by Lenore Wolfe
PERKS
The Fallen One
Sons of the Dark Mother
Book One
Conrad picked up a glass and buffed it with the soft cloth in his hand. He held it to the light, beneath the upper shelf showing on the glass below. Satisfied, he set it down, adjusting it slightly so that it stood in perfect alignment with the others. He grunted, approving what he saw. The soft light above the glass shelves, lining the shelves behind the bar of the tavern, shown on his work.
Conrad didn’t have too much glass in the tavern. It didn’t survive well in a fight. Not that he tolerated brawls in his tavern. Still, he enjoyed the little glass he’d installed into the bar-back. He had an affinity with the beautiful dark mahogany wood of the bar and tables. But the little glass he’d allowed, he guarded fiercely. And heaven help the man who broke any of it.
His keen perception felt his new visitor, even before he heard the click of the back door. A friend, then. For only a friend could possibly get past Conrad’s particular form of an alarm system. When no one appeared for several long moments, Conrad smiled. So, he had a rare visitor. He couldn’t be more pleased. Only Lucius, or an enemy trying to sneak by, could bring the beast from rest in the middle of the day. But even he couldn’t pick up the silent tread of Lucius before he appeared soundlessly from the dark interior of the storeroom.
Lucius had to duck to go under the door. He straightened and stood there, looking at Conrad. A large man, Conrad stood at six feet himself, but Lucius still held at least five inches over him. And Lucius always had to turn sideways, to get his shoulders through to come through that door.
He wore his long, white hair, shot through with silver, pulled up on both sides and tied in the back. He wore three thick, silver hoops in each ear, each hoop progressively larger than the other. He wore an impressive white and silver outfit, even to Conrad. The pants were barely showing because of the split tunic hanging past his knees. It looked somewhat like something a Samurai warrior might have worn, except for the color. But no matter how impressive he appeared, no one would have missed that he looked like he came straight out of a futuristic movie—or that Lucius was not human. He remained cloaked in glamour, to all who didn’t know him, so when they saw him, they saw only what they were ready to see.
“I see Beast is as fat and lazy as ever,” Lucius said. “You spoil him. When it is time for war, he will be content to lie there and watch you do all the fighting.”
Conrad grinned at him. Both men knew Beast longed for the fight. “He misses you,” Conrad said. “And Gargoyle Mansion.” He saw Lucius lip curl at the name.
Lucius came forward and took a seat at the bar. The bar stool creaked beneath his weight. “I have asked Mira not to call it that,” he complained. “Now, she will have everyone calling it that.”
Conrad set a glass on the bar and took out a bottle of aged whiskey, pouring him a drink. “I see she hasn’t broken you of wearing those outfits,” Conrad teased. “Too bad the humans can’t see you.” He laughed, shaking his head. “That would be something I sure wouldn’t want to miss. You would scare them to death.”
Lucius actually looked wounded.
“I’m sorry old man,” Conrad put the emphasis on the old because Lucius was, in fact, thousands of years old. “But you look like a warrior. And not any warrior—but one who could take on a whole legion of armies on his own. How would you expect them to react?”
Lucius smiled. And even to Conrad, his smile took on a feral gleam. “Good,” he said. “Because there is one who can see me. And I hear he is on his way here—even as we speak.”
Conrad stared at him. He stepped close and leaned over the bar toward Lucius, his voice nearly a whisper, “Please don’t tell me you are talking about Constantine.”
Lucius went still as stone. He gave Conrad a dark look. “You know that for him—even the walls have ears.”
Conrad inclined his head at this. “But Justice only recently returned,” he said in a growl. “His walls are pretty damned accurate.” He turned a glass over for himself, and this time, he poured them both a drink. “At least I know why you’re here. Did your men come with you?”
Lucius nodded. “Some of them. Do we know where Dracon stands?”
“He’s always stood with Justice—even when he’d have liked to torn up the world as we know it, and even when Justice himself treads carefully with that one.
Lucius took a sip of his whiskey. “I would too.”
Conrad nodded, now. No one would want Dracon for an enemy—except, maybe, Constantine. But then, Constantine chose to come—even with Dracon—even with Lucius—and even with Justice himself….
Lucius peered at him. No one could keep that one from coming, he said from inside his head.
Conrad glared at him. “You know I hate it when you and Dracon do that.” He grouched. “Where are your men now?”
“Waiting or my word.”
“Conrad stepped to the register and pulled open a hidden drawer underneath. Turning he tossed a set of keys at him for his place out back. “Take beast with you or he’ll never forgive me,” he said.
Lucius nodded his thanks and stood. “I’ll get the men settled and bring Micah, Roman and Caesar back in an hour.”
Conrad grinned. “I look forward to it.”
“Get Justice to join us,” Lucius said, destroying any notion Conrad might have held of them getting drunk, for old time sake, and with that he slipped quietly out the back.
When Justice walked in, an hour later, Conrad knew immediately something was wrong. “The new girl?” he asked as he watched him sit across from him at the bar.
Daughters of the Circle
Shadows in Ravenwood
Book One
Claire stood in front of the attic door, staring at the ornate, metal frame of the beautiful, inlaid wood. They’d been back for over a week, and each night she found herself standing in front of this door, feeling uneasy, like she stood on the edge of something she didn’t quite understand. Not stood in front of an altar room, staring.
The truth of it, she was.
She shook her head. She didn’t know what her problem was. It wasn’t like she hadn’t been here a thousand times before.
She took the skeleton key out of her pocket. A crocheted, string tassel hung off it. She looked now at the large, metal key so cool in her hand, hesitating to place it in the lock of the door. Taking a deep breath, trying to calm the heavy beating of her heart, she moved forward. Her hand trembled as she extended her arm to put the key into the lock.
Oh, please. It wasn’t like this was the first time she’d snuck here. She’d been doing so ever since she got back.
She winced at the click of the cylinders as she unlocked the door, and winced again when the hinges squeaked, loud in the still night air. Amazed it didn’t wake the whole house.
It’s not like this is a small place, she reminded herself. It’s not likely anyone would hear a lock in a place this size. None of the bedrooms were close to where the stairs ascended to the attic, except Tara’s—and Tara snuck here with her. She laughed quietly in the shadows, thinking that she would soon see Tara—the moment she heard her walking around here. Here sister-friend had been sneaking here after her nearly every night.
The door squeaked loudly as she pushed it open, and she almost rolled her eyes. Please, she sneered her lip, like she’d been caught in a bad mystery movie. Why was she acting like she was about to be caught red-handed, doing something wrong?
Besides, wasn’t her fear more for her sister? She shook her head. She didn’t want to explain all of this to Morgan, yet. She didn’t know if Morgan could handle this much reality—even though Claire had heard Alex talking to her sister about this attic—and the Book of Shadows that lay within. Still, it was one thing to know a thing—quite another to see it firsthand. Morgan would be bound to have a lot of questions—and Claire wanted to slow things, a bit. She wasn’t ready for Morgan to know too much yet, about magick. Not yet.
She wasn’t sure that Morgan was ready to know everything.
She reached in with her right hand and flipped on the light, relieved, as usual, when the place lit like a Christmas tree. Their grandmother loved the old delicate, hanging lights with the teeny-tiny bulbs on each end. So, did she, for that matter. Years before, she’d placed several around the altar room. Then, she placed several more that she’d made in the shape of trees, with all their leaves missing.
Still trying to be quiet, she looked around. Deep in thought, she jumped when a branch slapped against the window from outside. Realizing, she let out a relieved breath, hand over her heart. Even the trees were in bad need of a trimming, brushing against the windows in spine tingling scratching sounds, as the wind buffeted them back and forth.
Even though Grams got pretty upset, the first-time Claire found her in this amazing place, she’d seemed content to spend time together doing magick here, whenever they could.
Claire spent a lot of time in this room, after that. She shook her head. Enough so that she should know all the sounds the house made, by now. She’d spent most of that time with her Grams. On top of which, she snuck up here late at night, often enough, each of those summers she’d spent with her.
Now, here she was sneaking here again, after everyone else went to bed, all this past week. The first night, she wanted to check that their family Book of Shadows remained safely tucked away in that beautiful metal chest, her Grams kept it in.
That was before she’d discovered what her grandmother had done.
After Morgan and Alex told her about the apparition they saw the first night, Claire decided she needed to find out what her Grams knew about it. She’d started searching for more information—and why it might have caused her parents to hide the fact their daughters were witches. As it turned out—it wasn’t her mother who hid it from them. The entire coven had done so. Claire wasn’t any closer to figuring out why, then she’d been the first time she’d broached the subject with Grams when she’d still been a teen.
This mystery plagued her—made worse by the fact it caused Morgan to be stolen away.
Each direction she turned, shelves and shelves of supplies stood, along with a large, round, oak table with claw feet. Two large mortars, with pestles, sat on a marble counter top, against one wall. Labeled crock containers, with every herb and old medicine needed, lined the shelves above. It looked like an old apothecary store.
Graduating sizes of iron cauldrons sat on one heavy bookshelf. Bottles and corks, for spell bottles, and cords of various colors and sizes, for knotting spell-work, sat on another shelf, with candles of all shapes and sizes for candle magicks.
The attic always brought a smile to Claire’s face. This place could be considered a witch’s dream attic. Claire glanced around at all the shelves holding the herbs and spices. She remembered the first night she’d snuck here when she’d been a teen, after Grams went to bed—and she grinned. She’d been more than a little unnerved back then, too.
She shook her head. More like terrified. After all—an altar room? She couldn’t believe the magickal things this room held.
She touched the beautiful, round oak table with the crystal balls, which were held in sculpted hawk’s talons decorating the feet, then gazed at the shelves lining the marble counter, with shelves filled with supplies of herbs and spices, crystals and stones, bottles, and cords. Claire studied the altar itself, laden with candles lining the walls, with the array of Goddess statues that sat around the altar.
Before long, Claire found the attic comforting, the same as when she came to this place with her Grams as a teen, and her grandmother first allowed her to be part of the magick she loved. Claire glanced around. The attic felt warm and inviting, now, too—though she still respected the power she sensed here.
She went to the Book of Shadows, where she’d left it on the table. She took it to the overstuffed couch, against one wall and sat, covering her legs with one of the throw blankets piled in a chest serving as an ottoman.
She put the overly-large book onto her lap, flipping it open to the page she’d left off the night before. She’d been reading through it, trying to find all she could on what her parents, and grandparents, for that matter, had written about this warlock—the book so large, and thick, that even though she’d been reading all week, it was taking her forever to get through it.
So far, she hadn’t found much. Just a small passage, which talked about how they’d come against the coven’s greatest enemy with some potions—and failed to take him down.
She eyed the bookmark she’d placed the previous night, sighing. She still had a long way to go. She took it out now and reread the passage. Apparently, her mother’s cousin died that day. She flipped through a few more pages, until she found a section on potions. This section talked about Dante, but the bottom annotation pointed to a different passage in the book. Maybe they’d have a potion.
Claire sighed as she went to the page it directed, but her hopes were quickly dashed when she read what they’d written there.
They’d written a whole section on Dante, but in page after page of potions, they’d written only about their failures in bringing him down—though someone had carefully documented a list of those killed by his hand. Claire felt a chill sweep her spine. He’d taken out at least six or seven members of her family alone—including their mother.
How could they not have prepared her and Morgan, and the rest of them for that matter, for such a powerful enemy? How could they have thought that their ignorance could ever be their bliss? Did they think they couldn’t beat him? Did that mean that they’d tried to give their children a few years of living—without fear—because they’d found no way to take him down?
Claire scanned page after page for answers. If that were the case, then what kept him from killing every living member of their family? Wiping out their whole line.
But as Claire searched, she soon learned that he didn’t find it so easy to kill the members of her family. They might not have taken him out—but they weren’t powerless either. He’d had his work cut out for him. Worked hard to get the ones he managed to kill. Apparently, her family proved much more powerful than she’d been led to believe. Even Grams hadn’t told her the truth.
Why? Why did she keep something like this from her?
Claire shook her head. The more she learned—the more questions she had. No one remained to give her the answers.
Her head jerked. Her aunt…. Her aunt still lived.
Claire set the book down. Taking her cell phone out of her robe pocket, Claire texted her aunt. It was late. She wouldn’t get her message until morning, but Claire wanted her to get it as soon as she woke. Because in it, she’d asked her aunt to please let them know she still headed their way this week.
She’d have asked her to fly, but saw no point. Only one airport came close to them. Denver. Her aunt didn’t live far enough away to warrant driving to the airport closest to her, when that airport only sat one city over from them, and when she could drive straight to their little town, nestled in the mountains north of Denver.
After she’d left the text for her aunt, Claire took the book to the table and sat to take notes. There remained only one potion at the end of the book that they hadn’t tried on Dante…. Well, one potion was better than nothing. Maybe, this one would have worked, but they never got the chance to use it. Maybe….
It was a slim chance. But it gave her hope.
As soon as she knew Morgan could handle it, they’d put their heads together to draw all they knew. After that, maybe their aunt would talk to them. Claire frowned. That would mean telling Morgan about this attic—and soon. Maybe sooner than she expected.
She looked around, then getting up, she turned to glance around once more. Time for their aunt to give them some answers. She’d simply have to convince her that more danger lay in fighting him blind. She picked up the book and made her way to the door, carefully locking it behind her.
She snuck t
o her bed, but she’d barely climbed in, book in hand, when she heard a light tapping on her door.
Excerpt from Morgan’s Wand
Daughters of the Circle Bonus Short-Story
Morgan never imagined she’d be drawn to a wand. She’d couldn’t remember giving it much thought. So, when it arrived at the front door of the manor in a long, beautiful, ornate box, she stared at it, thinking how beautiful the box looked—and the wand too—nestled in the impression where it sat.
The box intrigued her, in itself, made, as it was, of intricate molded metal, in deep reds and gunmetal gray, the interior a deep, rich black velvet. Other than that, she never gave it another thought. Yet over the next several hours, something surprising happened.
First, she kept getting pulled back to the room where she’d set it over the fireplace mantel. Several times, she found herself standing in front of it, having had no conscious thought of going there. When she did, she’d become aware she stood there, staring at the impressions in the metal of the box. Then, she’d find herself taking it down and opening the box, staring at the wand. She felt something from it. She sensed this connection caused her to keep being tugged toward it.
Each time the connection grew stronger—and stronger still.
Looking at it, now, cool against her fingers, she realized that she might not know where this wand had come from—or why—but she’d held it before—had owned this wand before…. If a wand could be owned, that is.
Frowning, she stared at it. She certainly hoped that this wand hadn’t come into her life to start trouble. Not when she’d made her mind, now more than ever, to have a normal, magick free life—at least for a while. She’d hate to think that it showing on her doorstep meant something was amiss—again.
At the least, she needed a short break from magick.
There were four of them, who did magick. She and her sister, Claire, Tara, who’d always known she was a witch—and Sophia. Then, there was Alex and the twins. They’d grown up together in the small town of Red Bluff, before being separated one fateful day, playing around with magick.