Chapter Nineteen - Part Two

instead? Logically, the ring can’t act on feelings that Eve doesn’t even know exists, right?”

“I think that sounds like a reasonable idea – provided Eve Arling actually agrees to it,” said a familiar voice, interjecting.

Claudia and I (so immersed in ourselves and the conversation that was going on between us) hadn’t noticed Tidus’ appearance at the door. He closed it behind him quietly and then took his place beside Claudia.

Tidus was looking the most casual I had ever seen him, in long basketball shorts, a wife-beater and a simple grey hoodie that was currently unzipped. And with his hood up and his IPod out, it looked as if he just come from a short jog. But I happened to know that Ripley was out in the country, and a good half hour’s ride from his property to Claudia’s.

In short, he must have jogged extremely fast.

“It’s more than worth a shot – trust me,” I said to Claudia, picking up where I had left off. “So, got any spells for memory-loss tucked away somewhere?”

Claudia gave Tidus an obvious look.

“Give me a sec and I’ll see if I can find something,” she said coldly, and walked from the room. Silently, Tidus and I listened to the sounds of her footsteps disappearing a short ways down the hall.

“All negativity aside,” I said, looking to Tidus. “There may be some good to come from all this. Because of the stunt that Ethan’s crazy ex decided to pull, a golden opportunity has just fallen into our laps.

“I’m listening,” Tidus replied, but with no change in his usual, cool demeanor.

“Eve wants revenge on Ethan, and the only way to do that it, is to get his father removed from the Leadership.”

“And you can do this?” he asked, with a single brow raised.

“Mathew Raines will be out of the picture soon,” I reassured. “It’s all just a matter of time.”

“Then that’s good news after all,” Tidus agreed.

“Yeah, but that still leaves us – me – with the problem of the Hunters. They’ve got some psychotic, jealous Vampire on the team – who I’m pretty sure has been stalking me – and, well, let’s just say I lost my temper and things got a little heated…”

Frustration began to bloom across Tidus’ features, and he placed his head in his hands with a sigh. He pushed his hands back and the hood of his jacket dropped, revealing blonde hair that had gone slightly wavy from sweat. An intense image of my fingers tangled in that hair the night of the house party flashed across my mind, and I felt my face grow warm with embarrassment.

“Naomi, you need to be more careful.” Tidus warned. “If you get yourself into too much trouble with the Hunters, you won’t have your Leadership to protect you. And especially not if they find out what we’re doing –”

“Then we won’t let them find out,” I said firmly. “Because I also took care of another potential problem as well – Sofia Devila. That’s two Leaders down, which leaves me with Jonathan Newport and Lucas Blacklock. And unlike the other two, Jonathan and Lucas wouldn’t pose a threat to the Vampire Council – I’m sure of it.”

“I hope you’re right about that. But we won’t achieve anything useful if your Leadership is self-destructing. Try to avoid losing Blacklock and Newport, replace the others with Pack members that you’re sure won’t have a problem working with the Council, and then we’ll get back to removing the Elder.”

“Hey, wait a minute,” I said, standing up from my seat in the armchair. “I’ll put in the work it takes to help get rid of Charles, but I won’t take all the responsibility. I mean, what is it that you’re doing to get the Council on board?”

“How do you think my brother knew enough to seek you out, Naomi? Did you assume that that was just coincidence? Or maybe you confused business for romance?” he said snidely. “Johl sought a parley with you because I asked him to do so, Naomi – and not anything otherwise. And trust me when I say that that’s a large enough feat to overshadow anything else that you could’ve accomplished this far.”

“Wow,” I said, beginning to put together the smaller pieces of this sordid puzzle. “So you plan for Johl to set up this meeting, and yet you get upset when he asks me to his party. And why is that, I wonder?”

Tidus looked away from me and I felt an almost orgasmic thrill of pleasure at seeing how uncomfortable he had suddenly gotten.

“Tidus, you wouldn’t happen to be jealous of me and Johl, would you?”

“Jealous?” he scoffed. “Naomi, I don’t know the word.”

“Ok, maybe you aren’t jealous of me and Johl, but what about Ethan? Does it bother you to know that I’m taking him as my date to the party?”

Did I take pleasure in seeing Tidus’ jealousy? Of course, and any answer other than that would have been a lie. And the fact that he tried so hard to both push and pull me at the same time, made it that much more delicious just to see him squirm. I knew all too well what it was like to long for something you couldn’t have.

And apparently, Tidus did too.

“That’s your business, Naomi.” he replied in a quiet voice, reducing his anger from a rolling boil down to a simmer. “So why don’t we try focusing on the issues at hand?”

“Whatever you say,” I said petulantly, re-taking my seat.

“Look, you asked why I haven’t had results of my own yet. Well, help me by charming Johl and he can strengthen your chances of getting closer to the Council. It’ll be a lot harder to sway my sister, but at least with Johl you already have a foot in the door. And if you wanna find a connection to Witch clans in this town, take a look around, Naomi. You’re standing in the cramped, garish living room of a Witch who used to be in The Order.”

“Wait, Claudia was in the Order?” I asked sharply.

“Her grandmother is the High Priestess,” Tidus replied dismissively.

Quickly, I scanned the doorway of the living room, but it remained just as dark and empty as the hallway beyond. There still weren’t any signs of Claudia’s return.

“Claudia’s last name wouldn’t happen to be Dimiwitz – would it?” I said, as Tidus looked at me now through eyes that had narrowed considerably.

“Yes. Why?”

“Ask me how I know, but the Hunters are investigating Lillian. They think she’s involved in some crazy plot against Supernaturals. I was planning on asking Claudia if she had leads, but this changes things. I didn’t know she’s Lillian’s granddaughter. Ti, this woman is evil. She’s killing Humans –”

“Say nothing of this to Claudia,” Tidus warned in a low voice, stepping close to me. “Just for now. Let me do some digging of my own, and give me a chance to see what I can find out.”

“Alright, I will. But in the meantime, I wanna know why you’re protecting her?” I said. “Because I seriously doubt a few questions about her family is gonna kill her.”

“Naomi, Claudia may not even know yet what the Hunters have accused Lillian of.” Tidus said in a quiet voice. “I didn’t. And besides Angel, Lillian is the only family Claudia has left. So if you tell Claudia now what they’ve said, it could destroy her. And that means she’ll confront Lillian, who will then turn her spotlight on you. Is that what you want?”

Realizing that he was right, and feeling like an idiot, I reluctantly shook my head no.

“We have to think about this, Naomi – together.” he said, holding me, transfixed with his eyes. “These aren’t decisions that can be rushed into making. I destroyed Claudia’s family once – I’m not willing to do that again.”

He turned away from me and walked off a few paces. Of course I couldn’t see his face, but I imagined in that moment he must have been frowning deeply as his mind searched for a solution to this newest crisis. And I found myself in complete understanding for his concern. After all, I had just left him with the difficult task of choosing between an allegiance with the girl whose family he had somehow mysteriously broken, or siding with the girl he was fighting against having feelings for. It was a difficult situation, with decisions that could not be easily made, I knew.

“Sure, I’ll give you time. But you should know that the Hunters already sent their dog out sniffing for answers. And I can guarantee you that they’ll come find me again – soon. And when they do, I’ll need to have something to give them. They already think Charles has something to do with this too, and if I don’t play ball with them, they may wind up thinking that I’m on his side and that they can’t trust me –”

“Time, Naomi,” he reminded, with gentle pressure. “Don’t make me beg.”

There was more I wanted to say, things left unspoken that I felt, in that moment, needed addressing. But we were interrupted by the sudden sound of a door slamming somewhere down the hall.

“I think I found something that can help!” Claudia called, even before she had come into view. “I found a spell that I think we can use… oh…kay…Why are you two looking at each other like that?”

I furthered the distance between myself and Tidus, giving a hasty, forced smile.

“No reason,” I assured. “So, what did you find?”

“Um, a spell.” Claudia repeated, still looking suspicious but deciding against pressing the issue. In her hands she held a black, leathery-looking book that could have passed for an old Bible had it not had such strange, golden symbols engraved on the front.

“A spell designed for memory loss of pretty much anything – objects, secrets, people. And it’s really powerful too, so there’s a good chance that she won’t just forget her love for Ethan. She’ll might forget about him too.”

Claudia crossed the room and set the giant book down on the table before us, flipping through a few of its yellow, weathered pages.

“The spell of forgetfulness,” she said triumphantly, locating the page.

“Awesome. And the truth spell?” I asked. “What about that?”

“Oh that’s so easy, it’s a snap.” she said, closing the book. She walked from the living room again and into the kitchen, returning shortly with a pitcher not even half full, and two mismatched and chipped coffee mugs.

“What’s this?” Tidus asked.

“Your truth serum.” Claudia said, setting one of the mugs on the table. “I finished it a few days ago and it’s just been chillin’ in the fridge ever since.” She poured some of the liquid into the other mug, handing it to Tidus.

“What the hell?” I said, as the two of them gave me a questioning look. “Claudia, if you didn’t need those stupid ingredients for the truth serum, then why did you make me buy them?” I demanded.

“I never said I needed them for the spell,” Claudia replied innocently, without missing a beat. “In fact, if I recall, all I really told you was that I needed the ingredients before I could do it.”

“Do you see what I have to put up with?” I said to Tidus as laughed in the background, while Claudia only shrugged. “Unbelievable…”

“Ok Ti-ti,” Claudia said, taking back the reins of the conversation. “Bottoms up.”

And so without hesitation, Tidus drank fast, screwing his eyes shut.

“Yeah. That’s disgusting.” he said, making a face as he set the empty mug on the table.

“So you have to give it a few seconds to kick in, but once it’s going, I’ve only got about a minute.” Claudia said, looking back and forth between Tidus and myself. “I’ll ask you each questions, and you can decide whether or not to answer, but you won’t be able to lie.”

Tidus and I both nodded our understanding and agreement.

“Great,” Claudia said, turning her focus back to Tidus. “So, Tidus, have you ever thought about killing Naomi?”

“Once,” he admitted, without qualms. “The night we met, at the party. At first I thought it might be better to simply get it out of the way. But obviously I didn’t.”

Which had to be worth something, right?

“Are you planning on torturing Naomi?”

“No,”

“Do you have plans of killing Naomi now?”

“No,”

“On her last visit… did Angel take my lucky, pin-up girl lighter?”

Tidus and I both rolled our eyes at the same time.

“Hey,” Claudia said. “That is a valid question that deserves an answer. That’s my favorite lighter.”

“Yes, she did,” Tidus answered.

“Well, then you tell her I want it back,”

Now Claudia poured some of the liquid into the last mug, and I took it, feeling slightly apprehensive.

“Your turn,” Claudia said, with an encouragement that did little to settle my nerves as I began to raise the mug. “However…” She said, and I lowered the drink. “You could just save yourself the time and confess right now. It might spare you any future… suffering.”

I said nothing. Instead, I glared and raised the glass again and drained its contents in a few, quick gulps. I tried not to think of how it had looked like urine with brown bits floating in it, or how had it tasted like sour milk. Instead, I focused on clearing my name and proving them wrong.

“What?” I said, setting my glass down and trying not to gag. “You couldn’t have added any sugar to this?”

“Naomi, have you ever thought about killing Tidus?”

“Besides the time he was gonna stick me with his giant knife?” I said. “No.”