WITCHCRAFT (A Paranormal Romance) (2 page)

In spite of the insult, she felt inexplicably safe with Enot, though he was a stranger and a vampire at that. Being close to him felt good. That feeling of safety put Terra even more on edge.
Is he trying to put a spell on me? Maybe he's hiding something about my mother.

“Unfortunately, there isn't much that I can tell you. Your mother is gone. For all I know, she could be dead.” Enot draped over his elegant couch, looking like one of his own paintings. His hair fell slightly to the side as he watched her, his eyes heavily lidded as if he were bored. “And if I did know, I am in no hurry to see more of my people killed for yours.”

“You don't know anything? At all?” She asked, sitting down next to him. She put her hand on his thigh. “And we don't want to kill your people. I just need to end this… war. You can sense it, too, can't you?”

“It can't be ended,” he answered stubbornly.

Terra slipped her hand an inch higher. “I think it can. My mother can save all of us.” She licked her lips just as he was staring at them.

He knew exactly what she was trying to do, but he wasn't going to stop her. He raised his eyebrow, then looked away, outside at the sun shining through the apple trees. “I'm afraid I don't. If I did know where she was, I might not be an outcast right now. When she left, I was threatened with murder or exile.”

A ray of light touched his hand, which confirmed to Terra that he was one of the powerless vampires. His magic had been drained before he was even given his second life by the same force that was draining witch magic.

That issue was for another time. A problem to be solved by someone else.

Terra's hand creeped forward toward his manhood as she feigned sympathy. “That must be awful.” She felt something twitch below her hand. “Are you sure there's no way I can convince you to tell me more?”

She was trying her damnedest to get anything out of the man, even if it led to a dead end. His was the only name ever mentioned in Anai's diaries, aside from her father's name. There must have been a reason.

I will do what I must to get your information from you.
She leaned forward, falling to her knees before him, and nuzzled her face against his lap. “I'd do anything for your memories of her.”

He pulled her up sharply, looking deep into her eyes. Then his lips were on hers, in an instant. They both knew this was nothing more than a game, a ploy for information, but vampires were inherently sexual creatures and could never say no to seduction. He desired Terra as much as he had desired her mother, but Anai never gave in, never let him taste her.

So he would taste Terra.

It was almost sinful, the thrill he got from that. He kissed her, hard, his sharpest of teeth grazing against her lip. His mouth was all over her neck, and then her shirt was off and his lips pressed against the flesh hidden beneath it, her bright pink nipples already so alert from his attention.

It was all he could do to avoid sinking his teeth into her flesh, to taste her royal blood and gain some of her power, if only for a moment.

She gasped and held onto Enot tightly. Once he had his fill of her breasts, he pushed her to the ground in front of the couch, spreading his legs and undoing his pants. He brought his pale cock out, and her mouth watered. It wasn't her first cock, but she had never had a vampire before.

She licked it. It was slightly cold, but otherwise as hard and manly as any other before him. Her hand gripped the base before she swallowed his cock whole. Enot leaned his head back and moaned.

Terra's tongue flicked the skin with each movement, her hand twisting at the base while the other kneaded Enot's balls. His hands ran through her hair, and then as he was about to come he tensed and forced her head down hard, not letting her up until he was spent and she had swallowed every drop. The taste was bitter, and salty, and Enot's cum was so thick in her throat.

When he let go of her, she flung herself back, gasping and coughing. He was breathing heavily, too. He gripped his cock hard, stroking it once before putting it back in its place, hidden beneath fabric.

“You've convinced me. Come with me, Terra.”

She followed Enot through his large house. She thought how easy his exile must be, with lovers coming through often, and land and a house that could host a party every day in a different room for a month.

Terra also wondered what he could have done, really, to cause his own race to distrust him.

They walked through a set of double doors into a large room that had once been for entertaining, but had been converted into a bedroom. An opulent bed pressed against the farthest wall was covered in silks, furs, and pillows, with a black cat purring on top. She opened one yellow eye to examine Terra, before returning to sleep.

Terra breathed a sigh of relief that the cat trusted her.
A man with a cat couldn't be too bad. Maybe I've been too hard on Enot?

He flung open his closet doors and rummaged around, through fine shirts and black slacks, until he pulled out a trunk locked tight. It was black leather, with three locks on it. Enot pulled keys from his neck and opened each lock slowly.

The trunk opened, and beside books and potions, there was a necklace. A golden necklace with a blue diamond on it, bigger than any jewel Terra had seen before. Her mouth hung open in awe.

“Your mother had a friend, many years ago before you were even a dream. That woman had a family heirloom, spelled with a unique magic I've never encountered before. She took that magic and used it to create a powerful amulet for your mother. It was created to protect the Witch Kingdom, and only one with Anai's blood could wear it.” He played with the jewel in his hand, shivering when he touched it.

“Your mother gave me this amulet, and made me promise, to swear, that I would give this to one of her daughters when they married. So don't wear it. But you might be able to use it to find that friend.”

“What was her name?” Terra asked, holding out her hand to receive the amulet.

Enot shook his head. “I don't know. She was before my time, and as I understand it she was a spy for your mother. But if you can find her, you might get the answers you seek.”

Terra clutched the necklace, pressing it against her chest. The metal smelled of roses. There was definitely residual energy in the metal that could be used to find a previous owner. With a little bit of magic, she'd be one step closer to her mother.

“Terra?”

She looked up at Enot, his handsome face pensive. “Yes?”

“If you find your mother, tell her I have remained faithful. I miss her, dearly.”

Terra nodded. “I will. Thank you, Enot.” She wondered if he had been Anai's lover in the past. Had she just sucked the cock of someone her own mother slept with? The thought disturbed her, so she pushed it out of her mind.

Enot walked her to the front door. The whole time she stared at the amulet, mesmerized by the rose scent that came from it. It smelled so beautiful.

“One last thing,” Enot said as she stepped onto his porch, the sun just setting. “You may find that Anai is not the weapon you want her to be.”

She wanted to ask what he meant, but she couldn't. Before she could even open her mouth, he had shut the door and left her to the world. He gave her all he had.

Terra returned to Mindren, shopping the local stores for what she needed for a spell. With vervaine, dragon's blood, marijuana and a blue candle, she would be able to see the necklace's past.

She might be able to see her mother. Her wild hair, similar to Terra's. Her green eyes, which were more like Helina's. She might see her mother in action, using magic.

Deep down inside, Terra knew her mother wasn't dead, that she had disappeared and for a good reason. All that mattered was finding out why, and finding out where her mother was. It was time to end this was and put the queen back on the vacant throne. No other outcome was acceptable.

A beautiful blue diamond, seemingly innocent, could be all she needed to end her search once and for all. But would it be enough? Or would it only put Terra in more danger?

Terra's apartment was lit only by candles. A hum, magically produced to help her focus on the task at hand, buzzed through the air around her. Her couch and table, the only bulky objects in the living room of her tiny apartment, were pushed against the wall so that she could sit on the floor. Below her was a pentagram, painted in white on the floor by the previous tenant.

The necklace in her hand was whispering to her, a prelude to the directions that would soon come. Once the spell was complete, and Terra had finished her chant, the necklace would lead her to the previous owner.

That was the plan, at least. Sometimes object and memory spells confused certain truths, or mixed one owner with another. She could end up following the trail of someone who lived in the United States thirty years ago, instead of getting anything useful for finding her mother.

The chant ended just in time for the tickle in her nose to cause a sneeze. She looked down at the necklace. “Alright, show me the way.”

Standing, she stuffed the necklace in the left breast pocket of her dress. Grabbing her bag once more, she was out the door and onto the streets.

Trusting her instincts, she turned left. It didn't take long for Terra to feel the tug of the necklace, pulling her down an alleyway and onto another busy street. Each time she passed a house or apartment complex, she wondered if that might be the one, it might hold answers.

They weren't the right place.

She was pulled down another alleyway, where she had to pass a homeless man only to find a dead end. She sighed and looked around, but soon the necklace was pulling her out of the alleyway.

It made Terra retrace her steps back to that first alley, and then in a completely different direction. Giving up hope that this would be a fast process, she simply followed where the necklace led.  Sometimes the spells to reveal the past of objects caused them to literally walk through the steps they once followed.

With a quickened pulse, Terra realized that must mean she was walking in the footsteps of her mother. She followed the necklace's directions to another three dead ends before she got frustrated. “You get one more chance,” she whispered to it. Her feet were starting to ache, as was her head.

Onto the main street of the city, she walked for nearly an hour, until the sun was setting and the warmth of the day was fading. Finally, there was a tug, harder than the sensations leading her around before. Her shirt nearly pulled away from her body, like the fabric wanted to tear away.

Terra was pulled into a cemetery, and her heart sank. Did her mother really die? She weaved in and out of the stones, alone save for one other man, about her age. She glanced at him, but otherwise ignored him.

The necklace fell silent, no more tugs or movements. She looked around, checking the names on the tombstones. Was the previous owner of the necklace dead? Could her own mother be buried somewhere in these graves?

She looked to the man again, whose aura is one of great sorrow. It swirled with blacks, grays and purples, like a deep bruise. Something deep within her pulled her towards him, though she didn't know why.

Terra was still three rows of graves back when the man stood. His eyes, hazel, were shining with tears. Ashamed of herself for staring, Terra looked at the ground as he passed. “Sorry, excuse me, but...” she started, turning towards him. He glanced back at her.

“Yes?” His voice was deep, sexy, but full of sorrow and a weary apathy. For some reason, she longed to pull him, a perfect stranger, into a hug.

“I'm in the middle of a spell, looking for someone. Have you seen this necklace before?”

Pulling it out, there was an immediate reaction from the man. His handsome face contorted into surprise, and then anguish. A tear fell down his face, but he wiped it away quickly, trying to hide it. “Yes, I have. My mother used to have a necklace like that.”

“What is your name?”

“Lance. Fleaas.”

“Mine is Terra Neithercutt, and I'm-”

The man, irritated now, immediately bowed. His arm swung low, one knee touching the ground. She flushed red, waving her arms to get him to stop. “No! No, I shunned the royalty, you don't need to bow. And please don't call me by my titles. Just Terra will do.”

He stood, and she held out her hand to shake. After a brief hesitation, he took it, his grip firm. Terra's whole body was hot from his touch by the time he took his hand away.

“Do you want to see photos?” He asked. “My house, what's left of it, is only a short walk away.”

“Yes, please!”

Lance's home was a middle class home. The two on either side of it were perfectly manicured, with rosebushes and small herb gardens hanging from all of the windowsills. In the backyard of one, a child was swimming in a magically heated swimming pool. A small dog barked in the other, while an orange cat sitting in the window looked down on the two of them.

His home might have looked that way, once, too. Perhaps before his mother died. Now, however? One window was covered in egg yolk, and the rosebushes had been pulled up at some point recently. All of the windows were covered with a thick black fabric, and there were layers of protection magic that suggested he had to renew the spells often. Sabotage?

Terra said nothing as she stepped into Lance's home. The inside was bare, with only a couch in the living room. There were framed photos on the island in the kitchen, presumably as a makeshift shrine for his mother. Out of respect for the dead, she kept her distance. Witches don't mess with ancestral worship. Angering someone's ancestor was worse than angering someone still alive.

She wondered if his mother did something to shame their family. She wondered if he did, instead. Witches were incredibly spiritual, and often when one member of a family stepped out of line, all had to suffer. Terra considered asking if he needed money, but thought better of it. It was clear his pride was wounded. She wouldn't chip away at it even more.

“Sorry for the mess. I won't have the house much longer.” His eyes glistened, and she reached out to touch his elbow. He looked at her, then walked down the hallway, where she stood and waited for him as he opened a door to a bedroom.

He rummaged through a closet in the bedroom. It had a small bed, and the protection spells there were the strongest.
This must be where he sleeps. How intimate.
She blushed and looked away from the room.

“Here we go,” he grunts, pulling out a huge photo album. It was covered in blue lace to keep the dust off of it. “Let's go sit down, I'll show you.”

On the couch, he carefully pulled the lace off of the album and opened it. Lance flicked past a few pages, while Terra felt the closeness between them. Their hips were touching. She wanted to touch his hand.

“See?” He asked. “This is my mother, with yours. Mine is wearing that blue diamond.”

The photo was old and worn, but she could see clearly the features of her mother, reflected only in paintings in almost every upper class home. Photos were too worldly for the upper class, they preferred paintings imbued with magic.

Lance's mother, with straight black hair and a crooked smile, looked at the camera. Anai looked only at Lance's mother. The blue diamond hanged from Lance's mother's neck, somehow shining even through the photo.

“She's in fatigues,” Terra said, looking up at Lance. His eyebrows stitched together, his face turned away from hers. “Lance, she's wearing a Medal of Honor.”
What did she do?
She screamed in her head, her heart pounding.
What did she do?!

“Yes, she was in the army. She was well respected.” His voice wavered, sunk with despair.

Terra shook her head, looking at the photo. She didn't want to be disrespectful, but she had to know the truth. “Lance, the Medal of Honor comes with conditional immortality. How did your mother die?”

Silence.

“The only way she could be dead is if she betrayed the crown. If she betrayed my mother.”

“She would never do that!” His hands were balled into fists. He stood, full of fury and rage and anguish. Terra sunk back into the couch, watching him. “She wouldn't! She loved your mother, she spoke fondly of her almost every day! I was there that night, Terra. I heard a man shouting at her! It couldn't have been her, he must have stolen her medal!”

She didn't want to tell him it would take incredibly strong magic to steal a medal from the owner. She didn't want to make things worse for him, and he probably already knew. He probably already knew that somehow, there was no way of getting around it, his mother committed treason. Terra wondered if he knew of her past as a spy, and if that played a role in her becoming a traitor. Did Lance's mother double cross Queen Anai?

He was the son of a traitor. Everything about his home was suddenly explained. Everything made sense. Terra thought about getting up and leaving, right then, but something stopped her. Something deep inside, the same thing that made her want to hold him, to comfort him. Maybe it was her intuition. Maybe it was something else. But she stayed.

The strangest thing, to her, was that she detected no lies in his speech.

“I believe you.” She did. She should be suspicious. She should be running out of his house, but everything within her told her to trust him, even if his mother was a traitor. That didn't mean that he was.

He stared at her, his eyes wide. And then he turned to face the wall, his arms crossed, and pressed his forehead against it. Just for a moment. Just for a few breaths, to calm down. “You're looking for your mom?” He asked, refusing to look at her. He sniffed away more tears.

She nodded. “Yes. To stop the coming war.”

“I'm going to help.” He held up a hand, stopping her from protesting. “I'm going to help, because I must. Because only your mother can clear my mother's name. Queen Anai will remove the curse that was put on my family, and I will finally know peace.”

Terra wanted to tell him to just drop it. There was too much at stake for her, and she knew that her trust in him was flimsy and based on nothing at all. But if he was telling the truth, and she believed he was, then there was a chilling fact that she couldn't overlook: there was someone with magic strong enough to destroy the bond of a Medal of Honor.

That sort of power was worse than anything the vampires could do. It could tear apart nations, perhaps even destroy or control the whole world.

The world suddenly felt more dangerous than ever before, and an ally might be good to have. She couldn't count on her sister or anyone else. Maybe a stranger was the only option.

“It could be dangerous,” she said, her final attempt to caution him. “Hell, I know for a fact it will be dangerous. I'm not exactly following the wishes of The Crown, and you have some enemies too. The world is not on our side.”

Lance nodded. “Look at me,” he said, gesturing at his dirty clothes, and then at his bare and falling apart home. “Look at all of this. I have nothing left. There is no life for me, unless I take this chance. Let me clear my name.”

She put her hand on his shoulder, staring into his eyes to try and understand what he might be feeling. His emotions seemed so vast, so strange to her. She grew up in a world devoid of depth. She found herself wanting to swim in him, in his essence.

Pulling her hand away, she broke the tie between them. He slumped back against the couch, sighing. She took a deep breath.

“So, you were kind of a dead end. Your mom was supposed to be able to help me find mine. What do we do now?”

“We summon the dead.”

The living room was emptied of the few pieces of furniture that was left in it. Terra swept the floors while Lance mixed salt and grave dirt into water, and used that to mop the floor. Once it was spiritually clean, though physically grimy, they both got on their hands and knees with chalk and drew out a large circle, surrounded by alchemical symbols, and then another circle around that.

Before she helped him clean the house, Terra went to the store and bought candles. All black. Calling the dead was a simple ritual, though things could go wrong easily. The complexity was in controlling the situation.

Black candles were powerful and amplified the magic in any spell where they were used, but they also warded against any malevolent entities that may wish to crash their séance.

“The floor needs to dry, and we have a few hours before midnight. Is there anything you want to do?” Lance asked, his eyes lingering on her face.

He looked like he wanted to do… something. She couldn't tell what, but it made her stomach flip.

“I'm wiped. Think I could take a nap on your bed?”

“Go ahead,” he said. She set her chalk down and left Lance to finish up the circle. She opened the door to his bedroom. The air smelled like him, and rosemary incense. A half-burned stick sat on the table next to his small bed, the burner sitting on top of a deck of tarot card.

His blanket was soft, and again it smelled like Lance. She buried her face into it, curious at how much she enjoyed his smell. Frustrated with how much she enjoyed it, too.

She closed her eyes, but not for long. She felt the bed move, shift under the weight of Lance joining her.