36: Medusa Herself Looked Me In The Eye

After I woke up from that hellish nightmare, I couldn’t fall back to sleep. Was it a glimpse of the future? Is something trying to tell me that whatever Phillip is planning is going to go terribly wrong? Not that whatever Phillip is planning originally isn’t terribly wrong in the first place. Vampires walking in the day. No one would be safe...ever.
At first I thought he had an army of half breeds, but what if those fiends that ravaged the streets in the dream realm weren’t half breeds. What if they were full vamps.

There’s still pieces that don’t fit together like the billboards and the signage around town. What does Phillip really have in store?

I head to work earlier than anticipated. I forgot what I had waiting for me until the exact second I entered the shop. Ugh. I rushed here, why?

I give greetings to the girls and head back to the corner where the crystals still lay. Time seems to go by slower with tedious work, but when my ears perk up at the sound of a familiar, but unfamiliar laugh, time stands still completely.

A thought or a feeling itches at the back of my brain. It locks my legs freezing me in place. The sense of dread that washes over me just from a single laugh has my heart beating uncontrollably. The sound of flowing conversation is the only thing that gets my knee joints to bend, leading me to Gretchen’s office.

Inside there are four women, one of which looks in my direction and it’s as if Medusa herself looked me in the eye, because I become stone, plastered in place. The witch from my nightmare. The somewhat leader of the cult. The one that offered me as the first victim to fall for the cause.

“Oh, Hazel.” Gretchen says slightly surprised. “You haven’t met some of my coven sisters yet. This is-”

But Gretchen's words fall short, background noise to the static in my head. Her coven members, but that can’t be. This one, the tall, skinny, witch-faced witch is part of Phillip’s coven...or at least I thought she was.

The other three don’t look familiar. I can't be sure that I saw every single backstabbing, Phillip loving witch in the clearing, but I’m sure they weren’t there. So that meant that the one who is still staring at me like a lab rat under a microscope was a two timing, duel coven member.

“Hazel? Is something wrong?” Gretchen’s voice breaks through the haze filling my brain. “Hazel.”

“What? Yeah. Hello.” The stutter of words comes out choppy and mechanical. “Nice to meet you.”

She holds her hand out and I have no choice than to take it. “Nice to finally meet you.” She says, a smile similar to the sinister one I saw on her face just last night.

“Well, I should get back to work.” I shout too loud for this small conversation. I leave with an awkwardness in the air, but I don’t care. I’m dying to escape her hollow eyes.
I flee to the basement, the cool damp air soothes my flushed skin. It quickly becomes unbearably cold and within seconds Jezmin appears in the corner.

“The wrong dead will walk.” She says again.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. I saw it. I lived it.” My finger points to the ceiling, “that one up there, she’s a part of it.”

Jezmin glances up before she nods. “She will fall.”

“No shit she’ll fall. We’ll all fall...well, maybe not you, but the rest of us will.” I step closer to her and the icy air around her gets more intense, but I take another step. “What do they do wrong? Tell me. I can help. I can stop it.”

Jezmin takes a large step back. “Who says I want it to be stopped.”

“I thought you warned me for a reason? To stop it.”

She shrugs her shoulders before disappearing.

“What. The. Hell?” I mutter to myself.

I try to stay down here as long as I can, but I know I’ve already overstayed. One of them has to be looking for me by now. I grab some empty boxes to justify my absence. But as I make my way back to the crystal corner, no one comes questioning.

Gretchen’s door is closed and Monty is at the counter explaining something to a customer. My frazzled nervousness is strictly mine. So, I go back to cleaning and organizing, trying to keep my mind from wandering.

“Need any help?”

My head bolts up in the direction of his voice, my cheeks already slightly pink before our eyes meet. “Yes, but if you’re offering, I only accept the most skilled and there’s no monetary payment.”

“I guess I’ll just sit and watch then.”

“Thanks.” It’s a sarcastic thanks, but playful. I’m on the color coordinating step anyways. Almost done.

“I wanted to stop by earlier, but Phillip-”

“You don’t have to explain yourself.” A part of me is relieved that he wasn’t intentionally blowing me off. Of course Phillip had something to do with it. “There is something that you can explain though. Phillip’s coven. What do they call themselves?”

He looks around the shop for spying ears as if no one is supposed to know about it and maybe no one is supposed to know about it. I can see the tension it would cause if word got out that Phillip, king of vampires, has a coven of his own. Every type of demizen will immediately try to create a coven of witches of their own too. “Jaded Divine,” he replies.

“And they wouldn’t happen to be honored at the demizen gala, are they?”

He narrows his eyes at me as I continue to ask him questions, very specific questions. The corner of his lips quirk up before he speaks. “I’m glad you brought up the gala. Would you accompany me?” Him changing the subject only means one thing.

“I was planning on not going, but…”

“...but, you don’t have a choice?” He finishes the sentence for me.

I stand up to stretch out my legs suddenly feeling embarrassed for looking up at him on my knees for so long. It takes a minute to fully straighten my stiff joints. “Something like that.” I say through tight lips as I try to hold back my groan.

“I’ll pick you up at eight.”

My mouth drops open to protest, but I hold it back. I have a feeling that Gabriel’s words of ‘you don’t have a choice’ holds more truth that it should. I have Gretchen forcing me to go and now I have Gabriel passing along Phillip’s message of my attendance as well.

“I guess I’ll allow it.”

“Hazel?” Monty’s voice echoes through the entire store. “Hazel, I need your help.” She shouts again.

“I have to go. I’ll see you...later.”

“Of course.” His arm shots out as I pass him to grasp my arm. “Can I kiss you goodbye?”

I drop my head, cheeks quickly becoming flushed. His hand touches just under my chin, a light push raises my head up until I meet his eyes. “Sure.” I mutter before Gabriel places his lips on mine.

It’s a quick kiss. A soft, gentle kiss, but it still makes me weak with wanting more.

We walk to the front of the store nearly hand in hand. I’m sure the only reason we aren’t hand in hand is because he isn’t sure if I want Monty to know. I’m not sure I want Monty to know even though I’m sure she already does.

And when she flashes me that half smile, raised eyebrow, I know she knows. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but...someone wants something and I don’t know how to make it. I could make them wait-”

“It’s fine.”

Just then Gretchen and her gaggle of coven friends come strolling out. Their voices carry throughout the shop. Gretchen stops at the counter next to Monty and I while the four others keep walking, all sharing goodbyes. But witch-face meets Gabriel’s eyes and Gabriel gives a small nod of acknowledgement. A nod no one would notice if one wasn’t looking, but I was.

He leans in and places a kiss to my forehead, whispering in my ear, “Tuesday,” before he turns to leave. Witch-face stopped in her tracks to watch clearly pissed or intrigued with Gabriel’s affection.

Monty turns to me with a smile back on her face as soon as everyone is gone. “Soooooo...going to the gala, huh?” She wags her eyebrows at me. “Got yourself a date and everything.”

I can hear Gretchen’s curious intake of breath ready to question me, but I put a stop to all conversation. “Oh, shut up. What do you need?”

“Someone wants something called everlight. Whatever that is.”

Ah, everlight. “Who wants that?”

She jerks her head off to the right. After following the direction, I don’t see anyone, but that doesn’t mean the demon isn’t lurking around the corner. A demon whose love interest is a human. Everlight is a suppressant for demon fire and suppressing the fire makes it possible for a demon to touch someone without burning them alive.

I quickly whip it up and come out with three small vials. Monty quickly goes on a search for the customer. I wait up at the counter, curious. It doesn’t take long for her return with a twenty something woman. She doesn’t meet our eyes as she pays, clearly nervous or ashamed of her purchase.

Once the bell stops ringing, I tell Monty I’m going back to the crystals. Not even minutes later I hear Monty and Gretchen gossip and giggle about me and Gabriel.

I too would have a smile on my face, but that nod Gabriel gave to witch-face is turning my stomach. She’s part of Phillip’s coven, she’s possibly two-timing Gretchen and she’s a soon-to-be murdering bitch. Maybe my feelings of hatred toward her are purely based on my nightmare, but I can’t shake it.

Her smug face alone makes me want to keep the location of Tessa a secret. Everything in me wants to do whatever I have to do to not give her a single thing she wants. That thought, however, does bring a smile on my face when it shouldn’t, because it means more Tuesdays. More blood drinkings until it’s blood drinking forever.