Arianna Rose: The Awakening (Part 2) (20 page)

Howar
d stayed behind after the other
s had left, breathing the air Arianna breathed, feeling her presence all around him.  He knew he would triumph, that her remaining days were numbered.  His assurance came in the form of a very special, very scared article he had in his possession. 
Iron shackles used in the original Salem Witch Trials of the 1600s had been passed down to him through his ancestors.  Blessed by a Puritan priest, the manacles had been designed to restrain the most powerful witch; they’d been designed to restrain the Sola.

A thrill of excitement raced down Howard’s spine, the Sola’s death so close at hand.  In the cuffs his predecessor had created, Arianna would be unable to move her hands and enact her
powers; she would be powerless to conjure evil.  He smiled at the thought of her being rendered powerless then took a final look around her sad little trailer.  In less than a day, the
world
would be absolved of her vile existence.  Arianna Rose would be denied her chance to destroy humanity.

Chapter 15

Without warning, Arianna stood before her trailer, home again.  The golden light she’d enjoyed had weakened until it had dulled to a pale gray.  Mist bled from fleshy clouds that crowded the sky. 
The world around her had faded to a sickly version of the one she’d just visited.  But to her surprise,
not everything had
disappeared.  Desmond remained, surrounding her with his warmth
. 
In the past, he had faded along with the magical field they’d stood in
. 
But this time he hadn’t. 
And she was grateful for his presence.

Wrapped in his arms, she felt calm, safe.  Desmond was the only person who truly understood her.  All her life, she’d never had a true place among any group she’d ever been a part of, and those had been few and far between.  Most of the time, she’d been alone.  Moving from town to town, whether it had been of Desmond’s doing or not, had not helped matters.  But encircled in Desmond’s
sturdy
arms, for the first time ever, Arianna felt like she was home.

She rested her cheek against his
solid
chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart, feeling his energy
waft
through her with every
pulse.
She did not want to let go, wished they could stay as they were forever.  She breathed in his scent.  He smelled of leather and spicy aftershave, masculine.  Warmth
spread throughout her and lingered low in her belly,
nee
d twisting
inside of her.

Suddenly aware of their close
proximity and the effect it was having
on her, Arianna allowed her arms to drop from his waist and stepped back.
 
Heat crept up her neck and
flushed
her cheeks, embarrassment at her
overwhelming attraction to him.

As if he intuited her desire for him, Desmond hesitated for a moment and did not release her from his hold.  When finally he did, Arianna felt breathless, but knew she needed to say something.

“I guess I should go inside now and sleep for like, the next twelve hours or something,” she said and immediately cringed at how silly she’d sounded, how juvenile.

“Good, you need your rest,” he replied.  “I’ll be back in the morning.  When I retu
rn, we need to decide what to
.  But one thing is for sure: you cannot go back to that school.”

“That’s for sure,” Arianna agreed.  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She smiled at Desmond involuntarily, unable to hide her eagerness at seeing him in less than twenty-four hours.  She had no idea where he went when he left her, whether he ate or slept, or had a wife or girlfriend.  The thought of him leaving her and resuming some sort of warlock domestic setup with a woma
n as gorgeous as he spurred a spark of jealousy through her blood and straight to her heart.
She knew feelings of jealousy were as irrational as they were danger
ous, but she’d had no control over
it.

“I need to go visit a fellow warlock in a nearby town and see if coven formations have begun; all business, you know?  It’s not like I have anyone waiting for me, though,” he said and she swore he’d read her mind.  “I’ll be back shortly after the sun rises.  I pr
omise.  In the meantime, try to
stay out of trouble, okay?”

Arianna rolled her eyes exaggeratedly then said, “Okay, fine, if you insist.”

Desmond smiled at her, his face serene and angelic.  His coloring and overall appearance was Nordic, but the energy he radiated was otherworldly, divine. 

“I do insist,” he said and the corners of his mouth faltered.  “Stay safe Arianna.  We need you
in one piece.
 
I
need you.”

His words had caught her off guard.  He neede
d her.  He’d said it himself. 
But in what capacity she wondered.  Did he need her powers, her leadership, or was it something more? 

“I’ll do my best,” she said and wanted
to ask every question as it pop
ped into her head
.  She lowered her eyes, instead,
afraid of the answers she might hear had she dared ask. 

When she lifted her eyes, Desmond was gone.

“What the hell?” she said to no one.  “Good-bye to you, too, Desmond.”

Alone and
suddenly
chilled to her bones despite the abnormal warmth of the mid-November day, she wrapped her arms around her waist and walked toward
her trailer.  A quick glance at the parking spot in front of her porch revealed that her mother was home.  The pathetic Toyota her mom had driven for as long as she could remember waited there, rusted and looking as though it would collapse under the weight of the
thick fog.

Arianna was not in the mood to answer what promised to be an unending battery of question
s
from her mother about why she was home from school so early.  She leaned against the railing that she’d formerly tethered her motorcycle to and fished around inside her bag for her pack of cigarettes.  When finally she found it, she slipped a slender cylinder from it, placed it between her lips and lit it.  She inhaled deeply and the nicotine entered her system immediately.  Moderately relaxed and a little lightheaded, the morning replayed in her mind. 
After her skirmish with Cheryl and
Preppy-boy
,
Luke had
grabbed her.  The way he’d looked at her had winded her as though she’d been punched in gut.  He’d narrowed his eyes
at her, his face stricken, disgusted by her.  He knew what she was now, and wanted nothing to do with her. 
She did not blame him.  But not blaming him did little to ease the disappointment she’d felt, the shame.  And while she was not happy about either dropping out of high school in her senior year or being forced to transfer to yet another district, she was relieved she would not have to see Cheryl,
Preppy-boy
or any of Luke’s friends any time soon.  She would not be forced to endure the judgmental stares, the in
tentional
snubs or the looks of disapproval.  And she would not have to see Luke. 

Luke
.
  She did not want to think of him, did not want to address the gravity of what had happened between them, yet he
had
crept
into her mind again, no longer welcome, uninvited.  She extinguished thoughts of him, along with her cigarette, and braced herself for her mother’s illogical wrath. 
Arianna hoped her mother’s overnight guest had gone home.  She doubted she could withstand another awkward introduction.  She had experienced many in the course of her lifetime and wanted to avoid more than she absolutely had to. 

Arianna sighed loudly then
turned the handle
of the front door.  A
s usual, the front door was unlocked.

“
Mom!
Hey Mom!  You know, you really ought to start locking the
front door.  Any weirdo could just let himself in,”
s
he called out then mumbled under her breath, “Or you’ll just bring him home from the bar
to spend the night
.” 

She walked into the trailer and dropped her bag on the floor just inside the doorway.  She looked around and didn’t see her mother, but did see that the living room was in a state of disarray.  An empty liquor bottle sat unapologetically on the side table next to the couch and fast-food wrappers were strewn on the coffee table.

“Way to clean up, Mom!” Arianna called. 
Her mother did not answer
so she called out again. “Mom, I know you’re here your car is outside!” she said then it occurred to her that maybe her mother’s new friend had arrived in his own car and that the
y
might be out together. 

Arianna marched down the hallway and stopped at the first door on the right, her mother’s bedroom.  The door was shut so she knocked and waited for a response.  Ordinarily, if a man had spent the night with her mother, she would not consider opening
her bedroom door
the next morning for
fear of walking in on a scenario that would
likely
scar h
er for life.  She checked her watch and saw that it was not yet one o’clock.  Plenty of time had passed for both her mother and her mother’s guest to sleep off the doozy they’d undoubtedly tied on the night before.  She knocked again then turned the doorknob.  She peeked inside and saw the foot of the bed.  It looked as though the bed had been made so she swung it open all the way. 

The entire bed came into view and Arianna gasped then covered her mouth with her hand to stifle the scream that fought to escape her lips.  Blood covered nearly every surface of the upper portion of the comforter, sheets and pillows
,
and a man she’d never met sat, propped up against her mother’s headboard.  His eyes were wide with fright and his hands had been positioned in front of him, pressed together impossibly in prayer.  An angry maroon arc
at the side of his neck
,
along with the tremendous amount of blood that had saturated the front of his
nude body,
indicat
ed that his throat had been slit. 
The sc
en
e
was beyond macabre.  A man had been murdered in her mother’s bed then
placed, ghoulishly, to look as though he
was praying
.  Arianna felt the world tilt on its axis, the phantasmagoric image before her too much for her mind to process.  She fell to her knees and clutched her belly as the urge to retch overcame her.  Her blood roared in her ears and her stomach clenched violently.  She gagged and
heaved
yet nothing came up, just sobs that choked the air from her lungs.  She was about to leave, to crawl out of her mother’s bedroom on all fours, when something caught her attention. 

On the wall above the murdered man’s head, a piece of paper had been affixed to the wall, stabbed into the plaster with a long blade.  Arianna rose to her feet, her legs trembling so hard she doubted they could support her weight.  She took a tentative step forward and was surprised that, not only had they held her, they’d also moved.  Her body shook so forcefully, she saw the dark curtains of hair on either side of her face quivering as well.  Slowly, she made her way to the bed.

Standing near the dead man, her stomach churned and threatened again, the metallic stench of blood filling her nostrils. 
Her breath came in short, shallow pants, hyperventilation looming on the horizon, as she reached out a trembling hand and pulled at the knife in the wall.  The hilt felt cold and slick and she withdrew her hand immediately.  She looked down at her hand and saw that it was covered in blood.

Repulsed, she wiped her hand on the bedspread, desperate to clean the man’s blood from her palm.  But it seemed to have seeped into her skin.  No matter how hard she wiped, the man’s blood remained on her hand.  Panic began to mingle with shock and she fought to keep both at bay.  She moved back to the knife and quickly yanked the paper from beneath it.  She looked at it and saw that the paper was torn but the words were still legible.  The note had been scrawled
in meticulous handwriting
and said:

Dearest Arianna Rose,

             
I have your mother.  If you ever want to see her alive again, you will come to the Soldiers of the Divine Trinity Church at the address listed below.  If you contact the police, I will kill your mother.  If you bring anyone with you, or alert anyone, I will kill your mother. 

I have eyes and ears everywhere
, Arianna
.  You are being watched
right now
. 
Do not do anything stupid. 
If you maintain hope that your mother will survive, you will do exactly as I say.

Yours Truly,