by Melanie Rawn
Cam was baffled by the fierceness of Evan’s determination to protect her; Holly had never seemed to need protecting from anything or anyone. Then he glanced at Jamey, and understood. It wasn’t possessiveness, or the egocentric imperative that nobody threatens what’s mine. It was simply that Evan loved her, and he trusted no one else to keep her safe. If that was even more egotistical, then so be it.
“This baby, this little girl,” Evan was saying, “in a lot of ways she’s that nightmare come true. She was stolen. She’d grow up thinking what Weiss told her to. Indoctrinated. Warped the way he was warped. This ‘thaumatocracy’ Jamey talked about—it would’ve been the whole meaning of her life.”
“She would have had no more choice than her mother did,” Alec agreed.
Nicky finished off his Scotch. “The girl had no idea what she was, of course. Any magic she worked was instinct. Which is the most dangerous magic there is.”
“She got loose from all of us,” Cam reminded them. “Even my knots. If her child is half that powerful—”
Jamey drew a breath, then sat back on the couch and shook his head as if reprimanding himself. Cam touched his arm. “Say what you were going to say.”
“I’m not sure it’s relevant.”
Holly snorted. “You’ve spent almost a year listening to us chase off on tangents. In this house, ‘relevant’ is so scarce it qualifies as a trace element.”
He smiled, and for an instant breathing was something Cam had to think about. Holly caught his eye and winked. It made him want to throttle her—or buy her a brand new BMW. Maybe both.
“Well, it’s just this.” Any hint of apology for his presumption had left Jamey’s voice. “Power’s a very personal thing. Political, financial, what’s commonly termed ‘moral authority’—basically it’s the ability to impose your will on someone else, be it a single person or an entire nation.”
“Or a courtroom,” said Evan. “I’ve seen you in action.”
“That’s a kind of power, too, and I enjoy it.” Not looking at Cam, he added, “I’m doing what I was trained and educated to do, guided by ethics and what I believe to be right. What you people have, this is new to me in theory, but . . .” He paused, not looking at any of them. “Weiss had no magic of his own, beyond an ability to sense it in others. He had nothing of the kind of power that seemed to mean everything to him. Is there anybody here who believes he wasn’t acting on someone else’s behalf?”
Cam leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped. “All right, Counselor, build your case.”
Jamey got to his feet, smoothly graceful, and for all that he was wearing jeans and one of Evan’s work shirts he gave the impression of having just buttoned the jacket of an exquisitely tailored three-piece suit. “Bernhardt Weiss was an individual with a single goal. His pursuit of this goal was relentless. In psychological terms, he was a man obsessed. He purchased human beings. He regarded them as commodities. They were bodies to be bought and sold. To be used. He did not have contempt for human lives. He did in fact value them as one would a piece of machinery, a plot of land. Rented to others for use, or planted and reaped as a crop—this is how Bernhardt Weiss regarded the people he bought. And he made a profit. Almost all of it was monetary. One thing was not. When he wanted to escape Westmoreland, the one thing he demanded was that newborn child. Other than Weiss himself, to whom would that child be so valuable?”
“He wasn’t normal.” Nicky set down his glass. “I don’t mean that he was crazy—he obviously was, as you pointed out. Obsessed. I mean that by Witchly standards, he wasn’t normal.”
“Neither am I,” Holly murmured.
Evan pointed a long finger at her. “Don’t start.” When she opened her mouth to say something more, he added, “I mean it. Don’t you start with me.”
Jamey cleared his throat. “Holly, as I understand it, or as I think I’m beginning to understand it, your gift is simply different from everyone else’s. Not lesser, or weaker—from what I saw, it may be more important than theirs. I mean, they can work magic, but they need you to really make it stick. That’s right, isn’t it, Cam?” Not waiting for an answer, he gave a sudden smile. “And who would have believed yesterday at this time that I’d be discussing what’s usual and unusual among Witches? But it seems to me that the point here is that within his own milieu—within his own family, from what Nick said—he’d be the odd one out. Holly mentioned a psychological factor in this project of his. Some people feel estranged because of what they are, but Weiss felt that way because of what he was not. This child’s mother was a Witch, and the pregnancy came to term in a county rife with Witches—for whatever reasons of bloodline or environment—so chances were pretty good that this little girl would be a Witch. He’d raise her, control her, teach her what to think. She’d be his entrée to power.”
“A commodity,” Cam murmured. “Possession of which would establish him with the hierarchy of—of whatever. Nicky? Alec? Any ideas?”
Before either could answer, Holly sat up straight and said, “Valentin Maximovich Saksonov.”
Alec responded almost immediately, “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt.”
“Oh, no,” she warned. “I was so clever in figuring out when he was here—don’t you dare tell me you don’t recognize the name!”
“When was he here?”
“Every Quarter Sabbat since October 2004! Come on, Uncle Nicky, you must have heard of him—”
He was shaking his head. “Sorry. I like your theory, though. Other Witches in the area would be busy with their own observances, safe within their Circles. Anything he did would go unnoticed.”
“None of the other names Evan gave us look familiar,” Alec said. “But we have a few contacts we haven’t talked to in a while.”
“Well, talk to them soon.” Holly slumped back in her chair, disappointed and annoyed. “Please,” she added, belatedly recalling her manners.
Cam had kept his gaze on his plate this whole time, fingers picking at crumbs of chocolate cake. The instant Nicky put on a baffled expression, Cam had known that lies would be told. And as he listened, chasing bits of frosting around his plate, the echoing syllables of the name finally registered. But he said nothing; Alec and Nicky might be able to lie to Holly, but he’d never managed it.
Jamey had stepped into the conversational breach. “The immediate question is, what do we do with this baby? I’m assuming no one here is willing to hand her over to Social Services. Not a child you know to be—”
“Mommy!” screamed Bella from the front hall.
“No!” yelled Kirby. “My blocks!”
“—a Witch,” Jamey finished.
Holly muttered, “Sharing time appears to be over,” and went to mediate.
Lulah, conspicuously silent up until now, went around the room with teapot and cake plate. “You know anybody who works in Congress?” she asked Cam.
“I still have a few contacts.”
“Reverend Deutschman’s volunteers will need legal help and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they put together a delegation and headed for Washington soon.”
“I’ll make some phone calls tomorrow morning.” Lounging back on the couch, Cam spread his arms across its back and closed his eyes. “I’m not old enough yet to feel this tired at four in the afternoon.”
“It’s got nothing to do with age,” Nicky told him. “This was the first Grandmastering you’ve ever done. Of course you’re exhausted.”
“Is that what it’s called?” Jamey asked.
Cam missed entirely their next exchange, for Jamey settled himself against his side, tugging an arm down to rest across his shoulders. Instinct screamed at him to move, escape, deny, laugh it off. But every muscle turned to mist with the gentle flow of warmth from the body pressed close to his. When Jamey’s arm slid around his waist, he told himself that this “together” thing would take some getting used to.
He decided he could deal with it.
“KIRBY,” HOLLY SAID PATIENTLY
, “the yellow ones are yours and the green ones are Bella’s. It’s not cheating to take your own blocks.”
“I want a wall,” he insisted. “She broke my wall.”
“He broke my wall, too!”
Regarding her daughter critically, Holly said at last, “My munchkin, you mustn’t make up stories unless you’ve been paid to do so. I think what we need here is more blocks. Anybody who wants more can come with me upstairs to get them.”
A few minutes later they were back downstairs and she was doling out red blocks, hiding a grin as each child counted carefully. Brilliant though her offspring were, Kirby got lost after seven; Bella made it to nine before going back to three. How “mubberteen” made it into the mix was a mystery akin to why Kirby called butterflies “nannybows” and Bella got “moosebubbles” when she was chilly.
At length the walls were back under construction. Holly sat in the dining room doorway and watched, thinking about what Evan had said. Until that moment she’d considered only what it might have been like to be forced to carry a child that wasn’t even one’s own; she tried to imagine how she would feel if her child was growing inside another woman’s body.
The deeply personal revulsion of Holly Lachlan demanded abandonment of that line of thinking. The professional instincts of H. Elizabeth McClure felt another part of the book slide into place. Oh, Evan was going to have a wonderful year or so while she wrote this one. . . .
“I have milk and I have crackers,” Lulah announced from the kitchen door. “I also have string cheese, and if you want any you’d better hurry before Brigand jumps up on the counter and eats it all.”
The half-finished walls were summarily abandoned. Chairs were climbed onto, cups were claimed, and cheese was doled out in scrupulously even portions. When the kids were busy munching, Holly took her aunt aside.
“I need to know something. Poppy’s car was found right around where my parents were killed. Was the location a coincidence?”
“No, honey. I doubt it very much. Jesse went down to take a look for himself. . . .” Lulah’s sharp blue eyes glazed over, and a muscle clenched in her jaw. “There’d been magic done, and more magic that made a Witch helpless to use magic.” She pulled in a long breath. “We thought it might’ve been something like that. Thomas and Marget were too good and too well-trained not to defend themselves. And Jesse found no sign of their magic at all.”
“Just the magic that killed them.” Suddenly she noticed what her aunt was wearing: black trousers, black sweater, and an Hermès scarf Holly had brought her from Paris long ago.
“Yes,” Lulah said in response to her look. “You’d all better go get changed. Bill Cutter is at my place with the baby. And the body. We’ll be burying that poor girl before sundown.”
IT WAS A LONG, silent walk to the burying ground.
The coffin had been contributed by Louvena’s nephew, Leander—who, in addition to his other woodworking skills, constructed caskets for those Witches who wished interment rather than immolation. The customary pine had archaic associations with immortality. The shavings and sawdust of other woods were placed in an old iron cauldron. Ash for enchantment, for the passage between inner and outer worlds, for rebirth. Hazel, the tree of wisdom and wishes. Willow for Witchcrafting. Yew for death, apple for immortality, rowan, the tree of vision and healing, and holly to ease the passage of death. Finally, birch and elder, the trees that stood on either side of the one Nameless Day in the ancient Irish calendar. That day represented the link between life and death.
The girl was no longer nameless. Going through the passports from Weiss’s office had yielded the information, although Nicky doubted the name was her own. When Alec pointed out that he wasn’t the only Hungarian with a Russian surname, he shrugged. But they had nothing else to call her, so “Natasha” would have to do.
Between them, Holly and Lulah carried the heavy cauldron to the head of the grave. Holly called fire to the contents as Evan and Cam dug the grave within the Woodhush family burial ground. Rain had softened the soil, and the coffin wasn’t all that big, so it took only a little while to hollow out the earth to receive it. Beneath an overcast sky, with thunder in the distance, they made grave-offerings as humans had done for millennia. The ancients had given food, jewelry, flowers, weapons, carved trinkets of bone or shell, stone or antler: these things, found in graves thousands of years old, revealed that humans had developed not only an understanding of what death was but a hope for what it might be. No one knew what they had truly meant with their gifts and rituals, but that there had been rituals and that they had left gifts for the dead demonstrated their grief, and a sense of community, and a contemplation of death and what might come after. It was, in all likelihood, the beginning of religion.
Natasha’s religion, if any, was a mystery to them. So they used bits and pieces of their own.
Lulah set white candles to burning, thirteen of them around the grave. Into the open coffin she let fall cedar, sage, and myrrh: purification, peace, protection, and the release of all grief. Finally she rubbed between her palms a sprig of marjoram, releasing the fragrance of the herb that traditionally accompanied the dead, and dropped it gently onto Natasha’s breast. She stepped back, and nodded at Jamey.
“There are supposed to be ten adult Jewish men present, a minyan, to say Kaddish,” he murmured. “I think I can be forgiven for reciting just a little of it here, on my own. Y′hei sh′lama raba min sh′maya v′chayim aleinu v′al kol Yis′ra′eil v′imru: Amein. Oseh shalom bim′romav hu ya′aseh shalom aleinu v′al kol Yis′ra′eil v′imru: Amein.” May there be abundant peace from Heaven and life upon us and upon all Israel. He Who makes peace in His heights, may He make peace upon us and upon all Israel.
Alec held out a large bead of pink quartz, carved into the shape of a rose. “The stone of serenity, of joy, of peace. To comfort the heart, to calm and console the mind. The gem of forgiveness, and of love. May it protect you from the cold, child.” Gently he placed the stone rose beneath the girl’s folded hands.
Evan, contending that there was a chance she’d been Catholic, had insisted on what came next. He spoke the words in English; Holly recited them in Irish Gaelic; Cam had Nicky translate them into Hungarian.
“Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”
“Sé do bheatha, a Mhuire, atá lán de ghrásta, Tá an Tiarna leat. Is beannaithe thú idir mná, agus is beannaithe toradh do bhroinne, Iosa. A Naomh-Mhuire, a Mháthair Dé, guigh orainn na peacaigh, anois, agus ar uair ár mbáis. Amen.”
“Üdvözlégy, Mária, kegyelemmel teljes, az Úr van teveled, áldott vagy te az asszonyok között, és áldott a te méhednek gyümölcse, Jézus. Asszonyunk Szüz Mária, Istennek szent Anyja, imádkozzál érettünk, bünösökért, most és halálunk óráján. Ámen.”
Nicholas didn’t use Hungarian. Rather, he chose a ritual formula from Rom tradition. “Putrav lesko drom angle leste te na inkrav les mai but palpale mura brigasa.” I open her way in the new life and release her from the fetters of my sorrow.
The casket was sealed. The men lowered it into the grave, then took turns shoveling. By the time they finished, the white candles had all burned out.
Holly and Lulah started back to the house together. Jamey arched a questioning eyebrow at Cam; he shook his head slightly, and hung back from the others. He glanced once more at the small graveyard. Standing there, listening to his own heartbeat, he nodded slowly to himself at the implacable reminder of that new grave, of the brief time there was to love, to work, to seek happiness, to make a life and a family and a home.
He caught and held Alec’s dark gaze. After a small grimace of misgiving, the older man murmured something to Nicky and approached Cam.
“Why did you lie to her, Alec?”
A sigh. “How did you know?”
“It took me a minute
, but I made the connection. ‘Maximovich’ is ‘son of Maxim.’ And ‘Saksonov’ is really bad Russian for ‘von Sachsen.’ ”
They walked a few yards in silence before Alec said, “I’d hoped you wouldn’t recognize the name. Or remember it. Max was Mr. Scott’s counterpart in Europe. I can’t believe that his son would be a party to something like this.”
“But Holly was right,” Cam insisted. “Saksonov—or von Sachsen—was here at the Quarters, and he did work the magic at Westmoreland.”
“Very likely.”
“Why did you lie?”
The older man tilted his head back and gazed up at the darkening sky. “Traditions east of the Rhine are different from Celtic, or French, or even Italian and Iberian,” he said. “The Germans, Russians, the Rom—you’ve lived in that part of the world, you know the distinct character of those magics. Max was . . . severe in his discipline. After what he’d been through during the Second World War, it’s not surprising. A German Witch, living under the Third Reich—” He shook his head. “I’ll admit that Nicky and I never much liked working with him, but he was a good man and we respected him.”
“Have you ever met the son?”
“No. We’ll make inquiries, of course. We lied because until we look into this—”
“Alec—”
“We’ve been at this longer than you’ve been alive,” he said coldly. “Leave it alone, Cam.”