by Vivian Wood
It didn’t exactly make her popular. She’d never even kissed a boy until her senior year of high school, seeing as her main after school activity was hanging with her grandmother.
Instead of playing soccer or joining student government, Kira kept her head down and spent her afternoons watching Spanish telenovelas with Grandma Louise. Neither of them spoke Spanish, but it was fun to watch and guess at the constantly-twisting plot lines.
Asher changed all that.
One day, Kira walked out of Montgomery Albion High School and literally ran into him, nearly cracking her skull on his rock-hard chest. She looked up to find the most gorgeous man on the planet staring down at her with discernible interest, and soon she was sucked into the endless vortex of his impossibly dark eyes.
Kira snapped out of it after a moment. Flushing, she turned to literally run away from him, like as fast as she could… but Asher’s hand on her wrist stopped her.
“Do I know you?” he’d asked.
Those four words launched a fairytale romance, drawing Kira out of her self-imposed shell and helping her blossom into adulthood. Everything that came after that had just been so fast. Kira had never felt that way about anyone since, despite a decent amount of dating, so she chalked it up to youth. Teenagers, hormones, first love. All that crap.
“Basically, I was stupid,” Kira grumbled aloud.
Flinging the covers off her body, she sat up and climbed off the bed. Her ill-used body protested every movement, but there was no choice. She dragged herself to the bathroom, only to find that her clothes were missing. The whole bathroom had been tidied, so perhaps the mysterious maid had simply dumped Kira’s clothes along with the trash.
Sighing, Kira resigned herself to staying in the pajamas. She’d seen some clothes in the guest closet, but she didn’t want to impose any more than she already had.
Okay, in reality, she didn’t want to take another bit of charity from Asher. The shower and good night’s rest were more than enough, plus the pajamas that were unlikely to be returned. Kira sighed, wondering how the hell she was going to get herself back to Baton Rouge.
At this point, her choices were asking Asher or calling her ex-boyfriend Marshall. Neither sounded good, to be honest. Asher had made it sound like Marshall could have sold Kira out, so she probably shouldn’t call Marshall. Then again, it was to Asher’s benefit if Kira asked Asher for a favor. Assuming that he wanted…
Well… what the hell did he want, exactly? Kira hadn’t the faintest idea. Asher was just as enigmatic as ever, and trying to figure him out made Kira’s head pound.
Apparently some things never changed. As for Asher, he’d made his intentions and desires clear enough all those years ago. He’d told her he was never coming back, that she should move on. And they had both done just that.
…mostly.
Shaking her head and wondering how she could possibly foster a single charitable thought about Asher at this point, much less a romantic one, Kira left the guest bedroom. She followed the hallway to a bolt-hole entrance, and stepped through it into a grand white marble entryway.
Trying not to gawp like a country bumpkin, Kira felt the cold stone under her feet and realized that she wasn’t going to get very far without shoes. Or money. Or any kind of ID…
Muttering curses under her breath, she turned away from the front door and walked deeper into the house, trying to find someone who could provide her with shoes or a ride or… just anything more than the big fat nothing she had to her name at the moment.
When Kira stepped into a huge open-design room that contained a kitchen, a living area, and what looked like a conference table, she stilled. Standing next to the conference table, arms crossed, was the diminutive, light-skinned Creole lady she’d seen briefly yesterday. She wore a flowing amethyst-colored dress and a white cotton headscarf, with delicate gold jewelry glinting at her earlobes, wrists, and neck.
“There you are,” the woman said, giving Kira an impatient expression. “I thought you’d sleep all day. I am Mere Marie.”
The woman stood and beckoned Kira over to the table.
“I was just hoping to find a ride back to Baton Rouge. Or maybe just some shoes,” Kira said lamely. There was something about Mere Marie that Kira instinctively distrusted, though for the life of her she couldn’t say what.
“In good time,” Mere Marie said, waving Kira over again. “Come sit down, have something to eat. You must be hungry.”
She was right, of course. Kira was starving. Hunger was just lower on the list of needs to address, so Kira hadn’t given it a thought yet.
“I guess… if it’s not too much trouble,” Kira said, walking over to the table and taking a seat across from Mere Marie.
Now that Kira was closer to the older woman, she could actually feel the magic radiating off her. Clearly Mere Marie was some kind of witch, and a strong one. That in itself was no problem for Kira; her own grandmother had been a Hoodoo-influenced hedge witch of sorts, mixing little bags of herbs for healing and good luck.
When Kira looked at her grandmother, sometimes she could see the magic floating around her. Soft purple and yellow light, hovering close to her skin. This witch was altogether different, though. When Kira squinted, trying to see the colors of her magic, she glimpsed a chaotic mix of colors, bright and dark, vivid and pale. Pure white in some places, dark gray in others. All swirling together, making Kira’s skin crawl.
“You can read auras,” Mere Marie said, making Kira jump. Kira looked up at her, blushing. For some reason, she got the idea that Mere Marie thought blatantly examining someone’s magic was rude.
“Uh, I guess. I see colors,” Kira said, wincing at how dumb her words sounded. She was still really out of it, nowhere near being able to articulate herself well.
“If you practice, you can see them without trying so hard,” Mere Marie informed her. “A seasoned witch can read auras without anyone else noticing.”
Before Kira could reply, Mere Marie turned and walked toward the kitchen, calling, “Duverjay! Duverjay!” Kira was totally bewildered for a moment until a crisply-suited servant appeared, giving Mere Marie a short bow.
“This is Duverjay, our butler,” Mere Marie said. “Duverjay, Kira is hungry. Can you whip something up for her?”
“Anything you like, ma’am,” the butler told Kira, inclining his head. “An omelette, perhaps? We have some fresh fruit and wheat toast as well.”
“Oh,” Kira said, taken aback. She’d expected a sandwich or… well, something less involved. “I don’t want to put you out, sir.”
Duverjay’s brows arched, though Kira couldn’t tell whether it was distaste or surprise.
“Not at all. If you like, I could make something else. We have some nice filet mignon, asparagus, and potatoes. Or perhaps a salad with grilled chicken breast? Anything you want.”
“Oh. Uh. You know, the omelette sounds great,” Kira said, quickly growing overwhelmed by the choices.
“At once,” the butler said, moving to the kitchen.
Mere Marie rounded on Kira once more, the servant forgotten.
“Perfect. Now let’s talk about you for a moment, dear,” Mere Marie said. The word dear sounded strange coming from her, and Kira got the idea that Mere Marie wasn’t much for pet names.
“I’ll be out of your hair soon, I promise,” Kira said, clearing her throat. Mere Marie strode up and took the seat directly next to Kira’s, and it was everything Kira could do not to jump up and run.
There it was again, that little flare of warning in the back of her head. Something about the witch made the fine hairs on Kira’s arms and neck stand straight up with alarm.
“You’re responding to my magic,” Mere Marie said, tilting her head to the side as she examined Kira closely. “Not very positively either, it seems.”
“I’m sorry,” Kira said, wrinkling her nose. “I don’t understand it.”
“Your magic is pure white, and mine is more… gray,” Mere Marie said,
pursing her lips. “You haven’t used yours much, so everyone else’s magic is going to feel this way.”
“What do you mean, pure white?” Kira asked.
“We all start out white, as infants. Before you perform your first intentional act of magic, your magic is pure. Untainted. You’ve never used it for something selfish, never cast a spell that will negatively impact someone else. As a witch progresses in her art, she makes decisions, chooses how to use her magic. The longer you practice, the more likely you are to come up against a difficult decision, be put in a place where you want or need to use your magic for something other than a selfless act. Even if you perform very small spells to help or defend yourself, or you hex someone in a silly way, it tinges your aura.”
“So that’s why your aura is so many colors? You hex a lot of people?” Kira asked, puzzling it out.
Mere Marie gave a sharp bark of laughter.
“My dear, I’ve lived for hundreds of years and done every kind of magic under the sun. All of those choices are reflected in my aura. The only thing I’ve never done is pure black magic. You’d know, because my aura would be nothing but ink and blood.”
“Is black magic what it sounds like?” Kira asked.
“It requires a living sacrifice,” Mere Marie said, nodding her head. “It’s very, very ugly stuff. I doubt you could even stand to be a hundred paces from a black witch or warlock.”
“Who would want to be?” Kira asked, giving her head a shake.
“You’d be surprised. Desperate people searching for any kind of solution to their problems, for one.”
Kira thought about that, and shrugged.
“Doesn’t matter. I’m heading back to Baton Rouge as soon as I can, and I doubt there are too many black witches there. I hardly have any power of my own, and I’m going to keep what I’ve got on the down low, so nobody is going to be seeking me out for anything,” she said.
Mere Marie went still, watching Kira very intently, her gaze making Kira blush and squirm after a minute.
“You don’t have very much power, you said?” Mere Marie asked, looking somber.
“No, not really,” Kira said. The words felt like a lie as she said them, but it was true.
“Wait here.” Mere Marie rose and vanished from the room.
Kira waited, gratefully accepting her meal from the butler and digging into the omelette and fruit. She’d nearly finished when Mere Marie returned, carrying a very large mirror with beautifully gilded edges.
Kira watched as Mere Marie set it flat on the table beside Kira’s plate, then set a very small silver dagger atop the mirror. She pushed a chair out of the way and then turned to Kira expectantly.
Kira swallowed a bite of omelette and looked up to Mere Marie.
“What?” she asked.
“Stand up,” Mere Marie said, producing a white handkerchief from her pocket. “We’re going to need blood. Just a few drops.”
Mere Marie picked up the dagger and thrust the handle into Kira’s hand, motioning for her to prick her fingertip. Kira’s last bit of hunger faded; she wasn’t big on seeing blood in general, and her own made her queasy.
Biting her lip, Kira made the smallest possible cut on the tip of her ring finger. Luckily the blade was sharp, and she hardly felt the slice. A big drop of blood welled up. Mere Marie grasped Kira’s hand and turned it over, planting it face down on the mirror.
The older woman closed her eyes and chanted a string of incomprehensible words, making goosebumps break out over Kira’s skin. The mirror flared to life, reflecting a scene…
As Kira and Mere Marie gazed down to watch, the mirror brought forth an image that stirred something in Kira, a faint memory. She leaned down with a frown. Only Mere Marie’s hand coming down to cover Kira’s kept her from yanking away from the mirror when she recognized the scene.
It was a big, grassy lot behind a trailer park in Union City, a place where high school kids pulled up their trucks, dropped their tailgates, and partied hard. Someone would always start a big bonfire, and the party would go until the bonfire burned itself out.
In the mirror, the clearing was dark and the lot was crowded, a dozen trucks pulled up in a semi-circle. Music played from car stereos and kids sat on the tailgates or on hay bales, drinking from red plastic cups or swigging cheap cans of beer. Unlabeled bottles of clear liquor circulated the party, so-called “white lightning” — moonshine, no doubt stolen from someone’s parents’ stash.
“I don’t want to see this,” Kira murmured, but Mere Marie only pressed her hand more firmly to the mirror. Kira felt helpless to do anything but watch, although she remembered the night well enough.
Kira spotted Asher in the far corner, standing with a couple of his friends and taking liberal swigs of moonshine. Then she saw herself enter from behind one of the trucks, giggling and stumbling a little, a matching bottle of booze in her hand. It was funny, watching it all from a distance like this; at the time, Kira hadn’t realized that Asher was staring at her the whole time, looking pissed beyond belief.
It made sense. This was the night he’d told her he was leaving, about an hour and a half after he’d said the words. Kira had fled his bed and headed straight for the bonfire, looking for diversion from her heartache. She’d found it in that bottle of white lightning… for a little while, at least.
Knowing what would happen next, Kira’s gaze traveled to the other side of the screen. Sure as anything, there was Dan Jones, chugging the last bit of a bottle of moonshine, spitting a little into the fire. A fellow senior at Kira’s school, Dan was a showy braggart, a football player who was way too cool to acknowledge a quiet geek like Kira. She’d never particularly liked Dan, but she was about to get to know him all too well.
Dan teetered in place, turning green. He went down less than half a minute later, falling flat on his face. When several of the kids standing near him shouted and moved to check on him, Kira saw herself wander over, curious.
A minute passed, and another. No one was able to rouse Dan from his alcohol-induced stupor. Some skinny brunette was attempting half-hearted CPR, banging on his chest and blowing in his mouth. Nothing.
A beat. A beat. A drumbeat, almost. Kira remembered it perfectly, the slow, persistent thrumming in her head. She’d wondered at it, staring at Dan. The funniest idea hit her. For a moment, she’d been certain that she was hearing Dan’s heartbeat. Slower, slower…
Silence.
Just as people were backing away, some even jumping in their trucks and driving off, Kira launched herself at Dan. She had no idea what she was doing, but she needed to touch him. Her knees hit the ground next to his body, her hands came down to land on his chest…
In Kira’s memory, everything went black.
In the mirror, Kira’s whole body stiffened for a moment, and then she began to shake, her eyes rolling back in her head. Some of the other kids were still watching, but most were running for the hills. Asher appeared at Kira’s side, looking pale as a sheet but not interfering.
Then Kira seemed to faint, slumping to the side without an ounce of grace or awareness. Dan twitched, then sat straight up, vomiting on his own lap.
Asher leaned down and scooped Kira up in his arms, carrying her away…
Mere Marie pulled Kira’s hand from the mirror, giving her an amused expression.
“Is that what you call ‘hardly any power’?” the witch asked, wiping at Kira’s blood-smudged fingers with the handkerchief.
“That only happened once, and I didn’t even do it. The magic was just ripped out of me,” Kira protested.
“That’s because you weren’t trained to use your power. I don’t know any Revivers personally, but I’ve heard stories,” Mere Marie said.
“What did you call it?” Kira asked, startled.
“A Reviver. Comes from the French, revivre, meaning to live again.” Mere Marie pronounced the French word crisply, hinting at a linguistic fluency Kira wouldn’t have suspected. “Your kind are very rare, beca
use you have the power every villain in the world wants. You can literally raise and command the dead. You can breathe life into a corpse. There are some limitations to your abilities, I’m sure, but think about it. If people find out about what you can do, a little kidnapping is the least of your worries.”
Mere Marie cleared her throat and stepped back, picking up the handkerchief.
“Wait,” Kira said, giving the witch a look. “I’ll keep that, please. I’d rather my blood stay with me, if you don’t mind.”
She held her hand out and waited, and Mere Marie grudgingly handed the white linen over. Kira moistened a clean spot with her tongue, then wiped the mirror and dagger off as well, making sure that Mere Marie didn’t have any of her blood. She didn’t know the other woman well, but she had the idea that she didn’t want Mere Marie having her blood or hair samples.
“Well,” Mere Marie said with a sigh. “I think it’s safe to say that you can’t just traipse around Baton Rouge, hoping no one figures out what you are. Since you’ve already apparently been kidnapped, held captive, and dumped a hundred miles from your house, I think we can assume that someone knows what you are. Judging from Asher’s reaction, you’re here for him… I just don’t know why.”
She gave Kira a questioning look, but Kira just shrugged.
“I don’t know why, either. There’s nothing between Asher and me.”
Mere Marie scoffed.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re fated mates. I saw it plain as day,” Mere Marie said, rolling her eyes. “I don’t know why all the Guardians end up with women who are just in total denial. It’s tiring, truly it is.”
“He ended that a long time ago,” Kira insisted.
“As if that matters,” Mere Marie said, waving a dismissive hand. “Look, we don’t have to talk about your issues with Asher. In fact, I don’t care about that in the least. I do, however, care about keeping you away from black magic. If you were to turn, you’d bring the city to its knees. The world, maybe. I shudder to think.”