Words of Power (Alice Gray Book 3)

8

I don't know if it was the fact that we'd avoided a massacre in a building packed full of humans or the bottle of Absinthe that was quickly draining into our shot glasses, but it was like all our troubles had dissolved into the heady atmosphere of the club.

Evan grabbed my hand, and with his other, snagged Becca's arm, dragging us both into the mass of sweaty, writhing dancers that filled the large space in the centre of the massive room. Just before I was consumed into the throng, I glimpsed Lucas laughing before starting towards us to catch up.

The bass of the music thrummed through me, catching me in its rhythm, urging my body to move in the same undulating movements as everybody around me. I'd been without my magic for so long and the vibrations felt so like the energy of the silver tree. I closed my eyes and followed the humming sensation as it travelled through my veins, reaching my organs, filling me up.

Arms, legs, hips, chest moving without conscious thought, the heat of the bodies around me directing my movements, easing my soul as the energy connected with that part of my brain left empty when they'd taken my magic.

Was this what it was like for normal people who didn't have to worry about the energy taking on a life of its own?

Eyes still closed my body spun around with my mind at the wonder of it; the freedom. Large cool hands landed on the flushed skin of my shoulders, stopping me spinning.

"Hey," I exclaimed, unwilling to let anger tarnish the euphoria. Eyelids fluttering open, my brain zeroed in on the pair of deep brown eyes that caught me in their depths.

"Thomas." The word came out as a sigh.

It used to be that I'd know the second he entered the building, but now I was as good as blind. Heat roared to life at my core. I'd missed that feeling so much, missed him so much, while I'd been keeping a low profile at the guesthouse. The fact that he was here too slotted something into place in my heart, completing the euphoric haze that clouded my brain.

He didn't speak. Didn't smile. Just looked.

Then his eyebrows drew together, and his mouth formed the shape of my name just as somebody grabbed my hand and pulled me further into the dance floor.

The hard body of my Alpha appeared at my back. I rubbed against him to the beat of the music. My witch magic might be gone, but I still got the benefit of the pack bond through physical contact with Lucas.

We moved together for a while, seconds merging as I let the music ease the hole in my soul that used to be filled with silver energy. I could have stayed there forever, but Becca appeared, beckoning to Lucas as her lithe form moved provocatively to the beat. I didn't blame him when he took my hand and spun me again, back out into the mass of dancers.

Circling round and round, I laughed my joy out loud as the crowd moved me wherever it wanted. The energy surged and peaked over and over as my body followed its rhythms with the rest of the flock.

Eyes closed I was only vaguely aware of my movements slowing to a constant sway and the room getting cooler. It was when the music grew quieter before finally stopping that I opened my eyes.

My brain stuttered back to reality when I saw that I was alone in the cavernous hall.

"Lucas, Evan..." I called before realising that it was futile, they were obviously gone.

Shivering, I hugged my arms to my body. Without the crowd this place was freezing. Nothing else for it, it was time to move.
Circling the huge room, looking for the exits, I was back to where I'd started when the whispering began.

Rape, murder, destitution.

Those cruel words, repeated over and over. If I hadn't heard it all before, I'd be peeing my pants right now. But the mocking chant was as familiar to me as my own voice. It bloody well sounded like my own voice, the only difference in the regional accents that changed the cadence of the words.

I grew up in London, these voices were Northern. I hadn't spent enough time up here to pick them out, but some were Lancashire, some Yorkshire. It didn't matter, I knew who they were. These were the ancestors of the Gray family. Brown haired, blue eyed girls just like me. Exactly like me, as they so delighted in reminding me.

In all but one feature: magic.

The Grays all had the warm golden life-force of the original Alice Gray, the Pendle Witch who had escaped prosecution. Their magic cajoled and enticed; it had the power to influence and seduce. Even the watered-down version that Anne had could twist a vampire to her will.

My silver life-force was different.

It still enticed. Yep, it still seduced. But it had a life of its own, a darkness that separated me from the rest of the Grays. I was only on the very verge of being able to control it when it had been stripped from me with a concoction of spells, potions and talismans.

The DPA had used the strength of the Winter Solstice to perform a ritual that under any other circumstances I would have been able to withstand. They'd found a powerful witch all too eager to cast the spell in Roger Bingham, prince of the Southern Coven. The glee in his twisted face when he took what was mine without my consent made me sick to the stomach even now, two weeks later.
It hurt more than I cared to recall when none of my witch acquaintances stepped in to defend me.

Politics, apparently.

How the hell was it fair that I could lose my witchy power but the ghosts could still get through?

Rape, murder, destitution, madness.

They were still at it, the girl-shaped wraiths in the corners of the large room, sneaking ever forward, twisting all rational thought from my mind.

Rape, murder, destitution, madness, corruption.

Wait, the list was getting longer. Madness and corruption? These were new terrors to haunt me with.

My head shot to the side where a shuffling, scraping, scratching noise intruded through the miserable mantra.

A pile of dirty looking rags trembled in the corner of the empty club. Fear shot through me at the memory of the last time I'd found something like this. Then the mutilated body of the previous Alpha of the British pack had been hidden underneath. The horrifying image of Dominic's broken body was tattooed onto the inside of my eyelids every time I blinked.

Madness, corruption, despair, destruction.

Those four words over and over. When I got ten paces away from the pile of rags, I realised that the ancestors were not singing my tune anymore.

They weren't lamenting my fate.

It was the fate of my father.

What new horror is this? Read on to find out...