Blue ▹ The Originals [2]

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER ONE
HOME SWEET HOME

"There's no place like home."

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

     The streets of Chicago were crowded, the roads cramped with cars and taxis pulling to the side of the road at a raise of a hand. Henrik avoided touching anyone as best as he could, but every now and then a hand brushed an arm, and he felt a flash of unease or saw something he hadn't wanted to see. That woman was going to die soon. That man was an alcoholic. Those two girls had run away and were now lost and scared inside the city. That boy was in so much pain that Henrik winced. By the time he had reached his destination, Henrik's head was pounding. He pressed his palm flat against the brick wall right beside the glass door he was planning on entering, gritting his teeth and rubbing at his temple with his other hand. He had been routinely coming to this little occult shop ever since he had arrived in Chicago. He loved big cities, but they had always made him aware of how sensitive he was to his surroundings. A specific herb tended to help with that, but he had ran out a week ago. Hocus Pocus was the only legitimate occult shop he could go to for supplies. It was a silly name, but it did what it was supposed to do. It drew enough attention to gain customers such as Henrik, but the name was so silly that humans found their way in and ended up not taking anything seriously.

Most of those humans went out with "magical rocks" that did nothing but look pretty and a few decks of tarot cards that wouldn't work unless there was magic in their blood. The unlucky humans—the ones who mocked the practice of witchcraft, or came in just to condemn everyone inside of the shop—ended up leaving with a hex that faded away after a few days at best, a curse at worst.

Letting out a soft sigh, he dug around inside his jacket pockets and pulled out a box of cigarettes, putting one of them to his lips and lighting it quickly, not caring if anyone saw the small display of magic. They would probably just convince themselves that he had been holding a lighter. The cigarette helped with his irritation, but it did nothing for his headache. He had only finished half of it when a car horn sounded from the street, and a flash of pain went through his head, making him drop the unfinished cigarette. Scowling, he crushed it with him boot and jerked the glass door open. The small jingle of the bell above him irritated him more than it should have, but the second the door swished shut behind him, his headache started to steadily ebb away. He glanced at the incense burning on the table near the door and took a deep, relieved breath. Cassandra Milano, the owner of the shop and a specialist in fortune-telling, probably saw him coming before he had even decided to.

Most witches had premonitions, but the stronger ones—much like himself and Cassandra—tended to suffer the most from them. His had gotten worse ever since he had left Mystic Falls. The town was practically a magical object in of itself, so it wasn't surprising that he had unconsciously drawn power from there, making him stronger as he did. Most of the premonitions he had now were so small that they barely mattered. They were beginning to annoy him. Shaking his head, his took his sunglasses off and hung them from the collar of his shirt, walking around the shelves of the small store, eyes going to the counter. No one was behind it. Instead, three teenagers and a twenty-year-old girl sat at a round table toward the back of the store, past the counter but still a bit away from the curtains leading into the back. Henrik knew there were dark objects and very valuable and powerful grimoires back there. The last thing anyone needed was for humans to get their hands on them.

Shaking his head again, he prowled through the store as he waited for the young witch to finish giving the tarot reading to the teenagers. He found the herb he was looking for quickly, and he released a small sigh of relief as he grabbed one of the small plastic bags from beneath the case. After he had practically taken half of the butterbur, he went to get extra sage and patchouli. Sage was always useful when he needed to keep a conversation private and vampires were around, and he never knew when he would need patchouli, which always counteracted a spell cast on him or anyone he had vowed to protect.