Spellcaster. Cara Shultz Lynn

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       As if the psycho knowing my name didn’t clue me in, the creepy knife confirmed it for me. This was the evil Angelique’s spell had warned of. A sickly chill washed over me. Obviously, what Brendan was going through at school was just a nasty prank, one that would blow over—the real danger was after me all along.

       I pulled my sleeves down around my hands and used my fabric-covered fingers to pick up the knife, willing myself not to retch as I touched it. I just hoped Angelique knew what this knife was—maybe the skulls were famous skulls, what did I know? She was the one who had recognized my medallion as being significant, after all. I had just slid the knife into my bag when I heard footsteps behind me.

       I jumped up and whirled around, grabbing the pepper spray from my sweatshirt pocket. I shot a stream of the toxic liquid in the grass, right at Cisco’s feet.

       “Whoa!” he shouted, putting his palms up and backing away from me, his eyes wide as he took in my appearance. “What happened to you?”

       “I just—um,” I stammered as I held on to the silver pump. You just what, Emma? You just somehow used magic to disarm your demonically dressed attacker? And used your own unmagic fists of fury to punch his face?

      I slid the canister back into my pocket.

       “I fell down—you just scared me,” I said, trying to sound sheepish. I couldn’t exactly explain what had just happened. “I thought you guys went into the café?”

       “We did, and then you were nowhere to be found, so I went to find you before McNelly had a conniption,” Cisco explained, looking at me curiously. “And then I heard screams and some kind of commotion.”

       “I must have screamed when I tripped…and fell.” I shrugged, running my hand through my hair in an effort to look nonchalant. More likely, he heard you scream, heard your spell—then heard your attacker go smashing into a tree trunk.

      “Whoa, your leg is bleeding—like, gushing blood,” Cisco blurted. Now that he reminded me about my sliced-open leg, it burned like I’d just set it on fire.

       “You’re bleeding a lot,” he said. I looked down, and blood was pooling at the top of my white ankle sock.

       “When I tripped, I fell onto a tree branch,” I explained. At least that part was true.

       “Poor Emma, you’re having a really sucky day.” He pulled some napkins out of his backpack and handed them to me.

       “Thanks,” I mumbled, wiping up the streaming blood from where it left trails down my leg, and winced when the napkins brushed against the splintered bits of branch in my leg.

       “There’s your culprit,” Cisco said, pointing to the tree that just minutes before, I’d blasted my attacker into. “Damn trees. Don’t worry, I got a good description of the perp. Tall, skinny, really bad skin. Forces me to make bad jokes because you’re having such a craptacular day.”

       “It was a funny joke.” I smiled weakly, thinking of how I actually didn’t get a good description of the actual prep. Not so tall, possibly skinny, penchant for cheap, ghoulish Halloween hoods…busted left eye.

      “Do you need help walking, or something? You look really shaken, I won’t lie,” Cisco added, giving me a sideways glance. “You tripped and fell? That’s it? That knee looks brutal, Em.”

      “Yeah, I just fell. I’m okay, though, thanks.” Out of habit, I brushed my grimy hands on the shirttails that were peeking out from the bottom of the sweatshirt then grimaced when I realized I’d smeared blood and dirt all over the front of me. Great, so I’m attacked and I get to look like a dirtbomb.

       “Are you sure?” Cisco asked, his cocoa eyes twinkling mischievously. “I mean, what if I carried you? You could throw the back of your hand to your forehead and swoon. Give them something to really talk about.”

       “Yeah, and you can have your shirt half-ripped off, showing off your man cleavage. Your he-vage,” I joked as we trudged up to the Cloisters.

       “I’ll be all sweaty and glistening all over my heaving pectorals.”

       I raised an eyebrow at him. “They heave?”

       “Please, Emma. They’re the heaving-est.”

       “It’ll be like a romance novel cover,” I said, amazed that I was able to joke after everything that had just happened.

       “Seriously, though, are you okay?” Cisco asked, looking at my disheveled appearance. “You look kind of a mess, Em. No offense.”

       “None taken. My knee and my pride are hurt—and that’s it.” I grinned weakly, my mind still reeling over what had just happened. Part of me wanted to call Angelique and tell her she was right. So very, very right—witchy powers really are rooted in emotion, and in the past twelve hours I’d been more in touch with my emotions than most self-help gurus are. Another part of me wanted to brag that I actually managed to remember the pronunciation for Emoveo—it was in Latin, after all. Part of me just wanted to shout from the treetops that I just used magic—and my own inner kung-fu master—to disarm, and defeat, a hooded attacker. But then, as the fact that I was just attacked, on purpose, began settling in, all I wanted was to curl up in Brendan’s arms and stay there for a week.

       “Let’s find you a first-aid kit,” Cisco said as we climbed the steps to the Cloisters, but I protested.

       “Really, I’m fine. Let me just go to the bathroom and clean this up.” I gestured to my knee, which was still bleeding.

       “I’ll tell McNelly you fell and need a minute,” Cisco offered, before he headed off in search of our art history professor.

       I found the bathroom, frowning when I surveyed the damage. No wonder Cisco kept asking me if I was all right. I looked like I had been through a war. My hair was wild, with sweaty strands plastered to my face—my Wite-Out–pale face. And my leg looked like a zombie had tried to eat my kneecap. I wet a paper towel and cleaned off the dried blood, dirt and bits of branch as best I could, my face twisting at the sting. At least it didn’t seem like it would scar. I had a bottle of vitamin E at home—the car accident with Henry and the battle with Anthony had left me with plenty of battle scars. Literal battle scars, much worse than this. But the tree branch bits proved to be pretty stubborn, and finally, I just resolved to have a piece of Fort Tryon Park stuck in my knee until I made it home. If you need to knock on wood, you’ll have some handy.

      I brushed my hair and wet my face, but the bottom of my shirt was a lost cause, smeared with bloody fingerprints along the front. I thought about trying to dab at them with a damp paper towel, but my life at Vince A was frustrating enough without my classmates thinking I had peed on myself. I stuffed the shirttails underneath the sweatshirt instead.

      My classmates. I steadied my hands on the sink, grateful that no one else was in the bathroom. The adrenaline rush had worn off, and surprisingly, anger—not fear—was starting to set in. Was my attacker someone from Vince A? It was plausible…Angelique was a witch. I was a reincarnated witch. Brendan’s wealth, strength—hell, even his looks—were a part of Archer’s millennium old bargain. Who knew what other kinds of supernaturals strolled the halls of Vince A? From the looks of that knife—and that getup—I didn’t need yesterday’s spell to clue me in that this was definitely magical in nature. Besides, who else would know СКАЧАТЬ