Sorry for taking so long again, everyone. Christmas, New Years, problems at work and a few long bouts of writers' block turned out to lead to a huge uncreative mess. Thankfully now, I seem to be back in action.
A/N: If you're interested, I have recently published the first chapter of my new novel, The Intruder, for all to see on inkitt . com under the penname Tony Franco. It is a suspense horror story about a young couple hoping to have a good time while spending a week at a holiday home, but they are unaware that upon their arrival they have attracted the attention of a mysterious figure who then seeks to stalk them for pleasure. I hope you enjoy it.
Anyway, onto Chapter 4 of Believe.
Chapter 4- Julie Takes Her Turn
Yesterday she had been ready and determined; but now and here, she was not so sure. Julie gulped down a breath as she contemplated on the task she had ahead of her. She faced upward, lifting her gaze to stare across the Mr. Smoothies parking lot. Ben sat alone on one of the benches with his back to her and a drink in his hand. Julie turned her head to the left and then to the right, suspiciously looking out for Gwen. She found her watching from the alleyway close to the corner of the block behind her. Gwenwaved at her furiously, gesturing to her to keep going for Ben. Resummoning her courage, Julie turned in his direction and stepped towards him. As she did, she fished her phone out of her jacket pocket and sent a text message to Kevin.
'About to make contact. She's here.'
He sent her a reply. 'We're here too. Where is she?'
She hurriedly typed in an answer. 'Alleyway to my five o'clock. You?'
'Don't look. Rooftop, your ten o'clock.'
Trying as hard as she could, she moved her eyes as far as they could go without turning her head. She could not see either Kevin or Kai, but it gave her comfort to know they were there in case anything went wrong. Her attention focused back onto Ben as she neared the bench. She stopped two or three steps away from it.
"Ahem," she spoke loudly.
She noticed Ben flinch in surprise. He turned to her with a dumbfounded look on his face and the straw from his smoothie cup tucked between his lips. Julie blushed in a light shade of pink, remembering how that behaviour always made him appear awkwardly adorable to her.
"Hey Ben," she said sheepishly.
Ben plucked the straw out of his mouth. "Hey," he replied nervously. "Julie. I - - - I didn't - - - I thought you didn't want to speak to me again."
"Yeah, I remember what I said," Julie answered, the troubled memory of their breakup rising to the surface of her mind.
"So, what's up?"
"I just want to talk, and I've heard that you've got a new girlfriend."
"Yep," Ben nodded slowly. "Is that going to be a problem?"
"It might. Can I sit down?"
"Sure," he replied, pulling his hand up from the bench space it had been covering and shifting around so that she had a clear spot to sit next to him. Julie let out a short breath and took it.
:*:
From the rooftops above, Kevin gazed down at the two through his binoculars, paying careful attention to how Ben was reacting to Julie's approach. At first, Ben had seemed edgy but he had expected that since this was the first time they had spoken to one another since their separation. Now however as Julie sat down on the bench and engaged in casual conversation with him, Ben was calm and settled.
"Okay, now I'm really starting to think Gwen's wrong," he muttered to himself. He picked up his phone and dialled in Kai's number.
"Yeah?" her voice answered.
"You getting a good look?"
From her position on the ground floor of the building underneath him, Kai looked over at Ben and Julie. "Yep. Not looking like a spell, is it?"
"Nope. What's Gwen doing?"
"Still watching from the alley, but she's not looking too happy."
"She's probably thinking Julie's not trying hard enough."
"Good bet. What do we do if she makes a move?"
"She won't. She's not gonna risk breaking cover."
"Maybe," Kai noted sceptically. "She's not acting normally, remember?"
"Don't remind me."
:*:
"So, Charmcaster?" Julie asked.
"Yeah, so who told you?" Ben said in reply.
"I heard it from Kevin and Gwen."
Ben sighed exasperatedly as soon as heard his cousin's name. "Let me guess, you think it's some spell or manipulation?"
"The thought crossed my mind. It's why I'm concerned. Because if it's true, then I was afraid that my breaking up with you may have pushed you to fall under her spell."
Ben's face lit up with realisation. Was that it? Was that why Gwen was continuing to think Hope had put a spell on him, because of how horribly he had felt in the days following his breakup with Julie?
Seeing though that was what was it for Julie, he took her by the hand.
"I'll admit, breaking up with you that time was the worst I've felt in my life so far. There was just something about it that made it real and final in a way that our previous breakups didn't."
Julie nodded, recalling how after her anger towards him had gone away, she was consumed with the guilt of the terrible accusations she had spat at him while she had not said a thing toward her father who was just as much to blame for the night not going as she had planned it. But the damage, as she knew in the days that had come since, was done. She was no longer in love with Ben.
"But, after a while," Ben continued. "I began to see that it was for the best. You and I had always been arguing all the time. There were more of the bad parts of our relationship than there were of the good ones. I think we were just trying to hold on to what we had at the start, but we were losing it anyway because of how we were with each other."
"Yeah," Julie sighed, sadly agreeing with him.
"Hope came after I started believing that. It was on that mission, you know the one I took with Grandpa Max when Adwaita abducted Hex."
"I heard about it. Gwen refused to take part in it."
"Yes she did. She thought it was a trap, only it wasn't. Hex was really in trouble. At first, Hope and I avoided each other, due to our past encounters, but battling Adwaita's servants and obstacles brought us closer together. I realised, before we got Hex out of there, that I had fallen for her. I thought I was kidding myself that she would love someone like me back. But then, a month ago, she came here looking for me to tell me that she did."
Ben gazed at Julie in a serious way as he said the next ten words. "It's no spell. It's not manipulation. Julie, I love her."
Julie peered closer into his eyes and translated the way he was staring into hers with the words of his explanation. His talk about the breakup was tinged with genuine regret, hurt and nostalgia for the times they were together. His apparently short recovery sounded as if he had been in physical pain every time he remembered the breakup or her. His feelings for Charmcaster resonated with the sensation that they had developed over time rather than in a quick moment as a spell was likely to have him do, and that once those very same feelings had been laced with doubt that she could never return his affections. Then, as she reached how he had spoken of the day Charmcaster said that she was returning them, she knew that Ben had talked as though he was truly happy again. Like - - - -
Like he's really in love, she said to herself.
Hearing that mental thought, along with everything else that she had processed and seeing the commitment glowing in his eyes, Julie came to a conclusion. The relationship was real. She believed. Smiling, she grasped Ben's hand in recognition of the truth as tears slipped down from her eyes.
"I'm glad," she sobbed. "I'm sorry that I doubted you."
Ben shook his head. "Don't be," he said sympathetically. "I understand why you were worried and, honestly, you're handling it better than Gwen is."
Julie dried her tears with her free hand. "You have no idea," she replied.
"What do you mean?"
"Gwen contacted me, and Kai, to help her break you and Charm - - Hope up."
Ben's eyes tightened in fury. "What?" he disquietly asked.
"I didn't want to do it. Neither does Kai. We just wanted to find out what the truth was."
"And, now you know?" Ben guessed.
"Now I know, and yes Kai probably will as well. She's nearby."
"Okay then, just one question. How does Gwen think you two are going to help her break me and Hope up."
"She's asked us to take turns to snap you out of the 'spell'. In a romantic kind of way."
Ben's mouth fell open in shock. "That - that's - - - -
"I know. We only went along with it to find out the truth, and to keep her calm."
"Is Kevin in on this too?"
Julie nodded. Ben exhaled angrily. "I can't believe she'd do a thing like this," he growled.
"Well, hopefully, once Kai has had her 'try', all of us will be able to convince Gwen that you and Hope really love each other," Julie suggested.
"Yeah," Ben answered softly. The slight frown formed on his lips by his verbal growl turned gradually into a smile as he turned back to Julie. "Thanks, and tell Kevin and Kai thanks too. You're good friends."
Julie replied with a smile of her own. "Don't say that about Kai just yet," she warned him. "She has a mean crush on you."
She laughed as Ben paled in horror. "You mean she's gonna really try to flirt with me?" he stammered.
Julie shrugged her shoulders. "Depends on how she takes things today."
"Okay. Thanks for the heads up."
:*:
The conversation went along pleasantly from there. Julie told Ben that, under Max's orders, she was going to be forming her own Plumbers team. Ben enquired as to who her new teammates were going to be. She answered that she was thinking of asking Alan and maybe Cooper, but Max had also been making suggestions from a list of newcomers from other planets. At the end of it all, the two parted happily, promising to remain as friends. Kevin and Kai withdrew from the area, satisfied that nothing bad had happened.
Or so they had thought.
Underneath the bench, after the four of them had all gone, a tiny stone creature scuttled out over the pavement and across the road to its mistress' waiting palm. Gwen lifted it up to her face and looked unemotionally from it to the identical one she held in her other hand. Her lips were set in a firm line. Her green eyes were blazing with fury as her hands clenched around the creatures that had been acting as transmitter and receiver for her. The creatures squirmed and wriggled in her grip as the series of heated thoughts rushed through her head.
She had been betrayed. Kevin, Julie, Kai, they were all falling for it. Falling for the lie. Couldn't they see what they were doing, what they were allowing?
Charmcaster. It all started with Charmcaster. Why couldn't any of them see it, and why couldn't Grandpa Max see it either if the enchantment had really been cast in Ledgerdomain? Ben was under a spell and they were all being blind, all because they wanted him to be happy after the damage his breakup with Julie had inflicted on him.
Wait, she thought, that was it. Julie had to have been feeling guilty. She had practically said it herself. Guilt was no trigger to break a love spell. She should have put Kai on this mission from the get-go; at least she had some feelings of love for Ben. But now there was the likelihood that Kai would never make a full-on attempt to romance Ben if she was now thinking along the same lines as Kevin and Julie.
"Then I'll just have to do something about that myself," Gwen declared aloud as she crushed the stone creatures under her fingers.
:*:
The bus from the motel to Julie's house was taking longer to get there than it had the night before. Kai checked the time on her phone. She was already five minutes late for the meeting with Julie and Gwen. Grumbling under her breath, she forced herself to be patient until the street Julie's house was on came into sight.
She leapt onto her feet and pressed the nearest alert button to tell the driver to pull over at the next stop. As the bus slowed, Kai privately hoped that Gwen hadn't tried to get the day's results from Julie just yet. If Gwen was going to react badly, then it would be best that she was there to help settle things down and give her the hope in the fact that she, Kai, had not had her turn to romance Ben yet. Collecting her breath as the bus halted, Kai walked to the side door and hopped off, making the rest of her way to Julie's house on foot. Once reaching the front yard, she went up to the door and knocked on it twice.
The door opened but instead of being met with Julie, she found that it was Gwen on the other side of the frame.
"Sorry I'm late," Kai said.
"No problem," Gwen replied, taking a step back to let her inside.
Kai regarded her initially with suspicion but passed it off as she proceeded into the house. Behind her, the smile Gwen was bearing dropped to a scowl as she closed the door. Kai walked into the living room. Her eyes widened in fear as she took everything she saw in there. Both Julie and her father were pinned to the floor, their arms, necks and legs restrained by mana energy. Julie's pet, Ship, was trapped in a large pink orb hovering above the two; seeing Kai, the poor little Galvanic Mechamorph moaned to her for help. A movement from Julie caused Kai's attention to fall back onto her. Her mouth was open, trying to form words, but no verbal sounds were issuing out from between her lips. Kai got the idea however and revolved around to face her adversary. Gwen now stood two metres down the hallway from her, both arms crossed over her chest and her left eyebrow raised accusingly.
"Gwen, what are you doing?" she exclaimed.
In reply, Gwen held her right hand up and flatly spoke the words of a spell. A sphere of pink energy swirled into being above her palm. Kai tensed as she heard the voices of Ben and Julie speaking.
'Gwen contacted me, and Kai, to help her break you and Charm - - Hope up.'
'What?'
'I didn't want to do it. Neither does Kai. We just wanted to find out what the truth was.'
'And, now you know?'
'And now I know, and yes Kai probably will as well. She's nearby.'
Gwen cancelled the spell out, ceasing the magically recorded conversation from going on any further. Kai stared back at her with a grim expression.
"So your minds are made up?" Gwen inquired.
"More than ever," Kai answered bravely. "I think I don't even need to try. Isn't it obvious, Gwen? They love each other. What is it that makes it so hard to get it through your head?"
Unfathomable anger ripped across Gwen's face. "What makes it so hard for all of you to see it? Uncle Carl and Aunt Sandra. Kevin. Julie. You. You're all blind!" she screamed in rage. "You don't even know the first thing about detecting spells, so how could you know what the truth is?"
"That may be true, Gwen. None of us know how to detect spells, but we do know how to accept the truth," Kai retorted. "Tell me, have you even found a single trace of Charmcaster's energy around Ben?"
Gwen avoided the implications of that question. "Then it's manipulation. She deludes Ben; Ben tells everyone else what he thinks is the truth. Have you even thought of that?"
"What about Kevin, huh?" Kai shot back. "Are you saying that he's wrong?"
"Yes I am," Gwen said, decreasing the height of her voice to a lower and more dangerous tome. "And I'm going to show him he's wrong. Show all of you you're wrong. With your help, Kai."
"Then let me make it clear to you. That's not happening."
Gwen glared at her. "I never said you had a choice. Appendage-A Regoria!"
Kai's body went rigid, her arms slapping to her sides and her legs flying together with a dull snap. She gasped in horror. "Gwen, no, stop," she spoke fearfully.
"You and everyone will thank me for this when it's over," Gwen stated as she raised her arms and began intoning a second spell. Two thick streams of her mana poured forth from her hands, flowing flawlessly like naturally built rivers twisting and curving through the air. Kai gasped again as they neared her, weaving towards her head. They each split apart into four thinner streams, making them eight in number. Two of the streams entered her mouth and travelled downwards to her heart; a second pair wafted in past her nostrils, seeking control of her sense of smell; the fifth and sixth streams infiltrated her eyes; and the final two passed through her skull into her brain as if they were ghosts going through a wall.
Then Gwen's enchantment over Kai was set to work. Her brain was reprogrammed to think of nothing but romantic thoughts towards Ben. Her eyes were to forever lock onto him whenever he was near her. Her sense of smell was trained to hunt for his scent. Her heart was taught to hunger for his love. Grinning widely, Gwen said one last word and sealed the spell inside Kai. The energy streams disappeared.
"Now, what was it you were saying about Ben?" she asked.
Kai smiled dreamily. "I don't want that sorceress near him again. Ben is mine. I will make him mine."
Gwen crowed silently in victory. "Tomorrow, Kai, tomorrow," she cautioned her reaffirmed ally.
"Tomorrow. Yes," Kai nodded. "Tomorrow, I make him mine."
Pleased with Kai's answer and congratulating herself with how well her spell had worked, Gwen could not help adding one more line.
"While I keep Kevin out of your way."
The fears of Ben and Kevin are fast coming to life as Gwen and her plan spirals more wildly out of control. Can this dangerous alteration be stopped? Find out in the next chapter.
