Hiding from the Beta

Chapter Seventeen

Mykel’s pov

I sat up in an unfamiliar room for the second time today. I looked around and I was laying on debris from a wall. Some girl and a guy took off out the door and Jada came running towards me. “Hey, are you okay?” She asked.

I leaned forward and nodded my head, “uh, yeah I am good.” I could already feel the monster inside rising up again. I reached up and grabbed Jada’s arm, “no, wait.” I pushed the monster back down the best I could. “There is something wrong.”

I grabbed my chest as a burning pain flared through it. The monster was fighting hard to take control again. I didn’t want to go into the blackness again. I needed to stay where I was. “Mykel, what’s going on?” I could hear how worried she was.

I looked up at her and tried my best to convey to her with my eyes what was happening. I didn’t even know that this magic still existed. It is old and very dark, dangerous magic. It can mess people up. “Jada…” the words were barely a whisper, when everything around me began to fade. Once again I was back in the dark abyss of nothing.

Jada’s pov

I have been worried about Mykel for a while now, but nothing he did ever freaked me out as much as this moment right now. He suddenly sat up straight, stretched his back and stood up. “Mykel?” I asked.

He started to brush all the dust off his clothes. “I am fine, Jada. Come on, we need to find them.”

He started to walk away and I grabbed him by the arm. He turned and glared at me, “I think we should let her cool off a bit.” I told him.

He looked down at my hand on him, like he was fighting to not rip it off of my arm. I slowly removed my hand and said, “Maybe go back home and come back in a few days, we know where she is so we can keep an eye on her.”

“NO, she needs to come home with us immediately!” He shouted.

I jumped back from him. “Mykel, what has gotten into you lately?” I asked him.

He rubbed the back of his neck and sighed, “I am sorry. This whole thing is stressful.” He said.

I glared at him as he turned towards the door. “It is, but that doesn’t mean you force somebody to go with you. That’s kidnapping.”

He turned to look at me and for a split second fear raced through my entire body. His eyes were pitch black, the whole thing, even the whites of his eyes. Then just as quickly as I had seen it, it vanished and his golden eyes were back.

“Fine, let’s go home. We will come back in two days.” He said, haughtily.

I nodded my head, “You go on, I want to talk to Doris for a minute. I want to make sure she can keep an eye on her.”

He narrowed his eyes at me but then vanished. I sighed in relief when he was finally gone. I turned to the massive hole in the wall, I raised my arms and slowly everything started to mend itself.

I turned and saw Doris leaning in the doorway, her arms crossed. “Thanks for fixing that.”

I sighed, “no problem, I was just about to come looking for you.”

“What do you want?” She asked, it was obvious that she was still upset about our little fight this morning.

“Can you keep an eye on Tahlia? You have no idea how important she is to the witchery community.”

She chuckled, “I know exactly how important she is. She is probably the most powerful witch I have ever seen.”

“What do you mean?” I asked her.

“How many witches do you know that can control the elements?” She asked me.

“Quite a few, why?”

“How many of them can start a fire on demand after having there powers for less than twenty four hours, without special training?” She asked me with a ‘try that one’ tone.

I was quite surprised to be honest, however I just watched her throw a full grown warlock through a wall without even breaking a sweat. “Wait, fire?”

She nodded, “yes ma’am. All the wood was wet too, and there were no fires around at all.” She said.

I looked at her dumbfounded, most witches and warlocks needed fire around to use. They would take that fire and then replicate it to make more. “She made fire?” I asked.

She smiled at me, “now I think you have figured out just how important this young woman is.”

The last witch or warlock that was able to create fire from nothing was my great, great, great, great, grandmother. No witch or warlock has been able to do it since. “I need you to protect her. Certain people will be after her, there are some who can feel her power more than others.”

She nodded her head, “I know, Bartholomew has already visited her. I gave her a potion that will hide her powers to others.”

The hair stood up on the back of my neck, “what? Go back, Bartholomew?” Doris nodded her head, “I killed him, years ago.” I told her.

She shook her head, “apparently he didn’t stay dead.”

“Do you know what he wanted?” I asked.

“What he always wanted. Power, he wanted her powers.” She said.

“We can’t allow that.” I sighed and looked down at my feet. “I need you to keep her away from him. Here take this, you can use it to call me if you need anything.” I pulled out my amethyst and broke a piece off and handed it to her.

“I will call you if I need to. Don’t let your brother come back here, he is not welcome.” She said and stormed off.

I closed the door and thought about my bedroom back in Paris. When I opened my eyes I was standing right next to my bed. I sighed and plopped down on the grey bread spread with the outline of the tree of life in dark red.

What was I going to do? I needed to train her and teach her our ways. But my gut told me I needed to keep away from her. More importantly I needed to keep Mykel away from her.

I looked at the picture of my mother and father that sat on my dresser. I knew what Mama would say, ‘he is your brother, he would never do anything to hurt you.’ But Nana would say something else, and I can’t help but feel that right now I needed to listen to Nana.

I could hear Nana’s voice in the back of my head. ‘You know something is wrong. He is your brother, you are the oldest. It is YOUR responsibility to keep him safe.’

I jumped off my bed and started to pull the boxes out from under my bed. I grabbed a big old wooden box with a decorative lock on it. I shoved the other boxes back under my bed. I picked up the dusty dark wooden box and set it down on my bed.

I haven’t thought of this box in years, ever since Jericho was killed by that mutt. I pulled the box closer to me and slowly opened the lid. Inside were a few pictures and random scraps of paper, but what took up the majority of the box was a very large ancient book.

Most people thought this book was lost, never to be seen again. It was something our family has held onto for centuries, being passed down to the oldest of every family. This book was bound with dark leather, the words and symbols on the front were no longer legible.

I took a deep breath and flipped open the first page. This book was dangerous in the wrong hands. It was the secret to dark magic. The only people that knew of its existence were me and my siblings.

I knew something bad was happening to Mykel, I just needed to figure out what it was. I started reading each of the spells and potions, in an attempt to figure out what was causing my brother to be so different than usual.

There were so many different things that could do so many horrible things to people. Potions that caused a person to boil to death from the inside out, a spell that could disembowel a person in seconds. Even something as terrible as pulling the soul from someone’s body and replacing it with a different soul.

After hours I growled in frustration and shoved the book to the end of the bed. I leaned back and within minutes I was sound asleep.

I woke up with a start and looked at the end of the bed. I sighed in relief when I saw the book was still sitting on the edge of my bed. I sat up and saw the sun was just starting to rise through the window.

I decided to leave it there, so I walked into my personal bathroom and freshened up with a nice hot shower. When I walked back into my room I was using a thin towel to dry my hair.

I spotted the book and sighed, I guess I could look at this again later. I went to close it when I realized it was not on the page I had left it on. In fact I was at least another twenty or thirty pages further into the book.

I sat on the bed and looked at the spell. The top of the page read in cursive letters:

Possessor Beast

The possessor beast is a dark creature that is summoned by dark witches. It goes into the body of the witch's choice. From there it only does what the witch wills it to do.

To summon a possessor beast you must offer the beast something that it loves. Most love fresh meat, humans are their meal of choice, they prefer them fresh. Once you have picked out your offering it is time to summon them. First you need to draw a pentagram in your own blood on the floor. Place the offering in the center and a candle at the tip of each point on the star.

You then begin to chant: Possessor Beast where are thee, Possessor Beast come to me, Possessor Beast I offer to thee, Possessor Beast do my deed.

If a beast does not appear you will have to repeat the chant. Continue to do so until one comes. Once one comes you need to repeat the chant in full three times while they devour their offering. Once the beast is bound to you, you can tell them what you need. They will possess the person or creature of your choice, they will have no choice but to do your bidding.

However, be careful with them. They do not like to be tricked, if they feel at any point you put them in harm's way without informing them the bond will begin to break. A Possessor beast without a witch attached to it can be very dangerous. They have been known for killing entire villages during the midevil times.

To seal a Possessor Beast away all you need is some kind of sealable container made of a natural material. Possessor Beasts can turn into shadow when they want to. Once one is in shadow form you can use a light spell to force it into the jar. They don’t like light, so you can cast a sealing spell on the jar to keep it contained.

I looked at the page and read it over a dozen times. I had no idea what to do, who would possibly know how to do something like this? You would need someone who actually knew what they were doing.

I stood up and started pacing back and forth in my room. What was I supposed to do with this information? I heard a door close down stairs. I ran to my bed, grabbed the book, tossed it into the box and threw the box bag under my bed.

There was a knock on my door, “Jada I need to talk to you!”

I sighed in relief when I heard Ahs’ voice. I ripped the door open and yanked her inside. “Thank god it’s you!”

She looked at me really confused, “you won’t be saying that when I tell you what I need to tell you.”

I looked at her confused, “I doubt anything would change my mind about the amount of relief I am feeling right now.” I told her.

She looked at me confused, “I couldn’t break it off with him. I am so sorry.”

I shook my head, “I don’t even care about that right now. Whatever, marry the guy. We have bigger problems.” I whispered. “Is Mykel here?” I asked her.

She looked at me dumbfounded and shook her head, “I don’t think so, his keys and shoes are gone. What is going on?”

“I figured out what’s going on with Mykel. He is possessed.”

Her eyes grew wide, “possessed by what?”

“A Possessor Beast.”

Her jaw dropped and her face paled. “I thought they were extinct.” She whispered.

I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders. “I guess not, also Bartholomew isn’t dead. He already knows where Tahlia is and has been to see her.”

“What the f**k? I left you to handle this for one damn day and now everything is falling apart.” She whispered angrily.

I crossed my arms and glared at her, “hey, I had to stop Mykel from trying to kidnap her.”

She put her hands to her eyes, “this can’t be happening right now.”

“Oh but it is. We have to try and get the beast out of Mykel and then capture it and seal it in some kind of container.” I told her quickly and quietly.

“What else is going to happen?”

“I don’t know, but I do know that we need to help Mykel and figure out who is in charge of it before we do anything else. We need our brother, not a creature we can’t rely on.”

She nodded her head, “I will do some digging. I already have my number one suspect.”

I chuckled, I knew exactly who her number one suspect was. Angelica, Mykel’s horrible girlfriend.

Anothony Starwaski pov

“I like this plan, however we don’t have the numbers for it.” Vincent said.

“How many more do we need to find to make this a possibility?” I asked him.

“I would feel comfortable with another five hundred, however, I would feel best with another thousand.” He said lazily.

“How long do you think it will take to come up with those numbers?” I asked.

“A year or two. Which will be good because we can train them better then too.”

I nodded my head and rolled up the map of the night shadow territory. “Would you like me to come up with a new plan, or do you like this one?”

“I like this one, we will take the time to build up our forces. In the meantime we will need to figure out what to do with the mutt that has been snooping around.” Vincent said as he grabbed his glass of scotch and tipped the whole contents of the glass into his mouth.

“Which mutt?” I asked confused, I hadn’t heard that they had caught someone snooping around.

“Just a stupid beta, he has been tracking us for a day now. We caught him early this morning. I think it’s Seamus, I believe you actually know him.” He said laughing.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about.” I told him honestly.

He chuckled, “you might not remember him, but you remember his alpha. Does Nathaniel Heep ring a bell?” He asked.

I nodded my head, “yes it does. What is your plan for him?” I asked.

“Honestly we are probably going to beat him to near death and have him drop back off at his pack borders as a warning. Next time they send someone out we will kill them.”

I leaned back in my chair and nodded my head, “when are you going to do it?”

“Tonight, I don’t like waiting too long. Would you like to join us?”

I smiled, “sure, it would be nice to blow off some steam.”

He jumped up and I followed him out of the tent and towards a cage off to the side of the rest of the camp. We walked up and I could see he had a silver collar and cuffs on. He glared at me, “well, I am sorry to keep you waiting. We can now move along with your sentencing.” Vincent said.

He put on a pair of gloves and pulled open the gate. He yanked Seamus out and threw him to the ground. Seamus stood up as another man came over, grabbed the chain that was attached to the handcuffs and tied it to a tree not too far away.

I smiled and rolled up my sleeves, “go ahead, you can hit first.” Vincent said.

I nodded my head and stepped towards him. Seamus stood his ground and I laughed, he knew he was too weak to fight back. I swung out at him and he ducked, just like I thought he would. I lifted my knee and got him right in the nose. I heard the c***k as his nose broke.

I looked down and saw blood everywhere. Seamus glared at me, I smiled and took another step forward. I swung out again and he jumped back and fell to the ground. The chain had tightened causing him to lose his balance.

I kicked him in the side and heard more cracks as his ribs started to break. I looked down at his already blackening eyes, this was going to be fun.