” my father said. “You saved our asses, but you didn’t kill it.”

Drake clutched the arms of the chair. He was clearly almost ready to voice the emotions that roared within.

“I still can’t believe you’re a shadow weaver,” Thad commented. He sat in front of the open Grimoire. I couldn’t believe it either. Having the power of darkness was pretty fucking awesome, but I couldn’t help but remember what we’d talked about the other day. The power of darkness had corrupted every single warlock who’d previously wielded it.

“Am I going to go crazy like Bartram Kane?” My question caused silence to descend upon the room. Thad stared up from the Grimoire. He opened his mouth to speak but couldn’t find the right words. My father couldn’t even look at me. He stared at our family portrait, the one we sat for a year before my mother’s diagnosis.

It was Pierce who broke the silence. “Who fucking cares?” he asked. “That’s one badass power you’ve got, and it’s on our side. That’s the kind of muscle we need right now.”

“Just what the fuck are all y’all?” Drake yelled as he stood. A tempest swept across his usually serene blue eyes.

Pierce glanced at Drake and regarded him as if he’d gone crazy. “What the fuck’s the matter with you?” he asked. “Are shifters usually this touchy?”

“I don’t even know what the hell that means,” Drake said through pursed lips. “What the fuck
are
you?” This time he glowered at me.

Before I could answer, Pierce, as clueless as ever, did it for me. “We’re warlocks. Duh!”

Drake switched his attention to Pierce, who once again rested his arm over his head and moaned. He clearly had no clue what he’d just done, but my father and Thad did.

“You’re not a shifter, are you?” Thad asked.

Pierce uncovered his eyes and sat up. “What?” He regarded me with surprise. “I thought you said.”

“I was wrong” was all I replied.

“Warlocks?” Drake whispered. He studied all of us, as if waiting for another attack.

“Take it easy, son,” my father said. His voice had softened. He’d done the same thing when I was a kid, and I’d always found it soothing. It didn’t have the same effect on Drake.

“Are you kiddin’ me?” he asked. His Southern drawl was practically out of control. Whenever he was overly emotional, his twang made it difficult to understand him. “You’re tellin’ me that you’re a bunch o’ devil worshippers. Is that what that thing out there was? The devil?” He held his fingers up in the sign of the cross.

“Are you serious?” Pierce asked. “We just saved your ass from that vampyre.”

“A what?” Drake asked.

Thad smacked Pierce across the head, which elicited a string of curse words from his older brother.

“Did you say vampire?”

I shook my head. “Vampyre.”

“What the fuck’s the difference?”

“A vampire is a creature of myth, found only in movies and books,” Thad explained. “A vampyre is not, as you have recently experienced.”

“Is this really happenin’?” Drake asked. He inspected the room, checking everything and everyone for signs this was a dream. He placed his hand against the wall and rubbed it. He then pinched his arm and slapped his face.

“You’re not asleep,” I told him as I drew closer. I spoke to him in the same whispers we’d used on the beach, when we’d been in each other’s arms and delighting in our kiss. I had to get him to remember that I was still that person. That though his world might be spinning out of control right now, what he felt for me and what I felt for him had not changed. “This is real, and I know it’s a lot to take in, especially considering everything else you have to deal with. But I’m here for you, and I would never hurt you.”

Water pooled in the corners of his eyes. He evidently wanted to believe me. That was a start. “A warlock?” His voice trembled. “For real?”

“For real.”

“I don’t know what to do with this, Mason,” Drake said when I stood in front of him. I placed my hands on his shoulders and rubbed them, trying to transfer some comfort into his confused and questioning soul.

“Neither do we,” I said. “This is a first for us too. We’ve never dealt with anything quite like this before. That’s why we’ve called the others.”

He snapped his attention to the front door. “There’s more of you?”

“Yes,” my father said. “We are but one warlock family in the world.”

That revelation practically made Drake’s head spin. “And they’re comin’ here? Right now?”

I peered over my shoulder at my father, who glanced between Thad and Pierce. They nodded to each other and then to me. There was no point stopping now, but we would have to deal with the consequences later.