“Be gone!” he cried, as the fist held above his head smashed down to his side.
For a moment, the car blurred, as if becoming transparent, then it began to fall, rushing to the road in a sharp whine of sound. But it never reached the pavement, disappearing into thin air.
I gasped as my brain scrambled to catch up with what I had just witnessed. Had Gage really made the car disappear?
Without glancing at me, he turned and walked toward the sports car. The rental was a shell of its former glory, mangled and smoldering in the cool air. Remaining still and quiet; I watched in disbelieving fascination as he repeated the same motions as before. Moments later, the Chevrolet vanished just like the SUV.
As he walked back over toward me, I breathed, “How did you do that?”
Gage fixed me with that intense stare, motioning me deeper into the cluster of trees at the side of the road. “I’ll explain later; now isn’t the time, and we need to remain out of sight. Our ride will be here shortly, and I don’t want to tempt fate and divulge our presence more than I already have tonight.”
“Our ride?”
“A friend.”
It appeared that was all I would get. I pressed my lips together to stop my retort; I knew better than to question him further.
He directed me to a fallen tree branch. “Sit here,” he ordered, standing to attention beside me, arms crossed over his chest as he stared out unrelenting into the night. The area remained deathly quiet, hushed and tense.
As I did as he ordered, I wondered if it was a Druid that would be coming for us and if he was one of the five. After less than half a minute of silence, I couldn’t keep my curiosity in check any longer. “What did you do to the cars?”
He cocked his head to the side; one brow lifted as he looked down at me. “You really don’t know a thing, do you?”
The question hurt, but before I could reply, he added, “I sent it to the Other.”
My brow wrinkled. “The Other?”
“A world, parallel to this one,” he qualified. “It’s also where we send things to be reborn.”
A parallel world? My mind buzzed with the implication that there were other worlds out there, more than just this one. Wait—a world where things are reborn? Did that mean this was where they sent the dead?
My heart squeezed as I breathed out softly, “Is that where you sent James?”
He stilled; his features etched in stone. “No,” he said in a clipped voice. “He wasn’t dead.”
I could feel his anger that I’d questioned him. That I hadn’t trusted him when he’d said he hadn’t killed James. He had to have dropped him at the hospital then! And whether he’d done that or not, at this point, I needed to believe that he had. Trust was key right now.
Despite his displeasure, a huge weight lifted from my shoulders. The uncertainty had been eating away at me. Turning my focus back to what he’d done, I asked, “Did you use a spell to pass the cars over?”
His jaw clenched as he bit out, “Spells are for witches, Brydie. Druids deal in runes. There’s a distinction, and you would do well to get it right.”
I flushed, feeling the reprimand as he’d intended. At the same time, a slow burn crept up my chest. “I’m new to the game, and you would do well to remember!” I retorted.
He considered me for a second before his lips tipped into a semblance of a smile. “The lost descendant has a backbone, after all. Very well; to understand why we use runes and not spells, it’s best to consider our roots. The first Druidic people were children of the Celtic gods. They were created with a strong tie to the natural world. They also created the runic language—a language based on trees that is simple but powerful. For without comprehensive knowledge of what each rune commands, magic becomes unpredictable and dangerous. Scribing one of the characters at a wrong angle or adding too many strokes to a line can be the difference between life or death—nurturing something or destroying it.”
He glanced over at where the sports car used to be. “So, to answer your question about where the car went, there is a rune that creates a rip in the fabric of time, opening doors from one world to the next. I used that rune to open the door to the Other and pushed the cars through.”
Just like that. He made it sound as if it was commonplace, but I still floundered with the possibility. “Is that where the security guard went too?”
“Yes.” He glanced at where the SUV had been. “She will be reborn in the Other, her previous life forgotten.”
I knew Druids believed in reincarnation but not to this extent. It was hard to fathom that they not only believed in another world parallel to our own but that it was where they went to be reborn.
Reborn. There was something about the word that tugged at my consciousness. “So, to send her there,” I said slowly, teasing the thought that nagged, “she had to have been—”
“Dead,” he finished finally, making no attempt to mask the truth.
My eyes widened as I stared at him; at the hard planes of his face that didn’t soften. He watched me closely, knew the exact moment when I realized that one of the loud bangs I’d heard in the car as we careened toward the SUV was from his gun—that Gage’s bullet had found its mark. He’d killed her. And as I looked at his face, I saw no apology there, no remorse for his actions.
I swallowed, a shiver dancing down my spine. Unlike with James, this time he really had killed someone. That meant I was associated with a killer. But it wasn’t that which caused my breath to hitch; it was the realization that I still trusted him, still believed he’d keep me safe. Shit! I was in deep, too far to consider self-preservation.
His voice filled the silence, his tone curt with a sharp edge. “Question time is over. Now is as good a time as any to begin your first lesson.”
I blinked, pushing my internal demons aside, groping to understand what he’d just demanded. “My first lesson?”
“You’re a sitting duck!” he growled. “You don’t even have an understanding of the potential that you could wield. We need to make a start, and this evening's event is proof of that.” He shifted, eyes constantly roving, searching for hidden threats as he spoke. “We’re going to start with the basics. You need to understand that every Druid has a signature, a calling card if you will. It’s a result of the residue in our magic. If you concentrate enough, you will feel it. It’s in the vibrations on the air, the scent around us, and sometimes it’s visible in color.”
He made it sound as though magic was a living entity.
“Open your senses to it,” he continued. “Embrace your innate gift; even those born Dormant can sense a magical signature.”
Nervous at the task he demanded, I tried to open my senses, tried to believe in the impossible. But I couldn’t sense anything except the distraction of the cold biting air. I was also tired and hungry, drained to the last remnant of my reserves.
Is this what my life would be like now? Pushed to the very edge of the last vestiges of my control with the weight of death ever-present? Pressured to undertake tasks that I had no idea how to perform?
“Stop it!” snarled Gage, whipping his arms out in a flash of frustration. “Push all distractions aside! You will never succeed if you cannot focus on the present moment. We are subject to a thousand desires and forces at any one time. They are detrimental to mastering control of our senses. The only way to manage them is to manage the distractions, file them away!”