Chapter 2

Galway, Ireland 1753

A beautiful noble woman and a handsome gentleman walk the streets of Ireland at night. Seeing a house he recognizes he slowly walks up to it and knocks on the door.

As the door opens a little girl is standing there looking wide eyed at him.

"Liam!" she exclaims before hugging her older brother.

"Yes Kathy it's me." he says as he breaks their hug. "Can me and my lady friend come in?" he asks.

"Yes...yes do come in." she says as she steps aside. Liam and the noble woman quickly step inside and close the door.

"Liam I thought you were dead? Are you an Angel?" she asked looking dreamily at her brother. Liam grins at his little sister for a moment with a thoughtful expression on his face. Him an Angel.

"No Kathy I'm not an Angel." he replies with the grin still on his face. "I told you before I left that no matter what happens I'll come back for you. Now grab your coat so we can leave this place."

Kathy lets out a squeal as she runs to the living room closet. As she turns her back to him Liam slips into his vampiric visage.

"Oh and Kathy give your brother a kiss." he says from behind her. As she turns around and looks at his face she screams. With a grin he sinks his fangs into his sister's neck and drinks her dry. Her little lifeless body falls onto the floor of the closet. Her lifeless eyes stare up at her brother.

"Aaaaaah!" Tara screamed as she woke up from her dream. Sweat rolled down her body as her hand shot up to her neck.

"Tara what's wrong?" the ghost asked as he materialized in front of her. Startled she let out a scream as she jumped out of bed. Remembering what was going on she sat down in bed looking up at him.

"Are you Ok?" the stranger asked again as he sat beside her.

"N....n...no." Tara replied. "I....h...h...had a bad dream."

"A dream?" he asked. "What was it about?"

"Y...you." she said as she pointed at him.

After telling him about the dream, he sat there looking at her stunned. Maybe I was a killer when I was alive. But that's impossible. What she was dreaming about had to be hundreds of years ago.

"It's going to be Ok Tara, but I need you to do something for me." At her nod he continued. "Did you catch what this lady... Darla was it, called me. I would love to know my name." he said as he looked expectantly at her.

Tara thought real hard about the dream. But couldn't remember the woman ever saying his name. But she did remember what the little girl called him. She called him Angel. The man looked visably dissappointed at this news.

"I could name you!" Tara offered cheerfully. He smiled at her weakly then he just nodded his head.

5 minutes later

"W...what about Riley?" Tara asked. The ghost gave her a funny look but said nothing. So she went on with another name.

"Ben?" he shook his head no.

"O..o..ok, what about Connor?" she asked. The ghost sat there for a minute letting the name roll around in his head.

"Conner, I think like that name." he replied with an easy smile.

About an hour after Tara took a shower and got something to eat, her and Connor sat quietly in her room. Flipping through the pages of her spell book, she finally stumbled onto the spell that Connor told her of. Her eyes went wide as she read, how powerful the spell was. She could levitate things and read auras, but sending a ghost to the other side seemed a bit much for her.

"I...i...i.. don't think I...i.... can do this." Tara stuttered as she set the book down.

"You can." Connor reassured. "Like I said, I was in your body and I know you have enough power to do this."

"B...b...but ...I... don't have e...enough money for the ingredients." she tried again to get out of it. Connor used his will and took the book out of Tara's hand. He let out a sigh as he saw that the only ingredients she needed were a mirror, some chaulk, and a candle.

"Tara." he started off slow as he ran his hand through his hair. "These ingredients would only be about five dollars." he just couldn't understand this girl. The spell was simple enough for a practitioner to do.

After convincing her for the millionth time that she could do the spell, Tara finally agreed. As Tara was going through her father's dresser draw for some money(he left her a little, in case she needed anything while he was gone.) a book fell out and on to the floor.

Bending over to retrieve the book, her eyes widened as she read the title.

'The Diary of Elizabeth Maclay'

Afraid to even touch the book, Tara took the money out of the draw and left. Conner gave her a look but quickly followed.

The two were half way to the city before Connor decided to break the uncomfortable silence.

"Tara." he called out her name. The girl suddenly stopped and looked back at him. Her eye's were red and puffy and unshed tears stung her eye's.

'Maybe I need to talk to her about her mother later. Whatever it is has really upset her.'

"How long will it take us to get to the city?" he asked changing the subject.

"A...a...about twenty more minutes." she replied rubbing at her eyes.

'Damnit just what lies has her father told her?' Connor thought to himself as the two kept walking.

-

Before Tara could announce that they finally made it to town a scream permeated the air.

Not knowing why, but Connor ran in the direction of the scream. Pushing down her own fear Tara quickly followed.

As the two ran through a clearing of bushes, they saw Danny the school bully along with a few other kids kicking a boy in the ribs. The boy was curled up in a fetal position on the ground and was helpless to stop the bullies attacks.

"Wh....what are we going to do?" Tara asked Connor timidly from their position behind some bushes. Connor looked over at Tara with a grim look on his face before he replied.

"Give me control of your body...."

Danny raised his hand to hit the boy again until someone grabbed his arm from behind. Turning he see's that it is Tara. Jerking his arm loose he glares at her.

"So the freak is back." he said just loud enough for his gang to hear. As his gang looks up and see's Tara, they stop kicking the boy and they surround her.

Tara looks at Danny's gang and a grin parts her lips.

"I thought that after I beat you up the other day that you would stop picking on people. I guess I'll just have to beat you even harder."

With a beastial growl at her comment Danny surges forward with a series of punches. Tara either dodges or blocks all of Danny's blows until she see's an opening. Letting out a series of lightning quick punches to his stomach, Danny falls to the ground and starts to dry heave.

Danny's gang stood back opened mouthed as they watched Tara Maclay 'The Freak' beat Danny.

"Don't just stand there...." Danny manages to get out from his position on the ground. "get her."

The boys exchange a look with one another until one by one they surged forward. As one got to close to her Tara shot out a kick that hit him square in the gut. As he doubled over another one of the boys grabbed her from behind.

Not knowing any other way to get out of the hold, Tara head-butted him. The visious move sent a spray of blood and teeth flying as she flipped him over her shoulder and moved onto her next opponent.

Sending out a spin kick which the boy smoothly slid under, she dropped to the ground and did a leg sweep, that sent the boy sprawling to the ground.

Seeing that all of the boys were still on the ground, groaning from their injuries, she quickly made it over to the boy who had been attacked.

"Are you ok?" she asked as she helped him to his feet. His face was a bloody mess and so was the rest of his body.

"Tara?" the boy asked. seeing her from his one good eye.

"Yeah it's me." she replied with a grin. "Now can you run?" the boy only nodded his head.

"Good. Now go." As the boy took off she looked over her shoulder and saw that Danny and his gang were starting to get to their feet.

"Tara , I'm going to beat the hell out of you." Danny said as he spit some blood out of his mouth.

"Is that so, because that's what I thought I was doing to you." Tara quipped. With that the boys again surged forward. Before they got to her, Tara saw a walking stick next to her foot. In one quick move she kicked the stick and sent it into her hands.

With a grin on her face as the boys stared on in shock, she twirled the stick in her hands expertly.

Stopping for a second she brought her fingers to her palms in a "come on" gesture.

Enraged, all the boys attack her at once. As one boy tries to tackle her she spins and trips him with her staff, then smacks him in the small of his back. As he falls to the ground another boy tries to punch her in the face. Blocking his punch she sends out a side kick that hits another boy in the gut. As he doubles up in pain she spins and smacks her walking stick in the back of the boy, who tried to punch her, head and knocks him unconscious. Danny was so stunned that he just stood there watching the fight.

"Danny if this keeps up I'm going to have to break some bones." Tara said as she began to spin the stick in her hands. As the boys stood up they looked at each other and then back at Tara, grabbing their unconcious friend they ran off.

"I'll get ye for this Tara. If it's the last thing I do!" Danny yelled out as he joined his friends in a run.

After they got out of view, Tara dropped the walking stick and fell to the ground. As she layed there for a while exhausted a slow smile spread across her face.

"I'll never get picked on again." she muttered to herself.

tbc...