Lawrence took a step back. He flicked wet hair off of his face. He put both hands on his hips. “This is not what I had planned.” He sounded genuinely perplexed.
Ivy opened her mouth to tell raise hell but nothing came out. She screamed at the top of her lungs. She couldn’t even hear her breath.
Lawrence pointed to her. “This is your fault. If you had acted like an adult, we could be having a conversation right now, like adults, instead of you being spelled to a toilet.”
Ivy’s jaw dropped.
“I’m not here to murder you,” Lawrence enunciated. “I’m here to talk.”
Ivy tilted her chin not believing a word.
Lawrence chuckled, “Doesn’t matter if you believe me. It’s still true.” Lawrence glanced around the bathroom. “It probably wasn’t a good idea to pop into the bathroom. I should have waited in the living room.”
While he was distracted, Ivy took the opportunity to get a good look at him.
Ivy hated admitting it but Lawrence was attractive. The sink had turned his soft brown hair nearly black. He had flicked it back, somehow managing to make the look seem intentional. His lean face was taken up by dark brown eyes and full mouth.
He wore a denim button up and black jeans. The dripping outfit and wet hair made him look like he just stepped out of a boy band photoshoot.
He let out a huge breath. “It is what it is. This was the best way to contact you. It’s not like I can knock on your door. At least here we won’t have to worry about the Tates.”
Ivy’s spine straightened at the mention of the brothers. It was unsettling that he knew enough to know they would be hanging around her.
He pointed at Ivy. “I’m going to take the silence spell off of you but you have to promise you won’t scream.”
Ivy rolled her eyes. For a bad guy, he wasn’t even being original.
“Do you promise?”
Ivy nodded.
“Cancèlláménto.”
Lawrence made a series of curving motions with a finger. The feeling slowly returned to her lips. She wiggled them around a bit before opening them wide. “How in the hell did you get past my wards?” Ivy struggled against the spell gluing her to the toilet. She gasped. “That was Italian. Your spell was in Italian. Old Italian.”
A sly smile grew on Lawrence’s face. Suddenly, he wasn’t leaning against the door. He was lounging against it. “Yes, it was.” His eyes slowly took Ivy in from head to foot. “Sounds like you’ve been busy. I knew you were smart.” He lifted one eyebrow. It made him look impish. “Have you been trying to find everything about me and that spell? How many dead ends have you hit? How many questions do you have?” Ivy didn’t answer. He was playing with her. “Did you ever stop to wonder how a unique, Italian artifact ended up in America?”
That question was one of many that constantly circled her thoughts. She still had not figured out how Lawrence had ended up with that spell. There was so little information about the Benandanti. It took immense work to track down the two history books she had. They were the only sources she had managed to find. She refused to believe that he had just stumbled across one of their spells. Frustratingly enough, it was a question none of those books could answer.
“My bathroom is flooding.” Ivy said instead of answering.
Lawrence’s smile widened, loving her obvious redirect. “Don’t worry, I can take care of that for you.” The bastard winked at her. He pointed at the sink. “Fermáre.”
The water stopped spraying out of the broken fixture. An arch of water hung in the air, never landing. Lawrence gave her a mock bow.
A light over the vanity exploded.
He jumped back. “Shit.” He stared at Ivy in surprise. “You have got a temper.”
Ivy didn’t correct him. She glared.
“Don’t worry, I won’t keep secrets. I’ll tell you everything from the beginning.” He settled against the doorframe again. “In Northern Italy there was a small Coven of witches called the Benandanti.” He canted his head towards her bedroom. “Those books aren't written by witches though. They were written by historians. None of those books are accurate.”
Ivy felt her eye twitch. She hated that he had been in her room and had just dismissed all of her research. It made her blood boil that he was repeating the same point she had made to Ben that morning. She knew her sources weren’t perfect. She was a good researcher damnit.
“The Benandanti were unique,” Lawrence went on. “They were immensely powerful despite their small numbers. They also lacked the prejudices most witches carry, even today. They openly partnered with shifters. By the end of their existence, the Coven was made up entirely of witch-shifter hybrids.” Lawrence smiled. “It did not make them popular.”
A village full of half shifter magic users? “No, I would imagine not,” Ivy agreed.
His eyes drooped. He sighed heavily, suddenly sounding exhausted. “They had a lot of enemies but none of them were as tenacious as the Salici Sacri.” Ivy’s stomach clenched at the name. She knew where this was going.
“The Salici Sacri were a Coven of fanatics devoted to preserving the use of pure magic. They considered the Benandanti “defilers” of the goddess’ gifts.” Lawrence looked up. “That was their public rallying cry anyways. In reality, they wanted the Benandanti’s power.
“They started a campaign against them. They brought the Inquisition to their doors. The Salici ransacked Benandanti homes and burned down entire villages trying find their grimoires. They found nothing. They tortured people for spells. None of the spells worked. They were never able to use Benandanti magic.” Lawrence’s eyes flared, his body shaking with anger. “It didn’t stop them from hunting the Benandanti to extinction.”
Ivy kept her features schooled. Lawrence’s story followed her research closely. So closely that Ivy could feel herself starting to soften. Fuck. She couldn’t trust him.
She wanted answers though. Ivy knew of one thing that would help but it meant using magic. She really hated using magic.
Trying to be stealthy, Ivy called a trickle of magic to her eyes and looked at Lawrence’s aura.
A person’s aura expressed their emotions, their intentions. They were a natural byproduct of living. They radiated around someone like a thin layer of colored smoke that could change as quickly as a mood.
They were also impossible to hide. They couldn’t be altered either. Which made them lie detectors, kind of.
Reading auras wasn’t an accurate science. It took practice and guesswork. She was out of practice. Luckily, Ivy didn’t care about reading Lawrence’s mood. She just needed to know if he was telling the truth. It was easier to tell if someone was being deceitful than to interpret emotions.
Ivy blinked away vertigo as her magical sight flickered to life.
Lawrence was engulfed in a haze of crimson. He was furious. Ivy didn’t need magic to know that. Puke green circled his torso, indicating worry. It flickered over his heart occasionally. The combination of crimson and green swirling together made her nauseous.
Ivy zeroed in on a sickly yellow drop hanging over his chest. It pulsed with each heartbeat. At Lawrence’s core, he was scared.
Suddenly, Ivy felt very uneasy. Was he scared of the Salici Sacri? Or was he scared that Ben was going to catch him?
There was nothing else to see. She blinked away the magic. Ivy hadn’t seen anything that indicated that he was being devious or lying. She relaxed slightly, suddenly believing his story a little more.
“What do you mean when you say they were never able to use Benandanti magic?” Lawrence’s head snapped up at her question. He looked at her suspiciously. She kept going. “Are you implying that the Benandanti had different magic than the rest of us?”
Lawrence stared at her, going completely still. Neither of them moved. Ivy felt warmth brush across her arm. She flinched but nothing was there. “Keep your magic to yourself!” She bit out.
“What are you talking about?” Lawrence looked confuse
d. “I wasn’t using magic on you.”
Ivy shook her head. She didn’t believe him. She also did not want to waste more time. “Whatever. What did you mean?”
Lawrence looked like he wanted to press her but he didn’t. “The Salici Sacri don’t understand Benandanti magic. They don’t comprehend that even with a written spell, they still wouldn’t be able to wield Benandanti magic. Only those with Benandanti blood can wield Benandanti magic.”
Ivy had a good feeling that she knew the answer to her question before it left her mouth. She needed confirmation though. “Then why did you think you could use that spell?”
“I lied earlier. The Benandanti aren’t extinct.” Lawrence’s lip lifted showing off canine teeth. Ivy jerked back. They had been human a second ago. His eyes flashed just like Anne’s had. “I am the last one.”
Witch-shifter hybrid.
Ivy forced herself not to flinch. She brought him back to the beginning. “How did an Italian spell, written by a functionally extinct Coven, who never wrote anything down, end up in Grace’s cabin.”
Lawrence dropped his lip and leaned back. “The Benandanti knew what was going to happen to them. Two Coven members managed to escape Italy: Caterina and David Genetti. They ran as fast and as far as they could.” Lawrence pointed to the ground.
“America.” Ivy clarified.
Lawrence shook his head. “Not just America. They came here. To a dense part of the forest, far enough away from civilization to be safe.”
Ivy shook her head. That was the last possible thing she had expected to learn about the Benandanti. “That makes no sense. If this area was settled by witches then why is it so anti-witch?”
When witches made their way to America, they established pro-magic settlements. That’s why the East Coast was populated by magic users. Witches settled there to build lives where they could practice magic freely. The principal had carried on strong.
Lawrence scoffed, “You’re not paranoid enough, my dear.” He bent over until he was inches away from Ivy. “If you were worried about witches, what would be the first thing you would do?”
“Make it illegal for witches to live in my town.” Ivy whispered, her skin flashing hot then cold.
Lawrence stood up. “And instill a zealot’s hatred for all magic users.” He crossed his ankles leaning against the door again. “It was a really smart move. The settlement has broken up into towns since then but the anti-witch sentiments have remained. They’ve worked really well,” Lawrence sounded impressed.
Lawrence was wrong. Ivy was that paranoid. She just hadn’t been able to create a witch free zone. So, she had fled to one. Suddenly, Ivy found herself believing Lawrence.
“What happened to them?”
“What do you think happened?”
Ivy shook her head sadly, “The Salici Sacri.”
He nodded. “Magic can find anyone, eventually. The Salici moved their operations across the ocean. Caterina and David were caught but not before they hid their child amongst a local Pack.”
“How do you know their story?” She asked.
A smirk kicked up one side of his mouth. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small leather-bound book. It was small, barely thicker than the leather binding. Uneven, yellowed pieces of paper struggled to keep bound. There was a string of rope wrapped around the center.
“Last year, this appeared in my bed. I think once they left Italy, Caterina changed the rules. They started keeping a record. This is the personal journal of my ancestor, Caterina Genetti. She started writing it on the boat ride here.” He ran a loving hand over the journal. “There’s not a lot of entries. When she and David realized that the Salici Sacri had followed them, they handed their daughter the spell you destroyed in the woods,” he gave her a pointed look, “and left her with the Cascade Pack. Caterina took the journal with her when they left. She kept writing in it until she died.”
He looked at Ivy. “In her last entries, Caterina spoke a lot about needing to fulfill one last duty. That she needed to ‘hide their secrets’.” He gave her an expectant look. “I think she buried a Benandanti grimoire somewhere in these woods. I think that the spell she gave her daughter was just a page from it. You’re going to help me find it.”
“What?” She shouted. “Why me?” She thrashed against her invisible bonds.
He growled. “I can’t do this alone anymore. I know everyone is looking for me. I’m not going to make myself easier to catch by hanging out in Black Bird. That’s where this damn thing is buried. Besides, I’ve done my own research about you Ivy Stevens. Your parents were well renowned in the East Coast. Who better to help me find an ancient treasure than the daughter of magical historians? You’re the closest thing to an expert I can get right now.”
Her eye twitched. She did not like that Lawrence had been looking into her past. Ivy shook her head. “I’m not helping you. I was in the woods that day. You’re rogues killed people.”
Irritation flashed across his face. “You should be asking yourself why I felt like I needed to compel rogue wolves to act as my protection. The Salici Sacri aren’t a history lesson. They’re still around and they’re as ruthless as ever. They’re looking for this thing too!”
He lifted up his shirt. His torso was covered in black and blue bruises. Along his ribs the marks opened to scabs. There were scorch marks all over.
He looked like he had had the shit kicked out of him. It wasn’t the bruises or scabs that had her eyes narrowing though. The burns all along his body were powdery white, almost like chemical burns.
It had been years since she had seen them but Ivy recognized magical burns when she saw them. He turned slightly so she could see that they continued along his back. Someone had been using offensive magic against Lawrence.
He dropped his shirt. “They know there’s something in Black Bird. They want it and they don’t care about collateral damage. They want whatever is hiding in the woods and this Pack is standing in the way.”
“No comment about the rogues killing people?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I lost control of them. I didn’t take into account just how volatile rogues could be. They are fucking rabid. My compulsion spell broke the second they smelled violence in the air. What a fucking disaster.” His shoulders dropped. “If it’s any consolation I put down the ones who managed to slip away. I’ve been hunting them for weeks.” He smirked, a finger tracing one of the darker bruises. “I let my guard down to rest and the Salici hit me with a nasty spell.”
His smile fell and he aged right before her eyes. He frowned, revealing lines on his forehead. Ivy could feel the despair coming off of him. Ivy kind of felt sorry for him.
“Are the Salici Sacri really out there?” She could barely ask the question.
He nodded.
Ivy sighed heavily. “Lawrence, even if I said yes, I am not in a position to help,” she tried reasoning. “This town hates me. If they knew I was working with you, they would turn on me.”
His eyes flashed when he realized that she was trying to let him down easy. “You’ve read the history books. You know better than anyone else what the Salici Sacri do to people. Shifters won’t be a challenge to them. They’ll decimate Black Bird trying to find this grimoire.”
“I can’t risk it. Please,” She begged.
She knew she had overstayed her welcome in Black Bird. She wasn’t sure who would break first: her or the town. If she started asking questions about grimoires? If she started digging in the woods? It would make her life more of a living hell.
Ivy watched his back expand with each deep breath. Finally, he straightened. When he turned around, Ivy got scared again.
His face was completely devoid of emotions. The muscle along his jaw clenched and quivered. He tilted his chin until he looked down at her. “I wanted you to choose to help. That would have made this a lot easier for me but I have no problem forcing your hand.”
He loomed over her. His eyes darkened to blac
k. Ivy wanted to look away but she couldn’t. The look in his eyes held her captive.
“You’ve been letting your magic reign unchecked in this town.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. “That’s pretty dangerous behavior.”
A lead ball formed in her gut. He had been following her. That’s how he knew about the Tates stalking her. He had been watching her this whole time.
“It started out small,” he went on. “I noticed that people who spit at you would trip or drop their bag once their backs were turned. Then it got bigger. You started damaging things: breaking lights, setting fires, flooding rooms. Now, you’re losing control more frequently. You finally got caught though. Anne was pretty understanding. I wonder if she would still be understanding if she knew just how out of control you are.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Shifters don’t tolerate people who lack control. You’ve seen what kind of damage a rogue wolf can do. We’ve learned that its better sacrifice to one and save many. And we are ready to do that for our Packmates. As a kindness.” He chuckled humorlessly. “What do you think these people will do to a rogue witch? An outsider who could hurt them?”
Hands. Hands grabbed her, pulled, hurt. Ivy swayed. She would have hit the tiled floor if Lawrence’s spell hadn’t been holding her in place.
A dark shape crouched in front of her. Instinctively, she flinched. It didn’t move. Ivy blinked her eyes a few times and finally registered Lawrence.
He rested on the balls of his feet, watching her. His face was still devoid of emotion. “I can see that the severity of the situation has finally dawned on you.”
Ivy struggled to catch her breath. Her chest heaved, black spots growing. “Ben already knows. He doesn’t care.” She hoped that was the truth.
Lawrence didn’t say anything. He pulled out his phone. He flicked through something before turning the screen around.
The video gave a perfect view of Anne’s store. Ivy recognized the scene immediately. It was from yesterday. She was standing behind the register. Anne was next to the box of necklaces. Ivy watched herself slam her hands on the countertop. She knew what was going to happen. Sure enough, light spark under her palms before smoke started to rise.
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