Arcane Awakenings Books Five and Six

Chapter 1 I scanned the movies on display in the new release section, none of the titles catching my eye. Then I spotted a new edition of an old movie and smiled as I picked it up and turned to face Belinda. She shook her head, hands on her hips. ‘Grace, you can’t be serious. You have made me sit through that movie a thousand times, and you have a copy at home.’ ‘You’ve watched it with me ten times, tops, and this one is the director’s cut,’ I said. ‘It has never before released footage. Cut scenes and interviews with the cast.’ I scanned the back cover. ‘It even has a blooper reel. We have to watch it.’ Belinda gave a sigh. ‘Any chance we can just watch the new bits and not sit through the entire movie?’ I looked at her, not saying a word. ‘If we only watch the new bits, I’ll let you pick another movie,’ she said with a hopeful smile. I continued to stare at her. She rolled her eyes. ‘Fine. I will sit through the stupid movie one more time just so you can ogle Liam Devine.’ ‘Not ogle. Worship. He plays a god in this one, remember? Which I must say is very apt casting. He is a god. A yummy and delicious god.’ Belinda shook her head. ‘I can’t believe you still like the guy. He hasn’t put out a new movie in years.’ ‘Once a god, always a god.’ After yet another sigh and shake of her head, Belinda turned her attention to the rest of the movies. On our Friday night movie sessions, we got to pick one each. Seeing as she’d let me get away with choosing an old title, I didn’t complain when she picked up a sappy romantic comedy and started reading the back of it. I preferred action movies with lots of snappy dialogue and explosions. I’d have been more than happy to watch God Unleashed twice in a row, no matter that I probably had seen it a thousand times. Not just to ogle Liam, as Belinda had suggested. It was a good movie, with everything I liked. It was just made that bit better by having my favourite kind of eye candy in it. ‘He truly is divine,’ I said, staring at Liam Devine’s image on the front cover of the DVD case as Belinda continued to browse. ‘According to the tabloids, the guy turned into a recluse after the stampede at the convention last year,’ said Belinda. ‘You’re never going to meet him if he doesn’t come out of whatever cave he’s hiding in.’ Belinda was right. He hadn’t been seen in public for months, and there’d even been talk he was in rehab somewhere, but I didn’t believe everything that was printed in the gossip magazines. Even if he hadn’t become reclusive, the chance of him showing up in Easton and falling madly in love with me were slim at best, but it never hurt to dream. ‘I’ll get to meet him in person one day. His last name is Devine. Too similar to D.I.V.I.N.E to be a coincidence. And my name is Grace. I’d be the perfect match for him.’ Belinda snorted. ‘Grace Devine does have a nice ring to it, I suppose.’ No sooner had she spoken than she stiffened, eyes going wide. I clutched her arm, holding her steady as whatever vision she was having took over. I’d seen enough of these in the weeks since she’d moved back into the flat with me to know what was happening. As I continued to support her, I fished my phone out of my bag with my free hand, ready to call her boyfriend, Scott Carlton, so he could swing into action as soon as he had the details for whatever catastrophe was about to hit. After a long moment, the tension in Belinda’s body eased and she gave herself a shake. ‘It’s okay, you don’t need to call Scott.’ She pointed to my phone. ‘This vision was about you.’ Her brow furrowed. ‘Me?’ My voice squeaked, hoping it wasn’t bad news. But all of her visions dealt with one drama or another. My heart thudded in my chest. ‘Am I going to die?’ ‘What? No. It wasn’t that type of vision. This one was different. Weird. Almost like I was watching a movie. One that starred you and Liam Devine.’ ‘Is that right?’ Eyes narrowed, I crossed my arms and waited for her to tell me what she’d seen. I was surprised it’d taken her this long to come up with a “vision” to trick me. ‘Like I said, it was weird. I got a glimpse of the two of you standing side by side, holding hands, wearing purple robes. You were addressing a bunch of people all dressed in white. They were kneeling in front of you. It looked like they were worshipping you both.’ ‘Belle, that’s not nice. Teasing me like that. So what if I have a crush on a former movie star. It’s not like I have a handsome police officer to keep me warm at night, like you do. I’m allowed to dream about being swept off my feet, without you making fun of me, regardless of how far-fetched it might be.’ Her cheeks flushed. ‘I’m not making this up. I seriously saw you and Liam Devine, and it sure looked like you were being worshipped.’ I pulled on her arm, shaking my head. ‘Just hurry up and pick your movie, before I choose another one with Liam in it just to annoy you.’ Moments later she made her choice and we moved over to the front counter and waited for the attendant to scan our movies. After a quick stop to pick up our takeaway order from The Curry House, we headed home. Scott called Belinda while we were halfway there, and I got to listen to their barely disguised love talk for the rest of the drive. Not that I begrudged her having a boyfriend. I just wished I wasn’t in earshot while they made up for spending a night apart. This was the first movie night we’d had for some time, and it was only because Scott was off on assignment for the taskforce he was part of. I hadn’t been given all the details, but he’d been handpicked because of his involvement in the case where Belinda had been kidnapped by a crazy scientist who planned to use her ability to see the future for some nefarious business. For a girl who claimed all she wanted to be was an artist, my best friend was doing a good job of turning into a super hero. As well as assisting the police in the search for the crazy Dr Frankel, she liaised with the taskforce via Scott, letting them know what she saw in her visions, so they could stop bad things from happening. Seeing as I had no psychic ability and was also not a police officer, she wasn’t authorised to share most of the details with me, but I’d heard enough to know freaky stuff had been happening in Easton over the past year. People infected with a weird virus had gone crazy, attacking people before collapsing and dying. After that there’d been a lockdown instituted while a private security force took to the streets when what was reported as g**g rivalry got out of hand. I hadn’t paid much attention to the reports as it was just after the car accident that’d blinded Belinda, but I’d since heard rumours the g**g situation was a cover-up for something more sinister. It was around that time when the taskforce Scott now worked for was created, so I wouldn’t be surprised to find out the rumours were true. With all that had happened, I was just glad Belinda’s involvement in the taskforce was being kept secret. Once the initial interest in her visions had died down, with no new leaks to the press, she had been able to work in the background, letting the police be in charge of that aspect. So, life was mostly back to normal for Belinda and me. She had returned to university to finish her Arts Degree, while I got to play with cute and cuddly animals in my job as a receptionist at a vet surgery. By the time I pulled into the driveway of the small flat we shared Belinda had finished her conversation with Scott, and we settled down to eat our dinner and watch the first movie. I graciously let Belinda go first. She’d picked the romantic comedy, which I had to admit was pretty good. Not at all sappy like I thought it would be. Then it was time for my movie, with explosions, car chases, and Liam Devine. Belinda didn’t complain while we watched it, though I caught her rolling her eyes a few times. Yes, it was weird having an action adventure with a pro-surfer who finds out he is actually a teenage god from another dimension. He turns out to be able to control water and has to use it in ingenious ways to fight off the bad guys intent on stopping him from returning to his home world. But hey, if I got to ogle Liam Devine then it was all good. Especially the scenes where he took off his shirt to display the toned muscles he was blessed with. With these, combined with his topaz eyes and shoulder length blond hair, he definitely looked the part of a surfer god. It helped that he surfed in real life, so he was able to do most of the stunts himself, as evidenced by the extra material Belinda sat through with me. It had been a long week, with a number of late nights at the surgery, so by the time the final extra scene had played I was finding it hard to keep my eyes open. With matching yawns, Belinda and I headed off to bed. It felt like I had just closed my eyes when I was woken by a loud thump outside my bedroom window. It was accompanied by a low whuff noise, and I groaned. ‘Damn it, Harold. You better not be rummaging in our bin again.’ The neighbour’s dog, a huge beast that looked like a cross between a Wookie and a polar bear, made a habit of escaping his own yard and coming to play in ours. But his kind of play usually involved tipping our rubbish bin over and investigating the contents, leaving us with a backyard strewn with rubbish. I got out of bed and padded over to the window. But when I looked outside there was no sign of Harold, though the bin was on its side with rubbish bags spilling out from it. I heaved a sigh, knowing I’d have to put the bags back in the bin and stand it up before the dog returned to finish the job. I stepped into the hall, looking toward Belinda’s room. There was no light showing under the door, so she must not have heard the bang. She often had disturbed nights, thanks to her visions, so I wouldn’t wake her for something as trivial as this. I slipped out the back door and headed over to the bin to right it. I leaned down to grab the closest bag of rubbish, glad we used sturdy bin liners and tied the ends, so nothing would’ve fallen out. As I reached down to grab a second bag, a noise came from behind me. Sure it was going to be Harold, I prepared to use my most gruff voice to send him packing as I turned around. He was a big lug, gentle as they came despite his hefty size. From experience I knew he would look at me with his big puppy dog eyes and try to wheedle his way out of trouble, but I had plenty of experience dealing with wayward canines. Only it wasn’t a dog standing in front of me. A tall figure, clothed head to toe in black, stared back at me, features in shadow. My heartbeat sped up as I struggled to figure out who he was and what he was doing there. He stepped closer, the light from the back door allowing me to see he was an older man with dark hair and eyes. Before my brain had a chance to process his sudden appearance, he lunged forward and grabbed hold of my arm, pulling me toward him. I dropped the bag of rubbish and hit out at him even as I opened my mouth to scream. But he covered my mouth with a gloved hand, a cloth wadded up in his palm. A bitter scent wafted in the air, like the anaesthetic we used at work, and I held my breath when I realised the cloth was soaked in chloroform. With my mouth and nose covered, I couldn’t take a breath without risking being rendered unconscious. But I wouldn’t be able to hold it for long. I wrenched my body sideways in an attempt to dislodge him. But he was strong, so much stronger than me. I kicked back at him, hitting his shin, wishing I was wearing boots so it could do more damage, but all he did was grunt and hold me even tighter. Head reeling, running out of oxygen, I made one last effort to get free. I jabbed him in the gut with my elbow, putting as much force as I could in the blow. It worked. His grip around my waist loosened. I ripped the hand with the cloth away from my mouth, sucking in a lungful of air ready to scream the place down. He pointed at me and even though he wasn’t touching me my throat constricted, cutting off my scream. It felt as if I had his hands wrapped around my neck, but that didn’t make sense. He had to be doing something to me. The only sound I could make was a faint gurgle. He increased the pressure and my vision wavered. I spun around, movements jerky as I tried to get to the back door. I had to get inside. Lock him out. My vision darkened as oxygen deprivation kicked in. I felt my body fall, dimly registering that whatever had gripped my throat had let go. But it was too late. Hands gripped my body and I was swung over a shoulder before falling into complete darkness.