Chapter 44

When they had hiked three or so miles into the deep woods, Brenna found a clearing between the giant redwoods and announced, "This looks like as good a spot as any."

Zach dropped the giant hockey bag of supplies he had insisted on carrying in for Brenna at her feet, and walked over to a giant tree that had fallen in another clearing, all eyes were on him when he easily picked it up and carried it back to the clearing to give everyone a place to sit.

Ray had let out a low whistle when he returned.

Lauren had to marvel at his strength. He was really coming into his powers. When Zach locked eyes with her she realized she was staring, and possibly drooling too, she thought ruefully.

She mentally berated herself for blushing and quickly looked away. Get over it, she chided herself, that road is closed permanently.

She deliberately looked over at Quinn then in his tight jeans and doc martins with his gorgeous smile and long sexy head of hair. Oh yeah she thought down this road be adventure.

She just loved his easy going manner. In fact at that moment he was horsing around with CJ as they fought over the most comfortable spot on the log.

She looked back over at Zach to find him staring at her and deliberately narrowed her eyes menacingly toward him, until he looked away. There did you get that message?

She could never know how much he was gleaning from her actions, like earlier today, or how much of what he knew, he knew because he was reading her thoughts.

She sent out a mental message of 'You had better stay out of my head Angel boy'.

But if he heard her he never let on.

Everyone broke up to find rocks that they could use to make a fire pit while Brenna unloaded kindling and cedar wood from her bag.

Lauren wandered into the clearing where Zach had found the log to look for a fair sized boulder when she heard rustling in the underbrush. Before she knew it she had been struck from the side and she was rolling through the air with a mass of fur on top of her. Lauren screamed in terror as she felt teeth snap just inches away from her neck.

Her back landed hard in the grass and brush but the weight of whatever had taken her down was suddenly gone. All she could hear was the sharp whine of pain from beside her. It had all happened so fast she had no time to react or even figure out what had attacked her, but she looked up to see Zach's massive form leaning over a giant Arctic wolf.

Zach was taking huge intakes of breath every few seconds like he was hyperventilating. He was leaning over the animal with his long fingers wrapped tightly around its neck. The wolf was thoroughly pinned to the ground.

Lauren heard the animal squeal as Zach looked eyes on her, but Marley raced in from the other clearing and yelled:

"DON'T"

She grabbed on to Zach's arm and it was a real struggle for her to lift his hand off the wolf's neck.

"Zach." she looked him in the eyes. "You don't want to do this."

Lauren shivered as she got up off the ground and grabbed her bloody elbows reflexively.

Zach was about to grab the wolf again when Marley said, "I've got him I've talked to him. He's just hungry. He was hunting a rabbit. Lauren got in the way. He was never going to eat her."

She looked Zach in the eyes again. Was she using her powers of persuasion or trying to use them on Zach, could she use them on Zach? Lauren wondered.

"Wait a second, can you read minds too?" she asked Marley.

"No I can command bats and wolves as the spawn of a vampire, which means I can communicate with them on a certain level -- with images more than words."

"That's so F'N cool," Ryan interjected and everyone laughed.

Except for Zach he was still standing in the same spot Marley had left him.

"Mars," Lauren pleaded.

"Oh shit yeah sorry, "Marley walked over to Zach and said, "Now are you going to stay calm?"

Zach nodded and blinked, while Marley let go of her control, then he just went right back to looking for stones in the clearing like nothing had happened.

Note to self Lauren thought don't mess with Marley.

Just then the wolf got up from his crouch and took off through the underbrush again.

She couldn't help when she jumped a little at his sudden movement. Who wouldn't after coming that close to being wolf food?

But Marley said, "Relax I've told him to patrol the perimeter and to warn us if the park wardens show up. He's not going to give us any more trouble."

Once they got the aromatic fire going Brenna laid cedar and sage brush over and it began to smoke like really smoke. Brenna then fanned the smoke over everyone that circled the fire. Until they all smell like braised ribs.

Brenna began at that point to sing the song of her people. It had a lovely melodic resonance. She put a tea pot on the corner of the fire and filled it with bottled water and added the dried mushrooms and once it was boiled she drank it and renewed her song.

She walked in a circle around the fire methodically, and everywhere she went Connor's green eyes followed her.

At one point she seemed to sway on her feet and Connor jumped up to catch her, but he seemed to her realize the he couldn't do that and sat down dejectedly.

In the end thankfully, she stayed upright.

Obviously, the mushrooms had taken hold and she was in the grips of her trance yet she still kept singing. Lauren wished she knew her language it was so beautiful. Brenna bent down and grabbed her pale staff. It was slender like a slightly thicker walking stick with holes on the top where feathers and fur dangled, and for some reason Lauren didn't know why but she knew in that moment the staff was made of Whalebone. There were smaller bones affixed to the feathers and fur and they rattled when Brenna began to sway back and forth in a rhythmic dance. She began to undulate toward the fire and the song changed from a sing song manner to a calling out. She seemed to be addressing her ancestors.

She beckoned them and called them forth. Her movement became inhuman like instead of her swaying something was moving her body back and forth, and side to side. It was so nerve racking, she was leaning so far back and forward that Lauren thought she was going to fall in the fire more than once.

Connor was beside himself. He couldn't even sit down he just kept pacing in a tight little circle in front of his seat around the fire. He was keeping his spot, but it looked liked he was bunching up his legs in case he had to jump over the fire to catch her.

This went on for what seemed like hours, when in point of fact, it had only been an hour. The longest hour of poor Connor's life; she would guess.

Finally, Brenna stopped and threw her arms to the side in a wide arc away from her body like she was spreading her wings and then it happened with a pulse of energy that everyone felt.

A giant translucent Raven came flying out of Brenna's chest and went directly into the fire. It would seem that the fire was the conduit to the other side and the Raven had opened the door to the spirits of her ancestors and allowed them to come drifting out. They were Native people but they were also animals too. It was like these translucent beings were both and they switched back and forth with purpose to show they were one and the same.

Brenna began to speak in a voice that did not sound like her own.

"Hear me my guides: tell us what has happened to the spirit we call Liam Nash?"

"My child," they said in unison, "we will show you what you wish to know."

And the fire changed. The center of it blackened like the black of a movie screen in the theatre before the trailers begin and she saw her young face in the flames. She was five and riding her bike around the circle of grass in her old cul-de-sac in Seattle. Her handle bars had the little ribbons attached to them and she was taunting her brother saying, "You can't catch me," as he chased her on his bike they just went round and round.

The more he tried to catch her the faster she went at one point he was just a hairsbreadth from grabbing her with his outstretched hand, but his bike hit a bump and he nearly tumbled. And in doing so she had regained her valuable lead. She laughed and teased and accused him of being too slow.

It happened then in the blink of an eye. The round black portals she has become so familiar wiith over the last three years opened before him and he was sucked inside. Another one opened behind her almost directly on her back and he popped through and crowed excitedly, "I got you," while his bike fell to the side uselessly behind them.

Lauren had been so startled that they crashed into the curb and went sprawling in the neighbor's front yard.

She jumped up and screamed, "How'd you do that! That's impossible!" I'm telling Mommy you cheated!"

But then another portal in front of him opened up and he was sucked through.

Lauren looked everywhere around her expecting him to pop up again, but he didn't. When she had stood there spinning in one spot for more than ten minutes she finally ran in to tell her mom.

The vision remained on the front lawn when she heard her mother's scream.

The fire jumped and the scene changed and she was now sitting on her stairs looking down from above on her Uncle Ulliam and her Mother. They were arguing or at least it appeared they were.

Her mother paced back and forth in the living room.

"You got to find him Ully you've got to. You're the most powerful of the two of us. You have to find a witch to do a locator spell. Hale witches are our best bet they hate the council too. Anything tell them I'll pay anything. Just find him before the council does."

"Laurel, her wonderful Uncle cajoled, "I'm doing everything I can. I have done a locator spell. He was already gone before I could get there. He's portaling out of control. I can't stop him. We just have to hope he can stop himself."

"Oberon's beard, Ully he could portal into a volcano or the bottom of the ocean!" she practically screamed.

"Shush," he hushed her, "we mustn't upset Lauren or we might trigger her powers as well after all they are twins like us."

"Please Ully think of something. I can't lose him." Her mother started to cry inconsolable tears.

"Her Uncle took her in his arms and rocked her like a small child and said," I have one last hope a druid of immense power might be able to tether me to his power."

Her mother looked up with a tear soaked face with eyes as large as saucers and exclaimed, "Not even if Tatania herself ordered it! Ully that's too dangerous. I can't ask that of you. I will do it myself."

"No, no," he chopped his hand in front of him gesturing madly. "It cannot be done. He pointed up the stairs, as he insisted, "she needs you more than you ever know."

The vision cleared again and jumped to a scene of her Uncle Ully holding the hand of her brother. Who was battered and bruised and looked like shock was the least of his worries, but yet the council stood them up before them like criminals.

Her brother was crying the jagged hitching tears of a traumatized child, and yet they conversed as if he wasn't even there.

"You understand," they spoke with her Uncle, "it cannot be allowed to continue."

"I have it under control now I promise you. I can manage it we've been tethered. Whereever he goes, I go. He can do no more harm. I promise you. "

"It would be different if we could strip his power but a Tuatha de Dannan of such power we have yet to see. He will be the ruin of us all. No it cannot be born. We must end it."

"We will give you time to unfetter yourself before he is transported to a realm he cannot teleport back from.

"Oberon's beard! You cannot mean to send a five year old to a dark realm without supervision."

"We do," the head councilman said matter-of-factly.

"I will not stand for this!" Her Uncle made to teleport out of the chamber, but was ensnared in a green fiery circle. The strange flames rose all around him.

Her Uncle seemed to look off scene at something she couldn't see and said, "You traitor! I will make you pay for this!"

The head councilman spoke again," it seems you have made your choice."

And the green flames grew higher and started to overwhelm her brother and her uncle they screamed in agony and then the scene changed.

They were now in a dark and eerie forest. There were snarls and growls all around them. Her Uncle was protecting her little brother using the little magic they could muster from the dark place.

It looked like it took a great deal of effort to gather it and wield it, but her uncle did and her brother soon learned to do the same.

The scene jumped forward to seven or eight years later a ragged 12 year old boy with a stick and tattered clothes sat beneath a tree sleeping; his uncle beside him. When out of nowhere a beast of epic proportions came out of nowhere and leapt on her uncle, who fought it off long enough for Liam to get away.

Lauren wanted to cry when she saw the face of the boy. He was emotionless at the tragedy. It was as if to him, inevitable; she could see in his eyes that he had spent the last several years preparing for that moment.

Death was no stranger to him. He no longer feared the monsters that lurked in the dark, he would be, from that day forward, the monster to be feared.

The scene changed again to a scared Lauren at her mother's bedroom door in their new home, begging her to come out or let her in. A scared beyond belief Lauren that was feeling her first portal jump within. Her powers were immerging and she was all alone.

She did the impossible that night she opened a portal to her brother's dark domain. The dark realm she had visited, however briefly, with its snarling beasts and dark entities had been her brother's and in her wake she had left a portal for him to travel back through.

Her brother wasted no time and had jumped through right behind her and landed in the home of a stranger.

And that was where the visions in the flames ended.

The spirit intoned, "That is all we are permitted to show you."

"Be one with the Earth my children."

And the spirits began to swirl together in a vortex above the fire until it sucked them back in but not before kicking the giant raven out.

The Raven flew at Brenna's chest knocking her backward into the grass.

Suddenly Brenna was breathing like she'd run the Boston Marathon and Connor was by her side.

********************THANKS FOR READING***************

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Stay tuned, because you're going to want to read more; soon Lauren and the gang will find themselves on a perilous adventure in her quest to find her brother and safeguard their magical world.

A/N if you think up a cool name for that Were meeting place; it doesn't have to be a bar. Let me know.  I'll write it into the books. *Hugs*