The Key

The Key

Prologue

In the beginning of time a portal was created; the Magical portal. It was created by a large group of wizards and witches, called the Circle. The portal was created so that humans and creatures, such as vampires, shape shifters, werewolf’s etc. could travel between the two worlds; the human world and the Magical world. The two worlds lived side by side in peace, or in as much as peace as possible in two worlds. People traveled between the worlds to buy things from one another, to meet friends and family that lived in the other world. The portal became essential for the two worlds; they needed it as much as they needed food. So when the portal suddenly closed, chaos broke out. People were stuck in the other world with no way to return home. Families separated, creatures were stuck in the human world, and humans were stuck in the Magical world. No one knows who closed the portal. No one knows how it was closed, because the Circle had assured the people hundreds of years ago that that it wasn’t possible to close the portal. No one knows exactly when the portal was closed either. The people of the two worlds were forced to adapt to their new surroundings. The humans managed to get accepted in the Magical world and a society for all races was created in that world. Sadly the creatures weren’t accepted in the human world, and they were forced to either go into hiding or pretend that they were humans. The human world believed that creatures like that were only fairy tales and could not see the creatures that lived among them. After hundreds of years the location of the portal was forgotten, and both worlds came to believe that the portal and the other world besides theirs were just a myth. Though everybody didn’t believe that it was just a myth. Believers came together in small societies, determined to find the portals location and its ‘key’. Now, the portal has been found but there’s still no trace of ‘the key’. One thing they do know; ‘the key’ is the blood of a female, supposedly the female descendant of the person who closed the portal. What happens if someone does find the key? Will war break out, or will there once again be peace between the two worlds?

Chapter One

I walked down the hall and looked around, pulling my hair into a bun. It was Friday morning at eight o’clock, and school was about to start soon. My first class was art, which was my favorite subject in school. I kind of wished that I could only have art all day, but none of the teachers seemed to agree with me on that. So, I had to go to math and all the other classes too, whether I wanted it or not; which I didn’t. But I knew that they were essential subjects if you wanted to get somewhere in life. And I wanted to get somewhere in life, maybe have drawing for a living, or writing. It would be a lot of fun to be an author, or at least I thought it would be.
“Leah!” someone shouted from behind me and I turned around to find my friends Sarah and Nick walking towards me. Sarah had been the one to shout my name, and hurried towards me, dragging Nick after her. They were twins, and sure they looked a lot like each other, but they weren’t alike in personality. Both had black hair, Nick’s messy and hanging over one of his green eyes, Sarah’s long and straight with side bangs. Both of them were fairly tall and slim, with olive colored skin and dimples when they smiled. But Sarah was loud and often took risks- she would probably jump down from a bridge if someone asked her just to prove that she could do it- while Nick was more quiet and…weird. Yeah, that was a good word to use on him. He was often quiet but those rare times when he did speak, he spoke about creatures and different worlds and what not. He often asked me if I believed in different worlds, and I always answered no, but that didn’t seem to get into his head. It was like it went in through one ear and out through the other; quite annoying at times.
“Hey” I smiled when they reached me and hugged Sarah. “What’s up?”
“The usual; bored, wishing I could get out of this place but then changing my mind again when I see the guys” Sarah smiled, her gaze moving to behind me.
“Well, that’s, uhm, fun I guess” I said and looked behind me too. Toby Daniels, the quarterback, was standing by his locker oblivious to the rest of us as usual. He had curly blond hair and twinkling blue eyes. He was one of the sweetest guys I knew, but usually hung out with the guys on his team. Sarah stepped back and looked at Nick, then me again.
“Well, let’s go lazy people!” she said and pushed me lightly. I shook my head a little and turned around, starting to walk to art class. Nick had all the same classes as me, but Sarah only had the same classes as us after lunch. “I’ll see you guys later, I have to go to math!” she said and walked the other way.
“Bye” I called back to her and walked beside Nick to class.
“So…I found a book yesterday. About a portal named ‘The Magical Portal’. It was very interesting…” Nick said quietly, looking ahead.
I mentally sighed and slapped my forehead. Here it goes again… I thought as he started to tell me about the Magical World and how humans traveled there.

Nick and I were sitting in art class, my favorite subject. This time you could be creative and draw whatever you wanted, and for some odd reason I couldn’t understand, Nick has chosen to draw me, who wasn’t even pretty or anything along those lines. Well, at least I didn’t think I was pretty. I don’t know what he thought, and I honestly didn’t want to know.
So, instead of drawing like I wanted to, I had to sit on a chair with one of my legs pulled up to my chest, looking to my right. I was positioned in front of one of the two windows in the art room that showed the ugly, half destroyed, abandoned buildings beside our school. Not the best place to build a school, but the ones who built it here surely must have thought so. Now, why don’t they just fix the half destroyed buildings, since they aren’t used to anything? That’s a really good question that I didn’t have the answer to.
Anyways, the leaves on the trees were mixed green and yellow. Some leaves were starting to get red, since the autumn was almost here. The sun was shining brightly, which it probably wouldn’t do anymore soon. During the autumn, it was quickly growing darker outside, even before winter reached us. I didn’t enjoy that very much, since one of the things I loved the most was lying outside on the grass and sunbath. Maybe read a good book or draw a picture of my surroundings while I sunbathed. But, I couldn’t control the weather, and I doubted that anyone else could do it either, so it wasn’t that much I could do.
“Are you done yet?” I asked Nick, knowing he probably wasn’t, but since I had been sitting here for quite some time I felt the urge to ask. I could hear the birds singing outside, a sound that I loved, and which you could almost always hear when you were in the art classroom.
“My answer is the same as the last twenty times you asked that question. No, I am not done yet” Nick said, not looking up and continuing to draw.
Well, if you look on the positive side here, at least he wasn’t talking about paranormal stuff or super natural or whatever he usually talked about when he opened his mouth. Before we had started class, he had talked about The Magical Portal and the Magical world for ten minutes – ten! - before falling quiet again and thinking to himself. I had never, I say never, heard him talk for such long time before without a pause. And that was saying something, since I had known him for almost my whole life.
I sighed, trying not to move too much. Sure, I didn’t want him to draw a picture of me, but he was and I wasn’t going to ruin it for him by moving out of my position.
“But, now I am done” he said after quite some time. “I just need to fill in the colors. Or I’ll just leave it as it is right now, black and white.” He held the paper out for me to take, and I reached over and took it. Bringing it back to me, I looked at it. The first thoughts that hit me were; this is a really creepy drawing, it looks like a photo; the background was beautiful; I still wasn’t pretty. And it made me think of a guy I had talked to on a bus once, who had called me a beautiful Barbie. I think he was referring to my long, sandy blond hair, blue eyes, wasn’t that long, and kind of skinny. I was actually thinner than Sarah, one thing I was proud of. Though she was taller than me, and I didn’t like that. But anyways, the random guy had called me a Barbie, which really was a complisult. I often used that made up word when I took something as both a compliment and insult.
“The background is really pretty” I said when I realized that I had gotten lost in thought.
“Thanks. In my opinion I did a better job with you though. Your hair was a bit hard, but I made it in the end.”
“Yeah, I actually almost look pretty here. I have no idea how you managed to make me look that good, since I’m not even close to pretty. But that only proves how good you are at drawing people and stuff” I said and handed him the drawing back. Nick rolled his eyes and didn’t reply. But, since this was nick it was normal behavior and meant he disagreed.
The art teacher, Ms. Air, walked over and asked to look at nick’s work. He handed it to her and she looked at it for a long time. You couldn’t really see what she thought, since she didn’t show it in her face. Which was good I guess, since it meant that a student that had done a terrible job couldn’t read it right away.
“Amazing job Nick; you once again prove that you are my best student here. You really managed to capture the beauty of it all, and you have developed your skills on drawing shadows. Please stay after class, I have something to discuss with you” she said before walking over to another student who needed help.
“You’re in trouble now?” I asked and raised an eyebrow.
“No, of course not, I know what it is she wants to talk about” Nick answered.
“Okay, if you say so. Now it’s my turn to draw!”
“Sorry, class ends in two minutes, and we need to clean up” he said and stood up. I sighed and got up too, started to put pencils and stuff away.

Chapter Three

I gathered my stuff and waited for all the students to leave the classroom. Leah, being her normal self, stayed behind to wait for me.
"It's okay, you can go. I'll catch up with you later" I said quietly.
"Oh come on, you always wait for me. So now I'm being nice and waiting for you too" she said and leaned against a desk, brushing some of her blonde hair out of her face. She didn't really have a good self confidence which I couldn't understand, since she had the looks and everything. But, yeah, there wasn't really anything I could do about that.
"No, seriously, you should go. You'll be late" I said and pushed her lightly towards the door. She really couldn't be here right now, and she seemed to take the hint because she shrugged before saying bye and walking out.
I turned to Ms. Air, or Tasha as I called her when there wasn't any other people around. "The Portal?" I guessed and pulled a chair out, taking a seat.
"Correct" she said and leaned against her desk, crossing her arms over her chest. "We have the location. Well, not the exact location but we know that it's in this town. That's more than any other group has."
I nodded. "That's good. Shouldn't be so hard to find then, since this is a small town. Now we just need the Key. Any new information about her?" I asked.
Tasha shook her head, and pulled her black hair into a bun. "No, not really. All we know that it's the female descendant of whoever closed the portal. Would be much easier if someone could tell us who closed the portal in the first place. Then we would just search a bit in that person's family line and write down the name of all the females. Sadly enough things don’t always happen the way we want it to. Hopefully she's close to this town at least, and not at the other end of the world."
I sighed and shook my head too. "We need more information. Sarah has been trying to find it with the help of some spells she knows, but she has been doing less and less lately. I think that since we started hanging out with Leah and I told her not to tell Leah about...what we really are, she has been trying to ignore the witch within her. But it's like trying to ignore half of yourself, it just doesn't work. But I'll try to get a hold of her without Leah and talk to her. That will be hard since Leah sleeps at our house almost every night. But, yeah, I would have done it myself but we all know how good my spell skills are" I said and mde a face.
Tasha laughed and smiled. "Well, we'll talk about this on the next meeting. It's on Friday, seven o'clock sharp. The normal place. You better go to your next class now."
I nodded and got up. "Yeah...what will I tell Leah if she asks?"
"I told you about a art contest that you can enter now. I was actually going to tell you about that, so it's not lie. But you should enter it. You're really talented and you would win for sure. A big cash prize to the winner" she smiled and sat down by her desk, turning on her computer.
I nodded again. "Cool. Bye Ms. Air" I said and walked out of the classroom. I walked to my locker and put my stuff in before grabbing my Science books and heading off to class. We were one step closer now. One step closer to finally being able to open the Magical Portal.

Chapter Four

I walked into Science class and got a cold look from the teacher. I kept a straight face as she started her lecture about the importance of coming in time and how it will affect my life in the future. I nodded when she was finished, about ten minutes later, and turned to go to my normal seat beside Leah.
I stopped in surprise when I saw that the seat beside her was taken. I looked closely at the guy beside her. He was tall and he was laughing at something Leah had said, his blue eyes twinkling. He had curly, sand blond hair, the same color as Leah, and was wearing a blue long sleeved shirt, that was fairly tight to show his nice abs, and blue jeans.
Realizing I sounded completely gay and that I was just standing there in the middle of the room and starring at Leah and the guy who was oblivious to me, I blinked a couple of times.
I took a closer look at him and felt a chill run down my spine when I recognized who the guy chatting along with Leah happily was.
His name was Matthew Collins, a pure blood vampire and a very powerful at that. He was famous among us believers, and the murderer of many humans. Many vampires that lived in the Human world only drank a little from every human, as to not get caught, but Matthew drank every drop of blood from the human’s bodies. Somehow he managed to never get caught, which I couldn’t really understand.
He was also one of the believers, but not in the same group as Tasha, Sarah and me. He was in a group called ‘The Rose’, a group that wanted to open the Magical Portal for one reason and one reason only; power. They wanted to control both worlds and have all the power over every living creature. They were known for their clever thinking and cruelty.
“Nick, please go and take a seat” the teacher, Ms Kasson said impatiently and tapped her foot against the floor.
I nodded and walked over to Leah and Matthew, taking the spare seat behind Leah. Leah turned around half way in her seat and gave me a smile before looking at Matthew again.
“Nick, this is Matt” she said with a sweet smile at him. “Matt, meet Nick” she said with a gesture of her hand towards me.
I gave him a nod and met his eyes, not saying anything.
“Nice to meet you Nick” he said gently with a friendly smile, but I knew it was false. You could see the smirk in his eyes.
“He just moved here, so I promised to be his escort or helper or whatever you want to call it” Leah told me.
“Yeah, she’s been extremely nice to me” Matt nodded, making Leah blush a bit. “I told her she didn’t have to do anything.”
Leah waved a hand. “No no, it’s no problem at all!”
“So, Leah, maybe we could do something today after school?” he asked with a smile.
“Of course, I don’t have any plans. I can show you around town or something” she smiled.
“Leah, I thought you were coming over today” I cut in.
Leah looked over at me and frowned slightly. “But I’m coming over tomorrow anyways, so it’s okay. I think your mom would be happy with me not being at her house 24/ 7.”
“Then it’s all good” Matt said as the teacher started to talk. I sighed and looked out the window.
Not only had he now made sure Leah wasn’t coming over today, he also made sure she would show him around town. Which means he might accidently find the portal. Before us. Before me. But then again, he doesn’t have the Key. Or does he? I honestly didn’t know.
“What about Sarah?” I said.
“Oh, just tell her I’m sorry” Leah said and bit her lip. “She’ll be fine.”
I frowned and looked away. She would be mad, not fine.

Chapter five

Nick

I gathered my stuff and looked up to say something to Leah, watching her leave the room with Matt. I felt myself get mad but ignored it and walked out, heading towards my locker. I had lunch now, so Leah and Matt would probably sit with us anyways.
I opened my locker with a picture of a little girl standing outside in the night by a streetlight, snow falling down, painted on it. We were allowed to do whatever we wanted with our lockers, so I had decided to paint mine. I was kind of happy with the result, and hoped whoever would have this locker after me would like it. Because it would be a pain to have a picture painted on your locker if you hated it.
I put my books in and closed it again, heading towards the cafeteria. I walked inside and smiled slightly. There was no line today so I just grabbed a plate and looked at the food. It was burger today, something that actually tasted good in school. Usually the school food was gross, except from a few exceptions, like burger. Pancakes were also okay here, though sometimes they were burned which wasn’t that tasteful.
I took a burger and put ketchup on it. I didn’t have anything else than the bread, the meat and ketchup on. Vegetables I ate separately, because in my opinion it didn’t taste good on burgers. But that was only my opinion of course, not anyone else’s.
I also took a glass of milk and looked around for Sarah. I saw her sitting at a table in the far end of the room. Walking over I sat down and smiled.
“Where’s Leah?” Sarah asked between bites.
I shrugged and took a bite of my burger, chewing slowly. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?" she asked and raised an eyebrow, sipping her water.
“No she disappeared somewhere with the new kid” I said and shrugged slightly.
“The new kid? Who’s that?” Sarah asked and frowned slightly.
“Matthew Collins. You know the vampire Tasha told us about before” I said with a low voice, looking around to make sure no one heard us.
Sarah’s eyes widened slightly and she sat up straight, looking around. “She can’t be with him! What if he hurts her?” she said, panic creeping into her voice.
“I don’t think he’ll kill her” I said and shook my head as a girl walked by, giving us a weird look. “He needs her. He couldn’t kill her now. Besides, they seemed to have a pretty good time together” I sighed.
Sarah frowned and looked at me with concerned eyes. “Why would Matt need Leah? And they did?”
“He needs someone to show him around town. Which, she is going to do today by the way. And yeah it looked like that anyway. They were laughing and talking all class.”
“Oh, well, it’s good that she got another friend” Sarah said with a hesitate smile.
“I don’t know if we should call him her ‘friend’. Firstly, he might just be using her. Secondly, he might kill her. Thirdly, this is Matt we’re talking about. Not just some random new kid with a good heart.”
Sarah sighed and picked at her burger, not eating anymore. “Well, we should go and talk to Tasha about this…I swear if he hurts her I’ll k-“
“He won’t hurt her” I interrupted. “No need to worry, okay? Just finish your burger and let’s go talk to Tasha. Everything will be alright you see” I smiled and drank my milk.
Sarah nodded. “Okay, but I’m full now. Seriously, I am. Can’t eat anymore food” she said and pulled her hair into a ponytail, standing up. I got up too and grabbed my plate and glass, following her. I put my stuff away and then walked towards the door beside Sarah.
When we came to the art room we saw that Matt and Leah was already there, talking with Tasha. Leah was the one talking, Matt smiling sweetly and Tasha was trying to give him a smile.
“What do you think they’re doing?” I asked Sarah and frowned.
“I don’t know. Maybe she’s his new mentor” Sarah said and tilted her head to the side. “That would cause some problems. I mean, since she’s in our group and our mentor too and such…”
I nodded. “Yeah, but maybe Leah just wanted to talk with her about something, and he just followed along” I suggested, but I highly doubted it.
I looked back inside to see Matt talking to Leah who nodded and headed towards the door. She walked out and closed the door behind her, looking up in surprise when she saw us.
“Leah! You didn’t eat lunch with us!” Sarah said as she hugged her. I looked back through the window on the door to see Matt talking to Tasha with a calm face. A smirk started to take place on his face and Tasha went a bit pale. I frowned and tried to read his lips, failing completely.
“Sorry!” Leah said as she hugged her back. “I was eating with Matt. You should meet him, but you have to wait till he’s done talking to Ms. Air” she smiled.
Sarah nodded and stopped smiling a bit. “Still coming over tonight, right?”
“I’m sorry; I promised I’d show Matt around. But I’ll come over tomorrow though” Leah said and frowned when Sarah got a sad face. “We’ll meet tomorrow I promise!”
“Yeah okay whatever. I’m going to have to meet Matt some other time, I have to go now. You coming Nick?” she said and gave me a look.
I nodded and followed behind her. ”Bye Leah.”

I frowned as I watched Nick and Sarah leave. They weren’t mad, were they? No, of course not…yes they were. But we saw each other almost every day; it was only healthy with a break. There’s not reason for them to be mad.



I heard the door open and glanced back to see Matt. “You’re done?” I asked.



“Yeah, sorry, just had to ask her a thing about my schedule. There was a class I wasn’t comfortable with taking, so I asked if I could change to art” he smiled as we started to walk.



“Could you change?”



“Yes, she said that it was fine. What do we do now?”



“Eh, go to class?” I chuckled. “What else would we do?”



“Skip class. I really want to check those buildings out. You know, behind the school.”



“It’s your first day and you want to skip school already?” I asked and raised my eyebrows. “But no, sorry, I usually don’t do stuff like that.”



“Yeah, you usually don’t do stuff like that. Now I’m here, and it’s time to change that” he grinned.



“Eh, yeah, I don’t know…” I said and looked around.



“Aw come on, don’t be so bloody boring.”



“I’m not bloody boring” I scoffed.



“Fine, then show me around like you promised. We’ll just start a bit earlier than expected” he smiled.



I bit my lip and looked at him. Wow. He was just so cute and hot at the same time. I’ve never really been interested in boys before. It was just…weird.



“Fine. But only because you asked so nicely” I said, earning a huge grin.



“Cool, let’s go” he sad and started walking down the hall. He was fast. As in, I had to jog to keep up with him. Made me feel pretty fail.



He opened the doors to the school entrance and walked down the stone steps, looking around and squinting in the bright sunlight. “Too bloody light” he muttered quietly, and I wasn’t sure if he had said it or not.



We walked around to the school and to the old, half destroyed buildings. “We’re not actually allowed to go in there” I said and frowned.



“Eh, who cares about rules?” he shrugged and made his way towards one of the buildings.



“I do…what if the roof fall down over us? The rules are there to protect us.”



“The roof won’t fall in, stop worrying so much” Matt sighed and pushed the door open. Like, really pushed it. There was no knob and he must have pushed the door to hard because it fell down to the floor with a loud thud.



I stared at the door for a while. “See, what did I say before! We shouldn’t go in there!”



Matt smirked and shrugged slightly, and walked in. I followed behind him, and the door broke when I stepped on it.



“Ouch!” I said under my breath and tried to pull my foot out of the hole in the door, only to realize it was stuck and that I had just scraped it.



“Matt!” I whined and looked up to see him standing stock-still, staring at me in a weird way. “Matt? I’m stuck.”



I frowned when he just stood there. Fine, be a jerk then. I tried to pull my foot out again while keeping the sharp edges of the wood away from my ankle and foot. Only ended up cutting my finger a bit.



“Bleh” I muttered and looked at the wounds on my ankle. “I need to go to the nurse Matt. Like, really, it hurts. Matt? What’s wrong with you?” I asked and looked up at him again. His eyes became really weird as he started walking closer.

I took my seat in class, fuming slightly. I wasn’t sure why I was mad; it was only good for Leah t have friends. But maybe it was because she was a friend with Matt, the enemy…the enemy…maybe that was a too big word, since we weren’t really enemies. We just weren’t in the same group, weren’t working for the same goal. But then again, in a way we were, since both groups wanted to open the portal.



To open the Portal we needed the Key, and who could the Key be? Trying to find the girl whose blood had the power to open the Portal would take ages. She could be anywhere in the world, and we only had that much money.



The Rose group on the other hand, they were disgustingly rich. They had enough money to travel the world to find her. And how did you even know that you had found her? Did her blood have a special scent, or color? I shuddered slightly. I was happy I wasn’t a vampire, the thought alone of blood made me feel sick.



I looked up at the board and started to write down notes when there was a knock on the classroom door. The teacher walked over and talked to someone for a while.



“Nick, you are needed in the nurse’s office” the teacher said and I frowned slightly, getting up and following the other teacher to the nurse. Why did I have to go to the nurse?



“Excuse me miss, but why do I have to go to the nurse?” I asked the teacher that led the way.



“Ms. Gale and Mr. Collins requested for you, though I do not know why” the teacher answered and I gave a short nod. What did Matt do to Leah?!



I walked into the nurse’s office and the other teacher left. I found Matt leaning against a wall, looking out the window with clenched jaw. Leah was sitting on the bed, the nurse taking care of her bleeding ankle and Leah pressing a compress against her throat.



“What the hell happened?”



“Language!” the nurse snapped and I mumbled an apology, glaring at Matt. He just had to go and hurt her, didn’t he?



Leah glanced towards me and smiled, but it wasn’t her normal smile, it wasn’t the one that made my heart warm. It was a new smile, one I had never seen before, and one that freaked me out a bit.



“We walked into the old buildings, and I got hurt” she slurred, and I almost couldn’t understand her.



“Could you young men wait outside while I take care of her please? She has lost a lot of blood,” the nurse said and I left the room with Matt behind me.



When we were outside I turned around. “What did you do?”



He raised an eyebrow. “What did I do? Nothing.”



“Cut the crap out Matt, I know you were the one to hurt her.”



“I didn’t hurt her! Why does everyone take one look at me and assume that I’m the bad guy?”



“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because you are the bad guy. “



“I’m not the bad guy. I’m just the bad good guy. There are worse out there, you should know that. Or didn’t Tasha tell you about The Destroyers?”



“The Destroyers?” I echoed.



Matt gave a short nod. “They are the evil guys. I think you and I should have a talk, share a bit of information. Help each other. Oh, and by the way, I did drink from Leah. But she actually did hurt her ankle by herself.”



“You…what?”



“I drank from her. Marked her” he smirked and walked back into the nurse’s office. I stared at the wall for a while. He marked her? When a vampire marks a human, it means the human belongs to them, and no one else can touch that human. Other vampires can smell if a human is marked or not, and if the human is, they won’t touch him/ her. They can’t touch a marked human. In short words: Matt owned Leah. I wasn’t allowed to do anything with her, if Matt didn’t approve it.

Chapter Eight

Nick

I walked back to class after that. Leah was okay now, since the nurse had managed to stop the bleeding. Her foot was sprained, but it was nothing too bad.

I walked pass Tasha’s classroom after class ended, and knocked on her door. I needed to ask her about The Destroyers.

Tasha opened the door with a smile and let me in. “Hey Nick. Can I help you?”

“Who are The Destroyers?” I asked, cutting right to the case.

Her face paled and her gaze flickered around. “Oh, so you’ve heard about them” she said after a while.

“Yeah, Matt was very nice by informing me about it” I said stiffly. Why had Tasha not told me about this before? Our group told each other everything. That way no one could turn us against each other. I at least thought we told each other everything.

“That boy is causing some big trouble” she murmured and sat down by her desk, fixing some papers and moving them around her desk. “The Destroyers…I only learnt about them recently, and I wasn’t sure that they existed.”

“But they do?” I asked when she stopped talking. She pressed her lips together and nodded.

“They must, apparently. Anyways, it’s a group of four. They are the most powerful creatures in the human world. It’s a werewolf, vampire, shape shifter and warlock. They…like to destroy things, as their name indicates. To be specific they like to destroy groups, such as ours.”

I didn’t really know what to say, so I waited for her to continue.

“I don’t know if they want to open the portal themselves, and get the power, or not have anyone open it at all. I do believe that they would want to keep it closed, but I’ not very sure” she finished.

“So, they’re basically out for killing every group?” I asked and she nodded. “So, they might come after us?”

“I think they might” she said quietly and nodded. She actually looked scared. I’ve never seen Tasha scared before, which made me feel a little bit nervous.

“Well, thanks for telling me. I should get to class now” I said and stood up, walking to the door.

“Madge just called” Tasha stopped me by saying, my hand on the doorknob. “We’re getting closer. She’s pretty sure she’s got the right family line.”

“Really?” I asked and turned around, feeling hopeful. This is what we’ve been working for. If it was closer, then maybe we could achieve it.

“Yeah, the only problem is that they’re all dead. Apparently they gave away a child, gave him or her away for adoption. All we need to find out is who they adopted the child too, and then we can follow that line to those who are alive today, which shouldn’t be that hard to do. We’re almost there Nick” she smiled.

I smiled back at her. “That’s great. I have to go tell Emily…and get to class since I’m late” I said, glancing at a clock on the wall.

“Don’t worry, I’ll send your teacher an email” Tasha assured me.

“Thank you” I said and gave her another smile before walking out. We were almost there now. Soon we had the Key to the portal.

Chapter Nine

Leah

Matt and I were walking around in town, or maybe in my situation limping. Even though I had gotten hurt he wanted me to show him around town. If he was going to stay here he could have waited until my ankle was better, nut no, he wanted to do it today.

We walked past a couple of stalls and I felt a pull towards one of them so I headed over there. They had a lot of stones and necklaces there, and I looked around at all of them.

There was one necklace that caught my attention. It was just a simple stone on it, in a light pink color. I don’t know why, but I had to buy it.

“What stone is that?” I asked the man behind the stall and pointed at the necklace.

“Rose quartz, miss” the man answered politely.

“I’ll have it” I said and fished some money out of my pocket and handed it to him, not even looking to see how much I gave him.

“Miss, this is too much-“ he started, but I shook my head.

“It’s okay, you can keep it” I said and grabbed the necklace. The moment my hand touched it, electricity shot up my arm, and I was blinded by a bright light.

I saw a picture form in front of my eyes, shimmering slightly. It was out on a meadow, with forest on one side of it and a lake on the other side. My attention was caught by a couple of trees that I could barely see. They had grown together, and it looked like they were covering something. I squinted my eyes to see better, but the picture disappeared then.

I blinked a couple of times to find the man counting the money I had handed him, people passing by and laughing. No one seemed to have noticed what I had just seen.

I felt a bit uneasy when I walked back to Matt. He looked at me with a puzzled expression on his face.

“You saw it too?” I asked him and put on the necklace.

“Saw what?” he asked oblivious.

I watched him for a little while before making up a lie. “The bird. It was a really pretty bird that flew past here” I explained.

“Oh, I didn’t see any bird” He mumbled. “What did it look like?”

“Uh…it was blue and stuff” I shrugged. “Well, let’s keep on walking” I said and started to walk again.

I had recognized the place in the picture; I just couldn’t tell exactly where it was. I had seen it before, when I was little…on a trip with mom and dad. I was going to have to ask them about it when I got home.

“Want to grab a coffee somewhere?” Matt asked and I nodded giving him a smile.