Chapter 3

My first kiss! My first real kiss ever and it’s from a deranged female psychopath. I stiffened in shock, her grip on my arms turned brutal, and I tried to suppress a tremor of pain. Her tongue stabbed at my lips and forced them open, her lips meshing painfully against mine, forcing my mouth as wide as I could get it without breaking my jaw. Breathing was becoming a chore now, harder and harder to breathe in and out. Green eyes stared back at me, hating and reviling me, even as her lips closed more securely over mine, and she released a deep breath. Her body shuddered, her eyes closed and I watched as her face began to glow a deep orange, before I felt something hot and liquid flow into my mouth. Pain unlike anything I have ever felt before coursed through my head, as the liquid forced it’s way down my throat, burning a path of pain the whole way.

From a distance I could hear screaming, terrified screaming, but I could only focus on the agony that was now flooding my veins and spreading to my belly. I could feel it low in my stomach, floating, and then the pain lessened just enough for me to become aware that I was the one screaming, and of the fact that Reina had let go of me, but continued to be covered in flame. It was eating away at her, but not like it should. Her hands and feet turned to dust and blew away on the breeze all the while she was crying out in a language I couldn’t understand. Suddenly, like she couldn’t hold back, her entire body disintegrated in burst of flame, but not before she managed to look right at me, her hate filled stare distracting me only a second from the pain, and imprinting itself in my memory.

The flame that consumed her burned through me, into my body, giving me flashes light, showing me images of a young blonde girl as she took a dagger that her father handed her and weighed it in her hand. Then another flash and this time I was looking at a slightly older version of the girl, carrying her father’s dagger, and plunging it into a young man’s chest, a smile of evil pleasure on her lips. Another flash and I watched as Reina was approached by several men in black robes. She bowed reluctantly in deference, but they didn’t notice, they never did. She would force them to their knees, but she wasn’t powerful enough yet.

The flashes of light and memories ended suddenly, like someone had turned something off inside me. My brain was whirling, my body was still racked with agony and I was grateful it was over. I wanted to beg for death, I wanted the pain gone. A deep moan pushed it’s way past my lips and I could feel myself falling, falling and wanting to sink into oblivion.

Powerful arms caught me before I could hit the pavement, and my blurry eyes met Lukan’s grey gaze. He looked scared, and concerned, but why I didn’t know.

Another burst of pain burned itself in my body and I turned quickly away from him, retching on the cement floor, aware of his hands gently rubbing my back and holding my hair. I wanted to laugh about the absurdity of this handsome stranger holding my hair back as I threw up, when I couldn’t remember anyone else doing so for me...except Jason, but I was twelve and had the flu. A shiver that wouldn’t stop had my teeth knocking together and I could feel the tears flowing hotly down my cheeks. Once again an eruption of pain coursed through my body and I cried out. My blood, my lungs, my whole insides felt like they wanted to push out of my skin. Lukan held me to him closer and called out to my brother, but I knew Jason couldn’t help. Staring up at that handsome face, I asked for the one irrational thing that I could think of to make the pain go away.

“Kill me,” I whispered tremulously, more tears falling down my cheeks. Lukan began to shake his head, but the fire was getting stronger and I reached out for his face with both hands. “Please,” I sobbed, unable to control myself anymore. I had just been scared out of my freaking mind, attacked by several crazed maniacs, kissed and possibly poisoned by a psycho lady into bestiality, and now my body wanted to burn me until there was nothing left. “Please,” I begged again, my hands forcing him to look me straight in the eye. “It hurts too much! Please, oh god, make it stop,” I cried.

“No one is going to kill you,” my brother soothed, his familiar face swimming into my vision. “I promise Caro, everything will be fine. Nat,” Jason called, and the red haired girl leaned over me, her gaze alternating between my brother and me.

“Can you heal her?” Jason asked.

“Not without risking permanent damage to her body,” Nat replied her voice low and full of sympathy.

“Why don’t you just force it out, like Reina did?” the gun toting blonde man asked, his eyes darting toward the street, listening to the far away sound of sirens.

“I don‘t have the ability to force that kind of magic without severely traumatizing her body,” Nat answered, her cool hand smoothing over my forehead. Her touch made the fire spike, and my head was throbbing. “Even with the Sisterhood Coven pulling together our strength, I doubt our power will be enough. We may need the combined force of all the Covens. What Reina accomplished I don’t believe was entirely her own doing. We are talking about an accumulation of nearly two millennia of demon magick.”

My painful groan had my brother run his hands through his hair, pulling in frustration. “I don’t care what the hell you do, but just get it out of her!” he cried.

“We have to get her back to the Siempre,” Nat ordered hastily.

“I agree. It is time to leave,” the blonde with the broadsword called out urgently, watching the darkness beyond the parking lot. Jason nodded, his expression bleak and defeated. The fog of agony was easing back only enough for me to barely follow the conversation, but when my brother went to lift me up, it was Lukan who gently pulled me into his arms, his skin scorching a path of heat where ever it met with mine. Burying my face into his neck I breathed deeply, Lukan’s scent sending a cold shock into my lungs. My arm around his neck pushed into his soft hair, reveling in the texture even as everything inside me was screaming for relief from the pain.

“Lukan,” my brother called, annoyed. “I can carry my own sister.”

Lukan hugged me closer to his chest which only caused me to whimper in pain, and his hold immediately loosened. His deep voice rang out in the dark as he muttered several words in a language I couldn’t understand. For several moments the only thing that could be heard was the annoying sounds of the night bugs before my brother exploded in a glorious display of disbelief.

“Are you kidding me?!? Now, now, you had to do this? No way, you can’t just…this is insane!” my brother shrieked at his friend, his face turning an amusing shade of red. If it wasn’t for the ever present fire that was burning away my insides, I would have laughed.

“He does not have a choice,” Amazon Woman shot out, her tone imperious. “You will not interfere.”

Jason spluttered indignantly for a moment, and it was enough to piss me off. I was in pain and he was stalling our getting me treatment for what? The right to play macho and carry me around? Men are such idiots.

I ignored the tension in the air and decided I’d dealt with enough for one night. Tears were falling down my cheeks steadily now, and I did nothing to try to stop them, I was too tired to really fight the pain any more. The edges of my vision were turning grey and blurry, and a surge of lethargy had me reeling. “How about we get me to a hospital now and deal with you two’s need to proclaim your superiority later. Kind of dying over here,” I wheezed out.

At least they had enough smarts to look chastised. “Of course,” Lukan responded, his voice husky, but filled with concern.

We were moving now, and I could feel every step like a pounding ache, but the fire was lessening, losing strength. This time the sobs that were wracking my body were purely from relief. The pain was still there, but bearable and I was praying that I would survive to kick my brother’s ass. The events of the past thirty minutes were world shattering, and believe me, my world was laying around me in pieces. My brother had a lot to answer for, and once I was better I planned to remind him of it.

“Gordon, Rick, you and Cass take Caroline’s car and follow us,” my brother ordered, tossing my forgotten keys at Tree Woman (Cass?). “Lukan, Natalie, you ride with me.”

We hurried over to a huge black suburban, and Lukan slipped into the very back, laying me gently down on the seat, his hands gently taking my head in his lap. Nat took the seat behind Jason, who swiftly took the driver’s seat and started the vehicle. The tires squealed in protest as my brother speed away from the park, and I could only watch the trees and street lights stream by the car windows. Lukan’s hands lightly caressed my face, the movement soothing away the fire that still burned deep in my belly. The tension in the car was electric, but concentrating on pushing the pain down was my goal. Slowly, my eyelids began to get heavy and I could feel my consciousness floating in that place between asleep and awake. The last thing I remembered is warms lips touch lightly on my forehead.

Waking up is never my strong suit. I am a heavy sleeper, and most definitely not a morning person. Something kept nagging at my brain though, a persistent annoying presence that demanded I wake up. My eyes opened and glared hatefully at my alarm clock. Groaning in annoyance I realized I had slept through my alarm. “Aw, crimeny!” I muttered and turned onto my back, violently kicking and hitting my bed with my legs and arms. “Stupid work! Argh!”

After taking the fastest shower on record, it was time to pull on the beige skirt, matching flat heel shoes, white blouse and light beige corduroy jacket. Stupid Mallards and the stupid dress code. How plain can you get? My next stop was the kitchen, where my coffee waited for me already brewed thanks to the timer (who ever invented time set coffeemakers is my hero) and I greedily took a sip of the flavorful goodness. Somehow it tasted different, somewhat chalky and like their were lumps in it, but I was too late to care. Sipping some more I frowned as the taste persisted. Number twelve on my list, check the coffee maker. God, Bradley is going to kill me for being late.

I grabbed my purse and keys and walked to the front door. I took a glance at my home and smiled. My living room was spacious and comfortable. The decor was in part inspired by Abuelita, a tribute to the nights when we used to make Abuelito his tortillas and watch telenovelas together even if I didn’t understand a word of it. West Virginia was a long way away from Texas, but it was a fresh start. I have lived here for almost a year and was adjusting well. I just wish I could see my grandmother’s face again, or Jason. Living so far away was a downer, but as soon as possible I would visit Abuelita and Maria. Though Maria would probably be to busy with her boyfriend, but that wasn’t new. My mother never made any false impressions as to where her priorities lied. All the same I would still make an effort to include her. I always did. She was the only parent Jason and I had. Maria wasn’t perfect, but she wasn’t all bad. She still tried to raised Jason and I, even though it would have been so much easier to just leave us completely in Abuelita and Abuelito’s hands and not give us a second thought.

Sighing, my gaze swept across the living room one last time, before I opened the door. A blinding flash of white light streaked into the doorway and my hands immediately lifted to protect my eyes from the glare. An echoing chain of voices began to reverberate the walls of the house, in a language that sounded foreign and ancient. The light lessened and I lowered my hands. Giggling is not something I do often, and in fact I try not to giggle at all because it implies, at least with me, embarrassment or stupidity. In this case I couldn’t stop the shocked giggles from escaping, and instead embraced them as I stared down at a three foot nothing figure of pure white light. The light stared back at me with curiosity, something I was aware of only because of the floating hazel eyes staring back at me from within. There was no malice in those eyes, no danger but even so, I marveled at how calm I felt at this moment. The chanting was getting louder and more insistent but was also beginning to get remarkable annoying.

“Who...” I began, pausing to rethink my question, “or rather, what, are you?”

The light floated to the couch and hovered over the cushions, presumably in an imitation of sitting down. Hazel eyes glanced over at me, then away quickly. “I don’t know,” it responded quietly, and I had to lean forward to hear it over the chanting.

“Okay, what the hell is up with the background noise?” I demanded, by now I was annoyed.

The light looked up to the ceiling, then at me, it’s eyes trying to convey something to me, but what I couldn’t tell. “They are trying to help you,” it answered sadly, and seemed to shrink before my eyes.

“Help me? Why?” Nothing seemed to make sense anymore. I was talking to a glowing leprechaun in my living room while a bunch of weird voices were singing probably a foreign version of ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ at the top of their lungs. This dream was remarkably original and freaky even to me, the Queen of Weird Dreams, but even through it all, the only thing that was really bothering me was the Village People who wouldn’t shut up.

Compulsively I reached for my coffee from the counter and took another sip. Grimacing I forced the concoction down, fairly certain that I had never made a worse batch of coffee. The chalky, chunky taste was joined this time with a metallic copper flavor, and a spice of some kind that I couldn’t name. Grey glowing eyes followed my movement, then looked over at me. “You have been given a gift they believe you weren’t meant to have. To many it is a curse,” it told me slowly.

“A gift?” I repeated, shaking my head. Something was niggling at my brain, a memory that I couldn’t grab a hold of. A warmth was slowly getting hotter and was now spreading across my nerve endings. I took another sip of the coffee, this time I tried to pull it away from my lips before I could drink anymore but my body wasn’t listening to me. Choking down more of the strange brew I began to gag, but still I drank from the unending cup, and I was getting scared. My arm finally pulled away the cup from my lips.

“Gah, that is awful! I don’t want anymore,” I cried from around my tongue, hoping the taste would float away. Every pore in my body was beginning to protest the dull pain that was starting in my belly and spreading. The voices were getting even louder, pulling away thought and reason until I felt I was about to go insane. “Will someone please shut them up?” I panted, clutching my belly with a trembling hand. Pain was everywhere now, even my hair was hurting. A small pulse began humming in my ears and my skin began to glow a deep orange, like a light was shining from within my body. The chanting paused for a moment as I stared in awe at my hands that now glowed even brighter. The pain was increasing now, and the Village People started up again, this time shouting out, and if I didn‘t know any better I would have thought the voices had become fearful.

A wave of pain washed through me, and I doubled over. The glowing figure still hovered over my couch, watching me with pitying eyes. “Do you wish for it to stop?” it asked softly.

Looking up at it, I writhed in agony as another wave broke through me. “Yes...please,” I pleaded.

“So be it,” it murmured quietly. “Remember, I do this for us both.”

The creature floated above me, and I could feel a burning build in my chest. My body hit the ground but I didn’t feel it, instead I was focused on the point in my chest that burned, the fire spreading across my skin as the glowing figure above me began to call out in time with the echoing chants. The white light spread until it filled my vision, and the burning intensified. My eyes were pulsing and flashing a deep red glow, and I could feel the tears sliding down my cheeks evaporate into the fire. The white light surrounded me, and I was floating in the air. I could feel the wind caressing my heated flesh, but strangely I was comforted by it. The chanting continued, but I could only concentrate on the fire and the light that was surrounding me, protecting me from the flames even as they began to consume me.

Push the fire outward, the light whispered to me, only this time the sound was coming from somewhere in my head.

“I don’t understand,” I called out softly.

Push the fire away from you. Force the flames out of your body. Release it, don’t be afraid, was the gentle answer.

The pain was dull now, masked by the comforting light surrounding me, but it was still there. I could feel the thrum of it beating a tattoo in rhythm with my heart. Slowly, I focused on the point of intensity, pushing it forward until I could feel the bone-clenching agony again. Envisioning the pain as a ball of orange light, I forced it as quickly as I could, out of my body.

That’s it, now focus, the light called out, it’s voice a relieved sigh.

With a shudder, I mentally flung the ball away from me, crying out in relief as it erupted outward in an explosion of flame. The chanting had stopped and was replaced by echoing screams. An unfamiliar scent wafted to my nose, along with the smell of burnt hair.

You did it, the light told me, but there was a resignation in it’s voice as it continued. But the fire will be back. Until you can control it, you will be at it’s mercy. An unfortunate side effect...

“Of the gift?” I asked.

The air that surrounded me brushed against my skin as I was laid on something hard. The feeling of floating was gone, and with it, the comfort of being safe.

Yes, but whether it is a gift…that is for you to decide, it called out to me, it’s echo in my head fading.

Darkness was creeping toward me, and the white brilliance of light faded. I tried in vain to cry out for it to come back, but it blinked out, disappearing as if it had never been there. Strong hands lifted me, and I was floating once more, confused and afraid as the darkness claimed me again.

A/N: Thank you everyone who reviewed the last two chapters! I am glad you like this story. Please keep reading and let me know what you think. I hope to have the next chapter up soon, but as always, my life is extremely hectic so we'll see. I hope to hear what you think of this chapter. Take care everyone!