Authors: Trish Milburn
I examine the pages before and after the missing one. “You’re right. I think this page talked about some kind of vulnerability, some more powerful force than the covens.”
“Now if we could just figure out what it is or somehow find that missing page.”
“You think it’s even possible that a single page from a book this old is still around?”
“The book was supposed to be long gone, but here it is.”
I run my fingertips along the edge of the missing page. “Talk about a needle in a world-sized haystack.”
Someone knocks on my door, startling me for the second time tonight.
“Want me to get it?” Egan asks.
I shake my head. “I don’t sense anything.” Nothing witch-related anyway. There’s a frisson of what feels like nervous energy in the air.
Even without sensing either Egan’s or my covens, my heart starts that familiar rapid beating again as I open the door. My mouth falls partially open when I see Keller standing there. My heart leaps, even though I know he might very well be there to perform his sworn duty as a hunter.
“Keller.”
“Hey.”
“Is
. . .
is something wrong?”
“No. Uh, maybe. Toni just ripped into me, making it abundantly clear what a jerk I’ve been to you.” He pauses, looks down at his feet for a moment before returning his gaze to me. “Can I come in? I’d like to talk.”
Egan, blast him, walks up next to me.
“Hey, man.”
Keller stares at Egan for several interminable seconds, suspicion swirling in his eyes like dark fog. “I didn’t know you had company.”
I don’t like how he says “company”, like he’s assuming the worst.
“Yeah, it was a surprise.”
“Oh.”
I can almost hear the gears clicking in Keller’s head as he tries to figure out the reason behind Egan’s sudden appearance in Baker Gap.
“Egan is an old friend.”
Keller’s eyes shift to Egan again.
“Yep, afraid you’ve got another witch in town.” Egan holds up his hands, a teasing smile tugging at his lips. “But don’t shoot me. I’m a good witch, too.”
Keller doesn’t say anything, just glances back at me, takes a few steps backward then strides away without another word. I’m too stunned at first to say anything.
“Nice sense of humor,” Egan says. “I can see why you’re falling all over yourself for him.”
I swat Egan’s arm without looking at him. “Shut up.”
“Want me to flatten all his tires so he can’t leave?”
“Yeah, that’ll improve his mood.” I’ve got to talk to Keller before he reaches his dad and they decide a witch invasion has begun and call every hunter they know. I turn my attention to Keller’s retreat. “Keller, wait up.”
He doesn’t even pause as I hurry toward him. If anything, he increases his pace, sliding into the truck and slamming the door, turning the engine and spinning out of the gravel parking space.
I stare at his retreating taillights, stunned. Then I get mad, really mad. “Stay here. I’ll be back later.” I don’t wait to hear if Egan responds before I jump into my car and tear out after Keller.
It doesn’t take long for me to catch up to him. My car is smaller and more easily maneuvered around the mountain curves. That and the fact my heightened senses let me drive at crazy speeds without endangering anyone, myself included. I’m beginning to think he’s going to drive until he runs out of gas when he turns off on a rutted, gravel road. My anger ratchets up a notch. He’s trying to lose me by driving where my car will have trouble. He is so going to pay.
About the time I think I’m going to have to abandon the car and stalk after Keller on foot, he steers over onto a dirt pull-off next to a fence. He gets out of his truck and goes about arming himself for the hunt, acting as if I’m not even here. Is he prepping to kill me?
No, that didn’t make sense. If he’d decided I had to be eliminated, he would have just done it when I opened the RV’s door. But if he’s changed his mind during his insane drive to this remote spot, he’s going to find out just what he’s up against.
Undeterred by his ignoring me, I march up to him. “I’m going to stick by your side until you decide to talk to me.”
“I’m here to work.”
“Me, too. I’m working up a gigantic ball of anger.”
“Why?” He asks the question as he starts toward the fence, but he doesn’t sound like he actually cares.
I grab his arm and jerk him to a stop. “Why? Because when you’re not looking at me like I might fry you to a crisp, you’re ignoring me. Because you’re so damn sure you’ve got everything figured out.”
“Some things aren’t that hard to figure out.”
I let my hand drop away from his arm. “I’m not here to hurt anyone. Neither is Egan.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
I feel like screaming until the mountains tremble at his detached attitude, like he’d never once smiled at me, kissed me.
“Why did you come to my place tonight? To talk about what?”
“Nothing.”
“You drove miles out of town to talk about nothing?”
He kept checking the readiness of his weapons, looking like a soldier preparing for war. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
I cross my arms and stare at him, willing him to make eye contact. “I suppose that pea brain of yours thinks something is going on between Egan and me.”
He finally looks at me then, his eyes dark and unreadable under the night sky. “It makes sense, really. You’re two of a kind.”
Damn if tears don’t sting my eyes again. I tell myself they’re from anger, not some weaker emotion. “If I wanted to be with Egan, would I be here right now?” Am I risking exposing Keller to harm, risking that the legend about losing my powers if I love a non-witch are true?
I think I see a yearning in him that echoes inside me. Is he waging an internal battle within himself like I am? For what seems like hours instead of seconds, I don’t think he’s going to say anything.
“You should be with someone who understands you,” he finally says.
“You can understand me. Really, I’m not that complex.”
“Jax, don’t. This is hard enough as it is. Don’t make it worse.”
“How am I making it worse?”
“It’d never work. Can’t you see? I’m a supernatural hunter. You’re the type of thing I hunt.”
Anger explodes out of me. “Fine.” I back up and spread my arms wide. “Here I am. Take your best shot. I won’t even fight you. Then you can go and hunt whatever it is you’re here to get. Two kills in one night. You should sleep like a baby.”
He stares at me, horror on his face. “I’m not going to shoot you.”
“Why not? You said it yourself. I’m the type of ‘thing’ you hunt.”
“That’s not what I
. . .
You know what I mean.”
“No, Keller, I don’t. I thought we had some sort of connection. Obviously, I was wrong.”
He runs a hand over his face, and I notice he looks very tired, like he hasn’t slept any better than I have in the last week. “We do. That’s what’s so confusing.”
“Because your world is black and white, and I’m gray.”
Keller sighs, his shoulders slumping. “Yeah.”
I walk slowly toward him. “I’m not, really. I’ll even wear a white hat if it helps. Do you think they make white witch hats?”
I stand so close to him now that I think I spy a hint of a smile.
A bone-chilling, evil cold slams into me before Keller is even aware of the spirit’s presence. He notices his prey just as I reach for his gun. With lightning speed, I spin and aim the gun at the spirit with my left hand.
“Do you mind? We’re trying to have a conversation here.” I fire, blowing the red-tinged spirit into oblivion. Despite the gun’s recoil, that felt good. What a tremendous adrenaline rush.
When I turn back toward Keller, extending his gun to him, I notice the odd look on his face. “What?”
He pulls me into his arms, crushing my body next to his, and kisses me like the heroes in movies kiss heroines. Like Angel kisses Buffy. Like Spidey’s upside-down kiss with Mary Jane. Like Will kisses Elizabeth in the middle of the battle in
Pirates of the Caribbean
. Like I’ve only fantasized about being kissed. Deeply, hungrily, so full of emotion my adrenaline is on fire. An epic kiss.
The gun drops to the ground as I lift my arms to wrap around his neck.
We kiss forever. At least it seems that way.
When Keller finally pulls away, he lifts his hands to the sides of my face. “You still confuse me.”
Despite what has just passed between us, I know suspicion still demands to be heard within him. I guess I can’t expect a lifetime of teaching to simply dissolve because I claim I’m a good person. But when I’m standing in his arms like this, I know I’ll do whatever I can to banish that suspicion like I did the spirit.
“This is new to me, too.” I caress his jaw, my heart expanding. “But I’m willing to try.”
“There’s really nothing with Egan?”
“We’re just friends. I think our fathers had other ideas, but there was never anything other than friendship between us.”
“I don’t understand. I thought you didn’t approve of the other witches.”
“They’re like human criminals. Some are worse than others. Egan’s what you’d call a white-collar criminal. He made himself useful to his coven by computer hacking.” I pause. “I never even considered it was because he didn’t want to have to do the worse things.”
“You believe him, then.”
“That he’s left his coven? Yes. I was suspicious at first, but he brought something with him that proves to me he’s really left them, that he wants to live his life differently, too.”
“What’d he bring?”
I hesitate for a moment, my own suspicion flickering. But if I expect Keller to give me a chance, to not look for ulterior motives, I have to do the same with him. I consider that telling him will put him in more danger, but something tells me it’s worth the risk. I hope that flicker of instinct is right.
“The Beginning Book, a book supposedly forged from the same black magic that gave the covens their power. It was thought to be destroyed. At least that’s what we’ve always been told. But then we’ve discovered that the covens are not immune to lying to their own children.”
“What about?”
I step back then walk toward the fence. I stare off across the sloping field, see a tiny light in a window far down the hill. Inside there are normal people living normal lives—something I fear Keller and I will never have. I shake off that thought and refocus on the present. Will what I’m about to say change Keller’s opinion of me? Make me too dangerous for his world?
“What is it?”
I turn back toward him. “It seems I already have my full powers. So does Egan. The whole line about us not receiving them until we’re seventeen, until we’ve gone through the rite of passage, was a lie. One no doubt told to ensure we obeyed our elders until we believed in the coven’s code fully.”
“What can you do?”
“I’m not sure yet, and I’m not going to test it.”
“Are you afraid to?”
“Afraid it might change me, lure me back to the darkness? Yeah, that’s a bit on the scary side. But that kind of magic also would be like lighting up the night with the Bat Signal, luring my entire coven here. I won’t risk that. I won’t risk hurting my friends, or you.”
“I’m not your friend?” He walks slowly toward me.
“You know you’re more than a friend.”
“What exactly?” His warm breath caresses my face.
“I don’t know. An extremely good kisser for one.” I stand on my tiptoes and capture his mouth with my own. Right now, I want to forget all about covens and dark magic. I just want to be held and kissed by the guy I like. I can’t shake a sudden fear that our time together is limited.
But isn’t every couple’s, if that’s what we are? No one lives forever, not even witches. We might call non-witches “mortals”, but that doesn’t mean we’re immortal. Far from it.
The cellphone on Keller’s belt buzzes. He glances at his watch. “Man, it’s late. That’ll be Dad.” He touches the screen and raises the phone to his ear. “Hey, Dad.” He pauses while he listens to his father. “Yeah, just now took care of it. I’m heading home.” He ends the call and returns the phone to his belt.
An almost-hidden expression of concern drifts across his face, and for a moment I worry about how much his dad knows. Has he told him anything in the days he was avoiding me? But I don’t voice my fear. I want to trust him. I do trust him.
“I gotta go,” he says.
“It’s okay.” I stop, considering my words before speaking again. “Can you come out tomorrow? Maybe you could look through the book, see if you notice anything Egan and I are missing?”