Keeper

by Kim Chance

  “What were they fighting about?” I asked, leaning forward.

  “Power. All great wars are fought over power,” Gareth said. “When the bloodshed became too great to continue, the leaders of each faction agreed to meet to discuss a peace treaty. The result of that meeting was the formation of a fellowship of sorts, a group of Supernatural representatives—one from each faction—chosen for the task of keeping the balance. They called it the Hetaeria.”

  Gareth held up a finger and quickly darted down the hall to his room. When he returned, he had a large antique book in his hand. Sitting next to me, he flipped the pages until he reached an old painted portrait of ten or so men and women dressed in long black capes. Behind them, several rows of severe-looking men all in black stood at attention.

  “The Hetaeria created a new set of laws to ensure that no one faction had more power or more control than any other. They also enlisted other Supernaturals to serve as militia. The Guard, as it was called, was tasked with enforcing the new laws and working as protectors for Supernaturals in peril.” Gareth indicated the photo and sighed heavily. “They’re the ones who hunted down your mother, Lainey.”

  I leaned over and studied the faces of the men in the photographs. They didn’t look like killers to me.

  “But I don’t understand. If the Hetaeria was created to keep the balance, to be peacekeepers, then what happened to my mom? Why would they or the Guard want to hurt her?” I trailed off, feeling overwhelmed by the complexity of Gareth’s story. “Why would they want to hurt me?”

  Gareth closed his eyes for a moment, as if in pain, and then continued. “The Hetaeria was successful in keeping the peace for quite some time, until a young man by the name of Emmett Masterson infiltrated it and began to pervert its mission.”

  The ominous tone in Gareth’s voice made me shiver.

  “He was power hungry, even from the time he was a young man. He had a cruel nature and saw himself as king of the Supernatural realm.”

  “There’s a king?”

  Gareth shook his head. “No. That was the purpose of the Hetaeria: to balance the power among the factions. But Masterson sought control of the factions—to hold dominion over them all. He ended up selling his soul to a Sorcerer of Darkness and began using black magic to amplify his abilities. He became incredibly powerful. Then he began to strike down those weaker than himself.”

  Gareth took a deep breath, clearly affected by his own story, but steeled himself. “First, he manipulated the Guard. He is incredibly charismatic, you see. He began to poison their minds with talk of a new order, of overthrowing the Hetaeria, of a world united under a single rule: his rule. He quickly gained a following among them, and any who opposed him either fled or were murdered. It wasn’t long until Masterson had overthrown the faction leaders and eradicated the Hetaeria altogether. He dropped the last part of his surname and began calling himself ‘The Master.’”

  The Master. My heart skipped a beat. I thought back to my visions of Josephine, of the man cloaked in shadows. Don’t lie to me, you foolish girl. I know you have it . . . and I want it. I shuddered at the memory. It was all starting to make sense now.

  Gareth and I were both silent for a moment, lost in our own memories. Then Gareth began to speak again, his voice even once more.

  “The Master began using the Guard to hunt down Supernaturals. Witch, Warlock, Shape-Shifter, Nixie—faction didn’t matter. Any who opposed the Master’s reign was disposed of.”

  “But they fought back, right?” I interjected. “The other Supernaturals?”

  “I’m afraid it wasn’t that simple.” Gareth smiled sadly. “Fear and greed are powerful motivators, Lainey. Without the Hetaeria allying them, the factions drew into themselves, untrusting of each other. There were also a number of Supernaturals who disagreed with the initial creation of the Hetaeria—people who would rather die than see the factions at peace. They didn’t like the fact that the Hetaeria was imposing what they saw as unnecessary laws upon them. The Master allied himself with those people—with those traitors.”

  Gareth looked disgusted. “He imbued the members of the Guard with black magic, turning them into assassins. Not only are they deadly, but they’re also damn near indestructible, even for the strongest of our kind. The Master’s greed sparked another bloody civil war—one we’ve been fighting ever since.”

  “How is he even still alive?”

  “Supernaturals tend to have longer life spans, particularly if they’re powerful. In the Master’s case, his use of dark magic has given him unnatural longevity, even by our standards.”

  A sudden dread settled in my stomach. “It was the Master who killed my mom, wasn’t it?

  Gareth leaned forward, his piercing brown eyes never straying from my face. “Yes.”

  His words from earlier floated back to me. Lainey, she was killed because she was the Keeper, the Keeper of the Grimoire.

  I shook my head. “Wait, you told me that my mom was killed because she was the Keeper, right? If the Master is so powerful, why would he need the Grimoire?”

  “Magic always leaves a mark,” Gareth said. “And the Master never anticipated the price the black magic he used would exact from him. Over time, his powers began to weaken, only allowing him to sustain small bits of power at a time.”

  He flipped back to the page of the original faction representatives and pointed out one of the members—a strapping young man with dark hair that was pulled back in a low ponytail. He looked familiar, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him before.

  “That,” Gareth said, “is Lane DuCarmont. He was the representative for the witch and warlock faction. He was also Josephine DuCarmont’s father and the man you were named after.”

  I remembered the picture Serena had shown me of the DuCarmont family. In that picture, a much older Lane was calm and relaxed, his arm wrapped around Josephine’s shoulders. In this picture, there was no kindness on his face.

  “It’s said that Lane DuCarmont killed a dark sorcerer who was carrying a spell that would allow the Master to bleed magic from other Supernaturals. If he collected magic from every faction, he could use the spell to fuse it all together and be all-powerful—immortal even. No one would be able to stop him.”

  “But Lane stole the spell.”

  “Yes,” Gareth said, “and contained it in the one place where he knew it would be safe.”

  “The DuCarmont Grimoire,” I finished for him.

  I thought back to my visions of Josephine. “But Lane knew the Master would kill him for what he’d done, so he made someone else the Keeper, didn’t he? Someone he trusted above all others.”

  My mind was busy replaying the scenes of my visions over and over in my mind as the pieces of the puzzle were starting to come together.

  Lainey.

  The whisper in my ear was hardly a surprise, and I looked over at Josephine’s face for confirmation. “He made Josephine the Keeper, and when the Guard came for Lane and his family, Josephine escaped with the Grimoire.” I looked back over at Gareth and smiled. “She kept it safe.”

  “Yes,” Gareth confirmed. “But she sacrificed her own life to do so.”

  “What?” I tore my eyes away from Gareth. In the last vision I’d had, Josephine was alive. I looked over at Josephine, whose sad eyes confirmed the truth.

  “What happened to you?” I said, standing up and moving toward Josephine. I balled my hands into fists, stirred by conviction. “You have to tell me the rest. I have to see it.”

  Josephine nodded and held out her hand.

  I was vaguely aware of Gareth’s voice calling my name, but as I reached out to take Josephine’s hand, everything else faded away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  At first, there was nothing but darkness.

  But then my insides began to twist, and it was as if I was being pulled in two. I yelped,
but then the sensation suddenly gave way, and a bright light sliced through the darkness, nearly blinding me. Instinctively, I squeezed my eyes shut and raised a hand in front of my face. When I opened my eyes again, the light was gone and I was no longer standing in my bedroom.

  A dense thicket of pine trees loomed over my head, and a symphony of crickets chirped around me.

  “Whoa,” I muttered under my breath. “We’re definitely not in Kansas anymore, Toto.”

  Rubbing my abdomen with the palm of my hand, I glanced around to get my bearings. I was in an unfamiliar wooded area with the sun dipping slowly toward the horizon. I turned to find Josephine standing a few feet away. Her lovely face was cloaked in sadness, and her eyes were full of tears.

  My stomach did a somersault. “What is it?” I asked. “Show me.”

  Josephine said nothing, but slowly reached out her hand and pointed away from us, to where the sound of laughter wafted through the air.

  With dread settling in the pit of my stomach like a heavy stone, I nodded and made my way through the trees toward the noise. Josephine followed beside me, silent tears dripping down her cheeks.

  I picked my way carefully over the uneven ground until I stepped through a break in the trees and out into a wide meadow that appeared to be a campsite of sorts. There were forty or so large canvas tents arranged in rows with several campfires blazing between them.

  People were milling about, moving between the tents, and two young girls nearby hung wet linens on a thick piece of rope that had been strung between two trees, their soft chatter muffled by the sound of the sheets whipping in the breeze. Both of the girls wore long skirts that were patched in several places, the fabric thin and faded. Their shirts looked homemade and were equally worn.

  “Hello?” I called out, but there was no response. Neither of the girls acknowledged me. They kept casually chatting, hanging more of the bedclothes on the line.

  They can’t see me.

  I looked over at Josephine, who pointed again, this time toward the first row of tents. We kept walking.

  At first glance, the camp had seemed unimpressive, but as I moved among the tents, two boys ran past me with a third trailing behind. The two boys in front were taunting the straggler and calling him slow.

  “Come back here, you toadlickers!” the little boy shrieked at them. “I’ll show you slow!”

  Then the little boy exploded out of his skin, leaving a large gazelle in its place. I gasped as the gazelle darted into the woods after the other boys.

  I glanced around to see if anyone else had noticed the boy, but the people in the tent village continued on with business as usual, as if a little boy morphing into a large antelope was hardly out of the norm.

  Several feet away, a group of women sat huddled together, knitting blankets. They looked quite normal except for the fact that, aside from holding balls of yarn, they weren’t actually doing anything. Their knitting needles hovered near their heads, carefully creating tiny loops, as though held by invisible hands.

  If that wasn’t proof enough that this village wasn’t an ordinary one, there was a girl—she looked about twelve—sitting under the shade of a large oak tree. Her skin had a greenish tint to it. As I watched her, the young girl held out a long piece of dried-out ivy. Brown and brittle, it had clearly been dead a long time. Cradling the plant in her hand, the girl smiled and gently began to blow on the stalk. My mouth dropped open as the plant began to turn green and sprout tiny purple flowers.

  Supernaturals, I realized. All different kinds. But what are they all doing here?

  We came to a tent in the back, set apart from the others. Josephine was standing in front, tending to the fire. She was wearing a long blue dress, and the emerald amulet hung around her neck. Her long brown hair fell loose around her shoulders. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes sparkled in the firelight. This Josephine radiated life.

  The dread in my stomach grew heavier.

  The living Josephine added several sticks of kindling to the fire and wiped her hands on the thick folds of her skirt. Turning back toward the tent, she walked through the opening flap without saying a word.

  When she emerged again, she carried a cast-iron pot. Singing softly, she knelt down next to the fire and began slicing various vegetables from a basket sitting near the kindling. The amulet at her throat sparkled in the light from the flames.

  I took a step closer to the young woman by the fire just as a shrill cry sounded in the back of her tent. It startled me, but Josephine just smiled, wiped her hands once more on her skirt, and walked through the flaps of the tent. When she returned, she was holding a tiny bundle wrapped in blankets. The bundle was wriggling and squirming in her arms.

  “Oh my God,” I said. “It’s a baby.” I looked back at the other Josephine, whose solemn face was streaked with tears. “Yours and Henry’s.” She nodded.

  Josephine was staring down at the tiny face completely enraptured and overjoyed, the way new mothers always look at their children. As she began to coo softly to the baby, a tiny hand reached for her face.

  It was in that moment that the ground began to tremble. A pulse of energy shot through the camp and slammed against the walls of the invisible shield surrounding it—some kind of protection ward, I realized.

  “No!” Josephine cried, staring at the magical shield disintegrating before her eyes. The air all at once filled with piercing cries. The baby began to wail, and Josephine clutched the amulet at her throat.

  People ran in all directions—some toward the conflict and others away from it. Magical energy permeated the air until it was as thick as fog. A large plume of black smoke rose into the distance, and the ground rumbled again as another electrical pulse assaulted the remnants of the protection wards.

  Josephine clutched the baby tighter to her chest with one arm, while the other she held in front of her, green lightning dancing around her fingertips.

  A young woman with long blonde hair ran toward her, tears streaming down her face. “Jo!”

  Josephine reached for her, wrapping an arm around the girl’s trembling shoulders. “Eliza!” she cried, struggling to juggle the infant in one arm and her hysterical friend in the other. “What has happened? Is it them? Have they found us?”

  The younger woman nodded before slumping against Josephine’s shoulder, her entire body shaking from fear. She mumbled something under her breath. I couldn’t understand much of what she said, but the two words I did pick up stole my breath: “The Guard.”

  Josephine instantly paled. “No,” she whispered against the young woman’s hair. “No!”

  She stood still for a moment, as if in disbelief, but then a look of fierce resolve crossed her face and prompted her into action.

  Grabbing the woman’s arm, Josephine yanked her upright and stared into her face. “Eliza, listen to me!” she barked, her eyes blazing. “It’s time. You have to take her and run.”

  The young woman’s eyes grew wide. “You’re not coming?”

  “I’ll hold them off as long as I can.” Josephine looked down at the child in her arms. “You have to get her to safety.”

  “But you’re her mother,” the girl argued. “You can’t just . . . I don’t know—”

  The rest of her sentence was cut off as Josephine placed the screaming infant in her arms.

  “Please,” Josephine urged, staring at Eliza with wild eyes. “Please. I’m begging you.”

  She hesitated for a moment, but as the terrible cacophony of sound rose around them, Eliza squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and nodded. “I’ll keep her safe. I promise.”

  Josephine exhaled sharply in relief. “Thank you.” She squeezed Eliza’s shoulder in gratitude. Tears poured down her cheeks as she hastily bent over to kiss the child’s brow. Pulling the shawl from around her shoulders, she tucked it tightly around the child and nodded at Eliza.
“Run east along the river,” she instructed the girl. “Find the others. I’ll try to hold them off as long as I can. And please, remember what I’ve told you. You have to tell her one day. Promise me?”

  Eliza nodded, tears dripping down her cheeks. “I promise.” She turned to run.

  “Wait!” Josephine reached out and caught her by the arm. “One more thing.” With trembling fingers, she reached up and unclasped the emerald amulet from around her neck and quickly fastened it around the baby’s tiny throat.

  “Good-bye, my sweet daughter,” she choked out, as Eliza turned and ran toward the woods, the tiny bundle held tightly against her chest.

  Tears poured from my own eyes as Josephine clutched her chest with one hand and let out a wail that ripped through my heart.

  Another boom of energy ricocheted through the small village. Josephine sucked down a breath of air, her features twisting from anguish to determination. Yanking up her shirtsleeves, she planted her feet and flexed her fingers. The green lightning crackled between her fingertips like live wires.

  Up ahead, a swarm of men dressed in black with dark linen masks covering their faces were wreaking havoc on the tent village. A few feet away, two of them terrorized an old man with a walking stick. The old man hobbled along, desperately shooting balls of fire at the men, but the guards merely laughed. One of the Guard waved his hand, and the old man sprawled to the dirt, his eyes frozen open forever.

  I tasted bile.

  The soldiers moved quickly through the village. A few Supernaturals attempted to fight them off, but were quickly subdued. Desperate to help, I raised my hands. Magic sparked between my fingers, but the other Josephine placed an icy hand on my shoulder.

  “I have to help them!” I cried, but the look in her eyes was clear. There was nothing I could do. My heart sank to my feet.

  Beside me, the living Josephine tensed. A tall figure in black strode toward her. A thin piece of black fabric covered the lower half of his face, but his eyes—full of hatred and disgust—were fixed upon Josephine.