by Jayne Faith
“You think Jacob is going to have them birthed—or whatever—in Salem, Mass, and then stick ‘em on one of his private jets and fly ‘em out here? First class, complete with blankies, champagne, and those little hot towels to wipe their faces when they land?” I said it to be funny, but Damien wasn’t laughing.
“I don’t know,” he said thoughtfully. “But now I realize I need to widen my area of consideration.”
We talked through a few possibilities, stretching lunch into the early afternoon. I’d been in a hurry to get to Lynnette and figure out what to do next but found that the extended break was actually welcome. By the time Damien dropped me at home, it was three in the afternoon.
I shut the door behind me and nearly jumped out of my skin when I looked up and found Deb scrunched in a corner of the sofa with her legs pulled up against her chest and her face tear-streaked.
Chapter 23
“WHAT HAPPENED? IS the baby okay?” I dropped my keys and went to sit next to her.
She looked at me with round, red-rimmed eyes. “Yeah, the baby is fine. I think—I think I just left Keith.”
Her face crumpled as her tears started anew. I folded her into my arms until her sobs subsided to sniffles.
I went to the bathroom to grab a wad of toilet paper and brought it to her. “How did you get here? I didn’t see your car out front.”
“He sold it.”
“What?”
Loki, who’d been lying on the floor near Deb, jumped at my raised voice and then stood and slunk into the bedroom.
“Jennifer and I were meeting up after I was finished with school anyway, so she came and got me and brought me here,” she said. She pulled her lips in between her teeth and bit down and then shook her head. “It was just the last straw, I guess. It wasn’t a fancy car or anything, but . . .”
“It was Deep Blue, the car you’ve had since high school. He had no right to do that.” I blew out a breath through my clenched teeth, surprised at how angry it made me that Keith had gotten rid of Deb’s old Honda. After all, this certainly wasn’t the worst of his offenses.
I shifted to face her fully. “Is it for real this time? You’re not going back?”
She set her chin, and her face hardened. “I’m not going back.”
I hugged her again, my mind starting to spin. Deb was due in, what, six months? We’d have to get a bigger place. We’d need to buy infant things—a crib and bottles and stuff. And what would she do after the baby came? Daycare was crazy expensive, I’d heard. Oh shit, and then there were the divorce fees. Would Keith even have to pay any child support if he didn’t have a steady job?
I reined in my thoughts before they could continue racing off in a hundred different directions. None of those details mattered.
I gently pulled her up by the wrist. “Come in the kitchen. I’m making you tea.”
I sat her down at the little table and went about putting water on and finding a couple of mugs and my little-used canister of assorted tea bags.
“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Ella,” she said earnestly. “You and the coven are my world, my family.”
I paused with my hand on the stove’s knob. Luckily I was facing away from her so she couldn’t see the perturbed look on my face.
Sh-i-i-i-t.
She’d never want to leave the coven, not now that she was on her own. And who would be a giant asshole for trying to talk her into it? I know you desperately want to belong and feel a sense of family, but Deb, I need you to ditch all your new besties pronto.
I masked a groan in a quiet exhalation.
“You know we’re all here for you,” I said and then joined her at the table when I was sure I could keep my expression neutral.
We talked for a bit over tea, and then Deb took a short nap.
By the time she woke up and we’d grabbed a quick bite for dinner, we had to head to Lynnette’s for mandatory coven practice.
As the women were gathering, I pulled Lynnette aside and told her what Supernatural Crimes had decided.
Her eyes narrowed, and her nostrils flared.
“Screw that,” she hissed. “We’ll just have to make sure they can’t force us apart. I’ll come up with something.”
“You think we should still be ready to use collective magic?”
“Absolutely. In fact, I hope the creatures come after us so we get to demonstrate what we can do. I’d love to show those SC bastards how wrong they were to try to shut us down.”
With Lynnette’s declaration, I was actually amped up to learn how to perform group magic. But it didn’t take long for my enthusiasm to deflate like a month-old birthday balloon.
Apparently being a weak Level I on the Magical Aptitude Scale made me a poor fit for collective magic activities. I was like a baby elephant trying to hang with a herd of mature gazelles, in terms of skill level. And I tired much more quickly than everyone else.
But the real problem was that my aptitude was literally limiting how much magic the rest of the women could feed into the collective powers. We each sent a stream of magic to Lynnette, who was the focus for the circle. The thing was, each woman could only feed in the amount that the least powerful crafter—me, in this case—was able to contribute. It was a serious liability.
During a break, when everyone was milling around in the kitchen, I pulled Deb over by the sleek retro-modern coffee maker.
“I’m obviously holding everyone back,” I said. “This isn’t the only way I’m a crappy fit for this group, but I don’t think we can deny that my lack of skill and ability is potentially putting everyone in danger.”
I eyed the other women, trying to gauge whether any of them might be thinking the same thing. No one seemed openly concerned at this point, but I thought I caught a few less-than-thrilled glances coming my way. The fact was that we didn’t have much time to get it right.
“I trust Lynnette on this,” Deb said firmly. “If she thinks this group works, then we’ll be fine. You’ll get the hang of it.”
“I appreciate your confidence, but does she have experience with collective magic? Does she even know enough to recognize that a replacement is needed?”
“She was in a coven before she decided to get her own charter. She’s got more experience than anyone here.”
“If you say so.”
I eyed the locket around Lynnette’s neck. It still gave me the creeps, knowing that a little blob of my magic was sealed up inside.
Lynnette called us all back into her great room in the basement—a space that was probably meant to have sofas, a big screen TV, and maybe a pool table, but that she’d left mostly empty so that it could accommodate a spacious magic circle. The circle was offset into one corner, and Deb had explained to me that it was positioned so that no pipes passed through the part of the magic sphere that formed below the floor. If certain drains interrupted the sphere—major tree roots, sewer pipes, and the like—they’d effectively break the circle. That meant the center part of the sphere that extended overhead and into the ceiling also had to be in a spot that was uninterrupted.
The space felt too cave-like, with heavy, dark curtains over the high half-windows and a painted concrete floor. Add to that the chill of magic fatigue and the throbbing in my temples from a couple of hours of focused crafting, and it was starting to feel like I’d never see the light of day again. Maybe if I were a practicing witch I would have felt more connected to the space, but I couldn’t wait to escape.
We started to arrange ourselves inside the circle the way Lynnette had set us up—with us around the inside perimeter and her at the center—when she held up a hand.
“Let’s try something different,” she said. “I want to see what happens with Ella and myself acting as the focus.”
One of the witches, a dark-complected curvy woman named Elena who was a hairdresser by day, pushed one hip out and planted her hand on it. “Wait a sec. How do we direct our magic into a double focus?”
“Use Ella as you
r target, and it’ll pass through her to me,” Lynnette said.
I half-raised my hand. “Whoa, I’m all for trying something new, but I have no idea how to be a focus.”
The premise of collective magic was that the witches in a circle added their streams of magic one-by-one to a central witch—the focus—who then added her own power plus directed the magic of all the others. I’d assumed it required a large capacity for magic, which I didn’t have, plus a lot of skill to handle that much power, also something I was lacking.
“Actually, I think you do know how to be a focus,” Lynnette said.
She gave me a pointed look, and it dawned on me that she was talking about my reaper. I quickly covered the few steps between us, trying to ignore the confused and curious stares of the women surrounding us.
“That’s not the same thing,” I whispered as low as I could, trying to prevent the others from overhearing. “The—you know—is within me and works symbiotically with me. It’s not channeling magic into me from outside. And how do you know they’re not going to fry me with their magic, considering my low aptitude?”
“I think your low aptitude will make it easier for you—all you have to do is let it flow through you and into me. Don’t try to hang on. If you do, that’s where the harm could come in. Don’t worry, I’ll have them start small.”
She patted my arm, and part of me wanted to slap her hand away. But everyone was watching.
I drew myself up, stepped back a few paces, and then squared off with Lynnette. “Okay, let’s do this.”
A tiny smile played across her lips as she shifted her attention to the group.
“Let’s start with small threads of earth magic,” she said. Then she locked eyes with me. “Take a deep breath and do what you normally do to most easily grasp your magic, but stop short of actually touching any elemental power.”
I nodded, already focusing. A couple of slow breaths, and I sent my awareness down through my feet until I felt the anticipatory tingle of touching earth magic. But I held back, sensing it, but not reaching for it.
Around me, I felt the brush of magic like an electric breeze across my bare skin as the women drew their power.
When the first stream of earth magic hit me, pooling in my feet and then spreading through my body, I jolted as if a clap of thunder had startled me. It filled me with a sensation that was at once foreign and familiar. I recognized it as earth energy, but it carried the feel of the woman who drew it—something subtle but unmistakable, like the signature scent of a person’s house.
Two more women added their streams of magic, and my head began to buzz. After a fourth thread of earth magic, I felt like my insides were swelling too big for my skin.
“Let it out,” Lynnette said. “Exhale and direct it at me.”
I did as she said, blowing out slowly and raising my dominant hand. I intended to send the magic outward at the triangular magic hologram she’d formed in the air as a target, but a fifth woman joined in and I couldn’t hold it. A flash of green throbbed down my arm, off the tip of my index finger, and smacked against the concrete floor just in front of Lynnette’s Doc Martens. The sound was like two large rocks smacking together, and a few bits of concrete flew up.
My hand flew up to cover my mouth. “Oh damn, your floor.”
“No worries,” she said. “You almost had it. Let’s try again.”
We repeated the exercise, but this time I accidentally let the magic leak down through my feet and back into the earth, grounding it instead of conducting it.
On the third try, I managed to direct a stream from myself to Lynnette, but only for a second before I lost my focus and sent it spraying wide. The women behind Lynnette ducked, but one of them wasn’t fast enough and got clubbed in the forehead with a blob of green energy. She looked a little dazed when she stood but wasn’t upset.
I, however, was completely freaked out. What if it had been a bigger blast of earth energy? What if it had been fire magic?
I drew a ragged breath. “Mind if we take ten?” I asked.
“Not at all,” Lynnette said with a surprisingly patient look.
I waited until the women were milling around and talking in small groups before I started speaking.
“This is dangerous, Lynnette. I know you have your reasons for wanting me here and keeping me in your coven, but I could seriously hurt some of them. What in the world could be worth that? You need someone who’s experienced. Someone who’s meant to be here.”
She regarded me for a moment, her kohl-lined eyes unblinking. “This is part of being in a coven, Ella. Sometimes we hurt each other, be it with careless words or misfired magic. That’s what happens when you’re close to people. It’s okay. We all know this. We’ve all accepted the risk because we also know the rewards. All you have to do is accept them, too.”
I pressed my lips into a hard line, looking straight back at her. But for a second I couldn’t breathe through the tightness in my chest. The thing was, I still didn’t want this coven. I didn’t want to be here.
But I realized the others were depending on me. And yes, even knowing that I might weaken the group in some ways or even injure them, they accepted me. Lynnette wasn’t going to let me out of the agreement. And even if she changed her mind at some point, I was in it until after the new moon.
They were giving me their trust. In return, I had to give them my best. And I had to be okay with the knowledge that I was going to fail over and over and possibly even hurt some of them in the process.
I didn’t like it. I hated it, actually. I despised feeling so vulnerable, so intertwined with a dozen other people.
But I was going to do my damnedest to embrace it.
“Collective magic requires thirteen of us. I believe with the double focus configuration and some intense drilling together, nothing will be able to beat us,” she said. “Remember, let it all flow through you. It’s a river of energy, and you need do nothing more than let it flow from them, through you, to me. When you can do that easily, you’ll add your own magic to the river.”
The next couple of tries went a little better, but by then I was so drained I couldn’t do much more. By the time Deb and I trudged out to my truck, I was shivering and dragging ass. I started the truck but didn’t pull away.
“You need healing before you go to bed tonight,” she said. She pulled out her phone and began to scroll through her contacts. “I’d do it or get one of the others to do it, but we’re all a little tired right now. I’m sure I can find someone outside the coven who’s still up.”
I placed a hand on her phone, stopping her. “I have to tell you something.”
I repeated what had happened after my last healing and didn’t leave anything out. I told her how the reaper had looked upon the clinic healer’s soul like it was a free steak and lobster dinner, how I’d scooted out of the clinic to keep from trying to reap a live woman’s soul.
“I know I need healing, but last time it fueled the reaper’s hunger so strongly I could barely contain it,” I said. “If healing amps the reaper’s strength, then I have to be ready for that. I might be able to hold it off for a while, but it’s only through sheer willpower. It’s gaining strength. Eventually, the reaper will demand to do its work.”
She frowned with concern, but at least she didn’t look horrified. The entire thing still turned my stomach.
“It might not be the same this time,” she said. “Before, it was after you’d battled the Baelman, which nearly killed you. Plus, if you didn’t tell the healer about your reaper soul, she may have read it as something that needed healing. Maybe she inadvertently stoked it with power. Yet another argument for letting me find you a referral instead of walking into any old Supernatural Urgent Care clinic.”
She gave me a pointed, sidelong look.
I squirmed like I’d been caught stealing a ten from my mom’s wallet. “Yeah, you might have a point there.”
“In any case, you only need a small fraction of the healing
you needed after the Baelman. That combined with the right healer who has a better understanding of your circumstances might make the whole thing go a lot smoother.”
I dialed up the heater, shifted the truck into gear, and pulled away from the curb.
“I don’t know, Deb. That’s a whole lot of ifs, mights, and maybes.”
“You only need a bit of restoration tonight,” she said. “Let me do it.”
I started to protest, but she held up her hand.
“I’ll do the bare minimum you need, and we’ll see how that goes,” she said. “I can do another session in the morning.”
“But what about you?” I asked.
“I’ll be fine. Tonight’s crafting didn’t really tax me. I could do it all over again and still not require healing.”
Deb performed about twenty minutes of healing on me, and the entire time I was braced for the soul-hunger to flood in. But when she finished, I only felt an echo of the voracious need I’d felt after my clinic healing. I lay awake for a while on the foldout bed in the living room, allowing Deb some peace in my bedroom, waiting for the feeling to grow. It never did, and exhaustion eventually claimed me.
The rude jangle of my phone awoke me sooner than I would have liked.
“Damien?” I answered, my voice scratchy.
“It’s out in the desert.” His voice was hoarse but excited.
I sat up, glancing at the closed bedroom door. “What’s out in the desert?”
“The place where the Baelmen will emerge on Samhain,” he said impatiently, as if I should have known what he was talking about. “Put your phone on speaker and look at the link I just sent to you.”
I did as he instructed, tapping the link that popped up and expanding the picture.
“It’s a satellite image,” he said. “Gregori owns a chunk of that land. And it has some history. Natives used it for death-spirit ceremonies. It used to be tribe owned, but due to the bad magic associated with the area, they were more than happy to sell it off. There’s some pretty fricking creepy lore about this area, too.”