Lyra's Magic: Witches of Manhattan Book One

by Langley Keaton

  I glared at him. “There’s not a threesome.” I turned back to Olive. “And, I’m sorry, Olive, but what Peter and I have to do is go and do something that’s personal.” I couldn’t tell her what that personal thing was, and I wanted her to get the impression that Peter and I were an item. Or that I was working on making us an item. I was feeling surprisingly possessive of the man, if you could call him a man, and I didn’t want to share him.

  She nodded her head and looked a bit crestfallen. “I understand. Well, I need to probably do my nails tonight anyhow. I mean, I get them done, usually, but…” She shook her head. “But nothing. I need to visit the nail salon. I’m addicted to the gel manicures, unfortunately.”

  The nail salon that she went to was in our building, along with a host of other services, restaurants and shops. Her nails always looked perfect, because that was her thing. She always told me that when her nails looked good that she felt good, so I didn’t begrudge her that at all.

  “Well, Peter,” I said, putting my hand on his chest. It was surprisingly hard and muscular, like he worked out all the time. Of course he didn’t. Did he? Did he work out with all the mortals in the gym, or was he just naturally buff? So many questions... “Let’s go.”

  Peter nodded, but didn’t move towards the bedroom. I knew why. We couldn’t just go in there and literally disappear. Jordan and Olive would get suspicious, to say the very least.

  I looked at Peter and tapped his hand. I hoped that he would get the signal that it was okay to read my mind right at that moment. I was wondering if my closet was just as magical as Sybil’s, and, if it were, I had just the plan. Two birds, one stone, so they say. I could hint to Olive that Peter and I were going to my room to have sex, and, that way, she and Jordan wouldn’t try to bother us in there. In reality, we would simply be going in to my room to use my closet to get to Rome to see my mother again, but I wanted Olive to think that Peter and I were really going in there to do the dirty dirty.

  Peter did read my mind, because he nodded his head. “Yes,” he said.

  Olive cocked her head. “Yes, what?” She looked at me and then at Peter, obviously trying to figure out what was up. She wasn’t one to horn in on another woman’s territory, so I knew that she was trying to figure out what the status was between Peter and me.

  “Yes…” Peter said, feeling embarrassed that he didn’t have a good answer for why he said that word. “I was just acknowledging to Lyra that we have to go.”

  I gestured towards the bedroom, and Olive got a look on her face. “Oh, of course. You said that it was something personal. I’m so embarrassed.” She looked down at the floor, ashamed that she was openly flirting with a man that she thought I was about to have sex with. I felt a little sorry for her. She was such a sweet girl, and she clearly thought that Peter was interested in her. And maybe he was. I hoped that he wasn’t, but maybe he was.

  “It’s cool,” I said, taking Olive’s hand. “You didn’t know.”

  Peter was looking at the two of us with some degree of amusement on his face. I had no idea what he was thinking. It wasn’t fair, really – he could read my thoughts, but I couldn’t read his. I wondered if I was eventually going to get that ability.

  The two of us then went into my bedroom and locked the door behind us. “Sorry about that,” I said. “I guess we had to make those two think that you and I were coming in here for…something else.”

  He smiled casually. “I understand.” He took my hand and led me into the closet. To my surprise, once he got me into the closet, he grabbed me and held me close. I actually felt his beating heart, which confused me thoroughly. How was he immortal if he had a beating heart? I felt his breath on the top of my head, and felt thoroughly aroused.

  “Um,” I said, putting my hand on his chest.

  “I’m holding you this way so that you don’t get lost from me,” he said, but I knew better. We all simply held hands the last time we went through this. He didn’t have to hold me like this. “When there are two people going through this, it’s best to hold onto one another like this, as opposed to holding hands. It’s safer that way.”

  I nodded my head, feeling a sense of safety and security that I wasn’t used to feeling. I found myself wanting to kiss him, but I felt suddenly shy about doing so. I still had no clue about what he was, and, besides, I had no indication that he was feeling about me the same way I was about him. So, I didn’t make a move.

  He took a deep breath and commanded me to touch my necklace. “Your necklace is what will be getting us through the portals from now on,” he said. “So…”

  “Yes,” I said. Then I touched my finger to my necklace. “And now what?”

  “You know,” he said. “Think about it, Lyra. You know what to say to get us through this.”

  I blinked my eyes, realizing that he was right. I did know. I knew the Latin terms that I had to chant to make this all happen. “What about that ivory stick that Sybil used the last time? Where is that?”

  “That’s Sybil’s mode. Yours is your necklace. That is what you need to use for just about every magic event that you are going to encounter. Now say the words.”

  I nodded my head, feeling that I didn’t really want to leave this closet. I was feeling warm, being so close to Peter, whose heart was beating loudly in my ears. Yet his skin was cool, like I would think a vampire’s would be. What was with this guy?

  “Uh, Peter,” I said. “There’s something I’d like to do before we go.”

  “And what is that?”

  I brought his face down to mine. I could just see his outline there in the closet, because, while it was dark, my eyes were gradually getting adjusted to the light. I closed my eyes and put my lips on his. They felt soft, and I felt a jolt of electricity start from my head and course all the way through my body. My heart soared as he kissed me back, tentatively at first, but, gradually, the passion inside of him seemed to build. I sighed, wanting to take this further, but knowing that it was wrong, so wrong.

  He finally broke away from me and cleared his throat. “Uh, Lyra…”

  “I know, we have to go. Sorry for that, I wanted to see…”

  He bent his head down to me, and this time, it was his lips that were searching for mine. He put his hand on my cheek and stroked it lightly as his mouth was devouring mine, right there in the closet.

  He finally broke free again. “No,” he said. “Not this time. We can’t this time.”

  “Not this time what?”

  He shook his head. “We can’t be together this time.” He bowed his head. “It has always ended in disaster for us both.”

  What is that supposed to mean? “Hey, listen, Peter, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I mean, we just met a few days ago.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I’m bad for you. Every time we have done this, it has always been the same. I made a promise that I would not let it happen this time. I’m sorry, Lyra. I can’t explain. There’s no time. Your mother is expecting us.”

  “No. You’re not going to use that excuse again. The ‘no time’ excuse. I need you to tell me what is going on. What do you mean ‘not this time?’ That would imply that there was another time when we’ve been together, and…” I nodded my head, the realization suddenly hitting me. I had lived, many times before. I had no knowledge of what those past lives were all about. And Peter had been living for centuries.

  I suddenly knew what he was talking about, at least vaguely.

  And I suddenly had no desire to find out the details. Because if I found out the details, I would find out just why Peter was so wrong for me. And that was the last thing that I wanted to know.

  Because all that I knew was that, after that electrifying kiss, Peter felt absolutely right for me.

  20

  I wanted to talk to Peter more about our encounter in the closet, but he shut it all down right after he told me that he couldn’t be with me. He didn’t explain, of course. He was terrible at explaining anything at
all.

  Instead, he simply put us through the portal, and we were, once more, in Rome, in that same Druid temple that we ended up in the last time. And, again, my mother was late. “What’s with her?” I asked Peter, who was standing next to me and looking very uncomfortable. “Now I see where I get it.” That was my thing – I was perpetually late to just about everywhere I was supposed to be. I always thought, in my head, that there were more hours in the day than there actually were, and I crammed them full. Over-scheduled myself constantly, so much so that friends and family had confided in me that they would usually tell me to be somewhere a good hour before I was actually supposed to arrive.

  Now my mother was keeping us waiting, and it was driving me nuts. Even more nuts than before, because I was desperate to talk to Peter about our kiss and about his feelings for me, but he was giving me the literal cold shoulder. He was standing there, looking at the altar where my mother would materialize, and his body language told me not to bring anything up.

  “Peter,” I finally said, as I tapped my toes waiting for Miss Thing to materialize out of the ether. “What did you mean back there? About the two of us being together before and it always turning out bad? And how do you know that it will turn out bad this time?”

  “Shhhh,” he said, putting one hand on my shoulder. “I don’t want your mother to hear this conversation. Don’t forget the fact that she is the head of this Council, or one of the heads of this Council, and she has the ability to try me and convict me and banish me. So, if you care about me at all, you won’t bring this up in front of her.”

  “In front of her?” I pointed to the altar. “Look up there, there’s nobody there.” Then I looked around, feeling nervous. “Or is there somebody there, and I just can’t see her? Help me out here. Is this place bugged or something like that? I mean, not bugged, in the literal sense, with an electronic device, but bugged in that there are spirits all around us, listening in.” I shuddered. “I’m really tired of having my privacy invaded all the time.”

  “No. There’s nothing like that. Now stop. Please stop. Don’t speak of what happened in that closet. That’s something that can never be spoken of again, as long as the two of us walk the earth. I hope that I make myself clear.”

  “No, you don’t make yourself clear at all. It’s as clear as mud as far as I’m concerned. I’m interested in you, and I could tell, I could just tell, that you feel the same about me. Now, I don’t know what the deal is, but this is the 21st Century, and love is love. Yeah, you’re immortal or undead or whatever. And I’m…” What was I? Immortal? I didn’t think so, because my mother had simply said that I lived before, and was born over and over again, which was different from just living forever. I assumed that Peter was the kind of creature who had lived forever, as opposed to dying and being reborn, as I had done.

  Plus, my mother told me that I had nine lives in this life. That would imply that, after the ninth life was snuffed out, there would be no more Lyra. Well, she said that I would be banished to the lowest circle of Hell and have to wait thousands of years to come back. Which was bullshit, really. I had already established that I had lived a decent life. I had never hurt anyone. Yet, I was possibly going to Hell, and staying there, if nine different demons managed to dispatch me. Talk about unfair.

  Yeah, my mother said that she was working to overturn that particular curse, but I wasn’t holding my breath on that one. After all, she and the Council had how many years to overturn that curse? I would imagine she’d been working on it for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, and she still hadn’t made progress on it. As far as I was concerned, at this point, lifting that curse was like waiting for a bad boy to change – wasn’t going to happen in this lifetime.

  So, the upshot was, I was most likely going to Hell for real at some point in the near future. Unless I got lucky and only had to face a bunch of weak demons, like the one I encountered up in the apartment. The demon who had possessed Olive was as weak as they came. I mean, I barely had to lift a finger to vanquish him. Turned out that that demon simply had to encounter a particularly mean black cat in order for him to go howling back to Hell. Kicking that demon’s ass gave me some degree of confidence, but I knew that not every assignment was going to be as easy as all that. Plus, my mother was behind that encounter. She probably told that demon to go easy on me. If that was even possible.

  No, I knew that the demons I would be encountering in the future wouldn’t just let their asses get kicked like that one did. I was going to have to really work for my slayings in the future, and if I encountered a powerful one, and lost my necklace, that would be lights out for me. I would be like a cat without claws at that point.

  “Hey,” I said to Peter, as the two of us stood and waited for mom to show up. “Let me ask you this one.”

  He raised an eyebrow to me and looked askance, which told me that he was afraid that I was going to ask him again about the two of us being together. But it wasn’t that – I needed to know something else. “Yes,” he said. “What would you like to know?”

  “Well, you know, mom said to me that there are demons who can steal my necklace. Yet I get nine bites at the apple. I can die nine different times.”

  “Right.” His face was starting to relax, because this was clearly a subject that more comfortable for him than the subject about me trying to get with him.

  “Well, so, what happens? It seems to me that the first time I lose my necklace, that’s the end of the road. Unless I get a new one each time.”

  Peter rolled his eyes.

  “I’m asking a legitimate question here. So please don’t condescend to me. I really need to know the answer to this question. It’s a burning one for me. Maybe literally a burning one.” I shuddered to think about what would happen the ninth time I died. I’d be burning in Hell, and why? Because of forces that were beyond my control, that’s why. I had to be careful, to say the very least.

  “Every time you lose your necklace, you will return to earth. I’ll come and get you every time. And the two of us will appear right here in this temple and see your mother each and every time. She’ll supply you with a new necklace each time.”

  I nodded my head. “I figured that it was something like that, to tell you the truth. I wasn’t sure, though.”

  His amused smile returned. “Is there anything else that you want to know? Anything that I can answer for you?”

  “Yeah.” I figured that it was as good of time as any to ask this next question. It was a burning one, too, just as burning as the last question I asked of him. “What are you?”

  Peter looked at me, and helplessly looked back at the altar. I guessed that he was hoping that he would be saved by my mother appearing, and he wouldn’t have to answer that question for me. I simply raised an eyebrow and crossed my arms in front of me and tapped my toe. He was going to talk to me, whether he liked it or not.

  “Your mother…”

  “Isn’t here. And who knows when she’s going to show up? So, as I see it, you and I are standing around with nothing to do. Now, we can maybe conjure up a Scrabble board and play a game, or we can play twenty questions. I just asked the first.”

  “Let’s conjure up the Scrabble board.”

  “No. Listen, I know a little something about conjuring things, as I’m sure you do, too. And that is that you can’t just conjure things up. They have to come from somewhere. I can’t just imagine my having a million dollars and have it show up without knowing that I stole it from somebody. Likewise, I can’t just conjure up a Scrabble board. If I did, I’d be stealing it from a Wal-Mart or something. As much as I hate Wal-Mart, although I do shop there because, hey, it’s the cheapest place in town, I still have no desire to rip them off. So, now, let’s talk.”

  Peter wasn’t going to give in so easily. “You might not have a Scrabble board at home, but you do have some fun games. Why don’t you conjure up a game that you already have, and bring it here, and we can pass the time that way? After all, it d
oesn’t look like your mother is in any hurry to keep this appointment.”

  “Nothing doing. Listen, as I said, we have some time to kill, and I think that I finally have you as a captive audience. Now, out with it. You’re not a vampire, you have a beating heart, your skin is cool, you’re very pale, and you’ve been alive since the 11th Century. What’s the deal with you?” I had a feeling that, if I knew what Peter was, I would also have my answer on why he couldn’t be with me. Once I had that explanation, I might be satisfied that Peter was absolutely right – we couldn’t be together. Not in this lifetime, and maybe not ever.

  He shook his head and looked at the altar again and said something under his breath. It was in Latin, and I understood every word.

  “Hey,” I said, “heads-up. When I got this necklace, I suddenly was able to understand and speak Latin. So, your saying things in Latin, in the hopes that I won’t understand what you’re saying, isn’t going to fly anymore.” What I understood about what he was saying in Latin was that he didn’t know what he was going to do with me and that I was way too demanding. Yeah, I was. So what? At least I wasn’t a total pain in the ass like he was.

  He finally sighed. Nobody was going to come and save him. At least mom wasn’t going to. I smiled, thinking of the irony of the fact that my mother’s perpetual tardiness was the one thing that was saving us at this point. I was finally going to know exactly what the score was with Peter, or I would have some kind of indication on this, and it was going to be a delicious thing indeed.

  “Okay.” He took a deep breath. “As you know, I was born of Scottish nobility. I was born in the year 1099, and…” He shook his head. “It turns out that there was a reason why my father was able to accumulate the amount of wealth that he did. He was…”

  I raised an eyebrow, looking at Peter, waiting. There was something about that father, and that was the key to what Peter was. The key to why he and I couldn’t fall in love. It was troubling him greatly, and my empathy was surfacing. I shouldn’t give him such a hard time. He’s obviously having problems with this.