"No, guys. You can't do this. He is mine. I'll finish this." Torin reached down and grabbed Dad's head.

"Torin, no!" I engaged my runes and dashed across the room, twisting sideways to body slam Torin. I flew across the room and landed on the bookshelf. My shoulder rammed into something hard and white hot pain ricocheted through me.

I jumped to my feet, but they were gone.

The bastards. I raced to Dad's side, touched his forehead. It was warm. I placed a finger under his nostrils. He was still breathing. Shaking, I backed away and looked around. I was going to rip their hearts out. All three of them.

I picked up the books I'd dropped from the shelf with shaking hands, then used the mirror portal and went straight next door.

"Torin?" I yelled.

There was no one in the living room, but the water was running. What kind of a monster claimed to love me and then tried to kill my father behind my back. I burst into his room. At the back of my mind, I knew something was off about his room, but I didn't bother to check. He was in the shower.

"Come out right now, you piece-" I yanked opened the bathroom door just as he stepped out of the shower. Except it wasn't Torin. "Eirik?"

"Hey, babe," he said, flashing his famous boyish smile.

It was the older, more buff Eirik. He had some serious tattoos across his chest and on his arms and they weren't runes. I recognized a few Celtic symbols including a triskelion.

"Were you coming to join me?" he asked.

I blinked. "Wh... how... what are you doing here?"

"What do you mean? I live here." He pulled me into his arms and lowered his head.

This was not right. This could not possibly be right. I brought my leg up to knee him and lost my balance. I landed on the tiled floor, pain shooting through my tail bone.

A full blown panic hit. There was no one in the bathroom with me. The shower was dry, which meant no one was in there a second ago.

I was going crazy. I backed out of the room and into the bedroom. It was Torin's room, his framed motorcycle paintings on the walls. Seconds ago, I could have sworn I'd seen a table with cameras and photographs where the paintings were.

Something was wrong with me.

I glanced out the window and saw Femi pull up in my car. I called out her name and she looked toward the window and waved. I raced downstairs, yanked open Torin's front door only to be met by a throng of people. Neighbors. People from my school. The witches from the shop. I realized the light came from the porch and the sky was dark and starless.

This made no sense. Seconds ago, the sun was still up.

"So sorry for your loss, Raine," Mrs. Rutledge said, touching my arm.

Loss? Who died? I looked for a familiar face. Torin or Cora.

"Isn't it sad about Torin and his friends," a familiar voice said from my left. I recognized Kicker and other girls from the swim team.

"Poor Raine," Sonya said. "Her father killed by her boyfriend."

Kicker saw me and left the group to give me a hug. "So sorry, Raine."

My teeth were beginning to chatter. "Have you seen Cora?"

"She was with Eirik in the house."

Eirik again? Hysteria bubbled to my throat. I was going mad. There was no other explanation. I tried to push past the people and go to my house, but the crowd seemed to grow bigger.

I back pedaled, staggering back to Torin's house. More people stared at me with pitying expressions. I swallowed, but my throat was too tight with fear. My chest hurt with each breath and my head felt stuffed with horrid images.

This is not real... this is not real...

I repeated it over and over again. I was having visions, one after another. How was that possible when I wasn't touching anyone or anything? Someone was screwing with my head. The mirror portal in Torin's living room was opened. I walked through it without caring that the people at the wake could see me.

Cool air slapped my face and I sucked in a breath. I was on top of a roof. Just like my first vision. It was still dark, but I recognized the buildings around it and the forests and mountains in the background.

Torin, Echo, and Andris stood on the roof, their heads bowed. No, not bowed. They were staring at something and talking in low tones. I moved closer, but I still couldn't hear them or see what they were looking at. I was getting calmer now that I knew I was having visions. I wished I knew how to get out of it.

"Torin?" I whispered.

He looked up and straight at me as though he'd heard me, but when his attention shifted, I saw what they were staring at on the roof. Celtic symbols drawn with a chalk. They were like the ones on Eirik's body. Once again, I recognized the triskelion.

"That's the last one," a familiar voice said from behind me and I whipped toward him.

Buff Eirik walked toward me. He winked as he walked past me. I turned and followed him with my eyes. Now the group with Torin had grown larger to about a dozen men and women. Torin's back was to me, but I recognized the broad shoulders and the shaggy black hair. Where were Echo and Andris?

The moonlight created shadows on the faces of the men and women, but I recognized the triskelion on the back of their hands and on their foreheads. What did this mean? Rita and Gina's protection amulets also had Celtic symbols.

"Look who decided to join us," Eirik said and I followed his eyes to a woman dressed in all black. I couldn't guess her age, but she had long dark hair and pale skin. She was gorgeous. Her eyes glowed under the moonlight. The group on the roof parted for her and she went straight to Torin and slipped her arms around his waist.

The next second they were kissing.

What? I was so going to kill him. Not just him. Her too. I engaged my strength runes, marched across the roof past the men and women watching them, and raised my fist.

"This is for you, you jackass," I yelled.

Just before my hand connected with his face, he looked up. I barely stopped before rearranging his nose. It was Torin, yet it wasn't. Same eyes, same facial structure, same lips, but he was older. Gray peppered the hair at his temples.

I closed my eyes tight, praying for this nightmare to end. Voices reached me as though from afar and I cringed. They're not real... not real... not real...

"What happened?" Torin asked.

"I don't know. I came back from the store and found her like this," Femi said. She kept talking but I tuned her out.

Nothing is real. It's just a vision.

"I told her to use the portal while I brought her car home," Femi was saying.

I opened my eyes. Torin squatted beside me. The younger Torin. Was he real or a figment of my imagination. I was on the floor outside my father's bedroom. My back to the door.

"Raine," Torin said slowly.

"You're not real," I whispered. Torin would have called me Freckles.

He touched his face, his chest. "I'm real and I'm here now," he said softly and sat across from me and crossed his legs. He peered at me. "You're going to be okay."

"I won't let you kill my father," I whispered, my voice breaking. My throat burned and my chest hurt. "I know he's sick and dying, but it's not his fault you healed him. I will not let you kill him now."

"I'd never, ever hurt him. I saved him for you and would do it again if I could," Torin murmured.

I wanted to believe him so badly. "You were kissing someone else."

"Feel free to decapitate me if I touch another woman, or man." He smirked as though laughing at his own joke. I didn't think it was funny. "There's no one for me but you, Raine Cooper. And you know it." He reached out and brushed my cheek. Only then did I realize I'd started to cry. "I love you, Freckles."

Freckles. "You... called me Freckles."

"Yes, luv. I called you Freckles." His voice was velvety soft.

I flung myself into his arms, causing him to lose his balance. He rolled with me on the floor, chuckling.

"Now I know what to say when your visions turn you into a nutcase," he said, planting a kiss on my nose.

I knew I should take offense to being called a nutcase, but for now, I just want him to hold me. I wound my arms around his shoulders and burrowed my face in the crook of his neck and cried.

I felt him shift as he sat up, then stood. Without breaking his stride he carried me upstairs. He carefully lowered me on the bed, his movements gentle. For what seemed like forever, we spooned, his arms wrapped around my waist.

When I stopped crying and shifted to look at him, he grinned. "So I was kissing another woman?"

And I was kissing Eirik. I needed to talk about these visions or I was going to go crazy. "You were older with graying hair."

He frowned. "I'm never going to gray or grow old, unless I stop using runes."

"The guy in my vision looks exactly like you, except he's older. The first visions I had of the Seeresses, he was always there. He was like the leader, but I couldn't see his face properly, but I heard his voice. He has a British accent."

Torin sat up, his jaws tense. "Why didn't you say something before?"

"Because I wasn't sure. Remember, my visions were blurry. He was just a shadowy guy with a British accent. Then I saw his eyes and hair, and he looked so much like you I thought he was a relative of yours."

His eyelids lowered, but I still saw the flash in their depth. He didn't like that. "That's why you kept asking me if I had relatives who looked like me. You should have told me, Raine."

"I know, but I wasn't sure if what I was seeing was real or not. The first clear vision I got was when I touched Rita's amulet."

"The witch." He said it like Rita was some vile creature that had crawled from a sewer.

"Yes. Being around them unlocked something. The visions I've had since have all been clear. I saw his face clearly for the first time this evening when I was having that visions meltdown. He might look like you, but he's older. Much older."

Torin rolled off the bed and disappeared through the portal. Not sure, where he was headed, I went to wash my face. I looked up and my eyes widened. Not again.

A shirtless, smirking Eirik winked at me in the mirror.

I closed my eyes tight, my heart racing. When I opened them, he was gone. Why was I getting visions of him? Why now? I grabbed a towel to dry my face and hands.

"Is this the man you saw?" Torin asked, appearing in the bathroom doorway with an old portrait. It was the same man in my vision although the painting was not very accurate or well done.

"Yes, that's him. Who is he?"

Torin turned and walked to my window and stared outside. From the tautness of his shoulders and the way he clenched the portrait, I was sure he wanted to hurl it.

"Torin?"

"I was hoping my mother's amulet had been stolen, but he must have kept it. The bastard."

I reacted to the pain in his voice and closed the gap between us. I rubbed his back, everything he'd told me about his mother's death flashing in my head. "He's the necromancer who killed your mother."

He turned and faced me. His eyes shocked me. There was so much rage and torment in his eyes. "Yes, he's the necromancer who killed my mother."

"Why is he still al...? Oh. He's an Immortal," I whispered.

"And my father," he finished.

CHAPTER 17. EVIL IMMORTAL.

If he'd sucker punched me, I would not have been more surprised. I slipped my arms around him and squeezed hard. It was my turn to ease his pain.

His crazy obsession with finding the person who sold his family things made sense now. I stepped back and studied his face. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No. I'd rather find out which one of the witches was playing mind games with your head."

"You think someone was deliberately projecting images... No, we're not talking about me after you dropped that bomb. Sit." I pushed him on the bed. "I want to know everything because if he's really the one after me, some of the witches know one of his cohorts. A woman by the name of Madam Bosvilles."

"Is she the one Femi is pissed off about?"

"Yes. She's been stealing powers from younger witches and..." I slapped his thigh. "You're doing it again. Deliberately distracting me. We're talking about you, not me."

Sighing, he leaned back against the headboard and crossed his legs. From his expression, he'd rather pull out his nails with pliers than talk. I curled my legs under me and waited. Silence followed. He really wasn't going to talk until I pushed and nagged him.

"Did you know he was Immortal?" I asked.

"No."

"And?"

"Come here."

I shook my head. I wanted to study his face while he talked.

"I feel better when I hold you. This is very personal." He faked a lost puppy look.