Lyra's Magic: Witches of Manhattan Book One

by Langley Keaton

  I closed my eyes and remembered. I remembered being violently pulled away from my mother, and how I screamed in absolute terror about not being able to see her anymore. Then being introduced into the household of Ruthann. I gradually got used to being with Ruthann, and Sybil was around me too, and Maddy, so there was a soon a comfort level. Indeed, I forgot that there even was another woman around at some point, because Ruthann’s house started to feel like home.

  I nodded my head. “Yes, there was something that was traumatic and scary, but I got accustomed to it, and it was okay. You’re saying this will be the same?”

  “Yes. You just need to do it for the first time.” He nodded his head encouragingly.

  I looked at the book again. “Oh, wait. Wait. Those candles are not supposed to be lit just yet. They’re supposed to be unlit and just outside the circle. I also need a censer, goblet, drinking-horn, libation dish and figures that represent the gods that I am beseeching. The gods of the Gloaming, I guess.” I got out all the implements I needed and put them into the circle with me. I nodded my head. “Yes, the god called Dagda. He’s the guy who can bring the dead to life.” That name just came to me, and I silently gave thanks to my mother, who apparently telepathically sent this name to my ear. I went to Sybil’s box and found a small club, which I knew, without doing research, that this was the club that represented Dagda. “He slew his enemies with a club,” I said, not knowing where that information was coming, yet knowing at the same time.

  I shuddered as I saw what I had to do next. “Um, it looks like I have to get naked.” I looked over at Peter, who seemed to blush, although that was impossible. I circled my finger around as my way of telling him to turn around. “Some privacy please? I mean, we just met.” I smiled to show him that I was trying to make a joke, but he didn’t smile. He did, however, turn his back to me. I took off all my clothes and tossed them aside.

  Next, I got out my anointing oil, which also was in Sybil’s box. I put it between the water and the salt, just like the book said. Then, I kneeled to the east, and closed my eyes and tried to concentrate of looking for a ball of white light. I breathed slowly in and out, in and out, trying to calm my beating heart. I knew that I couldn’t see this light unless I was completely relaxed, so I needed to calm down.

  To my surprise, I was able to see this light. It started as a tiny pinpoint but then got larger and larger until it completely filled the circle. Good sign. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to see that light, but I was able to, so I opened my eyes and read what was next.

  I read the instructions and saw that I needed to point to the circle and trace my finger around the edge. Then I lit the candles from the altar candle, starting with the east candle, and then going south, west and then north. Then I chanted, in English

  Salt is life. Let this salt be pure

  And let it purify my life, as I use it in this rite

  Dedicated to the God and the Goddess

  In whom I believe

  Then I took three pinches of the salt and dropped them, one pinch at a time, into the water, and stirred the water and said

  Let the sacred salt drive out

  Any impurities

  In this water that together

  They may be

  Used in the service of these deities

  Throughout these rites and at any time and

  In any way I may use them.

  Then I took the salted water and slowly sprinkled it, clockwise, on the line of the Circle. After that, I replaced the salted water on the on the altar. Then I took the censer, and, starting from the east, I swung the incense burner carefully around the line. After I replaced the incense-burner, I replaced it in the altar and said

  The sacred circle is about me

  I am here of my own free will and accord

  In peace and in love.

  I then dipped my finger into the salted water, and marked a cross on my forehead, between the eyebrows, which I guess was my third eye. Then I used the salt water to mark a pentagram on my chest and said

  I now invite the gods to

  Witness the rite I hold in their

  Honor.

  I then threw on a robe and looked over at Peter, seeing that there were further instructions, yet I somehow knew that the was other instructions would not apply to me. “Peter,” I said, “it looks like these other instructions are things that I’m supposed to say to actually become a witch. I already am one, right? A witch from birth?”

  “Yes,” he said. “You catch on quickly.”

  I nodded. “It looks like I consecrated this circle, which is the most important thing.” I took a deep breath. “Now, it looks like I have to say these Latin words in this Book of Spells that Sybil has. Then I have to write them on a piece of paper and put it into one of these candles and burn it.”

  “Very good,” Peter said.

  I nodded. “Yes, I can read. I learned to read when I was four.” I was stalling, hoping that Peter was going to jump in and tell me that he was going to this gloaming place with me. “But these are just words to me. I really don’t think that it’s going to work.”

  A part of me hoped that it wouldn’t. But then I thought of Olive’s lifeless body, which was, even as we spoke, laying in the living room, and I knew that I had to do this. As scared as I was, I had to do it. Otherwise, Olive would be lost forever.

  “It’ll work,” Peter said. “You consecrated the circle, you have to ritual that you need, and you’re right – you are a witch by birth. You don’t have to worry about those other ritualistic words that will make you into a witch. You have the powers, Lyra. You just need the courage.”

  The courage to go into the underworld. Well, it wasn’t the underworld, but the twilight world. The world between this one and the eternal one. “Okay, okay. What am I going to see down there?”

  “You will find Olive. Once you find Olive, you will receive instructions on how to get home with her. She’ll be easy to find, because you are going to concentrate your mind on finding only her.”

  “Will there be others down there?”

  Peter looked uncomfortable. “There might be. There is one other person down there who you will encounter, and it is fair to say that he is related to your next assignment.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Give me a hint?”

  “Well, first you need to go back and see your mother. Now that you have decided that you will, in fact, take your rightful place as a demon slayer, you must see her again. Your mother will tell you again what you need to know. Now that you have more of an open mind, you will receive her information much better.”

  I shook my head. “I get that. I understand that. But give me a hint on who I’m going to encounter down there, other than Olive?”

  “You’ll most likely encounter the specter of James Woodson.”

  “Okay.” That name meant nothing to me. “Who is that?”

  Peter drew a breath. “The man who killed you.”

  17

  “What? What does that mean?” On some level, I knew exactly what it meant, but I needed Peter to confirm it. “What do you mean I’m going to see the guy who killed me down there? If he died, why isn’t he in the underworld, or the Infernum, or wherever it is that a bad guy goes? And why should I care?”

  “Lyra, you’re doing it again. I shouldn’t have mentioned that you would be seeing him down there. I just wanted to tell you in case you saw him down there. But, yes, you are tasked with saving him.”

  “Nothing doing. He shot me, he killed me, I’m not going to lift a finger to help that guy. What happens if I help him and he ends up doing it again? Then what?”

  “Lyra, James Woodson himself is innocent. The answer to your question is that there is a demon that is presently occupying his body, and James is now stuck down in the Gloaming. That’s a problem, of course, because he’s very confused and frightened. But, even more of a problem is the fact that the demon is roaming this city even as we speak. He’s a powerful one, too. His nam
e is Asmodeus, and he is a fallen angel that has many other angels under his command.”

  “Oh? I had a powerful demon after me? Why would that be?”

  “Again, you must find out from your second visit to your mother. This time, I beseech you to actually listen to her and not spend all your time arguing. You need to absorb much information, and, thus far, you’ve done nothing of the kind. You are too hot-headed, and you need to have more of an open mind.”

  I rolled my eyes. I had been lectured about my hot-headedness all my life. I didn’t need it from this…this…what was he? Not human, not a vampire (is he?). He still hadn’t explained to me who he was. What he was. “I get it. Listen, I’ll be good the next time I see her. She clearly showed me what is at stake here. And now I have to go into this…place. This place that I’ve never been to and never heard of and, quite frankly, this place terrifies me. So, yeah, I’ll keep my mouth shut and my ears open next time. Learned my lesson the hard way, as usual.”

  Peter nodded. I was still standing inside that circle, a robe around me. According to the ritual that was in Sybil’s book, I was going to have to strip naked again before I went to this place. So, maybe it was for the best that Peter didn’t go with me. It was so weird – I had been naked, so many times, before different men, yet I felt a bit shy stripping down in front of him. I wondered about why I felt like that, and then shook my head. You can’t mess with this right now, Lyra. Olive. She needs you. Now.

  “Are you coming with me?”

  “No, I’m sorry. I cannot.” He bowed his head. “I am not welcome down there.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s a story that is too long to tell at this point. Now, please go. Your friend is down there, and her body is in the living room. There will be at least another 6 hours before her body has passed the point of no return, in which case, she will be lost forever. But you have to understand, I just received a vision of Jordan returning to this apartment. Sybil is trying to detain him the best that she can, as is Maddy, but he’s wanting to come up and check on you and Olive. They’re having a difficult time trying to convince him not to come up. If you don’t act soon, he’ll soon be up, and then you’re going to have a hard time explaining it to him.”

  “Not a problem. I can just erase his memory again, right?”

  “No. That spell, as with all the spells in Sybil’s book, can only be used once in a calendar year. It’s one of the top-level spells, so it must be used sparingly. If Jordan comes up here and sees Olive dead, then all will be lost. He cannot know that the three of you are magic. Not yet. If he does, then there will be consequences. Extreme consequences.”

  “What kind of consequences?” I was still stalling. Why was I stalling? “And what am I to do when I see that James Woodson guy down there? I need to get rid of his demon, don’t I? I can’t just get him out, can I?”

  “Consequences. Now, I can tell you that you only have 45 minutes before Jordan is going to be coming to this apartment. Your time down in the Gloaming will be real time. That’s not always the case. Sometimes, when you go to certain other twilight worlds, the time on earth will stop. But when you go down there, it is real time.”

  “Oh, lord.” I took a deep breath and motioned for Peter to turn around again. “Please. I need to get naked again.”

  Peter nodded and turned around.

  In the circle, I chanted the words that I needed to say to get me to this place. I felt just a well of panic as I realized what was about to happen. I was going to leave this world, and please, please, please mom, help me come back. Do not abandon me down there.

  After I chanted the words, I wrote them down on a piece of paper and touched my necklace. Then I put the piece of paper into the flame of one of the candles.

  And, just like that, I was zooming along again at top speed through a long tunnel.

  It seemed like no time that I was where I was supposed to be.

  18

  I could see that there was a lot of mist around me, and, in the distance, I could see a bridge that went to a gate. This place resembled limbo, which was a concept that I kinda understood. Again, though, I just vaguely knew about limbo. I knew that it was a place where souls went that wasn’t Heaven and wasn’t Hell. It’s where unbaptized babies went, I guess. I still wasn’t sure. I did know that I was soon going to have all the concepts that I knew turned on its head. For instance, I sure had never heard of this Gloaming place, yet here I was.

  “Olive,” I shouted.

  “Lyra? Oh, thank god.”

  “Where are you?” The mist was heavy, so heavy that I couldn’t really see who was around. “Olive, I need to find you.”

  “I’m here.” Her voice sounded slightly panicky, and this concerned me. Were the souls down here frightened and confused? If so, what about this James Woodson, as well as all the other souls who are down there, forced down to this place because their bodies had been taken over by a demon?

  I suddenly realized that my job was going to be extremely important. It was up to me to save all these people here in the Gloaming limbo, and I was going to have to do it by slaying the demons who occupied their bodies, one by one. And Peter said that the Gloaming was in real time. That would mean that these poor souls might be down here, thinking that they’re going to be there forever, losing hope while watching the minutes and hours tick by. In a prison that they didn’t deserve or ask for. Yet they couldn’t occupy their own bodies until I got rid of the demons who were currently occupying them.

  “Olive,” I said, taking a tentative step. I put my hands in front of me, vainly trying to find somebody or something that I could hang onto. All at once, I was enveloped in the haze. It looked like a really, really foggy day in New York City. The kind of day where boats are coming into the harbor, honking their horns and flashing their brights. The kind of day where, up in the Hamptons, where Sybil, Maddy, Olive, Jordan and I often went to attend beach parties, the cars would have to pull over to the side of the road because they literally couldn’t see the road in front of them.

  I put my hand up in front of me, and I couldn’t even see it. Calm down, Lyra, calm down. Don’t panic. You have to find Olive and then get out of here.

  “Lyra,” an unfamiliar voice called out to me. It was the voice of a young man, possibly a boy. The pitch of his voice told me that it just changed, which would mean that he was only about sixteen, possibly even younger. “Are you here for me too?”

  “Who is that?”

  “James. James Woodson. I was told that you would come for me too.”

  I felt tears come to my eyes. Yes, I was going to slay James’ demon. I had to. Especially now that I heard his pleading voice. I couldn’t see him, but I could just imagine him – probably slight, short, and youthful. Probably scared to death. I hated that these spirits down here apparently still felt their human emotions. I wanted to think that they were wiling away the time down here in a peaceful suspension of pain and anguish and all the other dark human emotions. But, from the pleading tone of this James’ voice, along with the fact that Olive’s voice sounded just as desperate, I knew that wasn’t the case. These were fearful spirits, and I knew that I needed to help them as much as I could.

  “James, I’m so sorry. Your body is still occupied. But I’ll come for you as soon as I can. I promise.”

  I heard James start to cry, and my heart broke. Damn that demon. Literally. But what was James going to have to look forward to? He shot me, and I died. Granted, I wasn’t really dead, and, well, there wasn’t going to be a body. But I had no idea, no clue, if the prosecutor and the judge and everyone else on his case was “in on it,” so to speak. I only knew that the doctors and first responders and people like that knew the score. Was James facing life in prison up there on earth? If so, how was I going to get him out of that? A spell?

  Too many questions…Hardly any answers, at least no good ones. “James, please don’t cry. I’m going to get the demon who is occupying your body. I promise you this.” />
  “My mom. She’s alone, a single mother. Is that demon making trouble for her? Is she safe? Is she going to be okay? Could you find out, please?”

  “I will, James, I promise. As soon as I get back to earth, I’ll check on that.” I sighed as I realized that poor James was going to have to wait just a little bit. He wouldn’t know if I checked on his mother, at least not until he was saved from the Gloaming. But I knew that I had to check on her, regardless of whether or not poor James knew if I did or not, and see how she was doing. I was embarrassed to realize that I had no idea what had happened to “James Woodson” after he killed me. If he was in jail, awaiting charges or a trial, his poor mother was probably beside herself.

  “Olive,” I said, still calling out to her.

  “I’m right here.” I felt a hand grab my arm, and I finally was able to see a figure in all the haze. It was Olive and she was sitting on what looked like a red velvet couch. There was a slight little blonde kid right next to her. A boy of about sixteen, just as I thought. In fact, he looked just like I pictured him to look. Blonde wavy hair, with one long lock covering his right eye. He was wearing black jeans and a plaid shirt. Cowboy boots with steel tips. The boy had little cherubic lips and scared blue eyes. He couldn’t have weighed more than 110 lbs.

  “James Woodson,” I said, knowing who he was. “My name is Lyra, and I’m very glad to meet you.”

  “I know. I’ve been waiting for you. That lady came down here after I got here and told me that you would be coming for me.”

  “What lady?” I asked that question, but I already knew. My mother. I wondered if she did that for all the souls I was going to be liberating by slaying their demons. I smiled to myself as I realized that the concept of liberating souls sounded soooo much better than slaying demons. Every time I became afraid in the future, not that I would, but if I did, I had to think about the poor James Woodsons down here, scared and alone and waiting for me to liberate them.