Hidden Magic

First Encounter

“Did it work?” Rosie said into the darkness. She felt scared, she didn’t know if this was a part of the spell or not. The room was pitch black; she couldn’t see Amber or Shane at all. Luckily, she could hear them moving around on the floor.


“Yeah, it worked. Now, shut up.” Rosie was confused by the urgency in Shane’s voice, so she fumbled around the on the sofa for her phone. When she finally found it stuffed underneath some of Mum’s extra big, fluffy sofa cushions, she pressed the unlock button, and the whole room was lit up by a bright, blue-ish light.


Rosie’s eyes widened at the sight of Amber sat on the floor, eyes shut tight, as if she was struggling to concentrate on something. Shane was staring further down on the floor. Rosie followed the direction of his eyes and saw that Amber was sketching something, it looked like an old house. A very spooky old house.


Rosie knelt down beside Shane, and pointed the bright light from the phone above the paper. “What’s she doing?” She whispered, watching Amber’s hands move quickly on the paper in fascination.


“Sketching the location of Amy,” he replied, and to Rosie’s surprise put his arm around her comfortingly. “Sorry I didn’t warn you about the lights, I hope it didn’t scare you too much.” There was a smile in Shane’s voice, she knew that without even looking up. She was also kind of afraid to, they were sitting so close together, and, well...she had never been so good at self control.


Rosie elbowed him in the stomach playfully. “I was not scared,” she lied, and hoped he couldn’t feel her fast, pulsing heart, or hear the shakiness that still remained in her voice.


“Sure,” Shane said in a sarcastic tone. “I totally believe you.”


Rosie shook her head and rolled her eyes. She looked back at Amber, who was still sketching away. The image was getting bigger, nearly filling the whole area of the A4 sheet of paper. It was actually really good too. Rosie had had no idea that Amber was this talented of a drawer.


“Um...how long will it take her to...?”


“Done,” Amber announced, and gave Rosie an apologetic smile for her interruption.


Shane quickly removed his arm from around her shoulders and picked up the piece of paper. When she dared a glance back across at Amber, she saw she had her eyebrow’s rose and a faint, smug smile across her lips. Rosie blushed with embarrassment. Amber is going to be all over this, especially since I made a big fuss of denying it the other day.


“Amber, I think I know where this is.” Shane’s low voice made Rosie jump, and when she looked at him she saw he was staring down at the picture with fierce intensity. It made Rosie nervous. In the short time she’d known Shane, she knew he was a calm guy most of the time, except when there’d been danger or suspicion on her part around, other than that he’d been a perfectly laid back and funny guy. This Shane made her scared, because she knew that whatever he was thinking right now wasn’t good. Not good at all.





Amber was silent. She was sat on the sofa with a glass of water, staring over at the coffee table which held the candle lit drawing. They...well Shane had lit all the candles from the spell, and Rosie had got out some of her Mum’s expensive ones too. Mum was going to kill her later, but the circuits were out. Dead. Rosie had no idea how she was going to come up with an excuse for that either...Err, Mum, we were doing this location spell to find your not-so-dead daughter, and...well...it kind of destroyed the circuits. Um, sorry? No, that would not go down well.


Shane was just sat there, staring at the flame of a particular candle. He’d been doing it for at least twenty minutes now, and she was starting to get pretty freaked out. After Amber had took another look at the finished picture, she’d grabbed a glass of water and sat down on the sofa, and had practically become a staring statue ever since. Just like Shane.


Rosie was like a freaked out of her mind observer, stood in the doorway that led into the kitchen. She had no idea what to do. Two secretive witches were just playing staring games in her living room, and no matter how much she said “Hello, what the hell’s going on?” they just ignored her like she invisible. Rosie was guessing the answer wasn’t that Amy had been captured by friendly Vampire tooth fairies. Awesome.


Eventually Rosie just gave up yelling at them and went into the kitchen. She was going to let them be crazy. She would just have to remember to kick them out before the clock struck six, until then they were free to act like people off the mental ward back in London. Not that people off the mental ward are bad or anything, they must really like to stare at things and ignore people. Or attack them...on occasion. That’s all. Crazy people are cool; I mean the closest people I’ve got to friends around here are.


Rosie sighed and slumped down in one of the dining table chairs with a new can of refreshing, icy coke. It was nice, and somewhat cleared her head of fuzziness. When she finally regained some sense of reality, she noticed a perfectly white note stuck to her back door. She squinted and strained her eyes in the dim light, they’d only lit the kitchen with two candles, and it was quite a big room.


Rosie could make out some small, italic writing, but she couldn’t read it. She rose up from the chair and picked up the candle from the table, thanks to Shane’s special kind of orange flames it was extra bright...but when Rosie got to the note, she was starting to think that was actually a downfall.


Her heartbeat went more rapid than ever before, and her heartbeat tripled in beats a lot lately. So much she was surprised she hadn’t yet suffered from a killer heart attack. She thought her breathing had stopped completely as she read over the spiky words:


Dearest Rosie,


I must tell you to stay where you are and keep quiet, or I will come for you. I’ve been waiting for you for a long time, and it seems my torture is finally going to end. I promise. And my sweet, I always keep my promises.


Sincerely,


You’re just going to have to wait.


What could this mean? Rosie fought to regain her breath and picked up the note with shaking hands. She failed though, and the note dropped onto the light, wooden kitchen floor. Rosie bent down to retrieve it, but a teasing voice from behind stopped her.


“Hello child.”


Rosie slowly stood up, every nerve in her body screaming danger at her in a high pitched volume. She wanted nothing more than to run, to not have to face whatever darkness was behind her, teasing her...waiting to kill her.


She turned around to see a man...a sickeningly pale man frozen around the age of twenty two. He was good looking, with almost jet black hair and piercing, emerald green eyes. He was wearing formal black trousers and a blood red dress shirt. In normal circumstances, Rosie would have burst out laughing at the black cape fastened around his neck, which swished slightly every time he moved, but this was not the time, and in the dim light, it just made him look even more terrifyingly intimidating.


Rosie gulped as he took a step closer to her. He breathed the air around them, and made a pleased sound at the back of his throat. His eyes flashed a gruesome, scarlet red. “You are definitely Amy’s sister, your blood smells of the same delicious sent.”


Sickness churned in Rosie’s stomach, but she managed to stay under control. She knew he was a vampire, that much was blatantly obvious, but she didn’t know why he was here. And it also didn’t make sense for him to of wrote that mysterious note either, because if he had why would he give up the game so early?


No, she had to be smart. She had to find out what she could on her own, which meant not screaming help for Shane and Amber. Well, not yet anyway. Not that they're aware enough to even hear me.


Rosie was shocked at how calm her voice sounded, “What do you want?”


The vampire smiled menacingly. “I’m James. It’s Rosie, right?”


She nodded.


He smiled again. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.” He walked in circles around her, never once breaking eye contact. His eyes were so enchanting, yet there was nothing remotely safe about them. “Amy is a little firecracker, you know? It’d be a shame to see one so headstrong and brave, die so young and...painfully.” He dragged out that last word slowly; emphasizing it’s every syllable so Rosie couldn’t possibly miss the threat.


“Leave her alone. Please.”


He laughed, and said, “Manners really aren’t needed at a time like this. I’ll kill her no matter how many times you beg me pretty please.”


“I’ll send my friends after you,” Rosie warned.


James stopped directly in front of her. He was so close that Rosie could feel the coolness of his skin from where his lips rested near her ear. “Your witchy friends aren’t here now, are they? And if you call them you know I won’t hesitate to kill you.”


She tried again, “What do you want? You never answered my question.”


“No, it appears I didn’t. Pardon, my lady.” He smiled and stepped back, leaning against the table. “I actually have a message for you, from your beloved sis. The most annoying child I have ever met, if I may add?”


“Amy,” Rosie said, and felt her eyes sting. She forced back the tears, and turned away, making sure that James wouldn’t spot them. “What did she say?”


James’s lips curled up into a wicked smile. “She said “help me, Rosie.” Tragic, isn’t it?”


All she could see was white, hot fury, and she wanted nothing more than to throw herself at James. She wanted to hurt him like the unbearable pain he’d just caused her. “You’re evil,” she spat.


“Why would you make such charming accusations, child?” He asked, his voice dripping with enjoyment.


Rosie couldn’t control the angry scream that escaped her, and she was ready to attack James like a fool when she found herself pushed at lightenening speed across the room, and pushed up against the kitchen wall with a ridiculously strong vampire’s hand smacked across her now silent mouth. “What did I say about being quiet,” he hissed, pulling her back and smacking her head into the wall with a brute force that made stars cloud Rosie’s vision.


The kitchen door flung open, hitting the counter at a forceful speed, making the doors hinges rattle with impact. James let her go and she dropped to the floor with a hard thump, and she heard a painful whimper escape her. She looked up to see Shane standing in the doorway, the picture of fury, and Amber standing behind him, staring at James with wide eyes.


James looked at both Shane and Amber with a...petrified expression? Rosie didn’t know if it was the brain damage talking, but James looked very scared of Amber and Shane. Rosie didn’t have time to question it because before she knew it James had flashed out the back door with inhuman speed.


Amber seemed to see her for the first time and ran to drop by Rosie’s side. “Oh, my, god! Rosie, are you okay?” She looked back across at Shane, who was now staring at the door with empty eyes. “God, Shane, look at her. She’s hurt.”


Rosie brought her hand to up to her head and felt moisture in her hair, when she brought her hand back down and looked at her fingers; she saw they were covered in blood. Her blood. Crap, I must have hit my head harder than I thought.


Shane looked across at her for a moment, and Rosie saw his expression turn from empty to pure anger. She expected him to come to her and help her, but he didn’t. “I’m going out after him,” was all he said.


Amber suddenly jumped up. “No, you’re not. You’re staying here, not going out there to get yourself killed by a house full of f***ing vampires. I mean it, Shane!”


“You don’t own me,” he said, his voice as cold as ice, “all that I’ve ever got by listening to you is death and destruction. Now, I’m going out after him, this has to stop. Now.”


All Rosie saw before blacking out was Shane sprinting out of the back door and Amber yelling after him frantically from the doorway. Then the word became peaceful for the first time, in a very long time.