Tragic Magic 2: Black Magic [boyxboy]

Chapter Four

Sarah had barely taken half a dozen steps towards the lakehouse when we heard a scream from inside. She stopped in her tracks and we could see the muscles in her back tense; she was frozen in place with fright.

The girls in the water all stopped chattering and laughing abruptly, looking sharply towards the sound and seemingly unable to decide whether to get out of the lake or not.

Denis and Timothy got uncomfortably to their feet, clearly not wanting to go and see why Katherine was in distress but feeling like they had to; instead I got up and said, 'We'll go,' gesturing for Tristan to come with me.

It was clear that my friends didn't really understand why I was suddenly volunteering to go and face down whatever had accosted Katherine; I wasn't her biggest fan, nor did I have much of a history of bravery and for all her faults we all knew she wasn't the type of girl to scream just because she saw a spider or got dirt on her favourite jeans. Regardless, they didn't seem to want to take my place so they let me go without saying anything.

Tristan followed me back inside closely and we peered around the room but there wasn't any sign of her.

'Katherine?' I called warily. 'Are you okay?'

She didn't respond and I glanced at Tristan, he shrugged and nodded towards the stairs, raising his eyebrows. It didn't seem likely; the lakehouse was in a pretty poor state of repair and we never went upstairs in case they collapsed or the upper floor gave way beneath us. Still, she wasn't downstairs and we'd have to make sure she wasn't in the building before freaking out the others by suggesting she was gone.

Light as a feather, Tristan projected and I followed his advice, keeping my gait supernaturally light so as not to mess with whatever integrity the wooden steps had left.

There's no way she's up here, I muttered back. The whole thing would have caved in.

Don't be cruel, Tristan replied mildly, and I rolled my eyes but kept quiet.

I emerged onto the upper landing first, looking around cagily to see where she was. It being a narrow building there weren't any separate rooms; it was an open plan expanse with gaps in the walls where there had once been windows.

'There you are,' I muttered, finally seeing her standing at the far side of the room, away from any sunlight and slightly obscured in the shadows. 'What happened, why were you screaming? And why are you up here, you know it's not safe.'

'Oh, hey Cody,' she said, looking over at me. 'Sorry about the screaming. I just got a fright.'

'From what?'

She looked at me like I was crazy and gestured with her left hand; I followed her gaze and jumped. There was a boy around our age standing there, plain as day, and I couldn't figure out how I'd missed him before. He had a shock of black hair and his skin was pale; he was standing sheepishly with his hands in his pockets, grinning at us.

'Hello,' he said, and I picked up on an accent, but couldn't figure out which one.

'Hey,' I said warily, looking him up and down. 'What are you doing here?'

Katherine let out a noise of impatience like she thought I was being rude but the boy just shrugged and said, 'I just moved here, I was exploring. I thought this thing was abandoned, I didn't realise there were other people here.'

I found that kind of hard to believe; we'd been laughing and shouting and I could hear the girls splashing around in the water from where I stood, but I let it go.

'I'm Axel,' he added, clearly sensing I wasn't warming to him.

'Cody,' I said, still sounding very wary even to my own ears.