Like Father,Like Daughter - Hugs.And.Kisses (best novel books to read TXT) 📗

was off, I fell to the floor, landing in a heap. I sat patiently while my left hand sewed the right back on, then I proceeded to reattach it as well. I walked out of the room quietly, looking down the dark hallways, trying to figure out where to go.

Then I heard it; the scream that echoed through the hallways. I ran in the direction that I thought it came from. The screams stopped and started again, before stopping completely. I kept running, my bare feet silent on the stone floor.

I heard footsteps coming toward me, and I froze. Not a great idea, which I quickly realized. Glancing around, I jumped back around the corner I'd just turned, praying that whoever it was didn't have to come this way. The footsteps faded, and I braved a look around the corner. No one was there, so I made a break for it.

"…talking about Lock… where is he?" I gasped. That was Aubrey's voice! "Shock? Barrel?"

"She… Vanessa, I mean, cast a memory spell on Lock. He doesn't remember you anymore." That was Shock. I sped up.

Turning, I saw an opening in the dark stone wall. "Great. This can't get any worse."

I stepped into the doorway. "No, but I think it's about to get better." Three heads shot up toward me.

"Sally!" Shock and Barrel yelled. Aubrey didn't say anything. I looked over at her and gasped.

"Aubrey, your wings…" The sight of what had been done to Aubrey, my DAUGHTER, infuriated me to no end.

"Yeah… they've been amputated." She chuckled, but it turned into a cough.

Anger welled up in my chest. "I'm going to get you three down from there, and then we can talk."


Chapter 12

Chapter 12

It took a couple of minutes, but soon Sally had all three of us down. I sat back and watched Barrel carry Aubrey over, trying to work some feeling back into my hands as I did. He set her down carefully, she winced anyway, and then came and sat on my other side. "Are you two all right?" Sally asked us.

I nodded. "My hands are asleep, but otherwise yeah."

Barrel nodded, touching the cut on his forehead softly. "This doesn't hurt; head wounds always bleed a lot." I smirked a little. He would know, as often as he trips and cracks his head open on those stairs.

Turning to Aubrey, I held my hands out. "Let me see your back." She nodded and scooted around so she was facing away from me. I nearly gagged at the sight of the damage that had been done; not only were her wings gone, but Vanessa had missed a few times, and the skin above both of Aubrey's shoulder blades was gone, barely covered by the torn cloth of her shirt. I closed my eyes and put my hands on her back, actually gagging as my hands pressed against the blood-soaked skin. "Laeh." I muttered.

Opening my eyes, I saw that the bloodied stump ends had new skin on them, and the wounds above them were gone. "Good, now your chest."

Aubrey smiled at me. "It's good too. You got 'em with one spell this time." She held out her wrists to show the cuts there gone as well. Sally knelt down next to me, needle in hand. She went to work on sewing up what she could of Aubrey's shirt while we talked.

"Now what do we do?" Barrel asked, shoving his hands in his pockets. "I mean, I guess we have to save Lock again, right?"

I chuckled as I cleaned off my hands. "He does always seem to be the one who gets hypnotized, doesn't he?"

"The dangers of dating me." Aubrey muttered.

Barrel and I glanced at each other. We recognized that tone; it was the 'this-is-all-my-fault' tone. Sally broke the thread she was using off, done. "Aubrey, this isn't your fault."

"Yeah, if it's anyone's fault, it's mine." I told her. "I'm the one who helped pressure you into going back to the graveyard with me and Sandy."

Barrel sighed and looked at the ground. "Lock's gonna be SO mad at me when we snap him out of it."

Aubrey and I both looked at him. "Why?"

"Because the only reason I came is because he wanted me to keep an eye on Aubrey." She blushed a little, but there was a small smile on her face.

It faded, though, in a matter of seconds. "I should've listened when he told me something was wrong with Sandy." She mumbled. She suddenly seemed to remember something and looked up at Sally. "Mom, where's dad?"

Sally shook her head. "I don't know. Raphael did something to him. He's down here… somewhere."

Barrel groaned. "Great. If this guy can take down Jack, what the heck can we do?"

Again, Sally shook her head. "No, he couldn't. He used me as leverage to get Jack to surrender."

I nodded. "So if we can find Jack, we have a chance." I snapped my fingers and an orb of light appeared in front of my face. "Dnif Jack." It started to fly off, hovering at the door for someone to follow. "It's a tracker spell." I explained to Sally. "It'll lead you straight to Jack. He should be able to conjure one up to find us again." She nodded and stood up, following the floating orb out the door.

"What about us?" Aubrey asked.

I paused. "We need to find a way to help Lock, so we need a more powerful spell."

After a moment, Aubrey nodded in realization. "A spell to find a spell." I nodded and held out my hands. She took them. "Do you remember the words?"

"Well enough." I replied, closing my eyes. "Do you?"

"I think so." I heard her take a breath. "Ready?"

I nodded, even though she couldn't see me. "Wohs em eht yaw ot taht hcihw I tnaw ot dnif." We chanted in unison. Light flared through my closed eyelids, and when I opened them, there was an orb about the size of my fist glowing bright red in between my face and Aubrey's.

"You've gotta love advanced magic." I laughed, standing. After pulling Aubrey up, I laid a hand on the orb. "Find a way to break the spell on Lock."

The orb paused for a moment, and then floated out the doorway. "C'mon Barrel!" I yelled, running after it. I heard him scramble up and run out after Aubrey and me.

"Are you sure this will work?" He asked.

"Nope, this is the first time we've tried." Aubrey confessed. "But it worked when Ms. Aurelius did it."

"Then why did both of you have to do it?"

I rolled my eyes. "Because finding an inanimate object, like a spell book, is harder than finding a person."

Aubrey nodded. "If someone inexperienced tried to cast that spell on their own, they could drain all their magic away. It was just a precautionary measure." She added after a moment.

The orb led us up several sets of stairs and ended up backtracking about four times because of dead ends. Hey, even magic has its faults. Finally, it began to grow lighter, and the three of us could finally see again as we left the dark, torch-lit corridors. It led us down three twisting hallways, no dead ends this time, and we were about to turn down another one when Aubrey stopped us.

I grabbed the orb and pulled it close to my chest to dim the crimson glow as footsteps neared us. A voice followed soon after, passing to close for comfort but not noticing our presence. I recognized the girl, sort of, as the one who'd grabbed me when we were ambushed. "She's playing in the throne room again. Raphael's got to keep her on a tighter leash or something, especially with her new 'boyfriend' around." The girl shook her head. "God this is fucked up. Vanessa, ordering US around. Never thought I'd see the day I was getting bossed around by a fucking teenager… well, we don't want to keep her royal pain in the ass waiting. Come on Jacob."

Aubrey looked at me desperately. I knew that she wanted me to say it was okay for her to follow them, but… I wasn't supposed to be the leader! That was Lock's job.

Oh. Right. Lock's not here. So why am I next in line to be in charge?

'Well it could be the fact that you always tried to undermine Lock's authority.' I thought to myself bitterly. I sighed inwardly. "Go."

She smiled at me before turning and running after them, her bare feet soundless on the carpeted floor. I let go of the orb and it continued to float ahead of us.

Several hallways and a few close calls with the guards later, it finally stopped in front of a blank wall and didn't move. I let out some very colorful curses before kicking the wall. This was stupid and only resulted in me hurting my foot. Barrel, however, seemed to think the wall was extremely interesting. "What are you doing you idiot?" I asked from the floor.

"There's something behind this wall." He muttered, his hands roaming over the bricks. He paused, then pushed the one the orb was floating over. It slid in under his touch and the wall moved away. He grinned at me. "Told you." He offered me his hand.

I took it and let him help me up. We walked though the door and it slid shut behind us. "Where are we?" Lights flared at my words, momentarily blinding me. When my eyes adjusted, I saw rows and rows of books.

Barrel grinned at me. "It's a library." The orb whizzed past his ear, flying through the shelves of books.

I realized that my hand was still in Barrel's and pulled it out, fighting off the blush rising to my cheeks. "Don't just stand there, stupid. It's still looking for the counter spell!" I ran off after it, letting Barrel catch up to me.

xXx

I followed behind the two silently. The girl had been there when Sandy, or whatever that thing was, had captured me. Which meant the guy must have been too, because there was no way that the girl or Sandy could've carried me or Shock and Barrel. I was so caught up in her thoughts, I barely noticed as they stopped, and I ducked around a corner to avoid being spotted.

A door creaked open and footsteps started and stopped. I peered around the corner, listening. "You're late." I winced. That was the voice from earlier, the person who'd cut off my wings.

"It's a big castle. What do you want?"

"Where's my dad?"

"Busy."

"Where is he?"

"…I