Page 31 of Monsters of Mayhem

I wanted to slam my hands over my ears. I wanted to deny the fact Ryder was in love with me. It was so hard to hear those words, even though deep in my heart it was the thing I had always wanted. I couldn’t deny the fact I loved him. The problem was that he kept leaving me. How could a man who professed he loved me walk out on me every time I turned around, even recently.

“There’s no way I’m going to fall for this bullshit again,” I exclaimed. “Even if it is coming from a witch. I’m not even sure I would believe it if it came out of Ryder’s own mouth.”

“If that’s how you feel about it,” Eunice said, “but it probably tells us more about you than it tells us about Ryder under the circumstances.”

I hated how her words made my skin blush. They could see me and seemingly look into my soul. The last thing I wanted was to be revealed to these women. To anyone for that matter, except maybe Laney. I wanted her here now more than ever.

“We need to unravel some of the darkness around you,” Tara said. I glanced at Lady Albright and wondered about that, because she looked a little darker than anybody else or anything else I knew.

“I thought I wanted my old life back,” I said, “but the truth is, I want to discover more about this world. I want to know what’s going on and what it means.”

“We’re going to find out first who’s attacking you,” Tara said. “Can you sit down in the circle with us?”

Upon her words, all of the witches sat down on the ground and rather than stand in the center of the circle, I twisted myself slightly so my back was to Lady Albright. Yes, Lady Albright, who I knew was shooting daggers at the back of my head, but I didn’t really care. If she was part of this coven, she was part of the coven and I’d have to work with her one way or another.

“The Albright coven is one of the oldest covens in Alameda,” Tara explained. “We helped to establish the island of Alameda into a safe sanctuary for supernaturals. That’s why we are set to help you, but we can only do it with your permission. This is white magic. It’s not dark magic. We won’t go against your will in the slightest. Are you willing to help us work magic to help you?”

“I’d like to know a little bit more about what’s going on with the magic,” I said. “What exactly happens?”

“We’re going to cast a spell that will show us the attack that happened to you in the subway. It was such a shocking thing that it got the attention of the entire supernatural world.” Tara explained. “We want to see which beasts were attacking you and then we’re going to try to find tracers of lines back to who is controlling them. If we can find out who’s controlling them, we have a better chance of stopping them from attacking you again. We also may find out exactly why you’re being targeted.”

“You have my permission,” I said. “What do I have to do? “

“You just have to sit there,” she said as all the witches joined hands.

I felt a bit like the odd man out, but I was going to go with it. What else was I going to do? I had agreed and I needed to know. As they chanted, a swirl of energy went through them, a pink and pale blue light lined in gold. It circled their bodies and their heads and then rose above them and moved in a circle. It moved into the center until it was surrounding me. The light gold flecks gave a tingling sensation in my entire body. I felt like giggling but they were all so seriously chanting I didn’t dare break their concentration.

“Modra tongu bataka nosa trusler.” They repeated the chant until it blended into a single tone. The light grew more and more powerful above my head. I looked up to see if I could understand it.

The light formed a shimmering screen. It showed a horde of monsters attacking and suddenly succumbing and going docile. The chanting rose louder and louder as they all stared up at the vision above me.

When their voices reached a peak of intensity, they suddenly stopped. The witches inhaled a deep breath together and I could feel one entering my own lungs as well, as if they were breathing for me.

All at the same time one word came out of their mouth that left chills running through my entire body.

“Monsters“ they said. The word rippled through the room and through every atom of my body, leaving me cold, dark and frightened in a way I didn’t understand. It was as if the word monsters meant certain death.

“Monsters are coming,” Tara said. “They’re coming to kill you.”

Chapter 19

Turned out it was difficult to find a private quiet place to have a conversation while we were at the airport. None of us had a car and I felt like there was really only one way for us to tell the whole truth to Laney. We had to show her.

“So, what the hell was that about?” Laney asked as we moved around the corner of the airport to a small private alcove.

“It gets worse.” Ratchet warned, raising an eyebrow.

“What, does fire come out of your dick, too?” Laney rolled her eyes at him.

Ratchet’s eyebrows raised in shock. In all the time I’d been with Caroline, Ratchet hadn’t spent much time with Laney. We’d been trying to keep the world a little separate and I knew Ratchet wasn’t the most reliable for keeping secrets.

“As a matter of fact –”

“That’s not the point of this conversation,” I said quickly. “We need to find Caroline. Her life‘s in danger.”

“Can you shoot fire out of places too?” Laney turned to me.

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