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“Come on Owen, he’s gone,” Finn urges, grabbing the slayer and pulling him back.
“He was my best friend!” he cries out as Finn gives his shoulders a squeeze and guides him away with the others. Something catches in my throat at seeing the slayer’s grief over losing his friend.
When the mist sees that we’re leaving the face fades away and it’s just a huge black mass again. The magic inside of me can sense its triumph. I turn my head to make sure Finn and slayers are still leaving, then, feeling brave and incredibly angry, I march my way right into it.
Bad idea.
It parts for me, unable to infect me since I’m not completely human. Distorted screeching fills my ears and I have to clamp my hands over them to block it out. It stays at least two feet away from me, but it’s also encircling me, trapping me in. The screeching is deafening – maddening. This was the worst idea I’ve had in a while (and I’ve certainly had some bad ones). I let my temper get the better of me far too often these days.
My ears are ringing now and the screeching begins to sound like laughter. It’s laughing at me. My eyes become heavy and when they drift shut all I can see is fire and darkness. Then I see a body lying on a rock, curled in on itself crying. I recognise the person as my dad almost instantaneously, and know that the mist is showing him to me, showing me his pain because this is the only way it can get to me. It can’t infect my body, but it can infect my mind.
“Shit! Get out! Get out of my head!”
I’m vaguely aware of my own voice shouting and swearing. Then I’m being grabbed and hauled away from the dark. When I open my eyes I’m sitting on the ground out on the main street, with Ira standing over me. After being so completely enshrouded in darkness, the light hits my eyes so hard and bright that it hurts. I blink, my vision patchy, and then finally my eyes go back to normal.
“You shouldn’t do that. You have power, but you are not indestructible, Tegan. None of us are.”
This is the first time he’s addressed me by name.
I keep blinking my eyes to try and block out the image of my dad. “I know that. I just let my anger get the better of me.”
“Anger is on a par with stupidity. The two go hand in hand. Remember that.”
I squint up at him. “I’m starting to think I liked you better when you didn’t speak.”
Ira actually laughs at my response. “Well, nobody likes a mirror held up to their flaws.”
He takes my hand and pulls me up, before guiding me over to a small car park where Finn has assembled the slayers and looks like he’s debriefing them.
“Isn’t that the truth,” I say with a sigh, my heart finally recovering its normal rhythm after what just happened.
Finn drives me home, sending the slayers back to their compound for the evening. He tells me that Pamphrock has to go away for the night and has requested that he and Ira watch over Rebecca
while he’s gone.
“Where’s he going?” I ask, nosy as ever.
“To visit Rebecca’s mother, Felicity. He’s going to take some of her blood for your spell.”
“He is? But I haven’t even figured out what else I’ll need yet,” I say, a little panicked.
“Well, that’s what you can occupy yourself with doing for the rest of the day, since I won’t be around for you to lust over.” He gives me a little smirk.
“Ugh, you’ve had such a big head ever since…” I pause mid-sentence, remembering that Ira’s in the van with us.
“Ever since what?” Finn asks, raising a knowing eyebrow.
“You know what,” I say, giving him a little shove. “But fine, I’ll hit the books as soon as I get home.”
And I do. I gather the books I need from Rita’s RV and bring them into the house with me. I’m reading through a list of ingredients for blood spells when I come across one I’ve never heard of before. Alone in the house, I grab Finn’s laptop from his bedroom and bring it down so that I can do a search. After I’ve looked it up and written down its uses, I remember the email I sent the other day to E.J. Edwards. I decide I’ll check to see if he’s replied yet, however unlikely that may be.
I scan down my new emails, most of which are junk, until I see what I hadn’t expected. A brand new message from Evan James Edwards. It doesn’t have a title so I have no clue what it’s going to contain. However, it does have one of those little red exclamation marks on the side bar, which usually means that the contents are “urgent”. Perhaps it’s an urgent tongue lashing about sending prank emails.
I hover the cursor over the message anxiously, praying that he’s written saying he knows how to bring Dad back. When I finally build up the nerve to open it, it reads as follows:
Dear Miss Stolle,
You were wise to contact me. I have read your very detailed email and I understand that your situation is one of great urgency. I have unrivalled knowledge and experience pertaining to the methods of retrieving individuals such as your father and I feel it’s my duty to put them to use. In truth, I have not encountered a predicament such as yours in a long time and I feel a sense of invigoration for the challenge that lies ahead. I am an old man and one last expedition into the realms I once journeyed through is something I have longed for for quite some time. I will be boarding a flight first thing in the morning and will arrive in Tribane at approximately nine-thirty tomorrow night. I would like to get straight to work, so if you could please arrange to meet me at the airport I would be much obliged.
