Witch Road to Take (8 page)

I glanced at the ground, my mouth opened in
shock, various thoughts manifested inside my mind. “I can read
minds! Damien.” I looked up at him, “I read your mind.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Are you and Gavin
playing around with spells?”

“No! Gavin is able to read minds and he said
that’s one of Mother’s powers, and that I should have that power,
too. I bet that you have it, too. Read my mind.”

“Dhellia, I’m not here to read your
mind.”

“Why are you here?” I slowly turned away
from him and gazed out at the vast sky.

Damien walked over to my side and peered off
the edge of the building. “It sure would hurt if either of us fell
from this building,” he casually mentioned.

“Planning on pushing me?”

He ignored me. “I went to the house to look
for you, but your roommates said you’d been gone for two days.”

I shrugged. “I’m sowing my wild oats.”

“You don’t even know what that means.”

“I have an idea.”

I felt my brother’s eyes on me. His mood was
sour, his body rigid and his eyes narrowed. We were at odds in some
ways. I felt that he hated being my keeper, but even worse, hated
being on Father’s bad side.

“Father’s outraged,” he finally said.

“So, what else is new?”

“True, but he’s on a mission, Dhellia.”

“The same mission he’s been on for the past
year? Lock me away in Hell and throw away the key?”

“He has tracker demons looking for you.”

I released a slight snort. “Of course he
does, because for some reason, he doesn’t want to let me go. And
you know what, Damien?” I turned and faced him, met him eye for
eye, stance for stance. “He doesn’t even love me.”

My brother scratched is head—the sure sign
that he just became uncomfortable with our conversation.

“He loves you in his own way.”

“
Pfft.
That’s all you got?” I turned
my body to gaze back out at the sky. My left foot rested on the
ledge, my arms crossed over my chest. “That always worked on me,
didn’t it?”

Damien’s eyes moved from me back out toward
the city. We were both pretending to gaze at its beauty when in
reality, all I wanted to do was cry. For the first time in a long
time, I wanted to scream out to the world, drop to my knees and sob
relentlessly into the palms of my hands. I wouldn’t, though. My
life had been centered around men that view weakness as an opening
to attack. I would never let either of them see me cry.

“This is not a game, Dhellia. Father keeps
saying that he needs you there—something about his plan not being
fulfilled, if you are out of his grasp.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’ve no idea and no one is talking. I have
a meeting with one of father’s rivals to see if I can negotiate
some information about your future.”

My head moved to look at him. He placed his
hands inside his pockets. “Who?” I asked.

He shook his head. “The less you know the
better.” He turned to face me again. “But I need you to stay near
Gavin and Jonas and away from the stationary portals to Hell, like
the one up here.”

Now was the time for me to ask him what I
needed to know. This was my moment to use my negotiating power.
“I’ll promise you that, if you tell me what happened to
Mother.”

He hesitated. His jaw tightened, his eyes
narrowed and his hands were tight fists at his side. Then he
relaxed and answered me with a casual response. “She died.”

“How?”

“What does it matter, Dhell?”

“It matters to me. I was there with you the
night she died. I deserve to know what happened.”

“You honestly don’t remember any of it?” he
asked.

“I remember Mother’s last words. She chanted
something and then she took her last breath. That’s all I
remember.”

He searched my eyes. The silence between us
was dead space. Finally, when he spoke, his words were cold as ice.
“Then you remember enough.” He ran his hand down the side of my
face and walked toward the portal.

I could feel my blood boil. Why wouldn’t
anyone tell me what happened to my mother or explain to me how she
died. With an unfamiliar pull at the core of my body, I roared,
“Damien, stop!”

The building and windows of the top floors
shook and then shattered. I turned to look at him just as he turned
toward me, his eyebrows furrowed. “What the hell? Are you
okay?”

“No! Damien, help me.” I felt my body
tighten. When I glanced down at my hands, my nails had grown into
sharp daggers, my mouth felt odd. Razor-sharp teeth stuck my tongue
and a pinhole amount of blood gave me the slight taste of the
coppery flavor. “What’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing is wrong.” He wrapped his arms
around me and carried me to the edge where he turned and sat down,
keeping me locked in his embrace. “You’re maturing.”

I trembled, my body desperate to ignite the
rage inside me—a need pulling at the gut of my stomach and
extending through every muscle and ligament in my body. My
brother’s hands brushed my hair off my forehead and he rocked me
while I shook in his arms.

When I could finally talk, my words were
clumsy and barely audible. “I matured when I was thirteen.”

He smirked. “Think about it like your moment
of puberty. Do you remember when you first grew those things,” he
glanced down at my chest and then quickly looked away.

My nails and teeth had returned to normal
while my body temperature had cooled off after it spiked a few
degrees. He made me laugh around the few tears that had slipped
from my blurry eyes. “Growing boobs is slightly different than
shattering glass when I’m angry or growing hell-awful nails and
spiked teeth.”

Damien chuckled. “You’ve got a point
there.”

“What am I?”

“Let me put it this way. You got Ma’s looks
but Father’s temper. You’re gonna need to keep that temper in check
or you could do some serious damage.” He glanced down into my eyes.
“Your body’s changing, Dhell. It’s like puberty for us. Every year,
you’ll discover more and more about yourself. It’s like a surprise
in a Cracker Jacks’ box.”

I nestled into his arms, basking in the
security of his masculine demeanor. His deep voice rumbled in his
chest against my ear and while I fought to come down from turning
into the creature that I was bound to be, Damien comforted me as he
had always done.

“We are part demon whether we like it or
not,” he said.

“That
is
true,” I whispered.

He leaned down and kissed my forehead. “That
night, behind the couch, when I held you in my arms and you heard
Mother die, someone or something had murdered her.”

I maneuvered off his lap and knelt down in
front of him, my hands resting on his thighs. “You knew this all
along?”

“Yes. My mind had blocked out the events of
that horrible day for years, but the older I got, the more I began
to understand.”

“Who killed her?”

“I never saw anyone kill her.”

“What do you remember?” I asked.

“She was fighting an entity. Something I
couldn’t see. But she was chanting and I remembered everything she
said, word for word. Before Father whisked us away, I wrote her
chant down. Later, when I was older, I looked up the spell she
cast.”

“And?”

“And she put a spell on Hell, one that
cannot be broken unless seven keys are brought together. The spell
entitles every spirit to a trial by fire.”

“I know about the trials. I thought the
trials had always been a part of Father’s kingdom.”

“Prior to Mother’s spell there was no such
thing, but after she cast her spell, spirits were entitled to
convince the court that their souls deserved a second chance.”

He stopped for a moment, staring toward the
portal that only we could see. I waited for him to continue.

Finally, he looked at me. “There were two
things in that spell that has had me baffled for years.”

“What’s that?”

“In part of the spell, Mother said:
Lucifer will suffer the loss of trials, near and far.
And
she followed that up with a repetitive verse:
Separabis eos
vigilem
.”

“Separate them, watcher?”

“How did you know what that meant? It’s in
Latin.”

I shook my head. “I’ve no idea. You said it
and it replayed in my mind in English.”

Damien placed his warm hand on my arm. “Your
powers are coming in fast and strong.”

There was silence between us. We could hear
the sirens from the city below and helicopters making their rounds.
“A watcher needs to separate what?”

“Exactly. What? Those two things have
baffled me for years.”

“And you’re positive that you remembered it
word for word?”

“More than positive.”

“Why would someone or something kill Mother?
Gavin said she was a strong witch, but who or what had she
threatened? And what did she mean about Father suffering the loss
of trials near and far?” I stood and paced, repeating her words.
Separabis eos vigilem
”

Damien stood and gripped my hand. “It was
time for you to know and maybe with some luck, we can figure out
those things together.”

I nodded.

He hugged and kissed my forehead before he
started off toward the portal.

“Wait.”

He turned and faced me.

“Will that thing I become only happen if I
get mad?”

“For the most part until you learn to
control it, and then you’ll be able to invoke it when you
want.”

I used this opportunity to remind him of
something very important. “My birthday is in four days. Think you
can make it?”

“I wouldn’t miss it. And Dhellia, go home.
Don’t stand here and search for the one thing you wanted to get
away from. You have a life now. Go and explore it.”

He was right. I watched him disappear
through the portal, happy that he had finally confided in me. I
turned around and propped my leg up on the ledge of the U.S. Bank
building.

“
Separabis eos vigilem
,” I whispered
to myself.

I stood in front
of
Jonas’s closet and eyed his wardrobe. With my index finger erect
over my lips, tapping ever so slightly, I was horrified at the
collection of plaid button-down shirts, polyester pants and
random-colored ties. I sighed in disbelief that he’d own any of
this stuff, let alone think he was going to wear something from
this closet to perform on stage this evening.

“This is a joke, right?” I blew my
flaming-red bangs off my forehead and crossed my arms under my
chest.

“This is what I got. We take it or leave
it.”

I glanced at his body from head to toe.
“Well, we’re definitely not going to leave it. We want your fans to
have fun, right?” I giggled at the thought of Jonas nude on
stage.

He put his hands on his hips. “I have plenty
of women who want this body. Look at this?”

He lifted his sleeve and flexed his bicep.
Unintentionally, I laughed so hard I thought I would bust my side
open. I even fell on his bed, curled up in fetal position and
laughed. “Jonas! You can’t be serious. You didn’t just flex a
nonexistent bicep, did you?”

His grin turned into a frown and he pulled
down his sleeve, slightly embarrassed.

“Okay, I’m just playing with you.” Although,
I really wasn’t. “We need something that’s going to accentuate your
handsome features.”

“We don’t have time, Red. I’m on stage in
two hours and I still have to meet with the band and set up the
equipment.” He glanced down at the floor.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m kind of nervous. My family’s going to
be there tonight.”

“Your family? As in your mother and
father?”

He nodded. “My little brother, too. I
haven’t seen them for a year.”

“Why not?”

“After I was turned, life changed. My family
was scared of me, and the family didn’t trust me.” Jonas sat down
on his bed and continued.

“I wasn’t all that different. I mean, my
sleeping habits changed and of course, my eating habits, but aside
from that, I would have never hurt them.”

I sat next to him and took his hand. “You
are an amazing person. Being a vampire has only enhanced who you
are.”

“You think so?”

I tilted my head and tried to get his
attention, but his eyes stared toward the floor. “No doubt in my
mind.”

I understood how he felt. When I’d lost my
mother and found out the true nature of my father, I was
devastated. How could that be? How could something so despicable
result in two great kids?

That was only the beginning of my turmoil.
After I heavily evaluated my father, I’d started to question Damien
and myself. If
he
was our father, than what were
we
?
We must have been bad or evil. I’d tried that side of the fence.
I’d tried to hate and hurt others but it never felt right.
Afterward, I’d always regret and feel remorse.

It took time for me to realize that although
I was my father’s daughter, I wasn’t my father. I was Dhellia Hunt,
a good-natured, kind, sarcastic soul who loved to love and be
loved. If anyone understood Jonas, it was me.

“I don’t want to disappoint them
tonight.”

“Listen to me. Tonight is not about
disappointing them or making them proud. Tonight is about you and
your band. It’s about the hard work and dedication you five have
had over the past year. Tonight is your night. You remember
that.”

I didn’t want Jonas to measure the entire
night on what his parents thought because quite honestly, they may
not be proud. Parents never truly understand our choices in music
and our style of clothing. Sometimes, I think older people have
forgotten what it’s like to be young. So, if Jonas based his entire
performance on their reaction, he was setting himself up for
automatic failure, no matter how well they performed.