Elyssa watched the shadow and caught the gleam of the figure's brilliant blue eyes in the darkness outside. She hesitated for a moment, caught in awe at what she was seeing as the figure moved into the light shining through the glass. It was a man, handsomely attractive from what she could tell, and that was if she was speaking badly about his looks. She was so overtaken with his appeal that it took her a moment to realize she was staring and that her mouth was hanging open.
Dantes must have noticed her attraction to the figure. She heard him grumble something under his breath as he stepped between her and the figure, almost completely blocking her view. She wasn't sure whether to be alarmed or not. Even though Dantes appeared to be acting a bit protective he didn't seem to be on the verge of lashing out at the figure, at least not yet.
"Leo...What do you want?" Dantes almost growled as he spoke.
"You know him?" Elyssa whispered quietly behind Dantes as she struggled to peek over his shoulder at the figure who was now standing just inside her window.
"Still grumpy I see." Leo responded calmly, before flashing a brilliant smile towards Elyssa. "And you must be Elyssa. It is a pleasure to finally meet you. Dantes, don't you think it's a bit rude that you haven't introduced us sooner?"
Leo began to take a step towards them. Dantes arms went up defensively as he pushed Elyssa protectively behind him. She caught his eyes as he glanced over his shoulder at her as he did so. They were beginning to turn a pitch black once again, the pupils a dull red, just as they had been during the attack at Annette and her mom's shop. Just seeing them sent shivers down her spine, and she feared what might happen next.
"Relax. Now's not really the time for that. I was merely hoping for a proper introduction. I guess it'll have to wait until next time," Leo smiled as he took a stepped back.
Dantes stayed tense and slightly crouched, not quite believing Leo's words. There was a deafening silence along with the tension, the kind where at any moment you'd expect all hell to break loose.
"Well, I can see I'm not really wanted here," Leo continued after a slight pause.
"No, you're not," Dantes responded with a deep hatred in his voice.
"Understood. I just assumed that since you seem so determined to keep her safe that you should know that...Hmmm, I guess it doesn't matter now does it. I'm sure at some point you'll try to kill her yourself anyway. It's only a matter of time, right?" Leo's calmness turned a bit mocking in nature as he turned back towards the window.
"Wait! What are you talking about?" Dantes asked, concern now coloring his tone.
Leo glanced back over his shoulder at the two of them, a grave look in his eyes. "There's a bounty on her head, and likely the two witches and yours also. This probably isn't the safest place to be right now. I just thought you'd want to know...for her sake that is."
Dantes was at a loss for words. He couldn't figure out exactly why Leo was willing to share such information as it wasn't normal for angels to interfere directly in the affairs of this world like this. Usually they operated in complete secrecy allowing humans to live their lives and even at times to meet their fate at the hands of the demons if they couldn't intercept them in time.
Leo was usually more strict than the others when it came to such acts. As far as Dantes knew Leo never broke those rules and even punished those he had found to do so if he caught them in the act. Dantes knew how much Leo despised him, and his dislike for humans who possessed powers much like Elyssa, ranked her and those like her not far behind. So why would he warn them, Dantes pondered.
Elyssa watched as Leo gracefully pulled himself through the window with a small leap, landing just outside the window sill, crouched and on one knee.
"Leo!" Dantes called out to him.
Leo glanced back over his shoulder at the two of them. Dantes stood up straight, his body relaxing. He took a deep breath, and Elyssa sensed that was he was about to say next was difficult for him.
"Thank you," he spoke almost under his breath, and barely audible if not for the slight echo that reverberated through the room.
Leo nodded in return as a faint smirk crossed his lips. "Don't think this means you're off the hook. I'm still going to kill you."
With that Elyssa watched in awe as a pair of wings grew from Leo's back. They spread wide as the moon light glinted off of them, making them appear to shine brightly in contrast to the darkness outside. Leo caught Elyssa's gaze and held it just long enough that she felt butterflies begin to form in the pit of her stomach and her knees go weak. Before she knew what had hit her he leapt into the air and disappeared into the night sky.
"We have to go." Dantes words broke Elyssa out of the day dream she had fallen into. She found him staring directly into her eyes, a slight scowl on his face. Her cheeks turned a slight red from the embarrassment of being caught and she hoped it wasn't too obvious what she had been thinking a moment before.
"Oh yeah...ummm...wait, what? Go? Go where?," she found herself stumbling through her words and realized her mind still wasn't all there after the site of Leo.
"I'm not sure..." He rubbed his chin, thinking to himself for a bit before finally making a decision.
"I guess you can stay at my place tonight, and tomorrow we'll speak with Annette and her mom to see if they have any other ideas. Are you okay with that?" he asked.
Elyssa nodded in agreement as she responded, "Just let me grab a few things."
"Okay but hurry up. Just grab what you need, and we can pick up any extras later on." As he spoke she was already moving, grabbing a small duffel bag from her closet and disappearing into the bathroom where he heard various items clanging as she threw them into her bag.
He didn't quite like the idea of her knowing where he lived, but he really had no other choice at the moment. If Leo was able to find them it wouldn't be hard for anyone else to do the same. His place was far enough away from the city that if they were attacked he could draw upon his full power to fend them off without worry of outsider eyes revealing him, yet not so far that they couldn't reach Annette's shop within a short time if needed. Not to mention he had had a few protection spells cast on the house a few centuries earlier making the house, and anyone near it, almost completely invisible from any type of spiritual detection.
As Elyssa came out of the bathroom she noticed Dantes flipping through the pages of her spell book. His face was strained as he ran his finger along the passages in the book.
"Can you cast?" she asked offhandedly as she starting pulling clothes out of the closest and stuffing them into her bag.
"I have, but it's been a long time and it's never been anything more than the most basic of magic. We don't handle energy the way humans do, so it's extremely difficult to even do that. Most can't do it at all. Not to mention this book's almost impossible to read." He flipped back and forth between two pages his face scrunching up as he attempted to decipher the words.
"What are you talking about? It's written in plain english, except for a few small passages that look like an old language." she asked incredulously.
"To you maybe, but you're a witch so naturally the words adapt to your energy. If you spoke a different language, the words would appear in that language to you. Ask anyone else, especially a normal human, and it just looks like a bunch of scribbles and symbols. That's probably the old language you mentioned seeing. You're energy just isn't completely comfortable reading it yet, or..." He paused for a second to think.
"No...it couldn't be that," his voice trailed off as he thought out loud.
"Be what?" she asked curiously.
"Nothing," he continued as he went back to glancing through the pages of the large book.
"I can barely adapt my own energy to make a word shift here or there for a few moments...," he finished with a long sigh.
He glanced over at her, his brow wrinkling up as he looked at her.
"What is it?" she asked. He motioned to her bag, and her eyes followed his gaze. She had been so caught up in listening to him as she was putting clothes in her bag that she failed to realize it was now overflowing. Even more embarrassing, her more intimate pieces were grabbed last and now sat atop the bag in full view.
Dantes grinned as her face turned a bright red. She quickly pulled a few items out to make room, moving a few of the more intimate modest pieces underneath the pile and throwing the others into a dark corner of the closet out of site.
"Those were uh...they were...," she stuttered as she spoke, her face turning a greater shade of red the more she tried to dismiss the garments. Dantes could only grin as he watched her fidget and stumble through the embarrassment. It was something he had always found attractive about her, and endearing in his eyes, even though in old times she had usually seemed to take it as him making fun of or thinking less of her. No matter how many times he had tried to explain otherwise, she never saw it that way, or at least she had said she didn't.
"It's okay. We all wear...you know," he interjected in hopes of lessening any embarrassment she might have been feeling.
"You wear women's underwear?" she asked jokingly, a bit of the red fading from her cheeks.
"...Maybe," Dantes joked back after being a bit taken off guard by her playful remark. Elyssa mocked being horrified by the response before they both broke out in laughter.
"We should probably get going. Do you have everything?" he asked. She responded with a nod as she stood up with her bag in tow.
He glanced back down at the spell book laying in front of him and flipped through a few more pages, his tone becoming more serious. "How are you doing with the casting?"
"Not too bad. Nothing really complicated though, at least not yet." she responded.
He exhaled deeply as he stared at a page, as if lost in thought for a moment or two while mulling something over in his head. "Okay. I need you to try something for me," he said as he glanced over at her while pointing to a spell on the page.
She put her bag back down and walked up beside him, reading through the spell on the page.
"It's a protection spell," he continued. "I've got some already casted at my place so we won't be found but I think it might be a good idea for you to cast a few on us before we leave so we won't be followed to it. I can hide mine to an extent, but you...you kind of stick out like a sore thumb at the moment. Better safe than sorry, right?"
"This is a little more advanced than I...I don't know if I can..." She looked up at him as she spoke. He was almost a good foot taller than she was, which wasn't saying much with her being just a few inches over five feet tall, but he seemed much more imposing than others she had met that had been of similar height. She hadn't noticed it before but standing beside him now made her feel so small in comparison.
Maybe it was his broad shoulders that made him appear so large, she thought. She looked at his piercing eyes as they turned to her and felt a rush of butterflies as they formed in her stomach once again. It seemed like they were becoming a habit with her whenever he looked into her eyes, and she wondered what power he must possess over her that she felt such things. And his lips...she shook her head slightly to remove the thoughts from her head, afraid of getting carried away in a fantasy from her dreams at a time when such thoughts should be the last thing upon her mind.
"Are you alright?" he asked with a concerned tone to his voice.
"Yeah. Just...a bit dizzy. I think I stood up a bit too fast," she lied in response. If she had a weakness for him, she definitely didn't want him to know it, at least not yet.
He nodded and then pointed back at the spell as he spoke to her. "You can do this. I know you can," he said reassuringly with a slight smile.
She took another deep breath as she tried to force her thoughts to focus on the task at hand. Slowly she ran her fingers along the page reading, and rereading, the spell to ensure she recited the incantation correctly. The spell was so much further along than she had gotten to in the book that there was no telling what would happen if she spoke it wrong. She could feel her knees shake slightly as she started to speak the first words and she abruptly stopped to compose herself.
She felt Dantes hand as he placed it upon her covered shoulder soothingly while whispering in her ear. "I have faith in you."
At once she felt her heart speed up, and the butterflies begin to surface again. While he may have meant well, it had the complete opposite effect upon her, making it even more difficult to concentrate. Her thoughts wanted to focus on him. With him being so close, and now feeling his hand upon her shoulder, she could barely breath let alone think straight. On one hand it excited her, but it also aggravated her to no end. It likely didn't help that she was feeling the pressure of casting something she wasn't all that confident she could pull off.
"Don't touch me," she snapped at him. He quickly and reflexively withdrew his hand. At once she realized her tone and the words themselves didn't come out the way she had intended. She had acted out of impulse in the heat of the moment and had chosen the wrong emotion to follow.
She worried what he was thinking of her at that instant but her question was answered as he turned and walked away. She couldn't see his face but she could feel a coldness returning to the room as he stood looking out the window into nothingness. She could almost sense a scowl upon his face.
"I didn't mean it like that. I..." she started to say in an attempt to apologize but she was quickly cut off with his words.
"It's okay. It won't happen again," he replied back tersely. After a moment's hesitation, that seemed to linger for centuries in her mind, he continued with the same blunt tone to his voice "Listen, if you can't cast the spell it's okay."
Other than the abruptness of his voice, there was no emotion behind it at all. It was completely bare and empty of any feeling, not even a hint of anger was present. It was as if everything that had happened, and the nearly blissful kiss that had almost happened, during the night leading up to now had never occurred. It was erased completely from ever having existed.
Elyssa felt a fire begin burning in her stomach. A want and a feeling of need to lash out, and she didn't quite know why. She wasn't sure if she was angry at herself for what she had said and the result of the words, or if she was angry at him for being so emotionless in response. Did everything else before then in the night mean so little to him that it didn't affect him at all. Was it really so insignificant that he merely didn't care to feel anything about it?
In her eyes it seemed that way. Any normal person she reasoned would have at least felt a sense of hurt that would have shown, even if she didn't intentionally say what she had said to hurt him. The fact that he'd feel nothing and just turn away as if it didn't matter. On top of it he had the audacity to imply that she couldn't cast the spell. How dare he was the only thought that was now running through Elyssa's mind.
She angrily grabbed the spell book from the table and held it openly in her arms as a look of determination fell across her face. She glanced over at Dantes who didn't even appear to be paying attention, which only served to stoke the fire burning within her even more. She would show him, she thought as she raised the book up slightly and began chanting the words for the protection spell out loud.
"With mystic winds and an angel's tear, in a world that knows no man's fear. Hidden under ancient shrouds, unbeknownst to the darkest crowds. To walk with feathery steps adept, upon the stones where angels wept. And with these words I speak to thee, listen closely and hear my plea. Bring upon the time of shadow, upon this body that we must now hallow."
Her voice pierced the air with confidence and strength. The evidence of anger also clung to her words as they fell from her lips. Her hand struck up into the air as her eyes turned a pure white. She looked almost possessed for an instant, which was followed by a faint red flash of light emanating from her whole body.
It was gone as quickly as it had come, yet Elyssa didn't feel any different. She looked about the room and over towards Dantes who was still standing with his back to her by the window. He turned, and without even acknowledging her walked right past and out the door.
"Let's go," he said softly in almost a whisper as he disappeared into the hallway. She hesitated for a moment with a confused look on her face. Too many things were running through her mind from him, to the spell, to what would happen next. It was all a bit overwhelming and his lack of showing any reaction at all made it even more confusing for her. A bit disheartened, she listened as his footsteps disappeared down the hallway. With an exasperated breath she finally picked up her bag, tucking the spell book under her other arm, and followed him out.
As she neared the top of the stairs and looked down she realized that Dantes had already made his way outside as the front door sat ajar. She shook her head, and thought that the least he could have done is offered to help carry her bag. She hoped the rest of the night wouldn't involve this cold shoulder he was giving her, particularly since she was going to be stuck with him until at least the next morning.
After locking the door behind herself, she glanced around for Dantes who was standing quietly beside her car.
"Did the spell work?" she asked as she walked over towards him.
He nodded to her as she threw her bag into the backseat along with the spell book.
"I think that's it unless there's something else I should be taking," she spoke a bit hesitantly hoping for a spoken response. Dantes only shook his head.
"I...I was wondering if...," she started again but couldn't think of anything else to ask in an attempt to get him to speak.
"Nevermind," she stated instead as she opened the door and got into the car. She sat quietly and waited for Dantes, who stood outside unmoving as if deep in thought. A few moments later she heard the door creak slightly as he opened it and slid into the seat beside her. She took a deep breath as she started the car and began to pull out of her driveway.
"So which way?" she asked as she neared the end of the drive. He pointed to the right down the darker part of the road and away from the city. She sighed as she turned onto the street and started the drive to wherever it was that Dantes lived. One thing she knew for certain was that regardless of how long the trip was, it was going to be an extremely quiet ride.