by Lisa Medley
Nate led Maeve through the tall grass of the small meadow and onto the trail. Their steps crunched across the frosty ground. The hum of magic filled the air and his sigils twitched along his arms. The sigil of his family crest grew warm and tight across his right shoulder. Everyone in his immediate family had the same marking.
Despite the circumstances, it was good to be home.
Maeve’s anxiety was palpable behind him. Convincing her to come willingly hadn’t been easy, and for that reason alone, he’d neglected to elaborate on the fact the healer he was taking her to see was also his mother. He didn’t need any more potential obstacles. As it was, he was well aware that she’d only agreed to get out of the trailer because she planned to escape at the first opportunity. Once he got her inside the circle of protection, however, she wouldn’t get that chance until all of her ducks were back in a row, however long that took.
Six more feet and he was home free.
He felt the metaphysical door open and was glad he’d called ahead. Nate reached back for Maeve’s hand. She lifted her chin and walked ahead of him without a word, keeping well out of his reach. No matter. When she crossed the threshold, he breathed a sigh of relief.
Now he had all the time in the world.
***
Maeve could feel the magic surrounding her, but as long as she was bound to Nate, she knew the only way to escape him was to kill him. A solution that was becoming more and more acceptable to her as time went on.
His arm still bled where she’d sliced him open, eliciting a slight twinge of guilt somewhere deep inside of her. She’d been out of her mind with rage when he flashed into that damned trailer all superior and…Nate. She’d lashed out without even thinking.
Survival mode.
Once she’d settled down, Nate had talked for what felt like hours, wearing her down until she’d finally consented to his ridiculous plan. At that point, she would have agreed to anything to shut him up and get out of that trailer. She knew she was still several patties short of a Big Mac, but her will to survive, no matter what the cost, was strong.
Some things were ingrained in you. Some things you felt down to your soul.
Unfortunately, Maeve’s most pressing problem was that her soul was splintered. What Nate had pushed back inside her was by far the lion’s share, but somewhere inside the man who walked before her was her missing piece. Even now her body recognized it, pulled to him like a moon in orbit.
How the hell was she going to get it back?
Because there was no doubt about it. That piece was the key to rearranging her mental furniture.
Too bad it was still in the wrong storage unit.
Acquiescence went against her grain, but he’d sworn to her that his coven’s magical healing guru could help her. Until she could figure out how to get that damned bracelet off, it seemed she was at his mercy, barring the whole killing him in his sleep thing.
It was good to have options.
***
Having his back to Maeve was an exercise in trust she hadn’t yet earned, but he was making every effort to prove to her that he was acting in her best interest. He watched as his mother approached from across the compound.
They were still in Arkansas, but deep within the forests and protected by a natural magic as ancient as creation itself. First came nature, and then came man. Nate’s adopted people and the people before them and the people before them, all the way back to the first people had manipulated the elements and nature to their benefit, but it was a skill that had to be honed and maintained for continued success. A skill that had eventually been replaced with science for most people.
Ironic since science itself depended on magical elements. Funny how quickly the non-practicing lost that knowledge.
His mother’s eyes swept over Maeve and her smile faltered a little but recovered. He wondered if Maeve had seen it, too. She was combustible at best. He prayed she wouldn’t go medieval on his mother and bring down the wrath of the coven before they even got started.
“Nate. I’m so happy to see you.” His mother drew him into an embrace and he relaxed into her hold, soaking in her amazing scent and energy.
“Mother, this is Maeve.” He stepped aside, staying close enough to the two women that he could intervene in case Maeve went violent again. “Maeve, this is my mother, Rosemary.”
Maeve’s jaw dropped open, then she cast a withering glance at Nate.
He was busted, but it was too late for her to renege now that she was inside the coven boundaries. Defiant, Maeve crossed her arms over her chest and tried to maintain her cool distance.
Undeterred, Rosemary swept past Nate and wrapped her arms around a stunned Maeve. The whites of her eyes the size of half dollar coins, Maeve endured the embrace without incident, and Nate released an audible sigh of relief as his mother retreated, a slight frown on her otherwise unlined face.
Physically his mother was in her early sixties, but she looked a good twenty years younger. She had lotions and potions Estee Lauder would kill for.
Rosemary touched his injured arm and her lips tightened into a thin white line. “Let’s take care of you two. Come.”
She wrapped her arm around Nate’s damaged arm and pulled him into the compound. Maeve followed behind, tethered by his magical binding leash, fighting him for sport the entire way.
While the basic compound’s structure was the same as what he’d helped set up at the reaper compound, a wheel formation with a central community center at its hub, here eight streets radiated from the hub and each street was named after a Wiccan high holy day. They walked down Beltane Street to his parent’s two-story home, which also housed the coven’s healing center.
Flurries swirled through the air around them, a perfect accompaniment to the elaborate preparations for the upcoming Yule festival. Yule came days before the Christian Christmas, which really wasn’t much of a coincidence at all. Early Christians had tried to commandeer the holiday in an effort to eradicate millennia of pagan celebrations. Mostly, it had worked in the western world, but even here there were still pockets of believers who continued the old ways.
Yule was a time of rebirth and celebration. Families would fill this compound in the coming days and plan for the new year. It would be difficult to stay under the radar, but that was exactly what Nate intended to do. The less he had to explain to the coven about Maeve, the better. Many of the more sensitive coven members would recognize immediately that Maeve wasn’t human. While the coven was filled with tolerant, like-minded folks—a reaper was an entity that none of the living members, to his knowledge, had seen.
They needed to tread lightly.
Rosemary smiled up at him, her long salt and pepper hair whipping around in the wind behind her, her hazel eyes sparkling with mischief. Sometimes he felt like she could practically read his mind. He’d never been able to hide anything from her, so he hadn’t even tried until recently. This was his first visit in months, which would have been enough to spark her curiosity on its own, but he could tell she knew something big was brewing. Though he’d told his parents about moving, explaining that he’d taken a new job with a strict security clearance and wouldn’t be able to visit for a while, he’d wanted to distance his family and the coven from the current reaper troubles. Perhaps it was finally time to come clean.
“Let’s get that arm looked after.” She led him through the arched door on the side of the storefront of her healing center, heading directly into her workshop at the back of the building where the public was not allowed. Maeve followed silently behind, a scowl still fixed on her face.
The scent of a miscellany of herbs, spices and oils filled his nose and memories flooded through him. It smelled like home.
“Take off that jacket and let’s get a good look at your wound.”
Nate shrugged out of the jacket and Rosemary gasped. “What is that?”
Confused, Nate looked down at his arm, wondering if the wound was worse than it felt…which is when he reali
zed she was staring in horror at his short sword, scabbarded across his back.
“You carry weapons? Here? And like that?” Rosemary’s eyebrows rose in concern. She reassessed Maeve, clearly looking for signs of concealed weaponry in her clothing as well.
“A lot has changed, Mother.”
Shaking her head, she walked behind a long center island to a small sink against the wall, returning with a basin and washcloth. His wound, which was indeed longer and deeper than he’d expected, hurt like a bitch now that he had time to concentrate on it. Maeve stood against the far wall and watched. For once, he was happy she wasn’t chatty. He needed to work up to the impending conversation with Rosemary.
“Ow!” Nate jerked his arm out of her grasp. “That stings.”
“You’ll get an infection if I don’t make sure it’s clean. You know that.” Rosemary returned to the natural pharmacy, which filled the back wall from floor to ceiling, and chose two vials of liquid stoppered with rubber corks, then snipped off a stem of aloe vera.
“Lavender for healing. Tea tree oil for scarring and disinfecting.” She tore open a sterile pre-packaged needle and thread and his heart rate kicked up. “And stitches. Just for fun.”
“Anesthetic?”
“I might have some clove oil over there somewhere.” She left to rummage through her alphabetically arranged stash, returning with a small brown bottle. “Lucky boy.”
Rosemary dropped a trail of oil beads along both sides of the wound, letting them soak into his skin before she sewed his incision closed with quick, expert stitches as he ground his teeth to dust.
Anesthetic my ass.
He’d take modern medicine over clove oil any day.
Maeve appeared unaffected by the whole scene she had orchestrated. Rosemary trimmed the excess thread and smeared the wound with aloe vera before wrapping it with a clean gauze bandage.
“Good as new.”
He had to admit the cut felt better already. Once his mother had finished with all the needle sticking, that was.
Rosemary cut her eyes to Maeve. “Now, tell me why you are really here. And what is the lovely Maeve?”
“You might want a drink for this.”
“Let’s all have one. Shall we?” Rosemary put on a teapot of water to heat. She filled three tea balls with loose-leaf tea, creating a blend from several canisters and dropped the balls into three mugs before leading the way to a cozy sitting area by the fireplace.
Nate took notice of how close Maeve snugged up to the fire, sitting on the generous stone hearth, as close as she could get without singeing herself. Those long nights out in the elements were behind her and he could see her appreciation of the warmth. Still, she had walled herself off from him, from everyone, and it showed.
Hell, at least she wasn’t a raving maniac here…with his mother.
Nate took the corner of the brown leather couch, sinking into it with a welcome comfort only home could provide, while Rosemary eased into a cane rocker across from him, pulling a fleece blanket across her shoulders like a shawl.
Everything in the workroom was as he remembered it. The warm yellow and red colors of the pine and cedar furniture, the milk chocolate and almond painted walls, the back wall filled with apothecary jars and vials, various other waist-high bookcases filled with ancient books. The sitting area turned storefront, from which she sold potions and curatives, was accessible through an open-arched doorway to his right. Every piece of furniture and fixture was thoughtfully placed so as not to block the flow of chi. It felt as if he’d just moved out instead of more than seven years ago.
Skylights provided most of the daytime light, which made the shop soothing and cheerful. There were several hundred people in the coven who lived in this compound full-time, and his mother was their primary healer. Sure, if things went south and more urgent medical care was needed, they’d seek out western medicine, but Rosemary was their first stop.
She was an amazing healer. Even without magic, Rosemary had a total mastery of herbs and natural medicine. Her skills had been his motivation for pursuing medicine himself. Nate had assisted her for years in the shop and on house calls when necessary. Rosemary treated everything from birthing to easing the pain of the dying. Her gifts exceeded the natural realm in ways he couldn’t explain and was only now beginning to truly appreciate.
There was nothing magical in her care of his arm or the tea she brewed on the stove, but when push came to shove, Rosemary could crank up the amp-age and bring Mother Nature to her bitchy knees. He’d seen it.
Well, if anyone was in need of Rosemary’s skills it was Maeve. Now all he had to do was convince them both. Screwing up his courage, he leaned forward, smoothing his wet palms over his pant legs.
“Mom…” The whistle of the teapot interrupted him and he leaned back into the couch. Maeve had only the slightest notion of what he intended to ask Rosemary to do and he had no idea how she’d react. After all, Maeve had never been on the receiving end of the sort of magic Rosemary could conjure. From what he could deduce, he was only the second person Maeve had ever shared her energy with after her transition into a reaper.
“Here you go.” Rosemary handed him a steaming mug of tea. “And you, dear.”
Maeve wrapped her hands around the oversized cup and brought it to her nose, drawing in a deep breath, her eyes closed as she absorbed its healing gifts. He watched as her shoulders relaxed and dropped in relief. Amazing how comforting a simple mug of tea could be.
“Chamomile?” Nate asked.
“Of course, and a few other things. A personal blend.” She smiled slyly. “Now. Spill it, Nathaniel. Start with the sword.”
Nate spent the next hour getting his mother up to speed, glossing over some of the dicier bits. She didn’t even blink when he told her that he was actually currently living with the Authority and his new job was as their demon tracker. Then her eyebrows only rose ever so slightly when he told her about his visits to Hell and Purgatory. It wasn’t the reaction he’d been expecting. Maeve remained silent during his confession, much of it new to her as well, he was certain.
He was still curious about how much she remembered, but in any case, he knew she wasn’t savvy to his personal goings on the past few months and certainly not his trip to Hell.
“Well, that’s quite a story. Demons? In Meridian? We’ll need to fortify the protection around the compound and become more vigilant than usual. There will be a lot of visitors over the next few days and the circle will be breached regularly. Do you think anything would have followed you here? Anything…supernatural?”
“No, Mother. We came straight from the compound. Nothing has breached or even attempted to breach it since I recast the circle with all of the members of the Authority. A skill you taught me, by the way.”
“Yes, and you were always a good student, Nate.” Rosemary cast a quick look at Maeve, then back to him. “I knew you were special the first time I met you, Nate.” She reached for his hand and took it in hers. “You were our gift. As soon as I read your file, the troubles you’d experienced…Well, I knew you were different. And here, we embrace that difference. Your light has always shone brighter than anyone else’s. And now? Nate, your aura is beautiful. You are doing exactly what you were meant to do.”
Nate shifted on the couch, uncomfortable with receiving her compliments in front of Maeve.
He had never before seen his mother’s aura, and he noticed now how amazing and beautiful it was, filled with pinks and greens. Hers was the first pink aura he’d encountered since the change. Pink was a rare color, which represented a perfect balance between spiritual awareness and material existence. Green, of course, represented a natural healing ability.
He was proud of his mother and didn’t want to do anything to disappoint her.
“Mother, before you cast a bronze statue in my honor, I need to tell you the rest of it. Maeve was possessed. Not by a demon, but by a fallen angel. I somehow managed to drive him out, but he tore her soul loose on
his way out. I retrieved it and later…reinsouled her. But now…”
“Now a piece of her remains inside you.”
“Yes!” Maeve spoke for the first time, startling them both.
“I knew it the second I touched you, dear Maeve. You are soulmates in the most literal sense of the word now. I’m afraid there’s no undoing that. But what we can do, Maeve, if you are willing, is work on healing the damage done to you while that monster held you captive.”
Maeve gave Nate a withering look.
“There’s one more thing,” Nate offered, rubbing the back of his neck and concentrating on the fire to avoid Rosemary’s eyes and the inevitable disappointment he expected to see there. “I bound Maeve to myself with magic.”
“You used black magic on her? After all she’s been through?”
“It was for her own good. I was afraid she’d flash, and I wouldn’t be able to protect her.”
The women exchanged knowing looks and Rosemary clicked her tongue at him. “You know better than that. Are you sure it wasn’t for your own protection?”
“You got that right,” Maeve chimed in.
Jesus, now she decided to go all Chatty Cathy? He felt the tide turning against him, but he wouldn’t unbind her, not until he was sure she was of sound mind. The only reason he’d mentioned it at all was because sooner or later his mother would see the bracelet and know what he’d done. Hell hath no fury like a mother lied to.
Especially his mother.
“Maeve, will you let me help you?”
Maybe relaxed by the tea or empowered by his mother’s confident presence, Maeve nodded in surprising submission. “Yes.”
“Good. Nate, go help your father. He’s in the center compound working on the Yule altar. And for gods’ sakes, leave that weapon here. You’ll start a riot if you walk down Beltrane with that thing strapped to your back, let alone if you try to wield it. Go!”
Nate jumped up. Rosemary didn’t make requests more than once. She expected to be obeyed the first time. He found himself wanting to offer words of comfort to Maeve, but was too afraid of being skinned alive in front of his mother. Maeve’s look alone could peel paint off the walls.