| “Kyle you’re crazy,” Maria laughed at her brother as she watched him try out magic for the first time. She screeched in laughter as instead of calling a flame in the palm of his hand he summed a gust of wind that sent sand spraying all over him. “Glad you find this amusing Maria,” Kyle said glumly as he brushed himself off and glared at his laughing sister. “Now can you please help me get this right? How am I supposed to help you guys if I can’t do anything?” “Kyle,” Maria said shaking her head and sending her blonde curls flying. “You can’t make it come. It’ll happen when you want it to. You don’t see me going around trying to shift do you?” “That’s only because you don’t have anyone to show you how to shapeshift Maria,” Kyle said smartly as he squared his shoulders in preparation for trying the calling spell again. “Kyle,” Maria said with a careless shrug. “If I wanted to learn how instead of waiting until nature wanted me to I would just call Sean. You’re forgetting that our dear cousin is a shifter. He could teach us that easily if we wanted to. The reason that we have these powers is because we are destined to. We can’t force them to come to us before they’re ready. Besides you are never going to summon fire like that silly.” “Well sister dear,” Kyle said with a stony glare. “Tell me what I’m doing wrong so that I can.” “You’re an Earth witch Kyle,” Maria said with a grin. “Your opposite is fire…you put it out, not call it forth. So you need something to channel your power when you call for it. Here,” she searched through her velvet bag that she had brought with her and tossed him the crystal that she had been searching for. “What is this?” Kyle asked as he grabbed the crystal with the reflexes of a large jungle cat. His eyes widened in shock as a tingle began in his fingers and traveled through his whole body. Anyone less astute would have missed the signs, but Maria had no problems. Most things did not escape her notice and when it came to her newly found brother…nothing at all escaped her attention. “You found your working stone,” she said with a grin. “We all have them you know. Tess’ is amethyst. It works really well for channeling the element of Air. Izzy’s is the star ruby, give you one guess what it helps channel,” Kyle laughed at that and Maria winked. “Alex’s has always been quartz because of the water and purity of it. It’s no wonder that yours would be tiger’s eye. Warmth of fire mixed with the primal of the earth. Just like you.” “This is tiger’s eye?” Kyle asked as he looked at the medium sized polished crystal in his hand. It seemed at the moment to be a breathing part of him. “Yep,” Maria said with a laugh. “It’s a powerful crystal. It helps with headaches, it soothes the tortured and angry soul, and it helps channel both fire and earth because it caries elements of both. It has you written all over it. Keep it, it’s yours now,” she told him as she stood and walked over to him and closed his fist over the stone. “Now concentrate on the stone Kyle,” she told him, her melodic voice going deep and soothing in tone. Kyle found himself falling under his own sister’s spell, easily falling her voice and directions without thinking. He briefly wondered if this was how Michael felt around her all the time. For the first time he realized just how powerful his sister was if her voice alone could be this entrancing. “Concentrate on the stone Kyle,” she continued softly as his eyes closed. “Feel its warmth moving from your finger tips into your very veins. It’s traveling through your body…feel its gentle fire…feel its earthly stability.” Kyle’s breath slowed down until you almost couldn’t tell that he was breathing at all. “Now picture what you want. Picture the heatless flame in the palm of your hand. Picture it around the crystal itself, a mixture of your power and the power of nature that you hold.” Kyle found himself easily doing as she told him. He could easily see the flame in his mind’s eye, a living breathing thing, a part of him and nature at the same time. “Now open your eyes,” Maria told him gently, a goddess’s smile on her face. Kyle’s blue eyes opened and fell on his own palm that she had opened up without his noticing. His eyes rounded in shock when he saw a perfect, heatless, flame in the palm of his hand, the tiger’s eye in the center of it. His eyes moved to lock with his sister’s emerald ones and the two grinned at each other in the flame’s light like two cat’s about to go on the prowl. “Maria,” a voice called out from behind them. The spell literally was broken and Kyle’s hard fought for flame died a lot faster than it had been created. Both Kyle and Maria whipped around to see an almost hysterical Amy Deluca bearing down on them. “Mom what’s wrong?” Maria asked her mother in worry. While Amy Deluca was known for freaking out, just as her daughter was, she had never looked quite so broken and scared before. “Oh God is it Michael?” “What?” Amy asked in confusion as she came up to them. “No it’s not Michael,” she said as she shook her head. “It’s Jim.” Kyle turned pale at that and grabbed Maria’s hand tightly in his own. “He knows.” “What!” Kyle exclaimed in a strangled voice. He wasn’t ready for his father to know yet. He couldn’t know yet. It was too soon. They were supposed to bring him into this gently. “He came into the greenhouse while I was talking to the Council,” Amy said as she began to wring her hands around a large leather bound book and pace on the beach in small circles. “He overheard me with them. He knows what I am.” “Oh Goddess,” Maria whispered, her proud smile for her brother completely gone now. “Are you OK? He didn’t try to…” “No,” Amy said as she stopped pacing and began to talk in Deluca-warp speed. “I knocked him out before he could do anything. He’s at the house in my bed right now and I have to get back to him. Don’t worry I’ll try to explain everything to him. I just wanted you to know that it had happened. The important thing right now is that he’s fine, just unconscious at the moment. He doesn’t know about Kyle, which is good, and until I can break the news to him gently without him freaking out, I want you guys to go about your business together and leave him to me. The Council called me in the first place because you are taking too long to find the path. They want me to give you this to help you.” With that Amy tossed the precious Book of the Phoenix in her daughter’s shocked arms. Both Maria and Kyle stared at the woman with mouths agape. “I have to get back. Don’t worry I’ll make sure that no matter what he’s safe until this is over. But until it is over the six of you…hell the eleven of you with the Juniors’ and Sean…need to hole up together somewhere and figure this all out. Whatever is coming for us…whatever it is that you have to defeat…is coming soon. We can all feel it and you are the only ones who can fight it. I must go. This is as far as I can lead you. Come to us when it’s over,” she added to them as she began to run back up path to her house and to her lover. “He’s safe with me I promise.” “Oh my Goddess,” Maria said as she looked at the book in her hands. Then her awe over what she held fled as she got a good look at her brother who had just collapsed at her feet. “Holy shit!” Michael…Micheal… Maria called out mentally to her soulmate as she sat on the ground beside her brother and pulled him into her caring embrace. Yeah Blondie what is it? Couldn’t stand a couple of hours without me could you? Michael’s cocky voice sounded in her head, comforting Maria with its soundless mental smirk. Get over yourself Dorkbutt. Maria told him firmly. Are you with Tess still? Maria could feel Michael’s mental nod of affirmation. Good. Get her here quick. Kyle needs her…NOW! What’s going on? I’ll explain when you get her Spacecase. But the gist of it is that Jim knows about us and mom had to knock him out. Kyle’s not taking the news very well. Michael’s mental curse had even Maria wincing in response. I know the feeling. Just get her here because I can only help him handle so much. And get yourself here too…I don’t think I’m handling it that well myself. With that Maria cut the connection leaving Michael cursing again, this time aloud, causing Tess who was sitting beside him to look at him in alarm. “You alright Michael? Maria pissed you off huh?” She asked as she turned her attention back to the Playstation2 and the game that they had been playing for the past two hours. Both her and Michael were addicted to Grand Theft Auto III as apposed to TH3 like everyone else in the neighborhood. Just when he was trying to find the right words to tell her that her soulmate was in mental anguish and needed her Tess’ whole body went tense and she dropped the control wordlessly. “Kyle!” She sobbed as she felt her soulmate’s emotions envelop her completely. Sobbing and pale she jumped up and grabbed Michael dragging him out of the room. “We have to go now. He’s in pain. He needs me.” She didn’t say another word as the two of them ran out of the Guerin house and made their way to the beach where Kyle and Maria had gone to practice Kyle’s powers two hours earlier. ****************** “What the hell?” Trenton Guerin asked out loud as his brother and Tess Harding ran literally into him at full speed neither of them slowing down or apologizing. “And you say I’m the immature one,” he yelled at them both as they darted down the street. “Probably going into withdraw cause they haven’t been connected at the mouth with Kyle and Maria,” he said to Ryan and Leigha who were standing with him. “Jeez you think they could go ten minutes without…” The fourteen year-old trailed off as his eyes landed on something he thought he would never see in his life. Ryan and Leigha followed his open mouthed, gawking gaze, to where it ended…on Jessie…or rather on the new and improved Jessica Whitman. Even Ryan had to whistle lowly under his breath at what they all saw, causing Leigha’s eyes to narrow and her hand to lightly whack him on the back on his neck. “What the hell does she think she’s doing going out in public like that?” Trent said harshly. “And what the hell does Liam Brody think he’s about to do to her?” Trent didn’t wait around to hear his brother and friend answer his absolutely rhetorical questions. Just as Liam Brody pulled Jessie close and lightly kissed her upturned lips, Trent reached them and pulled them apart. “Huh?” Jessie asked in shock as the kiss ended abruptly. She opened her eyes to see Trent glaring at her. “What the hell? Trent? What do you think you’re doing? Go away you’re ruining my date.” “Ruining your what!” Trent shook his head as if he didn’t fully comprehend her words. Liam started to move towards Jessie but Trent stopped him easily enough with a look that usually people only saw on Michael’s face. “One step towards Jessie Brody, and you’ll be eating out of a straw for months got that?” Brody didn’t step back or run away, which were marks in his bravery, but he didn’t move forward either, which was a mark for his intelligence. “My date dumbass,” Jessie spit out, her eyes spitting fire at him. “What the hell do you think I’m wearing this outfit for…my health?” Trent’s eyes quickly scanned Jessie’s body. The snug leather hip huggers clung to every curve that he hadn’t known she possessed. The shimmery and slightly sheer silver top made her eyes stand out with an almost violet fire. “Now why the hell are you ruining it?” “Date…with him?” Trent asked her once he got his mind off her figure and back on the matter at hand. “You are not going out with him!” His voice broke no argument and Jessie had no problem understanding his command when he gave it. “And why am I not going out with him?” She asked him coldly, her voice like ice while her eyes continued to blaze at him. “You cannot tell me what to do Trenton Guerin. You aren’t in any position to determine anything about my life…you aren’t my brother, you aren’t my father, and you aren’t my boyfriend. We’re just friends remember?” She spat at him. “So you can get over it and move out of the way because Liam and I are on a date and there is nothing you can do about it.” “The hell there isn’t,” Trent said. Jessie’s shriek filled the street as he hauled her up, threw her over his shoulder and began to walk towards the beach with her. “Put me down right now,” Jessie yelled indignantly as she pounded on his back. Trent ignored her as he continued on his way, effectively ruining her date. What he didn’t see and what Ryan and Leigha did, was that while she was screaming at him like a banshee and beating at him with clenched fists, she lifted her head and smiled brightly at Liam as she locked eyes with the popular outsider freshman. She winked at the JV football quarterback and to Ryan and Leigha’s surprise the outsider smiled brightly in return and winked back. “Want to explain this Brody?” Ryan asked as they came up beside the boy as Trent and Jessie moved out of sight. “Just helping out a friend Guerin,” Liam said with an honest, friendly smile, a look that many of the Willow Oaks Witches didn’t receive from local outsiders. “I like Jessie, I always have, and if she hadn’t been in love with your twin since preschool I would have really been out on a date with her tonight. But she does love Trent and she wants him, and she’s my friend…she always has been. So when she told me that Guerin was a blind idiot that couldn’t see something if it was two feet in front of his face, I told her I knew a way to make him see. That’s all. When your brother gets back, make sure that he knows if he screws up and hurts her…there’s one outsider that’s not afraid of him enough to not beat the shit out of him…and to make a play for her.” With that the popular freshman turned on his heel and left, his mission accomplished. Ryan and Leigha stared after him in shocked disbelief. Then they turned to each other and grinned wickedly at each other as they locked hands and ran after to spy on Jessie and Trent. They both giggled when they reached the top of the first sand dune to see Trent finally stop on his trek down the beach and drop Jessie firmly down on the sand. Jessie responded by kicking her leg out and brought him down on top of her with a thud. When she started to hit him, Trent tried to move to grab her arms, which resulted in a wrestling match. The two of them rolled a couple of times until again Trent was on top. He finally got control of her arms and held her pinned to the sand. From their position neither Leigha or Ryan saw who moved first, but one second the two people on the beach were glaring angrily at each other and the next they were kissing. Gasping for breath with their laughter, Ryan and Leigha finally moved away to give the two of them the privacy their first kiss deserved. TBC |
| Part 32 B |
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