Bloodlines (17 page)

“I bet you wish you had read that bit before you came here, don’t you?” Tyler said, grinning.

“Yeah,” I half smiled. “Can we stop for a bit? I want to look through the rest myself, especially if it’s about my dad.”

“Course we can,” Tyler and Danny said.

I closed the book and put it on the coffee table before slouching into the sofa.

“So, your family’s power goes back further than ours,” Jake said.

“And John knew exactly what he was doing with our ancestors. He knew he would be able to get them power,” Tyler added.

“I feel like I need to apologize for him. It’s my family that started all this,” I said sadly.

“Keira, don’t apologize for anything,” Lucian told me.

“We wouldn’t want to live without this. We love having it – we just wanted to know how it started and what it is,” Tyler explained

“We know how it started properly now. I don’t think we ever will know what it is and I think we need to accept that now,” Danny said.

“I agree,” Jake nodded. “Some things in this world aren’t meant to be answered.”

Everyone agreed with him, and we decided there and then, we didn’t care what it was. But we did want to know more about the power inside me. Especially with it being so old and since I definitely had two, Elizabeth’s and James’s, and possibly even John’s second power. But if I didn’t have it, surely their families wouldn’t have been able to sense the Putnam bloodline was still out there. Sadly we agreed that until the time came for one of them to have a daughter, we wouldn’t know.

Lily went back to cooking dinner. Jake could see I was thinking about it too much and changed the subject.

“So, Keira, has Lily asked you about her office yet?” he asked.

“Yes, I don’t know why she feels she has to ask. She should know by now that she can do what she likes. I mean, it’s not like I haven’t got enough space for it, is it?”

“She just likes to check with you I think.”

“She is starting to decorate it tomorrow she said,” I told him.

“Do you need any help?”

“She’ll need someone to pick the furniture up for her; I doubt she will want to bother the guys there. She only needs a desk, a few cabinets, a PC and whatever.”

“I’ll get the truck again.”

“OK, I’m going to see if Lily wants any help with anything. Just entertain yourselves,” I told them as I walked out of the room.

Lily looked busy. She didn’t want help though – she loved doing it herself. I didn’t really want to help either; I just wanted to get away from the guys for a few minutes. My head was all over the place. I sat on the stool resting my elbows on the counter of the kitchen island. I picked up one of the spoons she had left there and stared at my reflection in it. I was staring so hard, that when I tilted my head to the side, the spoon bent with me. I moved my head from side to side, smiling as the spoon bent with my movement.

“HEY!” I heard Lily say in a raised voice. “I’ve been calling your name for the last five minutes!”

“Sorry, I didn’t hear you,” I told her before turning my attention back to the spoon.

“LUCIAN!” she shouted. A moment later he walked in the room. “Do me a favor and take her out of here; she’s going to break my spoon,” she told him.

He looked over at me, one eyebrow raised. Then he saw me bend it and laughed. Lily looked at him and folded her arms.

“Come on, Keira, before she hits me with something,” he smirked.

I threw the spoon to her and walked out with him. Just before we got to the living room he stopped me.

“Why didn’t you tell me John had called your name?” he asked.

“I don’t know…I guess I didn’t want to freak you out more than I already had.”

“Keira, you don’t have to keep things from me. OK?”

“OK, I’m sorry,” I said and kissed him on the cheek.

We went back in the living room with the guys and waited for Lily to call us.

Chapter 16

Healer

We all sat around the dining room table while Lily served us the first of our three courses. For our starter we all had a prawn cocktail – it was beautiful. Our main course was homemade lasagna with a side salad. It was cooked to absolute perfection, and for desert we had my favorite, piping-hot homemade apple pie with vanilla ice cream.

“Lily, I think we should get married,” Jake laughed. “Then you can cook for me every night.”

“Get real,” she told him, smiling.

“That was gorgeous,” Tyler and Lucian told her.

“I agree but I think you would have to cook it again, say tomorrow night, just to make sure it really was that nice,” Danny joked.

“I’d cook every night, I love it,” she told them all, pleased.

“Right, pass us your plates. Lily cooked so I’ll do the dishes,” I told them.

“You mean you’ll put them in the dishwasher,” Lucian pointed out.

“Yeah, that too,” I said, making a face at him.

Tyler got up to give me a hand.

We had just put the pots on the side and opened the dishwasher door when we heard a loud smash. I turned to look at Tyler, who said it was probably one of the guys breaking a glass. Then we heard it again, only this time it was much louder. It sounded like it was coming from outside. We walked out of the kitchen to go and get the others but they were already out in the hall.

“Did you hear that?” Danny asked.

Then we heard it again – it was even louder now.

“It sounds like… windows breaking,” Lily said.

“Shit!” I shouted as I ran out the front door, the others following close behind me. “I’ve still got the old windows piled up in the side garden.”

As we got around the side of the house we saw two figures standing next to the piles of old windows.

“Hey!” I shouted, annoyed.

We made our way over to them. Both figures turned around quickly and came at us. Lily was the first to be hit. One of them sent her flying into the side of the house. Her body slammed against the wooden panels before she hit the floor and cried out in pain. The figures moved so fast it was hard for us to see them; it also meant we had little, if any, time to react. Tyler tried to throw an energy ball at one of them but completely missed. Not a second later he was on the ground next to Lily. Jake tried to run over to them but he was sent flying through the air, landing on one of the piles of windows. I grabbed Lucian and Danny.

“Don’t try to attack them! Don’t move!” I told them.

We watched for a moment as the figures came to a stop a few feet in front of us. They stood side by side for a minute before shooting towards us. I knew we wouldn’t be able to attack them quickly enough, so I put my arms up to try and defend myself, and closed my eyes. I waited and waited but nothing hit me and I didn’t leave the ground.

“Keira, look,” Danny whispered.

As I opened my eyes I saw both the figures suspended in mid-air. As though they were in suspended animation.

“How did you do that?” Lucian asked.

“I didn’t know I had.”

I moved my arms down a little from my face, but left them raised slightly for fear of the figures moving. I walked slowly towards them – I wanted to see their faces. But I didn’t get close enough. Tyler was now on his feet and sent two large energy balls at them, one each. As soon as they hit them they went crashing to the ground.

One of them quickly recovered and shot away; the other moved close to me and let out a terrible scream. It sounded like a thousand people being tortured and screaming out in pain. I covered my ears and stared at it – its face was human, but its skin looked as though it was rotting away, then it was gone. My ears were ringing so loud they were hurting me. I ran over to check on Lily. She was sore and her ears were hurting too, but she could stand and walk.

“Keira, quick!” I heard Lucian shout from next to the pile of windows Jake had landed on. I ran over with Tyler and Lily. Jake was hurt badly. The first thing I saw was the blood. His shirt and the top part of his jeans were covered in it. He was barely conscious.

“Jake!” Lily screamed now in tears. “Come on, baby, stay with me,” she said as she cupped his face.

“Where’s the blood coming from?” Danny asked as we searched him.

I ripped his shirt open and had to look away from a moment. There was a spike of glass sticking out of him. It had gone right through his back, just below his bottom rib, and out through his stomach.

“Get an ambulance!” Lily cried, on the brink of hysteria.

“They won’t get here in time,” Tyler panicked. “We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

Jake’s breathing was getting more erratic by the second. Every time he closed his eyes Lily shook him and shouted his name.

“We need to get him off here and inside,” I told them.

“No, you can’t move him, you’ll kill him!” Lily screamed.

I walked over to her and grabbed her shoulders and shook her hard for a moment.

“If we leave him here he will die,” I told her. “Lucian, Danny, can you get him in the house?”

“Yes, but…” Danny started to say.

“Good! Tyler, go and knock everything of the dining table and get a pillow.”

He ran inside quickly.

“GO!” I shouted.

They pulled him off the windowpane and carried him into the house, straight to the dining room. Everything that was on the table was now on the floor. Glasses, wine bottles, salt and pepper shakers…They lay him on the table and put the pillow under his head. I made all the chairs fly to the edges of the room. As I stood beside him, Lily grabbed my arm.

“Keira, please, I’ve never asked you for much. Please don’t let him leave me, please,” she pleaded, her face tear-stained. “Please, I’m begging you…I’ll do anything…”

I didn’t know what to do – seeing him and Lily like that was breaking my heart. The glass was still inside him. If I moved it, it would kill him, and if I left it there it would still kill him.

“What good are two powers if you can’t heal someone,” I said out loud as my eyes turned white. “Lily, you need to hold his hand.”

She ran around the other side of the table and held his hand tight in both of hers.

“What are you going to do?” Danny asked me, frightened. “What do you want us to do?”

“Pray!”

I held my left hand just above where the glass was sticking out. An aura of white light appeared over my skin all the way down my arm. The others watched in silence as the glass shard slowly rose out of him. I grabbed it with my other hand and passed it to Danny. Jake started bleeding more heavily and he was starting to shiver.

“Keira!” Lily cried.

“Be quiet!” I commanded in a voice that was a mixture of my own and something else.

I put my hand against the gash, covering it completely. His skin and my hand began to glow a brilliant white. His breathing returned to normal and he opened his eyes. When I moved my hand away from him, there was no sign of a wound – his skin was healed and there was no scar. The only evidence that remained was the blood on his clothes. Tyler and Lucian sat him up just in time for Lily to grab him and hold him close to her. He wrapped his arms around her and buried his head in her neck.

A great feeling of relief suddenly washed over me and I felt a tear run down my cheek. It was at that moment, watching them all together, that I realized how much I cared for them. It was also when I realized, even before they had, that Lily and Jake were in love.

My eyes hadn’t calmed down yet and I was glad. There was one more thing I had to do. I walked out of the dining room and back outside to where the windows were. I stood there staring at them for a moment. You could see Jake’s blood on the middle pile.

“Keira,” I heard Tyler say softly. He was standing beside me. “Are you OK?”

“I’m fine. Stand back,” I said, turning to look at him for a moment.

He went to stand near the porch. The ground started to shake violently. I heard the others come running out and Tyler telling them to stay away. I raised my arms above my head then pulled them apart slowly, as though I was stretching outwards. At the same time the ground beneath the three piles of windows split and pulled apart. The windows fell and disappeared down the open void and a strong wind blew the smashed glass shards in after them. Once it was all gone I put my arms back together and the ground closed up, then the wind disappeared. I turned around, eyes still white, and looked at everyone. They were all staring at me; I started to feel really uneasy until Jake slowly walked over to me and hugged me tight.

“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you. Saying thank you just isn’t enough,” he said as he hugged me tighter and tighter.

“Just seeing you walking, seeing you and Lily happy again, Jake, that’s all I need. You don’t need to thank me,” I told him, hugging him back. That was when my eyes returned to normal. “Come on, let’s go back inside.”

We all tidied the dining room up in silence before heading into the living room. I sat down on the sofa, then I noticed that the only other person to sit down was Jake. The others were glaring at me.

“What?” I asked impatiently.

“How did you do that?” Danny asked.

“I just did.”

“I think there is something you’re not telling us.” Lucian shot.

“Pardon!”

“I do. You heal someone, talk in a voice that was half yours and half…inhuman, then you crack the earth open like it’s nothing, make it swallow things and then stick it back together again without leaving a trace…” he thundered, hardly stopping to take a breath.

“He’s alive, isn’t he?” I snapped. “What else matters?”

“Everything!” he shouted. “Stop lying and keeping things from us.”

“I’m not!” I shouted back.

“Calm down, everyone,” Tyler said.

“Shut up!” Lucian scowled at him.

“No, leave her alone for God’s sake,” he said as walked over to me and grabbed my hand.

He walked us out of the master living room and into the smaller one at the back of the house. He sat down next to me on the sofa.

“Tyler, don’t fall out with them over me,” I told him.

“He’s out of line,” he shot.

“The truth is I’m not keeping anything from you. I didn’t know I could do that before tonight. Same as I didn’t know I could put things into suspended animation. I’ve never had to do these things before, so they’re new to me.”