by J. A. Giunta
Their mother was still talking. Something about not letting anyone take her children. Ember would have laughed, but the room had turned into a powerful powder keg, primed to blow. The only thing holding the punishing power in check was the strength of the coven’s lead witch. Their mother.
Stupidly, a few officers reached for their side arms. The smarter ones had backed away.
“Stand down.” The police chief’s words barely carried over the thrum of magic. “Leslie, please. We didn’t have a choice.”
“You’d really risk it all right now? Expose yourselves with all that’s going on out there?” Jim asked.
“For my children?” Their mom actually sounded surprised by his question. “You have no idea what I’d risk.”
“You can take Ember,” the older female agent, Alice, said, “but we can’t let you take both. It’s too late for Lee. We have too much documented.”
“That’s fine with me,” Aunt Gwen said, her thin lips turning up into a smug smile.
Their mother frowned at her.
Aunt Gwen stared back at her sister, her feelings on the matter obvious. Gwen was about the only one who dared to act that way toward her. She’d never liked either Ember or Lee. But Ember knew there was more to it than sibling rivalry, even more than Mom being the leader of their coven, but she couldn’t reveal any of that to Lee.
Suddenly, Aunt Gwen lurched and grabbed her stomach. She retched, loud and long, the contents of her stomach spewing out onto the floor. It reeked of garlic and bitter herbs and tobacco. Ember had to cover her face to keep herself from joining her.
“Oh my,” Gwen said, under her breath. “I think our conduit is maturing.” She glanced up at Lee, a hungry look on her face.
Ember glared at her aunt.
Their mother nodded like she understood, like she’d actually even considered allowing them to use Lee like that. She moved toward him and put out her hand in a completely out of character, motherly gesture.
Ember felt the urge to jump between them. Only, she knew better. The coven had already shifted, making the elemental connection physical by the laying on of hands. They encircled Lee, and all she could do was to reach out and join in the raising of power before she got left behind.
“This isn’t the way, Mrs. Macconal. We need each other,” the older woman said.
“Leslie,” Jim said, a hint of pleading in his voice. “Don’t do this.”
Mom’s eyes turned hard. “If you come after them, after any of us, I will make certain you regret it.”
Then, with the cone fully raised, the coven’s power closed over them. The station faded away, shimmered, and became the familiar walls of their basement.
The look on Lee’s face would have been priceless, except Ember knew how he would feel now, knowing how long she had been lying to him. Keeping secret their heritage. Who and what they were. Her stomach turned sour.
The others headed up the stairs, without comment. The trampling of their footsteps fading as they reached the upper floor and went about their normal activities. For them, Ember thought, this was business as usual. Lee stared after them, like they were aliens or something, which is exactly what they suddenly must have seemed.
All of them. Including her.
“Lee,” Mom said, “I need to speak with Ember.” She flicked her eyes toward the stairs.
“Are we seriously not going to talk about how we all just fucking teleported?” His voice was strained and, though he was talking to their mother, he glared at Ember.
“Language, mister!” Mom let out her breath and touched his arm. He pulled away. “Please. You and I will talk this out later. Right now, I have something important to discuss with your sister.”
He folded his arms.
“In private,” Mom said.
“I can hardly wait to hear you explain it.” He stormed up the stairs.
They watched him go. Then, her mother walked over and sank down onto the worn leather sofa that had been hauled down into the basement when their dad had decided he needed a place to get away from all the Macconal clan ‘women folk,’ as he used to call them. Ember guessed it was better than saying witches out loud.
“Ember. Sit.” She patted the couch beside her.
Ember shook her head. “What the hell, Mom? Did you see the look on his face? You should have let me tell him.” She pushed the hair off her forehead and walked toward the stairs. “He’s going to hate us, now. He’s going to hate me.”
“It couldn’t be helped. You know full well we couldn’t let them just whisk you away like that.” She pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. “Gwen is merely waiting for me to show any sign of weakness. And we can’t have a schism in the coven. Especially, not now.”
“What do you mean? What makes now any worse than any other time?”
“Don’t be dense, Ember!” She shot up off the sofa. “Look around you. Things were hard enough for us before. We were just managing to hold it all together. Now. All this business with people gaining special abilities, developing powers that even we haven’t seen before. We’ll be fighting against more than just the powers that escape the Nexus.” She smoothed her suit jacket. “I need you to stay close to him.”
“A lot of good that’s done us all these years.” Ember felt the palms of her hands heat up and forced her anger back. The last thing she needed was to show her mother just how little control she’d managed to learn, despite Seanna’s mentoring.
“He may not like it, but he’s going to need you. Now, more than ever before.”
The certainty in her voice made Ember shiver. “What has Granny foreseen?” she asked, her voice a low whisper.
Her mother shook her head and looked away.
“Tell me.” She stepped around to lock eyes with her mother. “I have a right to know.”
“Chaos and loss.”
Five
Wed, Aug 24, 8:16pm
- Lee -
“So,” Jen said, on the porch beside him, “you never said what your power is.”
“I can heal people,” he said, as if he’d already gotten used to the idea, and it was now somehow mundane. Of course, he was understating his new abilities. Something in him felt the need to keep the finer details to himself, even from Jen.
“Oh. Wow,” she said, somewhat shocked and happy for him at the same time. “That’s a good one. Guess you won’t be flying me to school tomorrow, though, huh?”
“Guess not. That is, if I even go.”
It hit him then, and he felt like an idiot. Jen’s mom had stage two renal carcinoma and was scheduled for surgery in three weeks. She would’ve gone in sooner, but there’d been some sort of problem with her insurance that needed to be sorted. He was about to say something, when he heard voices coming toward the door.
“—activity at the park.” It was Ember. “Said we should answer. I guess we’re still on the same side. For now.”
She opened the door and jumped a little in surprise when she saw Lee and Jen there. Tara and Seanna were with her. Lee sensed a bit of fear and anxiety in his sister, maybe at being overheard? Or possibly the lifetime of lies?
Ember said, “Hey. I thought you were upstairs.”
“Nope,” he said and refused to look at her.
Lee and Jen leaned outward to allow the three to pass. Seanna stopped to offer him a sandwich and an apologetic smile.
“Ember said you guys didn’t eat dinner.”
He took it from her, and their fingers touched. She was always warm, no matter the season. Lee knew it was wrong to be attracted to a cousin, but out of all of them, she was his favorite. Cute, funny and smart, Seanna always went out of her way to talk to him, to listen to what he had to say instead of only talking about herself. He wasn’t as close to her as he was with Jen, but he enjoyed her company all the same. Besides, he
had no reason to be angry with her, or any of his cousins for that matter.
If anyone deserved blame, it was his mother and sister. And his aunts. He didn’t need new reasons to not like them, but he wasn’t about to turn any away either.
“Yeah,” he said and took a bite. He hadn’t realized until then just how hungry he was. His words marred by chewing, he added, “Oh my god. Thank you so much.”
Seanna giggled. “Relax. It’s just plain peanut butter.” He hated jelly and loved that she’d remembered. A little more seriously, she added, “Your mom’s waiting for you in her office.”
Lee nodded and took another bite. He seemed to struggle with swallowing it, when Seanna offered him a drink from her water bottle. He thanked her with a grunt and drank nearly half. With a shake of her head and smile, she left to join the other two.
“Where are you guys off to?” Jen asked and took a bite of the offered sandwich.
She seemed a bit annoyed at the whole exchange but didn’t say anything about it. Jen was like that sometimes around his cousins. Or was it just around Seanna?
Ember said, “Errands to run,” at the same time Tara said, “The park.”
“Mmmkay,” Jen said in a knowing tone. “Well, be careful.”
The three girls exchanged looks, then headed for one of the four cars parked in the driveway.
“I gotta go,” Lee said and plucked the last bite from Jen’s hand. She slapped his arm playfully and laughed. “Time to find out just how much everyone’s been lying to me.”
“Hey.” Jen reached out and took hold of his forearm, just long enough for him to stop and look her in the eyes. “It’ll be fine. Text me later, okay?”
He gave a nod and headed inside.
The house was busy with all his cousins rushing about, carrying small boxes and candles, metal bowls and maps. It looked like they were getting ready for something in the dining room. His grans and aunts were already there, seated at the huge table, drinking coffee. The heady scent of incense filled the entryway, though he couldn’t see where it was burning.
He went upstairs to wash the peanut butter from his hands and ran into aunt Gwen in the hallway outside the bathroom. She gave him a dirty look, as if she’d tasted something foul. The reek of cigarettes and alcohol coming off her was like a palpable aura.
“Are you staying the night or something?” he asked with contempt as he passed her. “Yay.”
“Excuse me?” she asked and turned, looking as if he’d slapped her. “I don’t care for the tone, young man.”
Lee stopped and looked back. Normally he would’ve just let it go and kept walking, but he was still mad at her for what she’d said at the police station, at how she’d been first to abandon him.
“Get used to it,” he told her flatly, brow furrowed and almost daring her to a confrontation.
“You just proved us all right,” she said instead, with a smug smile. “A little bit of power, and it went straight to your head.” Her eyes narrowed, and her voice took on a threatening tone. “A word of advice. It didn’t help your father. It won’t help you.”
“Technically not a word,” Lee said sarcastically, “but thanks all the same.”
He wanted to ask about his father. She obviously knew something, but he refused to give her the satisfaction of denying him answers. That’s what his mother was waiting downstairs for.
Lee left his aunt standing there in the hallway and went to clean up. When he came back out, she was gone.
All for the best, he thought. Who knows what he might’ve said to her if given the opportunity. He had years’ worth of bile just waiting to be spewed.
He found his mother in the office, a downstairs room on the opposite side of the house from the kitchen and living room. She was sitting at her desk, poring through folders of paperwork. She had a laptop on the edge, not even plugged in. His mother didn’t trust computers when it came to her work. There was a stack of giant leather books on the other end of the desk, and in the center was a brass bowl with smoke lilting up and out. It smelled like forest and dirt, like a kicked over campfire.
“So no one else can hear,” she said and swatted away a wisp of smoke.
I’m supposed to believe that’s a spell? He looked at the incense with more than just disbelief. The sudden urge to slap it off her desk in a tantrum came over him. Like I care who hears us!
She closed the manila folder full of papers she’d been writing in, added it to a stack and dropped them heavily onto the laptop.
Lee reined in his emotions and sat in the wooden chair opposite her to quietly wait. He could sense her dread, the fear at how he might react. It was hard enough to get a handle on his own feelings, without having to constantly deal with everyone else’s, but he didn’t withdraw his cells from her. He wanted to know what she was feeling, if she was telling him the truth.
“You have a lot of questions,” she began, “so how about if I try to explain everything at once, then you can ask me what you need to fill in all the blanks?”
“You can skip the part about being witches,” he said, a little harder than he intended. “I figured that out on my own. I just want to know why you’ve kept it all a secret from me. Everyone in the house knows. Even people at the station knew. And if they didn’t before, they sure as hell do now.”
“Cerberus,” she said. “The men and women in suits were from an agency that keeps the supernatural in check. Sungrove,” she went on, searching for words, “the entire city, is built over a Super Nexus, a massive intersection of ley lines that generates a lot of magic. It sometimes causes unusual things to happen, portals to open, planes to cross over, realities to blend. And it all acts like a magnet for the supernatural. Our family, our coven, has been protecting the Nexus for generations, long before there was a California or United States. We work with Cerberus, and have for years, because our goals are aligned. They want the city safe. We want the Nexus safe.”
Lee said, “So, what, monsters are real, and you use magic to track them down? Kill them?”
“No,” she said with a small laugh. “I mean, yes, sometimes, we help track down the bigger problems, but that’s what hunters are for. The rogue monsters that need to be put down are all dealt with by other families, people who’ve spent their entire lives training for nothing else. No, we help when magic is needed, to close a portal or sort realities, things beyond the physical. Demons and vampires are a bit beneath us.”
Lee’s eyes went wide.
“What the shit?” he said. “Those are real?”
“Language,” she warned, but whatever authority she’d held over him as a mother was severely damaged. Lee didn’t so much as flinch, just stared back at her in growing anger. “But yes, they’re real. And you don’t know about them, because there’s a system in place. We all have jobs to do, and we do it well. Without Cerberus, keeping it all a secret would be much harder. It used to be much harder.”
“That’s it then?” he asked, voice rising. “You’re all witches, and screw me because I’m not one of you?”
“What?” She was taken aback at that. “No, that’s not it at all. I know your aunts can be hard on you, but it’s not because of anything you did or who you’re not.” Again, she seemed to search for the right words. “They act the way they do out of fear, because of something your father and I did before you were born.”
“Dad?” Aunt Gwen’s words echoed in his mind. “So what did you do then?” He leaned forward in the chair. “And what’s it got to do with me?”
“The women in our family,” she tried to explain, as if still deciding how much truth she should share, “are almost always witches. Only once, maybe twice, in a generation is one born without magic, barren, like my cousin Riley. There was nothing wrong with her. She just didn’t have any.”
“I’ve never heard of her,” Lee said and understood why. Magic was all his fa
mily cared about. If someone was born without it, they were probably treated the way he was.
“She was allowed to move away,” his mother said, like it was some great concession, “to marry outside the family. All her children would’ve been barren, too.”
Which means they were useless, Lee thought. Wait, outside the family? What the hell does that mean?
“And the men,” she continued, “are almost always conduits. They’re born without magic but can channel ley lines into other witches. They amplify our spells, make the coven more powerful.”
“Let me guess,” Lee said. “I’m supposed to be one, but I’m not. And since I can’t contribute to the coven, I’m worthless, no better than the barren cousin you sent away. Oh, sorry, I mean the cousin you let leave.”
He could tell his words had hurt her, could feel it in her chest.
“Lee,” she said, on the verge of tears. Her voice and heart were full of sadness. “You’re not worthless. And you are a conduit, but I’m forbidden to teach you how. It’s part of my punishment.”
“For what?” Lee demanded. “What did you do?”
“Your father,” she said, fighting back tears from all the memories, “was what the others call an abomination. He was a warlock, a male witch and a conduit. He didn’t have magic of his own, but he could channel ley lines into spells. He kept it a secret from everyone else, was too afraid to use it anyway, afraid of all the stories about how warlocks become corrupted. It’s too much power for one person. No matter how good their intentions, they always end up doing harm.”
Still, none of this explained what they’d done. As much as it hurt him to see his mother this way, that he even cared she was in pain, he wanted to know the truth. All of it.
“How many others have there been?”
“In our line? Just two,” she replied, “and the number of people they killed before they could be stopped?” She shook her head. “They were worse than any monsters our family’s had to deal with.”
“Again,” Lee asked, “What did you do?”
She couldn’t look him in the eyes.
“You weren’t born yet,” she said, “but we could tell you were barren. Your father kept having visions, of your sister in the future, facing a great darkness all alone. He was our last conduit. Channeling magic has a price. It burns you up from the inside. All the men in our family knew the risk, paid the price. Even using them sparingly, few conduits live past thirty. Your father was thirty-two, and there were no more like him.”