by SJ Davis
“Watch your tone. You don’t have your birthright yet,” the old man countered. Members of the Counsel began murmuring at his threat. Helen wasn’t worried though, she’d been gifted with Sight in the woods and felt the power course through her body. No one could withhold what was rightfully hers. The time of ruling by fear had come and gone.
“You don’t scare me anymore, old man,” Heli’s eyes narrowed and with a wave of her hands the lights dimmed candles bursting into flame. “And I don’t need your permission to go after Noctis and rescue Brody. What I do need is for the wards to be fortified around the entire Coven.”
“You forget, Helen. Until the decade ends, you are not in charge of the warrior clan,” Vivian stated sure of herself. “Nor is Luke the Alpha.”
“True,” Helen inclined her head. “But I am in charge of who receives a Mithril and once this night ends, Luke will be an Alpha. Whether he challenges Lucian for supreme position, or continues as Beta, is entirely his decision. Either way, we are changing the face of Boulder Circle beginning now.”
Whoops and hollers from young witches and shifters sounded all around her, but the only sound she cared to hear was the approving rumble from Luke. Down hormones. Down.
Helen spread her arms toward the ceiling power radiating from the place within. The ashes from her internal fire became an inferno. The true Grove family Grimoire floated from its secret place to float before Helen.
“I, Helen Elizabeth Grove stand before the Goddess an open vessel ready and willing to do thy bidding…”
CHAPTER FOUR
The room literally hummed when Helen began repeating the invocation. It was obvious she wasn’t waiting for Vivian to start any incantations. If necessary, Heli would summon her power on her own. After all, it must have been done at least once before. There was a first time for everything.
“Cerridwen bandia na gealaí agus draíocht a chloisteáil mo ghuí,” Helen began speaking in an Irish tongue. The first change from what Vivian’s Gaelic. “Ó bhruacha Eire chun saol nua, a dheonú tú dúinn a chosaint.”
Vivian echoed Helen in English so the oldest witches, warlocks and shifters who hadn’t been taught at least the Irish could understand. Somewhere in the back of Helen’s mind, she knew this was just one more thing she wanted to change. “Cerridwen goddess of the moon and magic hear my prayer. From Eire’s shores to a new world, you grant us protection. Bless and keep this Grove-Knox union, with children born to serve you, bestow upon your servant here powers from lost sisters dear. Loved ones lost forever in your grace, grant me their wisdom in this time and place.”
Within the circle, where Helen and Luke stood, the elements began to show themselves one by one as the goddess heard Helen’s prayer. “Bless agus a choinneáil ar an aontas Garrán-Knox, le leanaí a rugadh chun freastal ort, anseo cumhachtaí ó deirfiúracha caillte daor bhronnadh ar do ghiolla.” The wind began to swirl around them. A firestorm joining the fray. Thunder and lightning rumbled and lit up the circle even as the floor beneath their feet moved with the intensity of the storm. “ngaolta caillte go deo i do ghrásta, a dheonú dom a n-eagna san am agus san áit.” Luke held Helen tight. Cerridwen answered her prayers all right. In an unexpected surge of magic almost knocking Helen on her ass.
“It is done. Thank you guardians. You have served the goddess well. A Priestess has been born this day,” Vivian’s voice rose loud and clear, but Helen’s still rang with the magical whiplash.
Helen’s eyes fluttered open to find Luke’s blue ones boring into hers. “Hey, that was something, huh?”
“Your goddess packs one hell of a punch,” he grinned helping Heli stand, though his arm remained around her waist. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“I feel...more. She blessed me with more. We have to do everything we promised, Luke. We’ve got to bring Boulder Circle back to what it was.”
“We will. When you’re stronger.”
“I’m strong enough,” she countered. “We’ve a lot to talk about, like launching an attack on the Noctis.”
“We can talk in bed,” the heat in Luke’s gaze burned her to the core. Helen didn’t care about anyone else in the room. She initiated the kiss which caused the younger witches and shifters to erupt in hoots and whistles. There may have even been someone who shouted for them to get a room.
Before Helen could answer, the piercing wail of wards being triggered sounded throughout the Chamber. The noise touched Helen’s soul as a thousand lonely cries rent the air seeking a life partner to ease it’s heartache. She knew the feeling well.
Lucian, ever ready to fight, as was Luke, were both headed for the doors when sentries burst in bowing to Vivian and Counsel members quickly.
“Lucian, they came out of nowhere. Noctis just dropped out of the sky with the cloud cover. We’re under attack.” The older shifter shouted to his Alpha.
“Calm down, Ralph. They are not attacking,” Lucian stated calmly to the man. “An attack on an outlying home is not an attack.”
“I’m old, but I can hear. The wards are being triggered from multiple farms, homes and the pack isn’t in Boulder.”
“My team is at Helen’s,” Luke spoke up. Helen joined him at his side.
“Your team’s on its way here, Luke. I called em as soon as the first wards went off,” the older man stated.
“Hold on,” Vivian interjected. “Vampires do not attack during the day, for one. Secondly, we are not at war. We have a truce in place.” The elder Priestess’ indignation apparent in the holier than thou attitude.
“Really?” Helen couldn’t keep her mouth shut. “You’re still going to try to keep with the old bull even after you’ve received proof they’ve attacked my place? What did you not understand? They have Brody. Anything they get from him will be used against us. Are you all that complacent?” Her hands shook she was so pissed at the blatant disregard to see what was right in front of their faces. The elders need to cling to the past rather than look to the future. Their fear would be their downfall.
“Stay and die if you will,” Helen declared with the authority of a High Priestess as Mithril slid into her palms. “For those who wish to live, follow me. A new day is dawning and it is time to usher in the sun.”
DEVILS IN THE DETAILING
BY LILY LUCHESI
“It stinks of mothballs,” Wynne complained as he walked into the local thrift shop.
“Come on, give it time; we just got here,” Cass said as she stepped behind her boyfriend of three years.
“Why did I let you and my brother talk me into this?” he grumbled, running a hand across his light stubble in frustration.
“Because you love us,” Cass replied, linking her arm in his and walking him over to where the owner sat behind the antique apothecary desk he used as a cash register.
The middle aged man was fussing with the register. It, too, was an antique and sometimes the drawer got stuck. He barely noticed the two twenty-somethings who were approaching him.
“Hello,” Cass said brightly, making him jump. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did we frighten you?”
“That’s all right--I didn’t need that extra ten years of my life,” he commented. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m Jesse Ryan’s brother. My girlfriend and I are here to give you a hand. He, ah, he said you’d had some trouble lately,” Wynne said. “I’m Wynne and this is Cassandra.”
“Nice to meet you both. I’m Sylvester. Call me Sly. Yeah, we apparently had some vandals in the back room last week. It was the first time I’d even been able to unlock the damn thing since I bought this place and put some stuff I wasn’t ready to put out yet in there. Nothing stolen, but the thing needs to be re-paneled and everything salvageable needs to be cleaned and tagged,” he explained. “I appreciate you both volunteering to help. Not often you get kids so kind.”
Refraining from saying t
hat twenty-six was not considered a “kid”, Wynne and Cass followed Sly through the beautiful but dusty store, passing interesting trinkets, furniture, and clothing. Cass was, as usual, her cherubic, childlike self, looking in wonder and awe at everything she saw, gently touching a porcelain angel with what looked like real gold filigree on the wings. Wynne made a mental note to buy it for her when she wasn’t looking.
When they reached the back of the store, they saw a short hall leading to a door that had a very large and intricate lock on it. The door itself was painted with odd symbols, many of which were too faded to make out properly.
Cass had studied Egyptology in college, as a hobby, and she announced that recognized a few of the symbols, but, as a whole, the door’s art made no sense to her. “I have a rudimentary knowledge of ancient languages, but I don’t recognize this as anything readable.”
“So, what was in this room when you finally got it open, originally?” Wynne asked, raking his eyes over the flaky maroon paint of the symbols.
“Clothes and a half-full bookcase,” Sly replied. “I don’t know what they were protecting in here. Nothing was very valuable-looking. All the clothes are in that chest, the one in the back. I don’t plan on sellin’ ’em, so if you see anything you want, take them. I know Jesse is the bookish type, so you can take some tomes home to him, too.”
The chest was the only thing in the room that wasn’t in total disarray. It was just unlocked. The same reddish symbols were painted all over it. Immediately, Wynne knew he didn’t want to touch it. It gave off a bad vibe and faintly smelled like rotten eggs.
“Do you have an air freshener?” Wynne asked, wrinkling his nose at the scent. “See, Cass, this is why I don’t do anything ‘vintage’ except for cars and vinyl.”
Cass rolled her eyes. “We’ll get started in here, Sly, and let you know if we need you.” As Sly was about to leave them, she called him back. “Do you have the keys to the room and the chest? So we can lock them up for you.”
He handed the two keys to Wynne and the young man began to inspect them. They were both the same except for in size: made of iron, ancient, and carved with symbols he had seen once: in a horror movie he’d watched with his brother when they were both in high school. He had no idea what they meant, but he had remembered them having something to do with angels, at least in the movie.
“I think this place used to be a...whaddaya call ’em...like a magick shoppe...the kind with a ‘k’ and ‘pe’ at the ends,” he commented.
Cass rolled her eyes. “Even if it was, so what? Sly has had this place for decades if we believe your brother. I’m sure the original proprietors are all long dead. Come on, help me with the heavy stuff.”
They breathed shallowly to avoid inhaling too much dust as they righted a large bookcase and began to pick up the books that had been in it. Cass was stoically avoiding reading any of the spines or covers. Wynne tried reading a few, but most weren’t in English so he just gave up.
“We’re almost done this quick?” he wondered. “Maybe this day won’t be a total washout.”
“We’re done with the straightening. We still need to do all the tagging and get Jesse to help us with the wood paneling,” Cass reminded him. “It’s like a tornado hit in here. I bet people saw that this room was locked all the time and thought that there was something valuable in here.”
“Yeah. Too bad all they found were clothes and books that can’t be read,” Wynne said, kneeling down by the chest. The clothes smelled of mothballs, but otherwise they were in great condition. Mostly men’s clothing, and his size, too.
“Hey, can you date these things?” he asked Cass, who bent down next to him.
He could tell that she was biting her tongue against telling him to put them down. “Well...no zippers on the pants, organic materials and dyes...I’d say these are at least a century old. Probably not valuable, though.”
He found a very classy looking tuxedo, black silk, and even a matching hat. Cass’s family was having a black tie party for her father’s retirement the next week and he had completely neglected to get anything nicer than the suit he had worn at his mother’s funeral, and let’s be honest: he did not want to ever wear that again. “Hey, looks like I won’t embarrass you at the soiree after all,” he said, holding the tux up for her to see.
“This room gives me the creeps, but even I can’t deny that you’re going to look absolutely delectable in that outfit.” Wynne was a jeans-and-tees kind of guy, and usually Cass was fine with that. While she had grown up in a white-collar family who thought you didn’t have a real job unless you wore a suit and tie every day, Wynne was pleased that she had found herself attracted to his scruffy, grease-covered look when he had fixed her car three years prior.
So he wasn’t a typical businessman. He had gotten a business degree in college and owned his own garage where the creme-de-la-creme came to get their BMWs and Jaguars tuned up, and he was unapologetically him. No pretense. No hidden agenda. He loved beer, rock music, and junk food, hated bureaucrats, and spent his free time traveling all over the west coast with Cass. Sometimes his brother joined them, too.
Her family hated his guts, so she had pressured him to be presentable at the party so they would at the very least tolerate him. She loved him as he was, but even she had to admit she wanted to know what he looked like dressed up.
“Okay, I’m sweating bullets and smell like mothballs. I’m done till tomorrow,” Wynne said, standing up and holding the suit in one hand. “I’m gonna bribe Jesse with these books to get him to help us out with the paneling.” Jesse and Cass had been classmates, and he studied languages. He was currently on Latin, and many of these books just happened to be written in Latin.
“Good idea,” Cass said. She went into the main room and found Sly. “Everything looks presentable. We’ll be back on Monday to do paneling and tagging for you.”
“Thanks, kids. It’s a big help. Since my hunting accident, standing or bending too much can be a problem. Damn jammed gun; got right in my hip somehow. Lucky I can still walk.” Indeed, he had a slow gait and Wynne could tell that she felt bad for him. Wynne called her a bleeding heart often.
“It’s no big deal,” Wynne said, following Cass. “And I even got a new suit in the bargain.” He held up the fabric.
“I hope you can get that dry cleaned by Saturday,” Cass commented. “It stinks.”
He waved a hand. “I service the dry cleaner’s car. She’ll sneak it in for me.” They left and he drove Cass home, glad that his self-serviced classic Cadillac looked cool and classy in her wealthy neighborhood. He was desperate to make her family like him. She had five brothers and a sister, plus her stuffy father. It was hard to get their approval, as she was the youngest and most doted on. What he wanted them to know was that he doted on her just as well as they did. He loved her, even though he couldn’t bring himself to say the words yet.
Rolling the windows down and blasting AC/DC, just to freak out the neighbors, he sped away to his brother’s dorm.
Jesse was the antithesis of Wynne. Academic, serious, and polite. Wynne wondered how he and Cass had never gotten together. When he walked into his dorm, his brother was slouched over his desk, frantically making notes on whatever topic he was studying.
Wynne slammed the door shut, startling him.
“Damn it, don’t do that!” Jesse cried. “You done at Sly’s place already?”
“For now. We promised him you’d help us panel the room on Monday, and he even gave us something to bribe you with.” Wynne placed the bag of books on Jesse’s desk and watched his brother’s eyes light up. So easy to please, he thought.
“Awesome. Thanks, Wynne.” He was already digging into the bag, “I can use these for a project I have coming up.”
“What are brothers for?” Wynne grabbed a beer from Jesse’s fridge. “Stealing this for when I get home. See ya.”
“Hey, wait, is that party this weekend?” Jesse asked.
“Yeah, I gotta get a new suit cleaned. Why?” Wynne asked.
“Because Gabrielle asked me to come.”
“You mean Cass’s sister? You dog! What happened to that chick from school?” Wynne wondered.
Jesse blushed. “She left me for a med student. Apparently doctors make more money than lawyers.”
Wynne started laughing. “Imagine, Mr. Angelus is going to have a fit that his two girls are dating us both!”
***
Cassandra Angelus grew up in a strict Irish Catholic family. Her only rebellion to them had been dating Wynne Ryan. She was the sweetest of all seven kids, if the most naive. She had one rebellious brother who had left home at sixteen. He wasn’t expected to be at the party.
If Wynne screwed up in front of her family, they would likely disown her if she stayed with him. And she would stay with Wynne.
There were days she wanted to rebel like her brother. Days she wished her father and eldest brother would drop dead so they couldn’t intrude on her life anymore. It was awful, but it was true. Why couldn’t she just live her life? And now Gabrielle was bringing home the “good” Ryan brother, which would make her dating Wynne look even worse.
She repeatedly punched her pillows. She couldn’t wait to finish college this year and get out. She’d have a chance to get into a great law firm and she had already accepted an invitation to live with Wynne. She wanted her own damn life!