Behind the Mask - Book One [Editing/Re-writing]

(27) Talk About a Bad Day

Chapter Twenty Seven

Never in all of this training did I think I would have to fight Nadine. I know it will be good for me to know how to right a witch considering i’m about ninety nine percent sure Isaac is a warlock but Nadine? I know her. I don’t want to hurt her!

I watch anxiously as Nadine talks to Raphael, her arms flying around her; sparks flying from her finger tips. As her voice gets higher it seems to bounce around the large room. "You can’t expect me to fight her! I don’t want to! I don’t want to hurt her."

Raphael just looks down at her, his face clear of all expression, "You’ll be helping her Nadine. Don’t you want to help her?"

Nadine frowns and her arms drop down by her side, "How can hurting her help her?" She asks; her voice full of incredulity.

His expression turns slightly annoyed and he crosses his arms over his chest and looks down at her with superiority, "So you’re not going to help her?"

She sighs, "I’m going to help her," she looks up at him, "I just don’t understand how this can help her! Shouldn’t we tell her how to fight me first?"

He shakes his head once, "No. She’ll figure it out. I want to do it this way," he looks her in the eyes; his eyes filled with anger and he says dangerously quiet, "And I don’t think you have much of a choice."

Nadine pales at that and I don’t blame her. Getting threatened by a super powerful vampire? That would scare me too. I stare at Raphael and feel fear creep up my spine. I didn’t think he was capable of being mean and scary but I guess I was wrong.

He’s a vampire,

my inner voice whispers, don’t forget that. I involuntarily shiver and feel the hair on the back of my neck prickle as I continue to look at him. He even looks terrifying. His brown eyes almost look black and they are narrowed and his mouth is a thin line; his whole body is tense and his jaw is clenched; which in turn makes his scar stand out like a ‘don’t walk’ sign. What happened to him to make him get that scar? A battle? Giving someone a lesson and they cut him? Did he fall? Ha! Like he would fall. He’s got the grace of a cat for crying out loud!

"I—" Nadine takes a deep breath and looks down at her feet then mutters, "Understood."

Raphael nods once and I stare at him as he closes his eyes for a second and when he opens them the tension in his body is gone. He glances over as if he could sense me looking at him and our eyes lock. No sparks fly or anything like that; I just give him a puzzling look and he just stares at me; his eyes burning into me and it feels like he can see inside my head. I jerk my head away and break our look and instead of him I look over at Nadine who has made her way to the center of the room. She gives me an apologetic smile, "I’m sorry Bethany."

I open my mouth to ask her why when a huge ball of dark green light comes barrelling at my head. With a barely audible scream I fall to the ground; the ball of light just grazing the top of my head. I look at her in horror as I remember her at the shop; that huge ball of light that she conjured up. It looked scary enough and she said that was only to knock me out. What can she do with attack spells?

Asked. And answered.

I watch in horror as she produces this sort of, green gooey stuff and flicks her fingers at me. My mouth drops as the stuff shoots right for my head and with a small scream I drop like a stone to the ground but not before it skins the top of my head and some of it hits my outfit. I watch in disbelief as it sizzles and burns through the outfit and expect my skin to fall off when it touches it but all it does is slide down my arm.