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Episode Eight: What I Wanted You To See

“You found her?” I shouted, likely loud enough for Martin to hear me all the way across the house.

Kai shook his head.

“I haven’t found her yet, but I have some suspicions about where she might be,” he said. “And who might have taken her.”

My stomach knotted. “And you want us to go somewhere to do what? Free them? Right now?” I looked down. I’d changed into some baggy sweats and a baggy shirt after I left Martin earlier. “I’m not exactly dressed for demon slaying. Besides, I just got in huge trouble for even talking to you about this.”

“Do you want to help save Peyton and the others, or not?” he asked.

I put a hand on my hip. “Of course, I want to help save them, but this is a bit more complicated than that, isn’t it?” I asked. “First of all, we don’t have the support of the Witch’s Council on this, so there aren’t any Slayers coming to help us. Second of all, this is some big bad demon who has done this many times before, likely for the purpose of gaining more and more power. You said that yourself.”

“What’s your point?” he asked.

“My point is that even if we do happen to find them, how are we going to save them if it’s just the two of us?” I asked. “Unless you have some incredible fighting powers I don’t know about, we’re going to be severely mismatched. We’ll just get ourselves killed.”

“So, what are you proposing? That we just let them die like the Council wants?” There was a storm inside his dark grey eyes, and I had the sudden urge to touch his arm and comfort him.

I didn’t. I just kind of wanted to.

Instead, I turned and walked the other way to put a little distance between us.

I’d never had a guy in my bedroom before, and it was awkward. He could learn so much about me just by being in here, if he decided to pay attention.

“I want to save Peyton as much as you do, if not more,” I said. “But I don’t think we can do it alone. Not if this demon is as strong as you say they are.”

I took a deep breath, trying to think through all the likely scenarios.

Rushing in against a dangerous demon was not a great idea unless we had a lot more firepower on our side. That or a masterful plan in place.

That meant talking to the one person I knew was going to be on my side.

“I need to tell my uncle what’s going on,” I said. “You told me he could hold his own once. Maybe he’d be willing to stand with us if I asked him to. Or maybe he could call in a few favors with some of the Slayers he knows.”

Kai nodded.

“We’re going to need the help, once we know for sure who has them and where he’s keeping them,” he said. “But we don’t want to take an army into battle when we don’t even know if I’m right or what we’re up against. That’s why tonight is a recon mission. We’re not going to fight anyone or try to save anyone. We know he’s not going to hurt them yet, so we have time. All we need to do is go in there and see if my suspicions are right or not. If I’m right and the girls are there, then we call in the cavalry.”

I took a deep breath. I’d literally just had a conversation with Martin about not sneaking around or lying to him. I didn’t want to betray his trust just hours after I said I wouldn’t do it again.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll go with you, for sure, but I at least need to tell Martin I’m leaving the house.”

“Sounds fair enough,” Kai said.

“And you should know that the Council has forbidden me to so much as talk about this, much less investigate or interfere,” I said. “I don’t know why they’re turning a blind eye to this demon’s activities, but if I go with you tonight, they’re going to know about it the same way they knew I was at your house this morning. I don’t know what will happen to me after that.”

Kai studied me for a second, and then he looked around my bedroom. A warm blush blossomed on my cheeks. Thankfully, I didn’t have any dirty clothes or candy wrappers on the floor, but still. What was he looking for?

His eyes landed on the mahogany spell cabinet. To anyone else, it would just look like a  worn, antique cabinet, but I could tell he recognized it right away.

“Do you have any blackberry vines in there? Amaranth?”

“What kind of witch do you think I am?” I asked, tilting my head to the side.

He smiled. “Okay, what about ashes from a cedar tree?”

I had to think about that one. “I think so,” I said.

I had a faint memory of burning several different types of wood and leaves with my mother one winter afternoon a few years ago.

“Then you can just cloak your movements,” he said. “The Council won’t be able to see where you go tonight, if you don’t want them to.”

“The Council can see through all our cloaking spells as young witches,” I said. “There are several in my spellbooks, but I’ve been told they don’t work against the Council.”

It was his turn to look at me like I was crazy.

“You won’t find this particular spell in any of your books,” he said. ‘The Council might not hand over spells that work against them, but I don’t belong to your Council.”

I wanted to laugh at my own stupidity.

I hadn’t even thought of using magic to keep the Council out of my business. I’d always considered them a part of my magical process, and it just hadn’t occurred to me that I could use magic to hide something from them.

It was still very dangerous territory, but at least it would keep them out of my hair for a little while. I hoped.

“What about Martin? What do I tell him?”

“Whatever you feel is best,” Kai said. “Are you up for this? I could just go alone.”

My heart beat a little faster at the thought of going against the Council’s direct orders. Would Martin really stand by my side if I disobeyed? He’d been loyal to the Council his entire life? Did I really want to put him in that position?

But all I could think about was Peyton’s smile. What kind of horror was she going through right now? What nightmare was she trapped in?

“I’m up for it,” I said. “Do you have the incantation and everything I’ll need? I’ve never used cedar ash in a cloaking spell before.”

“I can show you how,” he said. “If you don’t mind me watching you cast.”

I swallowed. Why did that suddenly feel like such an intimate thing?

I guess because witches usually only cast in front of their most trusted allies. Or their worst enemies. I still didn’t even know what this guy was. I should have asked him last time we were together, but I was scared to ask.

I had the feeling he wouldn’t tell me, anyway. Not until he was ready.

“I don’t mind,” I said.

I placed a fingertip on the key hanging from my necklace and imagined the cabinet opening. It obeyed me, and the doors swung open, revealing some of the most important items I owned.

Was I crazy to trust Kai like this?

Ms. Greer had said he was breaking the rules of his own sect. What did that mean, exactly? That he’d gone rogue? Were they looking for him, whoever they were? And what had happened to his father?

I pushed back all my questions and focused, instead, on the task at hand. It was already getting to be later in the evening, and we only had a few days to investigate before Peyton and the others would die. I didn’t have time to be worried about Kai’s ancestry or whether he was going to be in trouble for this.

When the dust settled, we were both going to be in a lot of trouble.

I located all the ingredients he’d ask me to gather, but when I went to clean out my little cauldron to mix them, Kai shook his head.

“Not in there,” he said. “Here, sit with me.”

He grabbed a blanket from the end of the bed and stretched it across the floor.

He motioned for me to sit down across from him, but I hesitated. If he wasn’t a witch of some kind, how did he know what to do?

“Trust me,” he said, warmth in his dark eyes.

I sat down across from him and set the three ingredients on the blanket between us.

“Give me your hand,” he said.

I stretched my hand toward him, and he took it, turning my palm upward. His hands were twice as big as my own, and his skin was warm against mine.

He pinched off a small piece of blackberry vine and set it in the palm of my hand. Then, he sprinkled it with a tiny bit of cedar ash. Finally. He broke off a small tip from the amaranth plant and rolled it between his fingertips until the dust of it fell onto the other ingredients.

I was fascinated by what he was doing, because this was a very different process from any I’d followed in the past. When he was finished, he rolled my fingertips toward me, closing my palm tightly against the ingredients.

“Bring your fist to your mouth and whisper the following incantation,” he said. “Hūnā iaʻu.”

My eyes widened. This was definitely not a normal witch’s incantation, but there was an energy that radiated from him as he said it. Not only could I feel it, I could see it shimmer in the air.

“What is that?” I whispered.

Our eyes were locked, and I realized that even though I’d been worried about whether I could trust him around my things, trusting him with magic was an entirely different beast. For all I knew, he could be making me cast a spell on myself that would send me into another dimension.

“You can trust me,” he said softly. “I promise I will never hurt you.”

I searched his eyes and leaned in toward the energy around us. I felt for any sign of negative intention or manipulation, but all I could sense from him was goodness.

But did I trust myself to know better?

Butterflies danced in my stomach. Peyton didn’t have time for me to sit here and try to figure it out.

“Hūnā iaʻu,” I whispered, not sure if I was saying it exactly right.

But Kai nodded.

“Now, open your hand.”

Unsure what to expect, I uncurled my fingers and gasped as sparkling particles burst from my palm, surrounding my body for a brief, shimmering moment before disappearing.

“What just happened?” I asked.

“You just cloaked yourself from the Council’s view,” he said. “Good job.”

“How did you know to do that?” I asked. “I’ve never seen that kind of magic before.”

“My mother was a witch.” He stood and offered his hand to me. “Come on, I’ll tell you more about her when we’re on our way. It’s getting late.”

His mother? I certainly hadn’t expected that answer.

And if she was a witch, she wasn’t from the same coven as my family. But at least now I had half the answer to the Kai puzzle. He was at least half witch of some kind. What was the other half?

The question was on the tip of my tongue when a solid knock sounded on my door.

“Lenora? Is everything okay in there?”

I groaned. Well, so much for not sneaking around. This wasn’t going to look good.

“I’m okay,” I said, crossing the room to open the door.

Martin stood in the hallway, a concerned expression on his face. “I thought I heard voices, and I most definitely felt someone else’s presence in this house.”

“I have a visitor,” I said, opening the door wider. “Uncle Martin, this is my friend Kai from school. Kai, my Uncle Martin.”

Martin’s lips parted and he raised a hand in surprise. “Ah yes, I don’t know why I didn’t put this together before,” he said. “I knew the name sounded familiar when you mentioned it earlier, but now it all makes sense. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you, young man.”

“Yes, it has,” Kai said with a slight bow.

“I certainly wasn’t expecting to run into you again here, in my niece’s room at this hour. I presume you came in through the window?” Martin asked.

“Yes, sir,” Kai said nervously. It was the first time I’d seen him so uncomfortable. “Sorry about that, but I needed to speak to Lenny.”

“We do have a doorbell, you know,” Uncle Martin said, the corners of his mouth twitching.

I realized that he was purposely messing with Kai, and I had to suppress my own smile. It was nice to see Kai being the uncomfortable one for a change.

“What’s this all about?” Martin asked. He glanced toward the blanket on the floor and the open spell cabinet.

I frowned. This wasn’t going to be as easy to explain, but I was done lying to Martin or trying to hide anything from him.

“Remember how we talked about consequences, earlier?” I began.

**

I explained our plans to Martin and told him about the cloaking spell that was most definitely not Council-approved magic. The whole time I spoke, he remained calm and listened with no expression of judgement or disappointment.

When I was done, I waited to see what he would say, half expecting him to ground me for life or kick Kai out and tell me I could never see him again.

Instead, he said, “It didn’t take you long to make your decision, but I can’t say I’m surprised. Your parents never would have turned their back on a friend, either.”

He gave Kai a very pointed look when he said that, and Kai shifted his weight and looked down at the floor. There was a story there I needed to hear. I was sure of it.

“The cloaking spell should work just fine,” Martin said. “If you find yourself in need of a stronger one in the future, come talk to me. I have a few spell books that might come in handy. Be safe, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

My jaw fell open as he turned to go.

“Wait, that’s it?” I asked. “You’re not going to try to convince me to stay home or tell me it’s way too dangerous and I’m getting in way over my head?”

“Oh, you’re definitely in way over your head, and I suspect the demon you’re after is much more dangerous than either of you realize,” Martin said. “But as long as you’re just going to have a look and don’t intend on trying to break anyone free tonight, I think you’ll be okay. Besides, if I told you to, would you stay home?”

I shook my head.

“There you have it, then. Oh, and I almost forgot.”

He pulled a white cell phone from his pocket.

“This came for you today. My number is already programmed in,” he said. “If you do happen to find yourselves in a rough spot tonight, just call me. I’ll keep my energy attuned to yours, as well, so if I sense you’re in danger, I will come to you as soon as I can.”

“I don’t even know how to thank you,” I said, still in shock that he hadn’t tried to convince me to stay home.

“Just don’t get yourself killed.”

With that, Martin disappeared through the doorway and into the hall.

“Well, that was easier than anticipated,” Kai said with a sigh of relief.

“He makes you nervous, doesn’t he?” I asked.

“A little,” Kai confessed. He glanced at his watch. “We really do need to get going if we’re going to do this tonight. Are you ready?”

I made him wait outside the door while I changed into a pair of dark jeans and a black shirt. I also put my long brown hair into a braid and grabbed a dagger from my parents’ weapon chest, just in case. 

“Okay,” I said, stepping into the hall.

Kai started to head back into my room, but I grabbed his arm and jerked my head toward the stairway.

“Let’s just use the front door from now on, okay? I’m not sure how you got up to my room, but I can’t exactly fly. I need stairs.”

He smiled. “Good idea.”

A few minutes later, we were driving west toward the outskirts of town.

“You still haven’t told me who we’re going to investigate or where you think they’re keeping the girls,” I said.

Kai sat up straighter in his seat. “Okay, so after the first girl went missing, I got a job at the coffee shop. I knew it was the main place the students her age hang out, so I was hoping it would be a good way to listen in on gossip and read people’s energy,” he said. “And there’s this one guy in particular who’s been coming in almost every day to get a coffee that I’ve just never been able to read. His energy has been cloaked or hidden, but there have been a few instances where he leaned dark to me.”

“And that’s bad?” I asked.

“It can be,” he said. “Like I explained to you before, I can sometimes read someone’s intentions if they’re pure of heart. I can’t always tell what they’re thinking or what they’re going to do, like I did with you, but I can usually at least get a feel for their energy and whether they have good intentions or bad ones.”

“Okay, so this guy has bad intentions? Or something dark about him. What does that mean?”

“Sometimes, it might mean nothing,” Kai said. “It could be that he’s got his energy cloaked the way you do now. Or it could mean that’s he’s into something shady that isn’t exactly pure or good-hearted but also isn’t murder or kidnapping.”

I nodded.

“No one is ever all good or all evil,” he said. “There are shades of light and darkness within all of us. This guy, though, has  some dark tendencies. The truth is, he hasn’t been high on my radar, because there have also been a lot of times he was just middle of the road. Nothing particularly dark about him. Just blank. I’ve seen people like that before, and they were usually harmless for the most part.”

I wished I could actually see energy the way he did, because it might have made more sense to me, but I did my best to follow his explanation.

“To keep track of the people in town that sometimes read dark, though, I started keeping notes in a journal.”

He leaned toward me and rummaged through the glove compartment, then tossed me a tattered notebook.

“Turn to the day before yesterday,” he said.

I found the date and glanced through his notes. He mentioned that I’d come in with Brandy and Peyton, and I blushed at his note that he’d barely been able to keep his eyes off me. That could mean anything, right?

“Oh, uh, just ignore that part,” he said, turning the page. “This is what I wanted you to see.”

Bates: 3:45PM. Sat in corner by window. Watched the crowd for ten minutes, then left. Dark energy today.

“Okay, so he was there the other day with dark energy. Couldn’t that just be a coincidence?” I asked.

“Sure, but turn to July 26th,” he said. “Three weeks ago.”

Bates: 3:45PM. Stood near the counter watching the students for fifteen minutes. His intentions are dark today.

“Do you know what happened the next day?” he asked, and I shook my head. “Marcia Valentine went missing.”

Chills ran down my spine.

“I have a similar entry the day before each of the other girls went missing,” he said. “All except the first, because that happened before I started work. But that can’t be a coincidence, Lenny. He’s involved. He has to be.”

My stomach flipped over, and I felt like I might throw up.

“Do you know this guy? Like, does he work around town? Or is he new to the area?” I asked.

“I wasn’t able to dig up much about him without drawing too much attention to myself,” he said. “But I did manage to find out that he leased an old construction building out here in the woods exactly seven months ago. Lenny, I think this is our guy.”

I swallowed back fear and excitement. I’d been on a lot of hunts with my parents, but I’d never had to do an investigation like this or walk into danger on my own. I was scared, but I was also praying Kai was right about this guy.

He turned and parked the car on a dirt road back in the woods.

“Let’s go,” he said.

“Where are we?” I asked, getting out and following him into the woods. I could hear music thumping in the distance, like someone was having a party out here.

A twig snapped under my boot, and he put a finger up to his lips.

“Bates’s building is just through these woods, but we don’t want to alert anyone that we’re here. We just want to look around for now,” he said.

I leaned down and touched my boots.

“Tacitus,” I whispered to silence my footsteps.

I noticed Kai didn’t need to do anything like that for his footsteps to be light as air. He didn’t make a sound as he walked.

Neither of us spoke as we approached the lights of the building ahead. When we got to the edge of the trees, we both crouched down and crawled forward until we had a good look at the building.

The music was obviously coming from inside, and I cringed as I realized this could be a way to hide the screams of any young women trapped inside. Had we really found them?

We watched in silence for about fifteen minutes, and just as I was about to suggest we actually go up there and get a look around, a car’s tires crunched on the gravel leading up to the building.

Kai glanced at me, and we shared a look. This could be a clue. My whole body buzzed with the possibilities.

His look also told me we needed to be extremely still and quiet, but as the car came into view and the person inside stepped out, I couldn’t help but gasp.

I brought my hand up to my lips and covered my mouth.

For a second, I almost felt as if I might faint. Was this why the Council didn’t want me looking into this? Is this why they weren’t sending someone to save the girls?

I wanted to believe I was wrong. Maybe it was just someone who looked like her, but at that moment, she turned and looked toward the woods, making sure she wasn’t being watched.

I got a clear look at her face and there was no mistaking it.

The woman who’d come to visit Bates, an unknown supernatural with dark intentions and possible ties to the missing girls, was my parents’ Keeper. Blythe Greer.

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