A/N: Hey! Sorry I haven't posted in forever. I have been having so many tests at uni that I barely have time, but I will try to stay more on top of it! I hope you all like the story so far and feedback would be greatly appreciated! R&R

Chapter 6

The next day I was feeling dazed. Did everything really happen last night or was it some realistic dream? Warily I reached over to my bedside table and picked up my necklace. Could this thing really be some sort of key to make me different from everyone else? How could something that seems so ordinary be the cause of some dramatic change in my life? Thoughtlessly my fingers moved over the stone and the engravings feeling the coldness of the smooth stone flow though my fingers until a bright pulse of blue light radiated through the stone causing me to impulsively drop the necklace. What the heck was that?! After that I couldn’t doubt what it really was. I mean what normal rock can emit light?

I was suddenly jolted from my thoughts by the sound of my cell phone ringing.

“Hello?”

“Hey Audrey its Jake. Um, I was calling to see if you were free to meet up later this afternoon.”

At the sound of his voice I sat up a little straighter and unconsciously ran my fingers through my hair like my appearance even mattered over the phone. “Oh! Um...hey…um yeah I’m free,” I hastily replied with my nerves suddenly acting up.

“Ok cool well I’ll just pick you up around 12 oh and make sure you wear your necklace.”

I looked down at the object lying in my lap, “Um…sure?…ok I’ll just see you then bye.”

“Later.”

With that I leaped off the bed and rushed around getting ready for whatever Jake planned for us to do.

Exactly at 12 I heard a knock on the door shortly followed by my mom announcing that someone was here to see me. I raced down the stairs to find Jake leaning up against the doorway. As soon as he looked up at me a huge smile spread across his face. “Hey, you ready to go?”

“Yeah, I think so,” I said as I double checked that everything I wanted was in my purse and that my necklace was around my neck, “Bye mom, I’ll be back later.” With that I walked with Jake to his amazing car and jumped in.

He stared straight ahead as we pulled out of my driveway and an awkward silence filled the car. The tension that seemed to hover around us was very uncommon, never before had I felt uncomfortable around Jake so why was it starting now especially since I actually know what was going on now. I would think that if anything that I would be more relaxed with him, but although we still had that familiarity of knowing each other for however many lifetimes we have I couldn’t help but feel that something was slightly different than before. By the way that Jake’s brows furrowed I think that he may have been feeling the same thing.

“Soo…where are we going?” I asked trying to clear the random tension and generally curious as to what we were doing.

He glanced at me quickly like he was pulled out of his thoughts. “Well we are going to meet up with some people. Don’t worry, you’re going to like them a lot, you always have.”

Suddenly the awkwardness didn’t faze me as much as nervousness took over. I never did well with meeting new people. Jake said I would like them, but would they like me? All I could manage to reply was a vague, “Um okay.”

I felt the car start to slow as we pulled up to a mansion. I mean this place was huge, I felt like an ant in comparison as I stepped out of the car. Jake ignoring my gawking just took my arm and let me up the front steps and walked into the house like he owned the place. Hell, maybe he did. That’s when I realized that I really don’t know all that much about Jake rather than our linked histories and the feeling that everything was alright when I was with him. I would think that I would want to know more about a person before I had made out with them, but hey my life isn’t normal so why do my relationships have to be.

My thoughts were abruptly halted when I entered the living room and saw who was sitting on the couch. “Mr. Black? What are you doing here?” astonishment and excitement making my voice higher pitched. The question of what my English teacher was doing here quickly overcome by the feeling that I may finally figure out why the mysterious man was just that.

Mr. Black stood up with a casual smile on his face. “Hey Audrey. I was wondering when you would finally get your necklace. Call me Sid I mean I think we should be on a first name basis since I have known you for many lifetimes now.”

My eyes widened and my jaw dropped, “Wait, wait, wait…you’re like us?”

An amused glint flashed through his eyes, “Yes, I’m a warlock to. I have been waiting for you to obtain your powers. I mean you are the last one; Jake, Claire and I received ours a while before you, but no need to fret because now we are complete.”

I was slightly depressed and embarrassed that I was the last so I tried quickly to veer off the topic, “Who’s Claire?”

“I am silly,” came the musical voice from the entry way. I quickly turned around and was greeted with the last person in my group. This girl didn’t look like anyone who should be fighting evil witches. She was about 5’2 and had flaming red hair with bright green eyes that held so much innocence and kindness that you couldn’t help but smile as soon as you looked at her. She was just as quick to return it as she skipped over to me and grabbed my arm. “I am so glad you are finally here! You have no idea what I have had to put up with these two without another girl around!”

“We aren’t that bad,” grumbled Luke from his position on the couch.

As Claire dragged me to the couch and chattered about meaningless things I could hear Sid clear his throat to get all of our attention; if I ever wondered who was in charge it was quickly answered by what he said next. “Well, since now we are all here and acquainted, I would like to commence our gathering if that is alright,” we nodded, “Good. Well I believe the first order of business would be to discuss what is expected of us. It seems we have been placed in Crawley in order to safely train and hone our powers since it is too small to carry any malevolent individuals. We have already started practicing before Audrey has joined us, however I have no doubt that she will catch up quickly. After we have an effective grasp on them we will travel to the nearest city every so often in order to scout the area and do what is in our nature to do. I would suggest we permanently relocate to the city, yet it only being an hour away and this safe house being far more protected than anywhere else, I believe that is unnecessary. We will receive more information as time progresses. Is that clear to everyone?” as he looked at each one of us apparently he was satisfied with what he saw because he continued, “Good! Well then let’s get started on our training for the day.”

With that we all got up and followed Sid down this very long hallway and then down some creaky stairs which led into a small basement. This place didn’t seem large enough to let us stand in it much less train. “Um…are you sure you went the right way?” I asked clearly thinking that my teacher must be a lot dumber than he wanted to appear if he couldn’t find his way around his own house. All I got in return for my comment was a smug smile while Sid gently laid his hand on the wall. All of a sudden a light seemed to radiate underneath his hand and a door appeared. Sid calmly opened it and walked through while we followed. After Claire walked through last I watched the door close itself and then disappear into a wall once again. Will I be able to do that? This is cooler than I thought!

Once I turned around what I found made me speechless. We were in a huge room that seemed like the size of a school gym and clearly looked too big to be part of the house, but apparently I was wrong. This massive room had half the floor covered in mats while the other half held various exercise equipment. Sid turned to face us, “Okay so we are going to spend the first couple of hours working on physical strength and then we will work on magical strength. Claire and Luke you two will help each other push yourselves while I train Audrey.” I was a little disappointed I couldn’t train with Luke, but I wasn’t going to question anyone so with a small smile at him I turned away to follow Sid to the treadmill.

Two hours later after running 4 excruciating miles, lifting weights that were bigger than my arms, biking 6 miles, and doing various amounts of crunches, lunges, and squats I was lying in a pile of my own sweat on the floor thinking that I will never be able to move another muscle in my body again. Someone please just shoot me and put me out of my misery. No luck. While staring at the ceiling a head popped into my field of vision and made me groan and slam my eyes closed. “No more,” I gasped out between my labored breathing.

“Okay no more physical training,” Sid said and I could feel a huge smile spreading across my face as relief overwhelmed me only to be shattered by his next comment, “We are done with the easy stuff now let’s move on to magical training.” I groaned again louder this time. Easy stuff? What part of that torture was easy I felt like I just climbed Mt. Everest or something. Regardless of what I wanted to do at the moment, Sid apparently didn’t care as he hauled me to my feet and pulled me over to the mats.

He sat down crossed legged and motioned for me to sit in front of him. Sitting I could do; I already liked this training much better than before. Once I was situated Sid sighed, “Okay this isn’t quite as strenuous as physical exercise, however it is a lot more difficult and requires more mental strength. Your powers respond to your emotions, so you have to exercise extreme caution whenever you’re wearing your necklace because any powerful emotion will cause things out of your control to happen if you don’t have a strong enough grasp on it. Plus conflicting emotions will hinder each other because they are battling for dominance and will not be as effective. This is why we need to work on isolation and control of your feelings once you are able to properly control your feelings you can use the ones that are the most powerful to create magic.”

I blinked a couple of times and then nodded. Okay, this might be a little harder than I thought. Even though I have a pretty easy-going nature, I never really can control my emotions when they erupt within me; this is just great. For the next hour and a half Sid taught me numerous tricks in order to control my emotions and to isolate and focus on certain ones. It was like putting them all into a box in my mind and pulling out the one that I want to use. This trick plus a lot of others was causing me to have a massive headache and a light sweat broke out on my brow because of the extent of my concentration. It may not seem like a lot of work, but believe me it is.

Once I seemed to have a grasp on the box Sid continued, “Good! You’re catching on quickly! I think we may be able to try to use your selected emotion in order to produce magic. Okay so what you need to know is that the most powerful emotions cause the more powerful magic; intense feelings such as hate and love. Hate won’t have that great of an effect though since we are naturally good it contrasts with our nature. Love, on the other hand, thrives with us. It is our most powerful weapon. In order to make it work I need you to trap all of your emotions in the box like I taught you and then I need you to bring love out. Once it is the only emotion available you need to let it fill you up. See it in your mind’s eye spreading out through your body until it fills you up the more you are filled up the more power you will have. It shines through you like a light. Then once you have it welling up inside of you, you push all of that emotion out of you and it will result in magic. All you have to do is think about the area you want to send it and it will shoot that way. You can even just focus magic into your hand and create and orb, but that takes more concentration because you have to guide the magic rather than letting it move freely through you. Understand?”

I was processing all of this as his monologue continued on. He really does like to lecture. I just really hope that I can remember all that he said and so I just nodded. “Good,” he responded, “Then how about you try it, don’t try to shoot it out of you yet, just let it fill you up and we can judge by the glow how much power you’re using. Once it fills you, you can just let it seep out of you to release it if you want.”

I didn’t really know how to respond or even if he was looking for a response so instead I just focused on my task. I made my box and pulled out love. I tried to let it spread through me, but it was harder than I thought like moving molasses. For all my effort all I received was a weak glow from my necklace and barely any glow around me. I tried again and again with the same result and figured I might as well change tactics. Instead of just focusing on the random love I had floating around in my subconscious, I pictured images of the things I loved the most in my life and went through them like a photo album focusing on the best moments of each and how I felt at the time. This seemed to clear the molasses and turned it into a stream steadily flowing through my body as I pictured the things I held most dear. I pictured my mom, Sam, my childhood dog Freddy, the trip I took to the beach when I was little along with other moments in my life that I treasured, then I saw Jake and wasn’t quite that surprised, but the image after shocked me enough to break out of my trance and the magic was lost.

The picture of a man that I thought I had only seen once before, yet this picture was different than when I saw him; his wardrobe seemed to be from another era and the familiarity and love that I felt for him in the picture definitely was unexpected. How could I have known this man who I have only met once in another time. Unless he is like me it’s not possible was it? This man, the man with the golden hair that I ran into at the venue with Sam couldn’t possibly be someone I love could he? His words flittered through my mind again Now that I found you again, I will never let you go. Found me again? So he must have known me before, but when? And if I do love him, how does that compare to what I feel for Jake?

My musings were interrupted by Sid. “That was pretty good you got a decent glow there. We will have to work on empowering the emotion to make it stronger. Try again.” With a slight scowl on my face I did as he said. I would relax as much as I could and would focus on all of the love I felt within me, yet I never got an extremely bright glow. I could tell that Sid was somewhat disappointed in me, but it’s not my fault if it isn’t working I was using all that I had within me. This made me think that if love was supposed to be our strongest emotion than I must not be that powerful. The disappointment I felt at that realization almost overcame my curiosity about the man from the venue and my reaction to his image. Almost.