A/N: No real one this time…Just Read and Enjoy!!
Chapter17
I hate when I'm right. The morning came too quickly. I didn't notice the time passing. The soft hum of the circle combined with Alice's smell put me into a relaxed state far better than real sleep would. It couldn't last forever though, Alice snapped out of whatever daze she was in.
"We have to get you back." She said in an urgent tone, coupled with disappointment. She didn't move her head. Her breath, cold against my neck, sent a new wave of goose bumps down my spine; causing me to shiver involuntarily.
"I know. I know." I mumbled in a moan of disappointment, not letting her go. I stretched my leg out and broke the circle. There was the tell tale hiss pop. The soothing hum was gone. I still didn't let go. I figured I would eventually get up, but I didn't want to let go.
It took a little convincing and contorting of my muscles, but I managed to stand up without letting go of her. The candles around us had burned out in the night, but the interior was surprisingly bright. I carried her small frame as far as the door. "Okay, we really need to go now. I have to get back before anyone wakes up, and you have to go put the clay around the school."
"I don't wanna." She pouted, shaking her head against my neck. She wasn't making this very easy on me.
"Come on," I started, "what happened to needing to go?"
"I changed my mind." She whimpered holding tighter. I agreed with her more than anything. I didn't want to leave, and under any other circumstances I wouldn't. When was the last time I mentioned just how bad of an idea it was to use a cover? Well I'm going to say it again; going undercover was the worst idea Ever!
"The faster we do this the faster we get back here." I said in an effort to persuade her. She looked up at me with her own personal version of the puppy-dog eyes. "Come on, let's go." I said kissing her forehead. Apparently that's the key, in less than half a second she let go, opened the door, and made it to the jeep. There are days where I wish I had half that speed. Those are the days that have vowels. Then there are days when I consider what price that speed would have, those are the days of the week that end in a "y."
I pulled the door shut effectively locking my wards. I walked to the passenger side of and slid in. I was starting to get used to the controlled madness with which she drove. The sun was still safely tucked behind the horizon, I figured it couldn't be later than four thirty; the clock in the jeep begged to differ. It boldly claimed it was closer to five thirty. Ok, so wizards don't have an enhanced ability to calculate time, sue me. At least we can accurately judge the weather, and seeing there was no water falling from the sky, I can say with certainty it wasn't raining.
When we got back to my current umm-uh… lodgings; both cars were in the makeshift driveway. The less I have to explain about anything the better. I climbed back in through the window, I left open. The room and the house were just like I left them, there weren't any signs of life yet. I quickly changed out of my damp fatigue pants, and pulled on a pair of plaid pajama pants. I ruffled the bedding and moved some pillows around; anything to make it look like I actually slept here.
When all that work was done I actually laid down. There was too much going on for me to actually sleep. There was too much chance that I would actually be able to prevent something rather than having to clean up afterwards. I probably arrived just in time to do what I had to before someone woke up. Bella knew a lot of things, but there's no reason she needs to know what's going on. I don't feel the need to worry her that one of her classmates may or may not be a warlock. I also don't want to explain what a warlock is right now.
Sure enough less than ten minutes later there were footsteps creaking down the stairs. I quickly feigned sleep, my heart rate was normal, as was my breathing. It wasn't a stretch pretend to sleep, even though my mind was racing.
What the fuck was going on? In the past seventy two hours I've killed one vampire from a species I didn't know existed, crippled another that was killed shortly; befriended a large group (family? coven?) of vampires who eat animals instead of people; found out there was someone with magical potential that was two steps away from being executed. Oh I almost forgot: the mate (wife?) of the first vampire I killed is somehow falling in love with me; the same woman (vampire?) whose been haunting my dreams for the past two months. And on top of that there's apparently a vampire problem bad enough that the scribe of the White Council needs help.
The thought of this is enough to make me puke, again. I have been in situations like this a few times before, large amount of questions and no answers. If history serves, it only takes one question to be answered, one domino to fall, to start a chain reaction.
Whoever was on the stairs padded over to the kitchen and started working on breakfast. There was no way it was Bella, she was probably too sick to be up and about. I feel slightly guilty for getting her sick, but that's better than the alternative. The alternative being death.
The heaviness of the actions in the kitchen definitely confirmed that it was Charlie. Are there apartments in Forks? I mean this was a good place to start, it saved a week's worth of investigation, but I need to know that I'm not being watched, and I'm scared to death of slipping up and exposing myself.
More than anything I want to operate on my schedule.
As I lay there with all these thoughts bombarding me one after another after another, the only common thread was Alice. It was true I couldn't call what I felt for her love, not yet at least. I liked her, yes. I really liked her, yes. I thought about her constantly. It seemed impossible that I once loathed the angelic figure in my dream. And with all this, this feeling I could not say I loved her. Maybe falling in love was an appropriate term. Yes, I could love her. In fact I was coming very close.
I think more than anything being forced to hide what I am gives me too much damn time to think. I don't really like living in my head this much. All this thinking makes me second guess myself. Sometimes I just need to fly by the seat of my pants, throw caution to the wind, and any other appropriate cliché.
I lay there waiting for Charlie to leave. Today was a big day. I didn't have time to lie around. I needed to finish preparations for the spell, the circle was working, and the clay should work, as long as I had a piece to link the two. I was nervous as hell! This was the first time I was going to attempt such a spell and from a distance. Shit! I hope there wasn't any running water between the school and the light house. That would seriously mess with me mojo. Yes, sometimes I like to use other accents in my head; it's not all aristocratic tea parties up there.
Anyway, back to the present. After what can only be described as a short eternity in hell the front door finally creaked shut and the dead bolt clicked into place. I hopped up from the couch, and worked fast. I dressed in what I wore the night before, they are my Wednesday cast a spell clothes. I have a magical outfit for every occasion, well not really.
The average person would be quite surprised just what in the kitchen can be used in magic. I didn't quite know what exactly I would need.
So I grabbed some of everything: parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. Not feeling so poetical I snatched up the jar of marjoram and the salt shaker too. The basics of starting any decent Italian restaurant, of course they all had a magical purpose. Salt for example can be used to strengthen a spell (like the circle I put Bella in.) Thyme can be used to enhance focus. The list goes on and on and on and on and on and on. It occurred to me to grab some of them last night, but that would have involved turning on a light and looking through cupboards, two things that routinely call attention.
"She's late." I muttered to myself shoving small bags and jars of the spices into my coat pocket as I started to pace around the cramped living room. "Good god she can see the future but she can't see what time to come back." I said as I stared out the window, watching the rain; knowing that it would make today exceptionally hard.
"I don't think she's late." Alice mused suddenly appearing beside me. "I think she's right on time." She laughed, slipping an arm around my waist.
"Okay then let's go!" I barely had time to finish my sentence before her grip around my waist tightened and her other found the crook of my knee.
She picked me up bridal style! Bridal style! Does any guy, other than me, know just how embarrassing it is to be picked up, by someone a good fourteen inches shorter and less than half my weight? Had another man seen me I would have lost all man points I had. That's saying something about someone who's seen a war.
All I can say is thank God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, Jehovah, Allah, Glarnak the alien king, and Tom Cruise himself that she was fast and that the car was close. No doubt about it; I would have keeled over dead if another creature in this universe saw that emasculating display.
"That was not exactly what I had in mind." I said in disgust once my feet were planted firmly on the ground.
She just stuck her tongue out at me, "Get in." She smiled at me before adding, "Or I'll leave you again." She gave a small wink as I opened the door to the jeep.
There wasn't enough time during the ride to actually say anything substantial. I waited until the jeep squealed to a stop. "OK so you put the clay on the doorjambs off all the classrooms, plus the gym and locker rooms." I said in a businesslike manner. I put aside all thoughts of friendships, of love; until what must be done is done.
She nodded and murmured a yes, "I made more than I needed so I brought the rest." She said pulling a small plastic bag from her pants pocket.
"Thank you, I knew I was forgetting something." I said taking the bag from her. It was hard to keep things professional. I made up my mind; I was going to tell her…I think. "Let's get started." I said as I started towards my new lab. It only took one good shove for the door to give way. I was either getting better at it, or the hinges were loosening up. The candles were still scattered about from last night. "Flicus," I muttered softly with only a wisp of will all the candles burst into flame.
"Impressive," Alice said appearing by my side, "Do you do birthdays?"
"Nope," I cut her off, "I don't do birthdays, weddings, funerals, or love potions." I said butchering Harry's ad in the yellow pages.
She let a small giggle, "You mean that there are really such things as love potions." She said surprised.
"Ya, why wouldn't there be; wizards want to get laid too." I said as I broke a piece of clay off, rolling it into a ball I put it on the north point of the star. "What time is it?" I asked changing the conversation.
"Almost seven." I glared at her, twirling my hand as if to say 'and,' "six fifty-three if you want to be specific." She said sticking her tongue out at me.
"Ok let me know when it's seven thirty."
"What do you want me to do?" She asked moving around in front of me. Crap, I forgot that there was going to be an extra person.
"Well I hadn't really thought about that," I said chuckling lightly, "I guess what I need you to do is easy. A room on the map will light up whenever a magic source passes the clay. You right down the room number."
"That's it!" She scoffed, "You drag me all the way out here to be your god damn secretary." She broke into a beautiful smile pulling a pen and note pad seemingly out of thin air. "Where do I sit?"
"Anywhere outside the circle." I replied cheerfully, drawing my finger in a circle to emphasize my point.
I walked into the middle of the circle and did my best to fit into the center of the star. That's why I wanted the circle to be at least six feet wide. The wider the circle the larger the star; the larger the star the easier I could fit in the center. If I could fold myself into the pentacle then I could put a lot more power behind the spell; handy since I'm trying to cast a spell over a large distance. I pulled the small lancet out of my pocket. I wanted to seal the circle with something more powerful than some will. Mortal blood is one of the most powerful magical conductors. Just like Bella's circle.
I could feel two separate energies form swirling, intermixing with each other. The first was the soft shimmering blue light from the outer circle. The second was a much stronger and more potent magic. The magic from the star felt red, probably from the clay on the point. I focused on the clay doing all I could to connect the clay in front of me to all of the pieces of clay scattered across Forks High School.
I closed my eyes and visualized each individual piece of clay and then drew an imaginary line from each piece to 'master piece' in the circle. When that was done I no longer had to think about the pieces of clay at Forks High, I could concentrate on the one piece and put more umph behind it. All I focused on was detecting magic; seeing it feeling it, hearing it, smelling it. The lines I was visualizing grew thicker and stronger.
I built the power up adding more, and more, and more. Sweat was forming on my forehead; my heart was beginning to beat fast, my breathing increased. It's kinda like I was starting on a five mile run, except that it was my mind tiring and not my legs. The magic that swirled around me was getting thicker, like a blanket of fog. I could feel it suffocating me, I was getting close. I just had to hold on a little longer.
I refocused; pouring all my will into the spell. The sweat was dripping down my face. I just needed a few more moments. If I broke my concentration now all this work would have been for nothing. I had to do one more thing; I had to close the distance between where the spell was and where the web would go. I visualized a crease forming in the world folding on itself, causing the light house to be right on top of the high school.
With one swift motion I broke the star and the circle. The power of the spell shot out of the circle in a torrent of air, vaporizing the piece of clay that I had used as a focus. I fell flat on my back out of breath, and exhausted. Not drained, just tired.
I stared at the ceiling hoping the spell worked. It should, I did everything right. But there's always that small margin of screwing up. "Holy shit!" Alice exclaimed. I jumped to my feet and pulled my blasting rod from my pocket. I took a second and looked around. Alice was perched on the top of some of the boxes off the side staring at her hands like they just burst into flames.
"What's wrong?" I asked rushing over to where she was.
She had this shocked look on her face, "It just started glowing." She said in a completely tone.
"What the school map?" She just nodded with a blank stare. "It's supposed to do that. It means the spell worked. Yes, the spell worked!" I did an internal happy dance, the spell worked
"I was…I'm not used to…it surprised me." She stuttered. She still had that blank look and just stared at her hands.
I took hold of her cool hands, "You've only seen the kind of magic that can destroy." I said looking into her honey eyes, "Magic can also help people, like we are today." I emphasized to word 'we' to let her know that she was just as responsible for helping someone today as I am. She still had a shocked look, "magic can also be used to create." I pressed her hands together never taking my eyes off hers. I muttered a few words under my breath and unfolded our hands.
Lying between her palms was a single white rose.
Yes I know it's really, really, really, really, really corny, but c'mon sometimes corny is exactly what you need to prove a point; and other times corny passes for romantic.
She broke out into a huge grin, "You know this is too cheesy right?" She giggled; I nodded. I swear she's the empath, "but thanks." She added with a dazzling smile.
"Sorry it's the only trick I know. It's not even a real rose." I said reluctantly. I muttered a few more words and the rose vanished from her hands.
"Hey, just because I said it was cheesy doesn't mean I didn't like it!" She said with a pout. I repeated the process bringing the rose back, she smiled and brought it to her nose, inhaling deeply.
"Silly vampire, it doesn't smell. It's an illusion." I chided.
"Shush! I'm pretending." She waited smelled it again, "how long will it last?"
"'til dawn maybe," I replied, "is it seven thirty yet?" I began to get this uneasy feeling, maybe because I would be saving a life for a change.
"It's seven twenty-nine." Alice reported looking at a new cell phone, how it survived in the torrent of magic is beyond me.
"Close enough," I said picking up the wrinkled school map, "Time to watch paint grow and grass dry."
"Why? School doesn't start for another half hour." She questioned. I motioned for her to look at the map.
"What we did was set up a network of tripwires, not motion detectors. The rooms on the map will light up for two seconds, maybe less when they're crossed. The rain's not helping either." Without saying another word she grabbed her pen and notepad and sat statuesque over the map.
I wish that I could say that being a wizard and a warden was all running around throwing fireballs, killing evil-doers in long black cloaks, slaying dragons, and rescuing beautiful fairy princesses. The truth is that that stuff only happens five percent of the time. The other ninety-five percent of the time is sitting and waiting for something to happen, and occasionally preparing for all the bad possibilities. It's not an exciting life, maybe that's why we live a really long time? That way we don't get upset about spending so much time waiting for things to happen.
"Got one!" Alice exclaimed in a voice so high that I thought my eardrums would rupture. "Building six, room three." Her eyes glazed over, I wasn't sure if she was having thinking or having a vision. "It's Mr. Jefferson." She added a split second later.
"Did you just have a vision?" I asked with more than necessary concern in my voice
"No it took me a while to cycle through all the room numbers and teachers."
"A while!" I choked on a laugh, "it was less than a second."
"I know," she sounded disappointed, "I should have been able to do it faster."
"You know, for a creature who has eternity, you certainly do everything fast." I said as a half chuckle.
"Ya, it's one of our quirks. So we have close to an hour before this mystery person changes class. What do we do?" She said with an unrecognizable glint in her eye, and a mischievous smile on her lips.
"Something tells me you already know the answer, and if you don't you're pretending you do." I shot back.
"Maybe, maybe not." She said with an unmistakable mischievous look. I knew better.
"You know exactly what I'm about to say don't you?" I asked. She nodded a single time. "So is there any point in saying it?" I continued. She shrugged this time. I decided that now wasn't the right time. The minutes ticked by slowly, I wanted to say something, about last night, about tonight, about anything; but I couldn't. I didn't want to say anything if she already knew what I was going to say.
"Let's just say I don't like surprises either." I said breaking the minute's long silence, "and, well, let's just say that what you said hit me like a truck. I…I…Since…"
"You don't have to say it." She cut me off mid stutter. "I don't have to see the future to know." She drifted off.
"No! I need to say it. I've shut my life down since I killed the one woman I loved. I've been a shell. But then I come here and all of this shit happens and it seems business as usual until last night. Last night changed everything, and all I want to do is say exactly what you said to me, but I can't. Believe me when I say that I want to with every single fiber of my being. I want to say 'I'm falling in love with you' hell I want to say 'I love you.' But…" She appeared in front of me in a flash, there was some anger in her eyes.
Her jaw was clenched when she spoke with pure fury, "How dare you! How dare you talk about this like its all your problem! I saw everything. I saw you coming to Forks six months ago. I saw you kill Jasper well before you showed me the picture. I saw all of this and I didn't do a fucking thing to stop any of this!"
"I saw it, I saw myself falling in love with you. It's something I wasn't prepared for. I lied to you when I said he was acting differently. It was me," her voice was dripping with a mixture of fury and sadness, "I saw it, I saw that the life I've been living for the better part of the century was wrong. I was so sure it was right when I saw it, that I let my life become solely about what was comfortable. Less than a week ago I took the risk; I let him die because of what I saw. And then you stand here and try to say that this decision is yours alone." Her voice was filled with nothing but desperation.
I wanted to grab her, to hold her, to tell her that everything would be fine. I couldn't. My feet were glued in place. My voice was cemented to my throat. My mind separated from my body. I wasn't there anymore I was locked in the back of my mind. I saw my legs start to move much more than I felt them. I knew exactly what was going to happen. Well one of two things would happen, one I would say those three words that girls love to hear and guys have an innate hatred for. Or my body, not me, was going to go right up and kiss her. I'm not sure what the worse was option.
Or maybe, maybe somewhere deep inside, I decided that these were the best options. This could have been the more acting and less thinking strategy I wanted. My feet were still moving towards her, my heard my breathing become erratic, my heart beat sounded like an alarm ringing through the confines of my head. I still wasn't sure what my body was going to do.
I fought get control of my body again, but it was like running against the tide. I knew I would regain control, but at this rate it would be in the middle of whatever stupid decision my body was going to make. I could barely make out that Alice was still saying something; I could hear the pain in her voice.
I was getting closer to having control of my body again. I was getting some feeling back, but I still wasn't in control. And it wouldn't be until I was too far in to change anything. I felt myself lift my arms up and put one tenderly around her waist and the other and the other around her neck. I still wasn't sure what I was going to do still. I was constantly gaining more feeling, but not control.
I leaned in closer, and closer; the closer I was the more she melted into me. Then bam! I was back in the driver seat. I pulled her closer, finally listening to my gut. I knew exactly which door I was going to choose.
I brought my lips closer to hers. At the last moment I moved them away. Well away isn't the right word. Instead I brought them to her ear, "there's no doubt about it. I love you."
She craned her head over to my ear. "Building two, room one." Wow and people say I can kill a moment.
"At least you didn't throw up." See, what I mean about killing the moment, "That's two down, and now we have another hour to kill."
A/N: Please review should your muse descend upon you…and if it doesn't than at least tell your friends