Deceptive Secrets

by RM Walker

  “We do?”

  “We do.”

  “And would we care to enlighten us why?”

  “He’s been cloaking them for years. No one knows they’re here, but you posed a threat of giving them away. He needn’t worry, I have you cloaked as well.”

  “Magical cloak? Are we talking Harry Potter cloak, or Romulan cloaking?”

  Humour flashed in his eyes. “We’re talking magical cloaking, but if it was like either, it would be the Romulan cloaking.”

  “So, the shields are up, Captain?”

  “Quite right, Number One.” He grinned at her.

  “You couldn’t see the boys because the cloaking device is active?”

  “Exactly. As soon as I got here I put my own cloaking device over you. The entire Council leaders could come here and all they’d find is my daughter with my blood and that’s all.”

  “And the boys?”

  “Wouldn’t even register them. You could stand Nate in front of them, and even with their evil eyes, they’d not see him for what he was.”

  “You don’t like them much, do you?” She remembered his reaction last night.

  “No. I hate them.” He tapped his fingers on the table. “Do you want to know why I hate them so much? You do deserve to know.”

  “Yeah, I want to know.”

  “It was the Council I worked for.” A muscle ticked along his jaw. “I was one of their minions. I wasn’t a witch-hunter; they only take out witches. My job was to take out other magical folk that the Council deemed wayward. My great-grandfather was a vampire; I have vampire blood in me, so do you. It’s why I could strip souls. We’re a mixed bunch, us Wenlocks.” He took a deep breath, watching her closely.

  “Vampires can have children?”

  “I’ve just told you all of that and you get hung up on vampires being able to have children? You really are your mother’s daughter. She’d get lost in the details, rather than see the whole picture.”

  “Did she know? About the vampire blood?” She propped her elbow on the table and rested her chin on her hand.

  “Yes, it’s hard to hide in our family. My mother is a merrow, my father a witch.”

  “Merrow?”

  “An Irish sea fairy. Mermaid if you will.”

  “Oh, my god. My gran is a mermaid?” She sat up, delighted. “She’s not called Ariel, is she?”

  “Oh, for Merlin’s sake.” He rolled his eyes at her. “She’s called Clodagh, and no, she doesn’t have red hair, green scales, or a fishy friend.” He frowned. “Well, she has fishy friends, just not one called Sebastian.”

  “Flounder.”

  “What?”

  “Flounder was the fish, Sebastian was the crab.”

  “I’ll take your word for it. Merlin, you do go on tangents, don’t you? I’ve forgotten what we were talking about.

  “Mixed blood, I’m part mermaid, vampire, witch, druid—anything else?”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  “I don’t know, you tell me.”

  “There’s a clan of wolf shifters we’re related to through blood, they’re in the Appalachian Mountains, but I haven’t heard from them for years.”

  “With all this blood swimming around in me, can I—hang on, what about my mother’s family? What’s on her side?”

  “Witches, witches, more witches, and a Seer thrown in for good measure.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Don’t be too disappointed.” He tapped the end of her nose with one finger. “And if you were going to ask if you can do what they do, then, no, you can’t. You’ll have some of their strengths, but not the actual ability. So, you won’t be howling at the full moon or swimming with sharks anytime soon.”

  “But you can strip souls.”

  “Don’t say that so casually.” His good humour vanished.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “You didn’t hurt me. Vampires do it to survive. Top of the pack, higher on the food chain than us. No different from us eating meat. Except we’re worse than vampires in a way; we don’t need to kill to survive like they do. If witches, fae, elves, merrow, kelpies, humans, me? If we do it, it’s murder.”

  She put her hand on his arm, there was nothing she could say that wouldn’t sound trite.

  He patted her hand and moved to pick up the blue bottle she’d put down. “Ready to see what’s in here?”

  “Yes. Well, I think so.” She looked at the powder. “If it contains gross things, I don’t want to know.”

  “Gross things?” He arched an eyebrow at her.

  “Yeah, y’know, entrails from a bat, urine, or day-old belly button fluff.”

  He roared with laughter, nearly dropping the bottle. “Will you be okay with fresh belly button fluff?”

  “Ha ha ha, you’re so funny.” She stuck her tongue out at him.

  “It’ll only be herbal. General inhibitors from plant extracts, that’s all. No snails, or slugs, or earthworms, can’t guarantee there won’t be urine in there though.”

  “I’ll puke all over you if you tell me there is.”

  “Yeah, been there, done that, don’t want a repeat performance, thank you.”

  “Oh lord, I did, didn’t I? I’m sorry about that.”

  “Oh, it was worth it just to see Nate’s face when you called him Iggy. If I thought he wouldn’t try to hex me into next week, I’d call him that in college.”

  “You can’t! His name is a closely guarded secret.”

  “Yeah.” He frowned. “Every teacher knows his full name, but they all respect his request to be called Nate.”

  “That’s normal, though, isn’t it?”

  “Sort of. Josh and Jake are on the register as Joshua and Jacob, yours says Lilith, Matt is Matthew, but Nate? All his record cards have Nate, only his official entrance form has Ignatius. And I have yet to find a teacher that doesn’t like him. None of them have a bad word to say about him. Most of them can’t sing his praises high enough. It’s infuriating.”

  “He’s not as bad as you think he is.”

  “He wants to get carnal with you; he’s worse than I think.”

  She almost choked on her tongue. “I really don’t want to talk about that with you.”

  “Does she? Talk to you? Is she making sure you stay safe?”

  “Yes. It’s the 21st century, not the dark ages, I know all I need to know.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not the knowing that worries me, it’s the doing. I’m too young to be a grandad.”

  “She said the same.” She laughed as his lips twisted into disdain. “C’mon, what are we going to do with that powder?”

  “I’m going to separate the substances with a little chemistry.”

  “Chemistry? Urgh. Wake me up when you’re done.”

  He tapped her hand gently with the spoon. “C’mon, my young apprentice, how do you expect to learn if you sleep through it. In fact, you can do this, I’ll talk you through it.”

  “Is the landlady insured if I blow the place up?” she asked, only half joking.

  “I’m confident you won’t blow anything up.” He handed her the spoon and she got up, standing next to him.

  “I don’t have a good track record on controlling myself.” She stared at the crushed tablets, despondency creeping in again.

  “How long did you think you were epileptic?”

  His question threw her. “I was about five, I think.”

  “So about thirteen years, and how long have you realised you’re not epileptic but a witch?”

  She slumped. She knew what he was saying, but even so, it didn’t negate the fact she was potentially dangerous.

  He placed his hand on her middle back. “Don’t expect amazing things from yourself, no one else is.”

  “Not throwing people around isn’t an amazing thing,” she pointed out.

  “You were scared, terrified even. I backed you into a corner, and you flung me away.”

  “I don’t know what I d
id,” she revealed. “One moment I was scared the next you were...” She swallowed.

  “You didn’t actively push me away from you?” His hand moved to her shoulder, pulling her into his side.

  “No. I was debating diving through the window but then you moved.” She sighed. “It was like in the hallway. I didn’t even know it was me until you spoke. I told the boys what had happened, and they helped me control air. But...” She shrugged.

  “You’re worried you’ll call it up again without realising.” He rubbed her shoulder gently. “A lot of this is because you’re not aware you can do these things. You didn’t blow me away with air, you threw me away. You physically shoved me out of your space. It’s how I get the teapot to fill our cups or candles to appear. It’s how I cleaned the fireplace out there.”

  “How?”

  “By thinking it, willing it. A sharp mental image of what it is you want. If you want a biscuit and you’re too lazy to reach out for it, you just will it to come to you.”

  A biscuit lifted from the tin and drifted towards him. He plucked it from the air and took a bite.

  She concentrated, and several biscuits rose into the air.

  “Hungry?” He chuckled, his hand tightened on her shoulder.

  “I only wanted one.”

  “Think in the singular then. Think of just one, rather than thinking biscuits in the plural. Don’t concentrate so hard either, just think more clearly.”

  She let herself relax, and all but one of the biscuits dropped back into the tin. She grinned as she took it.

  “That’s the key with you. It’s not that you can’t control it, it’s how hard you control it. Try and push me away.”

  “You’re joking.” She spluttered on the mouthful of biscuit and swallowed quickly. “Did I give you amnesia as well?”

  “No. I told you, I wasn’t ready for you, and you had a fight or flight instinct. I’m glad you could push me away. Go on, just try and shove me away from you, I won’t actively stop you.”

  She bit her lip, looking at him doubtfully.

  “Go on.”

  She gave him a small shove mentally, and he laughed.

  “I felt it, but all it did was brush me. Harder.”

  She tried again, but he snorted, rolling his eyes at her. “I said shove me away, c’mon, stop being a coward.”

  She scowled at him and pushed harder, he jerked backwards and grinned at her.

  “Yes! That’s more like it. You did it. Pass me a biscuit, please.”

  She thought it and three went sailing towards him, making her sigh.

  “Practise is all you need for that,” he said, sending two back and taking the other.

  “But what happens when I’m in a situation where I panic again?” she asked him.

  “Fair question. What were you feeling last night when it happened?”

  “Terrified.”

  “Exactly. I’m glad you can protect yourself if needed, to be honest. If you’re in a situation where your flight or fight instincts cut in then you have nothing to worry about. You still see yourself as separate from your magic, don’t you?”

  “It is, isn’t it?”

  “No. You are your magic. It’s part of you, like your arms and legs are a part of you. You can’t separate your magic from you, you’d die trying. Just like you’d die if you tried to remove your limbs yourself. You control your body, you control your magic, you just did, didn’t you?

  “Yeah. I guess I did.”

  “No guessing. Say it.”

  “I controlled it.”

  “Change one word.”

  “I controlled—myself.” She understood what he was telling her.

  He grinned at her, and she saw the pride in his face, and it made her happy, settled inside.

  “I’ve got an idea,” he announced.

  “What?”

  “Let’s get these tablets tested. It won’t take long. Have some lunch and then go exploring for plants. I’ve got your book upstairs, you can make a start on it.”

  Excitement raced through her. She wasn’t meeting her boys till after tea so that would be fine. Her mother had gone into town, not knowing when she’d be back. There was no reason she couldn’t spend some time with him, her father, her dad.

  “That sounds like fun,” she hesitated. “Dad.”

  Uncertainty rushed through her but was quickly swept away by the beaming smile that lit his whole face.

  “Okay, so listen up, young apprentice. This is a bit like a testing kit for drugs. By spot checking we can tell what’s in them by the colours the liquid turn.”

  “You mean drugs like ecstasy?”

  “I do.” He lifted an eyebrow at her.

  “Don’t look at me like that. I haven’t even gone to anything with flashing lights, let alone taken drugs.”

  “Keep it that way.”

  “Yes, sir.” She mock saluted him.

  “No need to be so formal; ‘Yes, Dad, will do fine.”

  “Yes, Dad.”

  Part Two

  Plans

  “I saw her go in. She won’t take them tomorrow, he’ll talk her out of it, I know he will. I’m losing her, Gerry, I’m losing my baby, and I don’t know what to do.”

  Gerry Pringle ran his fingers through her dark hair. Her arm lay over his stomach, her head on his chest. He loved these moments. He loved her. But he hated seeing her upset and lost. She still held a lot of tension, despite the way they’d spent the last two hours in bed.

  “Has he done anything you can report?” he asked.

  “Not that I know of. I don’t think they’d accept breathing, would they?”

  He chuckled despite himself and kissed the top of her head. “No, probably not, darling. The binding was lifted when she turned eighteen, so he shouldn’t even register on the lists anymore. You may have to speak to Hestia.”

  She shuddered, cuddling closer to him. “I hate her.”

  “I hate them all,” he said. Hestia was someone he didn’t want to face ever again, but for Lynda, for Lily, he’d do it. “I’ll be beside you every step of the way. I promise.”

  “Oh, Gerry.”

  Tears dripped onto his bare chest and he rolled them until she was beneath him. “I’ve always loved you. I will always love you.” He brushed the hair away from her face. “Marry me, Lynda, please?”

  Her eyes closed, and he dipped his forehead to hers. He knew her answer; it would be the same as it had been every time he’d asked her before. And he’d been asking her for years.

  “She’s eighteen now. She won’t stay with you forever, no matter how this turns out. You’ve waited, we’ve waited for so long. You’ve been moving for so long. It’s time to stop.”

  “Just a little longer, Gerry, please.”

  “You say that every time. I’ve had your ring for ten years, Lynda. Ten years I’ve waited for you. I will wait for however long it takes, but I want more than a few stolen moments with you. I want to go to sleep next to you every night and wake up next to you every morning. I want to sit at the breakfast table with you, I want to go shopping for groceries with you, I want to argue over things with you. I want it all, Lynda. I want all of you.”

  “I want that too.” Tears coursed down her face.

  His heart broke as her eyes opened, revealing the depth of sadness in them.

  “We’ll go and see them. Tonight. Both of us.” He took a tissue from the box on the side.

  “No. We can’t expose Lily.” She took it from him and blew her nose. “The tablets will be out of her system by now.”

  “As far as they know, she has no powers. Find a way to get her on the tablets. They cover it enough that they wouldn’t suspect a thing even if she stood right in front of them.”

  “They’ll need a reason to hold him.”

  “They won’t need a reason. He’s a liability to them, always has been. I don’t know why they didn’t have him executed at the time.”

  “I think they expected him to try and bre
ak the binding, try and snatch her. I’ve tried to push him to that point, constantly moving us, but he’s never bitten.”

  “We need him to make a mistake that’ll catch their attention, maybe threaten someone with magic that doesn’t know of its existence. That’s punishable by death. He’s a young, handsome professor amongst a college full of hormonal teenage girls. A whisper of improper conduct, either with Lily or another girl, is enough to have him at least put on probation while it’s investigated.”

  “They don’t get involved with non-magical issues.”

  “They will if he uses magic to help his case. If he’s accused of interfering with a student, he won’t stand there and take it. He’ll use his magic, and we’ll have him.”

  “Do you think it’ll work?”

  “I think if it’s set up very carefully it will. We’re going to need a few months to get the levels back into her body though. It needs to blanket it completely.” He searched her eyes, aware she was mulling it over in her mind. “Get those tablets into her, Lynda.”

  Her eyes focused on his. “Yes, I will.”

  “You’ll be able to do it? Get them in her food or something?”

  “Yes, I’ll get them into her, and yes, I’ll marry you, Gerry Pringle. I love you so much. I wouldn’t have coped all these years without knowing you were with me.”

  “I’ll always be with you.” He lowered his head, his lips meeting hers. His heart was so full of love for her that it spilled over into passion. He gave free reign to the desire coursing through him. The flames lit higher as she matched him—kiss for kiss, touch for touch.

  This was going to work, because he couldn’t let her go anymore. He was over watching her walk away every time. This time she was staying.

  Crossed wires

  “They’ve finally gone!” The twins came in with Matt and shut the door behind them. “What a palaver, you’d think they lived on the other side of the world with the way they say goodbye.”

  “Thirty minutes up the road, zero minutes on the phone,” Nate agreed, buttoning up the shirt he’d changed into.

  “They’re going up tomorrow evening for dinner.” Jake flicked Nate’s ear, and flopped onto the floor, dodging the kick Nate sent.