“Not bad, huh?” I asked, offering him a bottle. His appetite had vastly improved in the last 24 hours, and he snorted as he gobbled it down. Once finished, he fell asleep and I laid him on the blanket beside me. I probably should have left him at home, but I wasn’t letting him out of my sight now, even for an hour.
I closed my eyes and twisted myself into a pretzel position, setting my hands on top of my knees. Breathing in through my nose, exhaling through my mouth. Except for an occasional birdsong and Montana’s congested snore, the world melted away.
Fully relaxed, I drew up the image of a crystalline bubble forming around us, pulling from the energy of the glade. The bubble wobbled at first, fidgeting as though it might pop.
“Steady,” I said, solidifying its shell with my mind. It thickened and hardened. Nothing terrible could get to us inside of our protective sphere.
A chartreuse butterfly appeared in a window, dancing as if carried by the wind. But the air was still and the dance was just for me.
I held out my finger and it fluttered inside, but refused to cross the threshold were shadow met light.
In my frustration the bubble trembled, threatening to break. “Come to me,” I said out loud.
It didn’t.
“Come here!” I commanded.
This time its wings slowed, as if in silent consideration. I focused my will on the creature, but it flew away and I did not see it again.
“Ah, hell.”
“You’re so much like your father.” A woman’s lyrical voice called to me from outside. “But you still shouldn’t curse around a baby.” In a haze of yellow light, Larinda’s statuesque body materialized in the doorway.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, placing a protective arm over my son as I refreshed the walls of my weakening bubble.
“I’ve come to congratulate the new mother!” Her thin red lips curled into a contemptuous smile. She inspected my shield and laughed. “Perhaps I should have brought a pin.”
“I’m sure you have a whole collection of voodoo dolls you can steal from,” I said, losing the peace I’d cultivated. The ground began quaking, as did the walls.
Larinda shook her head and smoothed her black gown. “Jillian worked so hard on this little building. It would be a shame if you destroyed it. Wilder. But then again, this is not the first thing of Jillian’s you destroyed.”
I stood, ready to unleash on her. “Get out!”
The walls rumbled. Dust fell from what remained of the wooden ceiling. Montana stirred on the ground.
“I’ll kill you, if I have to,” I hissed, advancing a step.
A raven landed on a windowsill behind me, daring me with its beady eyes to step away from my son. I looked between the bird and Larinda, hesitating.
“Kill me?” Larinda’s hand went to her chest and she laughed as if it were the funniest thing she’d ever heard. “You’re too late for that, dear one, but it is fun to see you all worked up.”
She pointed at a crumbling slat of wood above us, rattling it loose. It fell. I quickly harnessed the energy of the room, redirecting the board. It launched towards Larinda, forcing her to sidestep out of the doorway. It sailed into the grass.
“The next one won’t miss,” I promised.
“Care to make a wager on that? I’ve had the most amazing luck with bets lately.”
I lunged at her, breaking my bubble. She stepped back, trying to draw me outside.
I could take her. I had my father’s Death Touch. I could send her to the Netherworld forever.
I eyed the raven, who flapped its wings in anticipation. I wasn’t leaving my son.
Larinda backed into the glade near the edge of the woods, her black dress becoming an aqueous blood red.
“You’re not that different from your father,” she called to me. “Remember your lineage. You know you can’t train that baby, wilder. It would be in his best interest to let me teach him proper. Then, I’ll leave you and your family alone forever. Witch’s Honor!”
Anger seized me.
“You’re a fool, Larinda,” I called back. “You let Armand use you, even while he loved other women.”
A rock uprooted from the ground and hurtled in her direction. It missed, disappearing into the trees, but another followed. Soon, the air whistled with flying stones.
Larinda held her arms up defensively, though she held her ground. The raven flew past me, landing on her shoulder. The witch snapped her fingers and instantly dissolved.
“I’ll be back,” she promised, a song on the wind.
I stood in the doorway, shaking. After collecting my wits and taking a few deep breaths, I returned to my sleeping son.
The ruins relaxed, as if exhaling also.
“Wake up sleepy head,” I said, kissing Montana on the cheek. He stirred and I picked him up, holding him to my chest.
She didn’t scare me. Not in the light, with my eyes open.
But how had she gotten in?
Perhaps the domes over Dark Root fractured when my aunt and Jillian lost their magick? If that was true, Larinda might get into the town, as well.
But neither she nor the curse would stop me from protecting my son. Only death could stop me.
I tightened my fists as a thought tickled my brain.
Larinda hadn’t seemed frightened of me, even when the building shook and the rocks assaulted her. In fact, she appeared to goad me on.
Montana cooed, content in my arms. As quickly as my anger had manifested, it now faded away.
Suddenly it all clicked.
I was a wilder––my abilities were powered by my temper.
But there was a stronger force in the universe, a force I’d yet to learn how to harness.
And that force was love.
NINETEEN
You Lost That Loving Feeling
Dark Root
October, 1978
Sister House
ARMAND STOMPED ACROSS the foyer, running his fingers through his dull auburn hair. A few strays clung to his fingers and he wiped them onto his jeans, then checked his watch. The damned party was about to start. So, where the hell was Sasha?
He surveyed the staircase, following the line of portraits of faces he had never seen––men and women who had called Dark Root their home over the decades. The nostalgia unnerved him. Would he simply be a face on Sasha’s wall one day, too?
The grandfather clock struck five and Armand jumped.
“Ah, hell!” he said to the clock, then straightened his shirt cuffs. After years of living in Sister House he still hadn’t gotten used to that damned thing. Ghosts? Yes. Incantations under a full moon? Yes. But the god-awful chime of that grandfather clock? The contraption sounded like it was clearing its throat rather than announcing the time.
“Sasha! Get the hell down here or I’m walking!” he shouted up the stairwell. “And I don’t mean walking to that circus disguised as a birthday party you’re throwing for me. I mean, I will go for a nice long walk from which I might not return.”
Sasha Benbridge Shantay stepped carefully down the stairs, placing one foot delicately in front of the other to avoid tripping over the train of her purple velvet gown. As her last foot hit the landing, she opened a colorful paper fan with a snap of her wrist, sniffed the air with her upturned nose, and arched her back as if she were posing for a Vaudevillian poster.
Armand snickered and Sasha straightened, giving him a stern glare. “You used to find me sexy,” she said, drawing closer. “And charming. You used to wait patiently for my entrance.”
He stepped back, waving the scent of her coffee breath away with his hand. “You used to be twenty pounds lighter and ten years younger.” He looked at his watch again. “And mostly on time.”
Sasha pointed a finger in his face. He considered pushing it away, but instead held his ground, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of knowing she got to him.
“Just because you’re going through a mid-life crisis, don’t take it out on me. You’
re in your mid-thirties now. Deal with it.” She lowered her finger and inspected his ensemble. “Are you really going to wear those worn out boots and that stupid hat? They’re as old and dirty as you are.”
“One fossil would know another,” Armand countered, expressionless.
Who was she to question his clothes, like some child going off to school? He didn’t want to go to this damned party in the first place, and he certainly wasn’t going to be lectured on his attire while attending it.
He clenched his fists into two hard balls and dug them into his thighs to keep from losing his cool. But his anger was larger than he was, and a thick limb from a nearby oak crashed through the front window. The pane shattered into a thousand shards of treacherous glass.
Sasha didn’t blink.
Instead, she casually observed the extent of the damage as if checking off items on a grocery list. “Impressive,” she remarked, her voice flat and clearly unimpressed. “But don’t do it again.”
“Stop telling me what to do, woman!”
Sasha threw herself into the high-backed, Victorian chair near the broken window, raising her arm dramatically to her forehead. “What is wrong with you, Armand? You’re so temperamental and unpredictable. Why aren’t you happy anymore?”
“Who could be happy in the Munster House?” When she responded with a blank look, he amended, “Oh, that’s right. You don’t have a fucking TV in this asylum, do you? You have no idea who The Munster’s are. You have no idea what goes on in the world outside of your precious little Dark Root.”
Sasha quickly reeled in the train of her gown. When she spoke her voice was cool. “You’re edgy. That happens when a man has a birthday.” She licked her glossed lips. “Let me brew you some tea. Dora concocted a batch that will make you feel like you’ve drunk an entire bottle of champagne, without the hangover.”
The veins in Armand’s neck tightened. He clenched and unclenched his jaw. “I don’t want any tea! Tea isn’t going to fix this. I’m bored out of my damned mind playing séance with you every night, planning festivals and putting domes in the sky that we’re not even sure will work. You haven’t trained me in over a year. I’m nothing more than a lap dog to you. Arm candy.”
“Armand candy,” she laughed, putting on her spectacles and silently studying him. She gained at least ten more years with the glasses on her face. “If I wanted a cranky male in the house, I’d have gotten a tom cat instead.”
“Well, at least I saved a cat from this hell.”
He paced the room as she watched, his anger growing with each lap. Why did he stay? He wasn’t happy. Hadn’t been happy in a long time. And Sasha, with her theatrics and her disinterest in anything not related to Sasha––he couldn’t take it anymore. If he didn’t leave, and soon, he wouldn’t be able to save himself.
After several passes, he marched up to her chair. “I hate it here.”
She sat up, but not fast enough. With one quick hand, he ripped the top button from her collared dress, pulling her upwards with it. Good. She looked like a goddamned vampire in that dress, anyway. He should rip it clean off her and get her into some normal clothes. Maybe she’d be Sasha again, and not this caricature she’d become.
“Miss Sasha” wasn’t a real person. “Miss Sasha” was engineered, head-to-toe. And she certainly wasn’t worthy of his respect anymore.
He pushed her back into her chair.
“I could take you right here,” he whispered, leaning in close as he gripped her arm. Her expression was hard and defiant, but she didn’t so much as twitch. “I could screw you until you beg for release. Like you’ve made me beg. Like a dog!”
She sat up straighter, still saying nothing.
He grabbed her face in both hands, forcing her to look at him. “I’m your equal, dammit! I’m even better than you at some things. Don’t you dare treat me like your lackey anymore.”
Sasha shook him off, turning her head towards the limb on the floor. She lifted her right hand and a gust of air rushed in through the broken window, carrying in a flurry of dried leaves. Her eyes narrowed as she concentrated. Her aura raged, shifting in color, from a silvery white to a luminescent purple. She pointed at the limb like a cop pointing a gun at a thief––and it split cleanly in two.
Part of the branch rolled across the hardwood floor, stopping at his feet.
Sasha smiled and batted her lashes demurely, still without speaking a word.
After a long pause, Armand released his grip on her arm and backed away, pushing the tree limb with his foot. He looked at Sasha as if he didn’t know her. Maybe he didn’t. They’d been battling each other for so long now, he wasn’t sure what he knew anymore. He sighed with exhaustion, running his fingers through his hair again.
“When is this going to end, Sasha? We’ve done our duty here. We can’t stop every war, and certainly not every rumor of war. There’s too much Dark in the world. That’s the way it’s always been. That’s the way it’ll always be.” He scratched the back of his neck and turned to stare out the broken window. “I’ve been here a decade now, and the only thing I have to show for it is that I’m fatter and balder than when I arrived. My youth, Sasha! I wasted my youth on you.”
He had stupidly let his guard down, and Sasha quickly seized upon his vulnerability.
She rose, standing between him and the window like a great big purple eclipse. “We’ve accomplished so much!” Her eyes gleamed and her dress collar flapped open to reveal a hint of her alabaster neck. “Armand, why do you think the world is still here?”
“It sure isn’t because of witchcraft.” He raised his arms in frustration. “It’s balance, Sasha. Sometimes there’s good in the world, and sometimes the world is one steaming pile of dog shit. It goes back and forth. Good, bad, don’t give a damn. The world’s an effin’ pendulum, don’t you get that?”
Sasha blinked repeatedly as she processed his words. She reached out and braced her hands against his chest, meeting his eyes.
“A small part of the good in the world is our doing, Armand. It’s our spells, our incantations, our prayers that keep it going. Every action sends a message to the universe that we haven’t given up. We are fighting for the Light.”
She bit her lower lip, her aura sliding into a deep and heady red. She removed the pin from her hair and her long brown waves, now threaded with gray, uncoiled across her shoulders. She was still beautiful, Armand reluctantly admitted, when she wanted to be.
“There is darkness coming, Armand. Like a massive oil leak, ready to spread across the world. I don’t know what that means, but I feel it. Another World War, a changing climate.” She shivered. “Tell me you feel it, too?” She cocked her head, her body quaking slightly.
He had felt it. But he’d been feeling it for years.
Time had no meaning, really. It could happen tonight, or in ten thousand nights. But it would happen––of that, he was very certain. No amount of spells or ceremonies would hold it back.
And he planned to be prepared.
“Even if this were true…” Armand reached into his pocket, searching for a smoke. He was back down to half-a-pack a day now, or up to half-a-pack, depending on who you talked to. He found one and put it in the side of his mouth, unlit. “Even if there is another great war and this whole apocalyptic scenario comes to pass, what makes you think we, the thirteen of us, can do anything to stop it?”
“Faith, Armand. That’s all we have.”
He chewed on the cigarette with his back teeth, mashing it up in his mouth. “Then it’s Heaven’s war, not ours.”
Or maybe Hell’s, he thought to himself.
He inhaled as if the cigarette were lit. Poking her in the chest, he added, “But I do agree with you on one thing––we should prepare for it. Stockpile food, magickal items, spells, components. Because when it comes, there’s nothing we can do about it except choose our side wisely.”
He snapped his fingers and his index finger shone with the light of a blue flame. He touched
it to the tip of his cigarette and inhaled.
Better, he thought, feeling his agitation lessen.
“You need to make up your mind,” Sasha warned. “You can’t keep changing sides on a whim.”
“I don’t change them on a whim,” he said, taking another toke and blowing the smoke through the damaged window. “I play the odds. And our odds here... they don’t look good, honey.”
Sasha took a step back, out of his reach. “You’re the devil, Armand.”
“Not yet. But maybe if I play my cards right.” He winked through the smoke circle escaping his lips. “Happy effin’ birthday to me, right?” He shook his head, laughing at the absurdity of the situation.
He had a thought––it was his birthday, not hers. He didn’t have to go to Sasha’s stupid party. There were more interesting things he could be doing tonight, with other, more interesting people.
“I’m leaving,” he announced decisively.
“Just give me a minute to check my makeup and I’ll go, too.” Sasha reached for her clutch on the coffee table. “I don’t want anyone to see me with swollen eyes.”
Armand shook his head. “No. I mean I’m really going.”
“Going? You mean... back to Los Angeles!?”
“Not yet, but maybe soon. For now, just out of this house. I can’t be here anymore. This mansion has somehow become too small for the both of us.”
“You can’t leave!” Sasha exclaimed, dropping her clutch and blocking the door with her body. “What will people say?”
“They’ll say you’ve lost your mind, and your leash on me.”
She stamped her foot. “Armand, no! I forbid it!”
“You’re a powerful, woman, Sasha. And I actually cared for you once. But I can’t do this anymore. What we had wasn’t love. I know that now.”
“Where will you go then? Larinda’s?” Sasha narrowed her eyes in warning. “You’re going to screw her to death one day, Armand. Mark my words! I know you siphon off of her. She gets frailer every time I see her.”
The Curse of Dark Root: Part Two (Daughters of Dark Root Book 4) Page 16