Lyra's Magic: Witches of Manhattan Book One

by Langley Keaton

  “Damned right, you do,” I said. “Oh, sorry, I guess that the term ‘damned’ has a different meaning for you than for most other people in this world. But, please, go on, mother, and tell me all about these demons.”

  “There are many different kinds of demons that you are going to encounter. There is a certain class, though, called the Formori, who are demons who live in the sea and in lakes. There are other demons who are part of the fallen – the original demons who were cast into The Infernum when they were part of the first rebellion. If you encounter one of them, or if you encounter any kind of a demon that is a leader of other demons, then you will be vulnerable. And you will encounter these leaders, Lyra. Peter will help you identify them, and I will tell you the special way that you can vanquish them. But, Lyra, it is important that you know that you cannot lose this necklace. If you do, then you can and will die.”

  I rolled my eyes and pretended to yawn. “Dying? Been there, done that. What’s up with that, anyhow, mother? I was killed. I woke up in a body bag. I went to Hell, although Hell wasn’t all that bad, but Peter has explained to me that Hell gets progressively worse. So, I can die if I lose that necklace. Peter can just come into Hell and bring me back, and I can fight another day.”

  “Yes, it is true that you can die and be brought back, just like you were just now with Peter. But you have to know that you can only die nine times. And each time you die, you go down one more circle of The Infernum. Once you have lived up your lifetimes, you have to spend time in the lowest circles of The Infernum, perhaps for thousands of years, before you can return again. I am very sorry, Lyra, but that is because of an ancient curse. A curse that I am still trying to overturn, although the Council, so far, has not allowed me to do so.”

  “What the hell is The Infernum?” I asked, knowing full well what it was. I just didn’t like mom using fancy language around me, as if it was somehow going to sound like a better fate if she said the word “Hell” in Latin.

  “That’s a fancy word for Hell,” Maddy said.

  “That’s what I figured. Now, I get to die nine times. I get nine lives, like a cat?”

  “Like a cat,” mom said.

  “Yeah,” Sybil said. “And guess what? You get to shift into a cat. That’s another cool power that you’re going to have that we don’t, although Peter keeps telling me that I’ll soon get the power to shift myself. I can’t wait for that.”

  “What do you mean, shift into a cat?” I asked Sybil. “You mean like a werewolf or something like that? I can just walk along the street and ‘boom’ I’m a cat?” That sounded intriguing, to be truthful, yet harrowing at the same time. My luck, I’d be picked up off the street by a cat hoarder lady and spend the rest of my days in some smelly apartment with fifty other felines, with all the male cats trying to constantly get with me. Or, worse, I’d end up at a shelter and be euthanized, and there goes one of my lives. I wondered how I was going to be protected by my necklace when I was a cat, too.

  As if to read my mind – and, let’s face it, she probably actually was reading my mind – my mother said “when you become a cat, your necklace shrinks so that it fits you just like a cat collar. It cannot come off of you when you are in that form, anymore than it can come off of you when you are in your regular form.”

  “Ah, well, there’s that. So, I can get hit by a car and fall off a building and all of that, as much as I want, when I’m a cat, and nothing will happen to me? Unless, of course, the person who hits me with his car is some badass demon, in which case…” I did a slashing motion on my neck. “Lights out for me, huh, mom?”

  “You will be able to identify those demons when you are a cat as well,” she said. “I have not yet been able to tell you about what your most sacred duty will be, however. And you are right – time is wasting. So, I need to just tell you what you need to know and then you can leave.”

  I felt sad when she said that. I wanted to stay there with her, and get to know her much better. After all, she was my mother, and she had apparently been my mother for thousands of years. I wondered if I would ever get a chance to see her again.

  “Mom, really, it’s okay. I can hang out here for a little while. I mean, I do have class, but maybe you can forge a doctor’s note for me, and I can get out of it.” I surprised myself with this reaction, but, then again, I was suddenly feeling a longing to have my mother with me, combined with an intense fear about what I was going to find out about my destiny.

  “I am sorry, Lyra, but I have my duties here.”

  “Oh, I see. I haven’t seen you in how many years? 18? And you’re already itching to get rid of me. Okay, then, I see your priorities. So, lay it on me. What am I supposed to do? What’s my big destiny?”

  She appeared to draw a breath and she laid one delicate white hand on my shoulder. “Your destiny is to slay demons and other-worldly creatures. This includes vampires, of course,” she said, glancing over at Peter, who looked uncomfortable. “There are many different creatures who are escaping from the underworld, and, as the years pass, they are getting increasingly bold and numerous. The world is at the precipice, Lyra, and it is at the point where the demons are increasingly speaking of taking over the world. You must put an end to it. Only you have the power to do so.”

  I looked at her, with her oh-so-serious green eyes and beautiful little mouth turned down into a frown, and I couldn’t help it – I burst out laughing. I have no idea what struck me as funny in this scenario, I only knew that I found it completely humorous. “Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, thanks mom. I’m supposed to save the world. Me. Silly Lyra who has never done anything in her entire life that even remotely would prepare herself for this. And how am I supposed to do this? By wishing on this stupid necklace?” I shook my head. “You are hilarious. Now, I have to admit that I’m going to be digging my other powers, like seeing into the future and talking to dead people, as long as all the dead people don’t start talking to me at once of course, but come on. I’m not cut out to be a demon or vampire slayer, so you’re just going to have to find somebody else to do your dirty work.”

  Mom wasn’t laughing, to my dismay. I looked over at my sister and cousin, and they weren’t laughing, either. I found that my ire was rising as I looked at their blank faces, and I got mad again about the fact that they apparently knew that this was going to happen, and never said a word to me about it. They had to have known that I was about to be ambushed with this “savior of the world” crap, and, yet, they treated me as they always had, never letting on that I was supposed to become this bad-ass demon slayer with my stupid necklace and whatever other powers I was going to suddenly have.

  “Yeah, okay,” I said. “Well, you got me here to lay this on me, and I’m not accepting this challenge. Sorry, but I have a life, and this life doesn’t include tracking down and killing demons and other-worldly creatures, as you call them. My life includes my bartending job, my friends, and my class work. There’s no room for demon slaying, nor is there any time for that. I thank you, mother, for the offer for me to do this, but I must respectfully decline.”

  My mother looked like she was going to slap me right then. Her face screwed up and her beautiful little mouth puckered. I wondered if she was going to suddenly grow to be seven feet tall and change into some kind of ugly creature as she slay me with one glance. Maybe she would suddenly grow serpents from her head and turn me into stone. Who knew what she was capable of? I certainly didn’t know, because I didn’t know this woman from Eve.

  “Lyra, I am sorry, but you do not have a choice in this. You must do this. This is your destiny. This is the reason why you exist on this earth. The world needs you. If you refuse to do this, people will die. Many people will die. These demons are constantly seeking power and money and prestige. They are getting it, Lyra. They are taking over America’s government, they are taking over America’s financial industry and they are taking over many of America’s other industries. It will only be a matter of time before these demons take over eve
rything that everybody holds dear.”

  “You’re just going to have to find somebody else,” I told her. “I don’t think that you can make me do this. If I have to refuse your protective necklace, so be it. If I have to forego having these other cool powers, that’s fine. Whatever is going to be my punishment, I’ll accept that. What I won’t accept is being pushed into this role that I’m not prepared for, and I don’t really see where there is going to be a reward for me, either. I’m sorry, mother, but you can’t make me do this, and I’m not going to.”

  I crossed my arms and looked at my three companions. Sybil cleared her throat and stepped forward. “Lyra, mom knew that you were going to react like this, and I’m here to tell you, if you don’t accept this challenge, then something tragic will happen to somebody that you love. Maddy has explained that to me. She has a vision of there being a huge tragedy, and you’re going to lose something very dear to you.” She turned to my mother. “And our mother is going to be behind this. She is desperate that you take this role, and she’ll literally do anything to make sure that you do.”

  I gave mom a look. “Oh, mom, really? You figure that I’m not just going to go along with this nonsense, so you’re going to blackmail me into it? Is that how it’s going to be?” I shook my head. “Peter, you have to get me out of here and back to New York. I don’t want to be around this harpy another second. Not another second.”

  Peter just stood there, not moving a muscle, and I stood up on my tip toes to make myself look just a little bit larger. “I said, get me out of here. I’m not going to disrupt my comfortable life to become some superstar demon slayer. I know, I know, the world is going to be overrun by these creatures if I don’t do something about it. Well, guess what? There’s greed, avarice, selfishness, and just plain meanness all around us and it always has been so. Our world has survived all kind of different evil deeds, and it will just have to survive a few more. Because I’m not going to take this assignment. I’m not going to do it, and nobody – not my mother, not you, not my sister nor cousin, nobody – is going to make me.”

  To my relief, my mother nodded her head at Peter, and Peter reluctantly extended an elegant hand to me. I gave my hand to Sybil, and Maddy brought up the rear. “Bye Felicia,” I said to my mother.

  “Why are you calling her Felicia?” Peter asked me. “You know that her name is Rhiannon.”

  “It’s an expression. It’s slang for saying goodbye to somebody who you really can’t wait to get rid of. Try to keep up.”

  “Oh.” Peter nodded his head and smiled. “I’ll have to use that one. I’m always trying to keep up with the latest colloquialisms, so thank you.”

  And, just like that, we were once again in that weird tunnel that seemed to go under the sea and was lit up with rainbow colors and was louder than anything I had ever experienced.

  That was a weird meeting, to be sure, and I wasn’t at all certain that it accomplished anything. My mother apparently wanted me just to say “oh, sure, mom, I’ll do it. I’ll sacrifice my happiness, my comfort and my life to slay these stupid demons, and ask for nothing in return. I’ll do all of that because I’m an idiot.”

  That woman had another thing coming.

  12

  It seemed like no time at all that we were back in the closet, and I was looking forward to just getting into bed and trying to forget about the events that had happened these past few days. A migraine headache was forming, and I took some aspirin and crawled into bed. “Goodnight,” I said to Sybil and Maddy. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Lyra,” Sybil said, following me into my room and sitting on the edge of my bed. I had just laid down and had the covers up to my chin, and I was fully-clothed. Truth be told, I was still wearing the same dress that I wore when I “died,” which was my super-short black little number, because I was just too tired to change at that point, and I hadn’t had the chance to change before I went on my little adventure to Rome and back. “You can’t just get into bed and forget all of that happened.”

  “Watch me,” I mumbled, feeling dreamland come over me.

  “You at least have to do something about Jordan and Olive out there.”

  With a groan, I sat straight up in bed. “What about Jordan and Olive?”

  “They don’t know about us,” Sybil said. “And they’re going to be completely freaked out when they see you tomorrow morning making coffee in the kitchen, as if nothing at all happened.”

  “And what am I supposed to do about that?”

  Sybil shrugged and pointed to my necklace. I looked down, surprised that I had that necklace on, as I didn’t remember my mother actually giving it to me. She showed it to me, but she didn’t actually give it to me, to the best of my knowledge. Yet, there it was, dangling on my neck. “What about it?”

  “There must be something you can do to erase their memories on what happened the other night.”

  I sighed. Peter certainly botched this whole thing. Or somebody did. At any rate, the little details, like the fact that Jordan and Olive both saw my murder, weren’t worked out, and that irritated me. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Don’t you have some kind of a book of spells or something like that laying around? You can say some kind of magical words, and, poof,” I said, making two fists and then flinging them open, “instant memory loss. Like that movie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” Not one of my favorite movies – it was a little too obscure and hard to follow for me – but it still seemed appropriate to bring up in this case.

  Sybil rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t work like that. I mean, I do have spells, and so does Maddy, but they’re healing spells. We can heal diseases and broken hearts and psychological trauma sometimes. But we don’t have anything for memory erasure. I mean, we do. It’s in the book, but we don’t have the ability to make it work yet. It’s beyond our pay grade at the moment.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her, and flung myself back on my pillow. “Go away. I have class tomorrow, my head is pounding, and I don’t want to deal with this, any of this, anymore tonight.”

  Sybil forcefully brought me back up and I felt like punching her. “You have to deal with this.”

  “No, I don’t. Listen, in case you forgot, I had nothing to do with my getting shot and killed the other night. So, it’s not my fault if Jordan and Olive freak out when they see me tomorrow. I suggest that you go and bug the person whose fault it is, namely our mother, and possibly Peter. He’s hot, but I think that he’s up to no good. Now, please, go away and let me sleep.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Is there some kind of magical spell where I can make you disappear? If so, that’s the only kind of spell that I’m interested in right now.”

  “If you care at all about both of them, you’ll do this.”

  Fine. She was going to play that card, and, I admit, that was a good card to play. She was right about one thing – Jordan and Olive were just as innocent as I was in this whole charade, and there really wasn’t cause to freak them out. They apparently weren’t allowed to know that we all were magic, either. So, I had two choices – continue to ignore Sybil’s pleas, in which case I would have two very freaked out people in this house the next day, or actually try to do something about it.

  “Alright. Give me your book of spells. I’ll see if there’s anything in there to make somebody forget an event.”

  Sybil’s face brightened. “I knew you would come around.”

  “I’m not coming around to anything. I’m simply trying to put this household back to status quo. That’s it. I’m not going to go around Manhattan and search for demons or anything like that. In fact, even if a demon comes up to me and say ‘hello, my name is Beelzebub and I’m a demon from Hell,” I’ll simply say “nice to meet you, can I buy you a drink?”

  “That’s fine,” Sybil said, bringing back an enormous book that had a leather cover that said simply said the word “Spells” on it. “You won’t be seeing a demon named Beelzebub anyhow, becau
se you won’t actually encounter Satan himself. You’ll only encounter demons.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re going to be pedantic with me too, huh? I’m sorry, I don’t know demon names. I suppose that they’re going to have names like Azraki or something of the sort. That sounds like a good demon name. Okay, if I see some guy in a bar who introduces himself as Azraki, the king of demons, second-in-command to Satan, I’ll offer to buy him a drink. How about that?”

  Sybil shook her head. “I’m telling you, something is going to happen if you keep refusing. You might think that you have a choice in the matter, but you really don’t.”

  “Of course I do. I’m a human being.” Then I thought about it. “No, I guess that I’m not a human. I’m an immortal witch. But, regardless, I would imagine that I have some rights. Maybe I should make an appeal to that Maleficus thing. Ask them to relieve me of my duties and give it to somebody else. Somebody who actually wants the job. I’ll ask Peter tomorrow, first thing, on how one goes about trying to appeal something like this.”

  “Mother is one of the Chieftains of that council, and she’s the one who has given you this responsibility, so I don’t think that the Maleficus will take you seriously.”

  “Well, maybe she’s a Chieftain, but I would imagine that there are others who are just as powerful as she, and hopefully somebody will listen to me. After all, I can’t imagine that the council is really going to want somebody to have the responsibility to save the world if that person doesn’t want to do it, do you? I think that I’ll just do a shitty job and suddenly the end of the world will happen, and it’ll be my fault. That’s not right, is it?”

  I thumbed through the book, looking at all the spells, feeling amazed that there seemed to be a spell for everything. Love spells, health spells, spiritual spells, wealth spells, beauty, luck, weather, fantasy…the list went on and on, and each broad kind of spell had subcategories for anything and everything you could think of. “Geez, it sounds like you guys can do just about anything,” I said. “You’ve had all this at your fingertips, and I haven’t known either one of you to do anything magical in my entire life.” I looked at Sybil who was sitting on the bed next to me, looking over my shoulder. “Why is that you and Maddy have the worst luck with men and yet you have a way to make any mere mortal fall in love with you?”