Neophyte

by T. D. McMichael

  * * *

  Ballard could stay here, but I couldn’t. Time seemed to be doing funny things to my head. For some reason, Rayven had been trying to cut out my animal––my therian––as if I had one! Do not let it survive. Otherwise, why had he uttered that particular spell? He had aimed it at me. Why, unless he thought I had a therian. What were the Lares?

  Did I have a therian? No matter what Ballard said, I knew the grey wolf was important.

  With that thought, I would meet it, and if my feet just happened to carry me to Prague, so be it.

  It was a wrench leaving the Gambalunga behind. My personal property would be safe, including my Diary, which I left strapped under the seat, in preparation for a quick getaway. The benandanti wouldn’t like it if they knew I was leaving them––heading to Prague on my own.

  It was just me and my hoodie, gone to find the lake. The snow had melted away and it was raining. A light drizzle pitter-pattered solemnly on the ground.

  If Grigori had magic, then did vampires? Does Lennox? Does he have a Mark like mine? Camille did, I thought.

  Thinking about Rome, I got an uneasy feeling––like we had been gone too long. Now, it was only a matter of finding the grey wolf. Then Prague, and Selwyn if I could.

  I doubled back, fetched my backpack, and quickly scribbled two notes.

  To Asher, Laurinaitis and Manon:

  I came here for a purpose––and until I finish it... I can’t discuss any plans for the future without first seeing Prague for myself––

  Tell Ballard I’m sorry. Please watch over my Gambalunga.

  Halsey

  P.S. Don’t worry. I’m supposed to be meeting someone.

  Next I wrote a letter to Lia. I made sure everything was in order––that I had all my stuff––and then I went––headlong, into the trees––chasing after it.

  * * *

  Part of me knew I was being really stupid. After all, if the grey wolf was after me, so was Rayven, but I didn’t care. I had to figure certain things out for myself, regardless of what happened to me, even if that meant getting myself killed, or, or injured, or something.

  A recklessness had come over me––like there were lots of mes and current-Halsey, what I might call this-me, couldn’t be on her duff for very long.

  BE RECKLESS. Okay––I would be.

  Genevieve was my Godmother. She had my back. But she also had been preparing St. Martley’s for war. Why?

  Combat and fight mechanics.

  That was code for The Atlantic may protect us from European witchcraft and wizardry, but guess what? Oceans can be traversed! And forests! Wizards and witches can fly!

  The Stromovka was a stopgap, a band-aid, nothing more. Things were being drawn to the oldest of magic cities––including me. My boots were already caked in mud before I hit upon the path which led to the lake.

  I figured I’d start there. See if I could catch sight of the grey wolf. Maybe it was trying to get me on my own. There was nobody else around. Come on, come out.

  My pack felt light. I only had my personal effects. The letter to Lia would be dispatched once I got to Prague. I didn’t even have Ballard’s map with me. I knew Prague was yonder. Perhaps the area around Prague was like a siphon. It could sift lost souls.

  What if you were marked for something? I told myself. Something no one else could do. But you had to change who you were, to do it? Could you go through with it? Or would the transformation be even more than you could bear? If it changed you enough, would you cease to be you?

  I was thinking about the Super Bitch, this so-called lupa mannara, my quintessence. This animism, like a solar eclipse, or the ring of fire. When the sun was occulted by the moon, it created this fringe, the ring of fire, which blotted the other out, like the ring on my finger, except inflamed. Harm None.

  I stepped into the clearing and Lennox was standing there.

  “What kept you?” he said.

  The “Leh” part of the sentence got stuck on the way out. Was this what my Power of Sight was? Things being taken for granted and just happening?

  I was sure he wasn’t an hallucination.

  Stepping closer into the clearing, he echoed my footsteps.

  “I haven’t seen you in six months,” I said. “And you think you can just stand there, looking all cool like that?”

  “Pretty much. Yeah,” said Lennox.

  He ran his hands through his hair, the act a kind of nonchalance.

  “Besides, you need my help,” he said.

  I pushed past him.

  “I’m going to Prague. You know, that place filled with vampire hunters? I can only assume your parents meant the Grigori,” I said, referring to Dallace and Camille.

  He tried lifting branches out of my way––viburnums and so forth.

  “We need to talk,” he said. He wasn’t trying to stop me.

  His violet-colored eyes looked like flames in a lamp.

  “And the Understatement Award goes to.”

  “I’m serious,” he said.

  “So am I.”

  Privately, I thought: I’m a Neophyte now. Out of my way, buster.

  “Stop doing that,” I said.

  “I was just trying to help,” he said. He let the clump of witchhazel go, and it slapped me in the face.

  The words intrigued me. “It’s a deal,” I said. “You help me in Prague. Then we’ll talk.”

  “Deal,” he said.

  I held out my hand for him to shake. The contact caused an electrical reaction, such as a storm within my brain. No fair, I thought. He put his hood up and I followed suit.

  The sun was setting by the time we stepped from the trees. Finally, after what felt like months, I was free of Stromovka. The Vltava was glittering with the lights of the city. Prague was in the distance. The Districts of Magic. I had made it.

  Chapter 11 – Voettfangs

  Lennox lost no time in warning me against the places we were headed. He didn’t seem to need to be filled in, either, which meant either he didn’t care or he already knew what our mission was; in which case had he been stalking me? I knew that was in his nature, but still––

  “Beware eye contact––and guard your mind. We need a procurer––I know the perfect place,” he said––all paranoid and shizz.

  I wanted to see all the magic spilling from the streets.

  Lennox, however, warned me against such overt interest in the goings-on within the Districts of Magic.

  “Wait until we get there,” he said. “You’ll see.”

  We were crossing the Charles Bridge, to a place called Golden Lane, where Cubist houses twisted in the night sky. The Velvet Revolution had changed Prague. Now Art Nouveau blended with more modern styles.

  Everywhere were shops and cafés. Gargoyles and gutter spouts, bell towers cupped with bronze tops, Gothic rib vaulting, scraffito; not to mention the foraging monks and the Sisters from other convents––I almost wrote covenants. When they crossed paths with Lennox and I, they crossed themselves. It made me feel unnatural.

  “Just wait,” Lennox kept saying. “Just wait.”

  He tried to engage me in conversation, but I said, “Later. Just wait. And stop cheating.”

  He did apologize for missing my birthday. I noticed him look through the shop windows. Lennox strolled, as if he didn’t have a care in the world; I was more hunched. There were a lot of people around, shopping and so forth. I kept expecting someone to jump out, or I dunno, attack me or something, forgetting I had a vampire with me: he could move ultra-fast, and rip, tear, gnash, and who knew what else? One of the things I needed to ask him about was the Agonies. Then I remembered our deal, and thought, crap. No talking.

  I was over the whole angry-with-him thing––but he wasn’t to know about that. For all he knew I had given up on him completely. I was seeing someone else––that’s it––I had a new boyfriend––Ballard.

  Old Town. Surely the entrance to the Districts was here somewhere.

  Go
lden Lane was awash with brightly-colored houses––all kinds of shops–– Book dealers had their wares stacked neatly outside.

  I made a list of everything I would need––thinking about the fortune that had been left to me. Books, alembics, chalices, athames, crystals, candles, fiery wands–– There was a whole world of Wicca to tap in to!

  A world of cauldrons and broomsticks––familiars and unfamiliars: swords and potions and so-forths.

  I realized that that was what the soul spirits were––the things that were in Ballard and me, and within Lia and Gaven, and all the Romuluses and Remuses––not to mention the benandanti––witches and wizards traditionally kept dogs and cats as familiars. What if they were born with them? Had I had this little soul parasite in me forever? What was it?

  Asher had once told me that true Eclectics––those disparaged wanderers without any House––were often the result of wizards or witches who’d mated with shape shifters in an effort to produce Wizard Shifters, what I was trying to become.

  Had either my mother or father been an Eclectic? And was that why Rayven had been sent? To squash out my animal?

  Dark-eyed beautiful men and women passed me in the street. “Hold on,” said Lennox. He went up to a newspaper vendor and took out what looked like several silver coins. “Just as I thought. Attacks have been happening two-a-day in Letná Park,” he said, reading the newspaper. He pointed. “You see it, over there?”

  I looked. A plateau of trees high above the city, looked down on us. “Joggers, people out walking their dogs....” said Lennox. “When you get back home, take out a subscription to several of the dailies; I do.”

  “Have attacks been happening a lot lately?” I asked, thinking about Rayven, and if whether or not Lennox was up to speed. Of course he was! The benandanti watched and waited, but so did vampires––that was almost their only job description! Watching... seeing everything around you die...

  “You have to read between the lines to see the supernatural at work,” said Lennox. “...but yes, Halsey! Come on.”

  We started heading into the darker parts, when he warned me, “It is imperative you do what I say––no don’t argue! You’ll see.”

  I took his word for it.

  Just then––a shout––someone screamed! Three kids my age came running past. They had blue eyes, like headlamps in old automobiles, literally glowing in the dark. Lennox pressed me to the wall. “Aetherheads,” he whispered to me, nuzzling my jaw. We disappeared into the shadows.

  From under his arm, I saw an enraged witch pull back her sleeve and shout: freki, ulfr, valdyr!

  Three gigantic wolfhounds erupted from her fingertips; they were like smoke.

  “Menskr málaferi; I’m getting too old for this,” she said, before disappearing down the lane after them.

  “What language is that?” I asked. “I’ve heard it before.”

  “It’s Grigori. Come on,” said Lennox. “We’re nearly there.”

  I followed him down the alleyway, listening as the witch chased after the aetherheads. Apparently, they’d stolen her purse. Several bangs issued from the direction they’d come, a cobblestone path which seemed to twist out of sight––not a place sane people would go, I thought.

  It was a reaffirmation of the knowledge that magic could be invoked in a variety of languages; I wished to learn them all.

  “And––can––you know––vampires do magic?” I asked.

  Lennox laughed; it was like old times. “I thought we weren’t talking anymore,” he said.

  “We’re not––but if we were––” I said. “Can they?”

  “Vampires are powerful creatures; we rely more on instincts, but yes, we have magic––a little.”

  “Cool.”

  It seemed obvious. After all, they could live forever. My perceptions of magic were changing. Now I was a Wiccan, and I knew what that meant. Not a vampire. Or a werewolf.

  It was halfway to the question I really wanted to have answered––that of Marek and the Watchtowers and the fact of his having been one. Surely, Lennox knew about Marek and his past? He was Lennox’s mentor, after all.

  “It was you in the woods,” I said. “The other scent Laurinaitis spoke of!” My time in the Stromovka seemed like a distant memory.

  “If I could’ve come sooner, I would have. But they make that difficult,” said Lennox.

  “And the aetherheads?” I asked.

  The alley we were in was lit by moonlight. Obviously, if the aetherheads had come from it, we must be close to the Districts of Magic. Where were they?

  Lennox paused.

  “Power can be bottled and sold, the same as any drug,” he said. “Their eyes were glowing because they’ve lost their souls. Aetherheads are worse than zombies! Addicted to the aether, they’ll do anything to acquire it. We’re here...”

  I had been so busy talking, I hadn’t noticed how twisted up we’d become. And Mistress Veruschka wanted me to come live here?! There was no way! A wrought-iron gate stood before us, I was sure hadn’t been there a moment before. Instead of the Golden Portal, which led in to Prague, or Golden Lane, down which we’d come, I was standing at a Gate––the Gate, in point of fact. Because the moment my eyes adjusted, I saw a new, secret lane––the entrance to the Other Prague, as I had called it in my imagination––The Districts of Magic. I wondered how the witches and wizards had managed it.

  If magic had split, I imagined the explosion to have leveled Prague. Only, it had happened in secret. As had the First War. No one knew about it! It wasn’t in any history book I’d ever read! Was there an alternate magical history that I would have to become attuned to?

  The non-magic world disappeared on the spot. So did the safety blanket of my old world, the place I had come from, and back to which I could never go; not after seeing all this! It was unlike any place I’d ever been. All-magic.... I saw what that meant, suddenly!

  “We don’t have any of this in Rome,” I said to Lennox. Then, I thought: Do we?

  As for St. Martley’s, Mistress Genevieve would’ve whisked us out of a place like this so fast our heads would’ve spun! There was an endless variety of shops and cafés; if anybody but a witch or wizard saw them, they would need to be silenced, the shops were so obviously magical.

  Only a witch or wizard could see them, I recognized. That must be it. But what about a vampire? How did Lennox know of the Districts of Magic? And was there more than one? And if I was just seeing this now––what else had I missed?

  I still couldn’t believe that Lennox could craft.

  I grabbed his arm and took him over to a café. They all had names like At the Sign of This, or At the Sign of That; such a linguistic setup was commonplace in Prague. We were At the Sign of the Double-Edged Sword.

  I kid. It was The Spyglass Café. My pockets were empty. I had no cash. Lennox removed more silver coins, pressing them into the hands of the waiter and ordered two rauoskeggjaor, cinnamon-topped latte macchiatos, then he turned, and smoldered at me. “These are skillingr,” he said, indicating the tiny silver coins. “I knew we would be in Prague. I saw it; as I’m sure did you.”

  He passed me a tiny coin and I looked at it. It was stamped with the Golden Dome. So much had gone unsaid, I really didn’t know where to begin. Not saying was worse than not knowing. Perhaps Lennox had his reasons for never informing me of things.

  “The vendor. Was he a wizard?” I asked.

  Lennox had given the newspaperman magic money––the skillingr.

  “Skillingr, to non-magicals, becomes regular money,” said Lennox. “He saw what he wanted to see.”

  Maybe I saw what I wanted to too––had I ever thought of that? But it was weird to think the money could look like euro, if need be. I would need to get my hands on more skillingr, if I was going to go shopping, I told Lennox––because, let me tell you, I said to him, my eyes beheld.

  Primarily I wanted a dictionary of spells––if such a volume existed––and in all languages!
Books were the order of the day. Where were the books?

  “That’ll have to wait,” said Lennox. “Now tell me about Selwyn.”

  So he did know....

  Our drinks had come. “Thank you, gildisbrodir; enjoy!”

  Mine hissed with some unknown magic. Lennox thanked the waiter, who departed.

  For all the neon lights and come-hitheryness of the Districts of Magic, cracks in the wonderland were beginning to appear. Don’t look at the lights, I told myself. I didn’t want to be dissuaded from what I had to do. I needed to stay focused. Lennox was right. Still––it couldn’t hurt to at least peek, could it...? Where was the Master House?

  “Well––when you were gone––I met him––and that’s another thing, Lennox––my parents left me a House––” I said. “––Selwyn told me––”

  He put down his drink. His hood was so low I saw only his eyes glowing out of the darkness. I couldn’t be sure but it looked like something like victory passed his eyes. He obviously knew the power a Wiccan House entailed.

  “And when we get back––I’m going to go looking for it!” I proclaimed.

  House Rookmaaker. I smiled fiendishly.

  My eyes probed for the Master House––and then to Lennox’s sleeve.

  “Hopefully, we can take care of that as well,” said Lennox.

  He asked for all the rest of the pertinent information, which I gave to him: the marker; Selwyn; Veruschka Ravenseal (“So why she thinks she can win me,” I said).

  “The place we’re going to is called Massimo’s,” said Lennox. “But first, I think we should do some shopping!”

  It was the magic word. We spent two hours going through the stores. Lennox wasn’t kidding, when he said Praguers stayed up late. It seemed to get noisier the later it got. As everyone came out, I saw nothing of vampire hunters or any of that kind of stuff. Rather, the magical inhabitants of the city were stocking up on things like amulets and lunoculars and horoscopes. Lennox bought me a silver necklace made of apatite––blue asparagus-stone.

  The lady who sold it, kept going on and on about its metaphysical properties. “It aids in communication, sir, ’tis a most spiritual stone, and may be used as an elixir against weight gain, thus its position on the Mohs scale. ’Tis also known as the Stone of Acceptance. Will you receive it?