The Children of Eppswood: Book One

New Magic

I jolted from my unconscious state and immediately assessed my surroundings. Lisa, Cass, and Blake were all standing around me. I was on the couch in my living room.

"Do you always float in your sleep?" Blake asks.

I give him a puzzled look as I throw the sheets off me. "I was floating?" I look at everyone and they all nod. I haven't done that since I was like eight years old. I hoped I had grown out of that but apparently not.

"Where's my dad?"

"He hasn't come back yet. You were only out for like two hours." Lisa answered.

I tried to get up off the couch and stand up but I just fell back down on my ass. My head was still dizzy which fucked up my balance coordination.

"Take it easy, Riles." Lisa said, taking a seat beside me. "You lost a lot of blood on the way home. I've never seen someone bleed so much from their nose like that. And you seriously might want to get your seats deep cleaned."

My mind flashed back to that thing chasing us down the road. I took everything I had left in me and put it in that spell. I know I probably overworked my limits, but it was either that or be ripped apart. I could still feel the dried up blood in my nose and above my lip. My shirt was also stained with droplets and splotches of red marks.

"Well, now that you're up, can we discuss what the fuck just happened tonight ?" Cass says opening up my dad's liquor cabinet. She takes a shot of vodka straight from the bottle then continues talking.

"What the hell are we gonna do? No offense, Riley, but this isn't something your dad and the police can handle." She passes the bottle to Blake and he takes a giant gulp without even flinching.

"Thank you for stating what I already know. You're being extremely helpful." I respond sarcastically. "That's why we need to tell your parents so the Order can do something. We can't handle whatever this is by ourselves. We don't have the experience or the right kind of magic. We don't even know what kind of magic we're dealing with."

"Yeah about that, my parents aren't in town right now. They've been called to the Order for some reason they won't tell me."

"When were you gonna tell me this, Cass?"

"I just found out after I charged my phone and read my mom's text messages, so please cut the attitude. I also charged your phone as well so you're welcome, asshole."

I give her a fake smile and roll my eyes. With Cass' parents out of town we were on our own officially. Well there was one other person I could think of who might help us. But I doubt he'd even answer my phone calls after how we left things. And Cass would hate the idea.

"What about Matt." I suggest anyways already knowing how the conversation was gonna go. "He's the only other person I kn-"

"Hell. No!" Cass lashes back. "If you're talking about the same Matt who my family took in after his parents were executed for treason, the same Matt who stole grimwares and talismans out of my parents vault, the same Matt who completely left us like we didn't mean anything once he had his ascension. If that's the same Matt you're talking about then hell no!"

I'll admit there was a lot of bad history between us, especially Cass. But Matt also knew more than we did, and he had access to things our parents would never let us touch. Which, yes, some of those things belongs to Cass' family that he stole.