Chapter 15

Margret pressed her hand to Ren's forehead. She let out a sigh and gave him a pitying look.

"You've done it now," she said while placing a towel wrapped around ice to his head.

She said that he's done it, but really, it wasn't him at all. If she only knew what he'd been through these past few days, she wouldn't have said anything at all.

He watched the ceiling fan turn on its own. How he didn't know. A breeze from the front door opening? Or maybe it was a side effect of the thing that had controlled his body.

Craning his neck, he looked down at his hand. He'd smashed it under his weight when he fell. The pain had been nothing to what he'd been experiencing when the thing had controlled his body. There had been no registry at first. From the way his mom had yelled, it sounded like she'd been the one who fell.

His wrist was turning a light purple, but it didn't look too bad. After all, it could have been far worse. Any closer and he would have broken his neck on the coffee table. It was a good thing there had been a wide-open space for him to smack face-first into the floor.

"Thank God I was here when you fell." He turned to her. She gave a small smile.

He returned it.

The second she turned, it fell. He thought back to what he'd found in her room. The glowing orb didn't ring any bells and he hadn't had the time to look at the journal.

The thing controlling him had wanted that orb though. He didn't understand why it dropped its grip on him when it was about to get away. If it was going to all this trouble about getting that thing, then why was it hesitant when his mom came around?

He held up his bruised hand to his face. With his other hand, he traced the outline of the bruise. A spark of pain jolted through his arm. It was faint, disappearing once he let up on the bruise.

He narrowed his eyes.

It was just another bad feeling. Though, to be frank, he would have thought he would've been more freaked out about something controlling his body.

He blinked, eyes widening, and then glanced over at his mom.

If that thing could control him with ease, did it meant it could control anyone? Would it use him to hurt his mom?

His hands clenched. They balled into fists even when his right hand hurt.

Just add that to the list of things he had to figure out. This week had turned into a complete shit show.

He closed his eyes and let out a sigh. The towel on his head made him feel ridiculous. This wasn't a job for him. He was a frail vampire who couldn't fight, knew nothing, and had no reason to be sought out by some supernatural force. There was no way he could solve all these problems stacking up against him.

The colors of the orb swirled in front of him. He furrowed his brows as the colors began to make shapes. They seemed to have a purpose, but he couldn't make out what any of it meant. It was just in his head.

He was starting to question everything around him. If these things were happening for a reason, what is actually an accident? Which ones have a purpose and which don't?

"Here."

He cracked his eyes open. His mom held out a mug toward him. He sat up and took it with both hands, careful to not drop it. The hot tea soothed the ache in his right hand. The throbbing had gone down some thought it was still swollen. It might be a while before he could use it on its own. He wasn't too worried. The only thing he did around here was school work.

The hardest thing he ever had to do in his life was bury and dig up a body.

He stared into the dark abyss of the tea. The steam wafted over his face. His eyes burned and he forced himself to blink.

"Is something wrong?"

His mom knelt beside him.

He shook his head. "Just...hit my head harder than I thought."

She patted his arm. "I'll go make you something to eat."

He watched her walk to the kitchen all the while thinking about the Hunters in the forest.

The glowing orb meant something to his mom. He couldn't ask her without her knowing that he'd gone snooping in her room. That would lead him to telling her about the thing controlling him.

And that would lead to him admitting that he'd always had some kind of urge to kill people. He didn't think that would go over so well.

He clenched the mug. It burned, but he didn't care.

What should he do? Ashton said to drop it and pretend as if nothing had happened. And was this thing connected to the girl's death? What would that mean? What did the orb mean and why did the thing want it?

The tea burned his tongue as he gulped it down.

He had to figure some things out before he brought his mom into this. If she didn't need to be a part of it he wanted to keep it that way.

***

The book was heavy in his hands. With his sore wrist, it was hard to hold it up so he propped it on his bent knees as he rested in bed. He slid his left hand under his head and turned to the contents page. The first few chapters were about broad topics like war and how vampires combated against humans. It was different in the sense that it wasn't overly biased against vampires. In textbooks, vampires were always pained as the ones to start the war and to be evil.

That was how he'd always viewed vampires up until he started doing research of his own. If it wasn't for schoolwork, he didn't think he would have even thought about looking outside the classroom. Though the school library was small, it did have a few books that weren't too far up the government's ass. They were far between, but he made do with what he had.

This book hopefully had some answers to his questions. The Hunter Society had dealt a lot with vampires back in the day, but they were known for burning witches too. Their motto went something along the lines of destroying the evil lurking in the human world. That meant anything supernatural was in danger from them.

They'd been ordered by the government to disband after the war. He learned there had been a couple of times through the years that they'd tried to come back, but they never got off the ground after their first leader died. It had never hit him that they might be trying to come back again. He'd always thought they were a dead group of the past. Much like the Mantels after the war.

A chapter heading caught his eye.

Supernatural Artifacts

Right under it was a chapter titled: Supernatural Beings and Powers.

Neither of them were exactly what he was looking for, but he did want to know more about his heritage. Even if that heritage was tainted by the horrendous acts by his blood family or the aching need to murder people for no reason.

He flipped to the chapter about the artifacts and began to read.

Halfway through he started to think he should move to the next chapter. Though it was interesting to think that there was such a thing as vampire blood necklaces and coffins, they were all speculation. Besides, he couldn't really picture Ashton in a coffin. He also didn't wear jewelry from what he could see.

He skimmed through the rest of the page he was on and flipped to the next.

His heart dropped into his gut. He straightened up, hand shaking as he tried to comprehend what he was looking at.

It was obvious at first glance. The picture was an exact match, down to the engravings on the side. He gulped, his heart racing as he leaned over the book, scanning over the photo over and over again. It was impossible, unbelievable, but it was right there in his face. There was no way around it. This was the truth.

The picture was of an old ring enchanted by the first coven of witches that had settled in North America. The ring had unclear powers since it had never been located after the coven had been burned in the witch trials. It was said that the thing had fallen into the hands of another coven who lived in the forest, isolated from society.

The picture was of his grandfather's ring.

And below it was the picture of the orb that had been in his mom's bedroom.

For a second, he didn't know what to think. The picture staring back at him was all he needed to see to understand. He had a feeling there was something more to the ring, to the orb, and the thing controlling him, but he never thought he would find it in a book that he'd plucked from the library shelf. The thing he'd been searching for was about the Hunter Society and the death of the young girl. His intentions were simple. Find out what the Hunter Society was doing, what the girl had been doing in the forest, and possibly understand the thing trying to take over his body.

His hands were shaking and he had to set the book down. He took a deep breath, eyes locked onto the ceiling. Shadows from the setting sun danced across the white space, distracting him for just a second. He wanted to get lost in them. He didn't want to come back to reality and face the hard cold truth staring back at him. The thing had been leading him here, even if that wasn't his intention in the first place. Somehow, it seemed, he was meant to find this out. Though he didn't know what it meant, it was just another thing he had to figure out.

He then remembered that he had his mom's journal.

The cover was worn down and the pages felt brittle. He grabbed it from his nightstand. As he cracked it open, he smelled his mom—her perfume—and an old smell that reminded him of being in the forest. His heart started racing as he read the first page. There wasn't much of interest in it. It was her name, Margret Cornelli, in looped letters.

He turned to the next page and this time he was greeted by more looped letters. It was a recipe. Strawberry jam.

He laughed.

Again, he turned the page. He wasn't surprised when he found more recipes and more notes on things. There were a few journal entries that recalled her day. He read them with a smile on his face, but soon, the entries became darker.

There were mentions of her father—his grandfather—falling sick. The entries became vague and then they took such a dark turn that Ren didn't know what he was reading.

Frantic, he sat up and scanned the words in a hurried manner. She became to talk about demons. His mouth dropped when she talked about visiting the Mantels.

And then the real thing that hit him in the gut was a sketch of his grandfather's ring. On the opposite page was a large beast with red eyes.

Ren slammed the book shut.

He grabbed the other book and flipped it back open to the ring. He scanned the photo and description to find out any more information. As if fate were pulling a bad prank on him, the description for the orb looking thing was simple and sweet.

A Witch Artifact: Unknown

Fantastic. Fucking. Fantastic.

His hands couldn't turn the pages fast enough. He read through the next few pages that talked about the other artifacts that had nothing to do with the ones he recognized. He didn't have the patience to memorize the rest of them, still reeling from the fact that his family had two of them and he'd managed to lose one of them. That wasn't including that his mom knew about the Mantels and had actually met them.

He stared at the page for a moment, thinking over what he now knew. He couldn't believe it at first. How he had realized there was another part of him that wasn't human was understandable. However, he had yet again another problem on his hands.

He felt like a piece of him was slipping away from him. For his entire life, he'd been holding onto the fact that he was at least half-human. Vampire had done nothing but destroy his family. His father had gifted him with a curse that ruined his mom's life and his own. There was no place for him and he understood his father never cared. He didn't know about Ren. He was some vampire that strolled into town, took what he wanted, caused pain, and left as if the small town Montis never existed.

Too many thoughts were swarming him. He battled against them, but they were too much to handle. He'd been running from them his entire life, enduring the comments of others for so long, and now he had to face them head-on. And the only thing he could ask the world was why him? Why was he the one being tortured?

It was as if the universe had a score to settle with him. Everything he did was met with a worse fate and anything he did to try and stop the destruction heading toward him only caused more problems.

With a sort of numbness settling over his body, he continued to go through the book until he hit the next chapter. Vampires, Witches, Hounds...

Once more, he paused at the pictures. The vampires were ghoulish, barely human. They had long fangs that protruded from their upper lips and hung down to their chins. The look was comical, horrific, and hellish at the same time. He wasn't scared of the picture. It was just a sketch of what humans thought of the vampire race, but he was disgusted. He didn't want to believe the that kind of blood was in him. He didn't like knowing that that thing was his father and he was part of the vampires who had wronged his mom.

He moved on to the next picture, hoping it would be better. It was. In a way.

The depiction of the Witch was a young woman wearing close to nothing but a cloak. She was shown seducing a kneeling man with her palm outstretched toward him. A light shined from her palm, the man's eyes locked on it. The woman wore a large grin, mischievous, and most likely thinking about the way in which she was going to kill him.

Ren didn't know if the picture was true. He just knew that his mom wasn't like that. She helped humans—saved their lives a lot of times. Up until now, he thought she was human. He hadn't seen a difference.

The last picture was of the Hounds. They were part demon, part human as the text described.

It was the Hounds he'd never heard about before. After reading about them residing in Hell, he decided that that was enough reading for the day. He learned something about artifacts, though he'd been set on finding more research on the Hunter Society. The books in the school library were no longer helpful. He just didn't know where else to look.

His next thought would be to look online, but the school could track anywhere he went. Besides, certain things weren't allowed to be publicly accessed in Reginae. He'd probably hit another wall and get a bunch of news about the HS being disbanded for over a hundred years.

He tossed the book somewhere on the floor. It landed with a thunk.

An eery feeling settled over him.

Without a second thought, he bolted from his bed and changed into more suitable clothing. He pulled on thick jeans, a long sleeve shirt, and threw on a hoodie just in case. Around the room he went, gathering what he thought he might need. Flashlight, gloves, hat, and an old rusty pocket knife he'd found years ago digging around in the creek. He had to fight to open it, but it would do if he encountered anything in the forest tonight.

Tugging his hat down to cover his ears, he thought once more about what he was going to do.

Reason won for a moment until it was squashed by the dire need to protect his mom and figure out the mess he was in.

These things, whether they made sense now, were part of something. If no one else was looking to solve them, the girl's murder most importantly, then there was only him.

He pulled on his gloves, slipped the flashlight and pocketknife into his jean pockets, and left for the forest.