“I think so,” I shouted, then pushed my legs through the waves to reach shore.
I circled as the coven continued murmuring, and knelt near Joel’s head. “What about Al?” I asked. “And Thomas?”
Joel stopped screaming in anger and glared at me. “They… got in the way.” And then his eyes narrowed. “No matter what happens, I’m not done. No one can stop me. And you’ve made a very powerful enemy.”
I leaned closer with a smile that was all teeth. “You’vemade a very powerful enemy.”
Daniel shifted and Joel made a pathetic pained sound under his weight. “You… have no idea. Still… so clueless. All of you.”
I frowned. Clueless about what?
“You can get up,” Deva told Daniel. “We’re done. He’s human again.”
Daniel shifted back and hauled Joel up so he sat on the beach. “Don’t move,” he growled, naked, massive, and scary as hell.
“I hear sirens,” Deva shouted.
I nodded. “I let them know what was happening.”
But that wasn’t my focus now. Joel was.
“I’m still so confused,” I said, almost to myself. “What made you go after me and my family?”
Joel smiled. “Why not?”
Daniel punched him square in the face. Joel smacked back onto the beach, then turned his head and spit out blood, before slowly sitting back up.
“Answer her question,” Daniel growled.
Joely wasn’t smiling any longer. “You can hit me all you want, bear. She’ll never know the truth. None of you will.”
My teeth made a sound as they clacked together. “Can you guys do a spell to make him talk?”
Khat grinned. “Sort of.” She bent over and got in his face. “Tell the truth or I’ll make your dick shrivel up and fall off. You’ll have a pee hole sticking out of your FUPA.”
Joel swallowed audibly. “You wouldn’t.”
She waved her hand and started to repeat a spell.
He screamed and grabbed at his crotch. “Stop! I’ll talk! I’ll talk!”
Khat dropped her hand. “Better talk fast.”
Joel was shaking, still clenching his crotch, like it could save his dick. “I came across a spell to make me live forever when I learned about supernaturals in high school. It took time to figure out how to execute it, but I did, and then I found two victims to try it out on. I stole Emma’s parents’ powers when we were in school together, before they even realized that they weren’t just human.”
My parents… they weren’t human? Then what were they?
“Years passed, and I could feel my strength fading. I knew I needed to find someone else for the spell, and I sensed magic in Henry and Emma. I thought because my spell had worked on their parents so easily, that it would work as easily on their kids. I could take what I wanted from the kids, and their parents would never know.”
“And?” I asked, feeling outraged for all he’d done to my family.
“I convinced them all over again that there were dangerous supernaturals in the world and that the spell was the only way to protect their kids. They fell for it, and I performed the spell on both of you.”
We had powers too? Wouldn’t we know if we’d had powers?
Joel continued more slowly. “I also performed the memory spell on your parents. But this time, something went wrong. They started to remember.”
“So you killed them,” I growled.
