When my body didn’t atomize, I pulled myself upright. Everyone stared at me. Micah’s head cocked to the side curiously.
“Uh, Garnet?” William asked. “So, you think Sebastian will have some problem hosting at his place next time?”
Is that what we’d been talking about? I rubbed my eyes. I felt like I should have spots dancing in front of my vision, but, of course, there had been no real explosion of light. “I don’t think so,” I said. “I mean, if he’s back. Thing is, I’m not exactly sure where he is.”
I don’t know why I’d added that last part. Maybe I hoped someone in the room might have a clue as to Sebastian’s whereabouts, or maybe I just wanted a little sympathy.
I got it. Everyone was very concerned. They asked all the right questions about when I’d last seen him and whether or not he did this sort of thing a lot. I told the truth, even mostly explaining my surprise visit with Larry and Walter. I wasn’t quite up to confessing my fear that Sebastian was off with a ghoul, because I didn’t want to seem petty, and anyway, that seemed a bit like airing our dirty laundry. Not to mention that no one believed he was a real vampire.
Marge, the ever socially awkward, pointed to my bandages and said, “Did you two have a fight or something?”
I supposed it was a reasonable question, but I was getting tired of people looking at me like I was some kind of abused wife. “I know you won’t believe me, but this was totally unrelated. A wind chime tried to choke me.”
People looked away. Marge shifted in her seat, and nervously adjusted her glasses. Xylia seethed.
“It’s true,” William said in my defense. “I was there. It was the strangest thing.”
William took the floor and regaled the coven with the story of the amazing choking chime and how Lilith had come to the rescue. After he finished everyone stared at me again. I nodded confirmation. “Yeah, it was weird.”
“Sounds like a magical attack.” Griffin said. As usual, Griffin had ensconced himself in a darkly lit corner. William had a high-back chair that had dark red curtains festooned around it, and Griffin sat in it like a Viking on a throne. He even held his ice tea as though it were a goblet. “Does Lilith have any enemies? Do you?”
Now that Griffin mentioned it, I remembered Lilith’s growl just before the wind chime fell. Had Lilith been trying to warn me of a magical assault?
“There’s the Vatican,” William said. “You said Mátyás was back, Garnet. Do you think he’s still working for the order?”
At the mention of the order, the tension in the room spiked. “We haven’t been very careful,” someone muttered. “We’ve only been using first names, but we’d be easy to find,” Xylia agreed.
I had to raise my voice to be heard over the murmuring. “I don’t think it was the order. The attack was too subtle, too magical. They don’t like to use their sensitives as offense, only for defense. It’s very unlikely they’d engage in supernatural warfare.”
“If you’ve been a target before, you can’t rule them out,” Griffin said.
“My case is closed,” I explained. “They think I’m dead.”
I ended up having to explain how Sebastian and I had used a blood-binding spell to fool the order into believing they’d killed us, so it was a while before we got back on track. Micah, I noticed, sat silently through my entire explanation, as had Marge.
William, with his ever-present agenda, steered the conversation back. “What should we do about the next meeting? What if Sebastian is still missing?”
Micah surprised me by saying, “We should plan to meet at his place regardless. You’ve got a key, right?” he asked, and I nodded. “If he hasn’t turned up, we could perform a spell of finding. His house would make a great focus.”
“It would,” I agreed, somewhat surprised I hadn’t thought of it myself.
“Are you sure we should try something so complex first?” Griffin asked. “The group cohesiveness isn’t really formed yet.”
“Nothing like a baptism of fire, I say,” Micah interjected. That wolfish grin held a touch of challenge.
Griffin—none of us, really—could resist. “You’re on.”
After a few more administrative details had been ironed out, like the fact that we’d need a preritual meeting at my place, the formal meeting broke up. Even though it was well after midnight, everyone was too keyed up to leave.
At some point pizza got ordered and beer materialized. Someone, perhaps Xylia, started mixing Long Island ice teas. People had broken up into groups, and laughter blended with the fusion jazz William had tuned in via satellite radio. I wanted to stay—in fact, I felt sort of like this was one of those bonding moments for the coven—but I was exhausted. The last thing I wanted was a repeat of last night’s hangover, plus Griffin’s question about enemies had put me on edge.
Could Mátyás be playing me? Was all his niceness an act to lure me into some kind of trap with the order? Had they already nabbed Sebastian?
That last thought made my mind race. What if Sebastian was in real trouble? I’d been all too willing to believe a ghoul might be involved, but what if it were something even more sinister? The order knew how to transfix Sebastian. They’d done it before. There was still a sawed-off hunk of crossbow bolt stuck in my apartment wall to prove it. The image of Sebastian hanging by a stake completely at the mercy of those creeps from the order freaked me out. I needed to go home and try the astral plane again, anything to see if I could figure out where he was and if he was okay.
So I quickly made my good-byes to William and the others. Stepping out into the darkness, the heat of the summer settled in close after the cool of the air-conditioned apartment. I gripped the two-by-four railing and began picking my way down the steep steps.
“Let me walk you home,” Micah said, coming out of the door a moment behind me.
He loped down the steps two at a time, making the whole structure shake. I fearfully scurried down the last few steps to avoid a collision.
“I’m okay on my own,” I said, though it was the time of night when it was definitely friendlier with two. Then, I halted midstep as he came up beside me. “Hey, how did you know that I walk home?”
The streetlight that threw harsh light between the houses revealed Micah’s wry expression. “I’m stalking you, remember?”
“Yeah, tell me why that is again?”
He turned his head so that he kind of looked at me out of the corner of his narrowed eyes. “You’re stuck with a Goddess you don’t want, and I can take her off your hands.”
5.
Ceres
KEYWORDS: Creativity, Politics, and Family Bonds
I’d never had an offer quite like that one, and I didn’t know what to say to it. “Uh, what do you mean? And, er, how?”
“So you’re interested?”
Was I? I’d often said Lilith was a curse. Having Lilith meant always having to watch my temper, lest she escape and kill someone. I put my hand over my stomach, as if I could cover Lilith’s ears. “I don’t know. Could you really do it?”
Micah jerked his head in the direction of the street, toward which neither of us had made a move. In fact, we’d stood still long enough that a cloud of gnats had found us. “Why don’t I explain it as we walk?”
Even this close to the university, most houses were quiet and dark at this hour. Crickets hushed as we passed, resuming their song at our heels.
“I could do it,” Micah said after we’d walked a while. “Though it depends. Have you bonded with Lilith yet?”
We walked up a slight hill. The houses on this block were a mishmash of Victorians and more simple turn-of-the-century four squares. The level of upkeep varied, as well. In the darkness, battered gables, torn screens, and listing porches loomed like haunted mansions. I quickened my pace.
What did that mean? Was Micah asking if Lilith and I had traded wacky stories about ex-boyfriends and pets over lattes? “Um, I don’t think we have.”
“You would know,” Micah sai
d cryptically.
It almost sounded like he had experience with having a resident Goddess. Giving him a sidelong glance, I remembered the blast of pure white light of his aura. “What are you exactly? What’s the deal with the coyote? Are you a werewolf?”
“Coyote. And, no, among my many talents, I’m a skin walker.”
A freight train whistle sounded in the distance. The muffled clack of the rails echoed under the canopy of shadowed leaves.
“So, you shape-shift? How can you”—I waved my arms along the long, lean length of his body—“become something half your size? Where does the rest of you go? Doesn’t that violate the law of conservation of matter or something like that?”
He gave a snort of startled amusement. “It probably would, if it weren’t magic.”
The moon had begun to set. Round and full, it hovered above the leaves of a sugar maple. Lilith shivered across my belly. If there was a true believer, it was me. Still, I had a hard time with the idea. “Seriously?” I asked him. “You shrink down and sprout fur?”
He shook his head. “No. I don’t shrink. I am Coyote.”
This was deeply Zen Native. He “became” coyote in some metaphorical, yet not, way. We’d come to my place. I stopped in front of the concrete steps that led up the hill to the short walk in front of my front door. Mulberries from the neighbor’s bush left pungent purple splotches on the pavement. A light had been left on in the kitchen, and I could see Barney’s plump, furry silhouette in the tower window.
“This is me,” I said.
He gave me that wicked grin and asked, “Are you going to invite me up?”
It wasn’t that the offer wouldn’t have been tempting under other circumstances, but with Sebastian missing and possibly in danger, not to mention the fact that I didn’t know the first thing about this guy or where he came from . . . “Sorry,” I said. “Not this time.”
“Does that mean I get another chance?”
I shook my head. “I have to find Sebastian.”
He nodded like he understood, but he didn’t make a move to leave. Barney’s soft mews drifted down from the window above. Finally, Micah said, “How long did you say you’ve had Lilith?”
I hadn’t. “About a year and a half,” I said. “Why?”
“The longer together, the more you become one.”
There was a frightening thought. Lilith’s personality could be summed up by the words “death” and “destruction.” Her gloom and doom didn’t really jive with my whole perky Goth lifestyle. The idea of becoming more like the Queen of Hell with every passing year seemed a bit daunting. “Are you sure?” I asked. “I mean, how do you know all this?”
In the darkness, Micah’s face became inscrutable and he said, “I can read it in your eyes. It’s already beginning.”
Normally if a guy gave me a line as cheesy as that, I pointed fingers and laughed at them. But my eyes were the scars left from the night Lilith entered me. They’d changed from light blue to deep purple, a physical reminder of the deal I’d struck. “When . . .” I dropped my voice, even though I knew it was kind of foolish to whisper, as if the Goddess couldn’t hear me. “How soon would I have to excise her? That is, if I wanted to.”
“The sooner the better. You have to ask yourself, Garnet. Why does she stay? What does Lilith get out of your little arrangement? Is she satisfied with what she has?”
Now I was really nervous. More than once Lilith had shown an interest in taking over more of our body “time share,” as it were. I’d already had to magically contain her once, lest she start moving my body around like a puppet. Was that what Micah was talking about with “bonding”? Had I bound her to me with my spell? “What are you saying exactly? Are you saying Lilith is planning some kind of takeover?”
He cocked his head to the side quizzically. “She’s already tried, hasn’t she?”
My mouth was dry. I nodded.
“You need to do this.”
“Maybe,” I said. I still wasn’t sure. There was so much about Micah that seemed, well, untrustworthy. For one, I didn’t know why he was so concerned about me. What were his motivations? What had he meant by saying he’d “take her off my hands”? Was he planning on trying to keep Lilith for himself?
He shook his head at me as if he could read my thoughts. “It’s the power, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“The power,” he repeated. “Raw. Elemental. Heady stuff. I can’t really blame you. A lot of guys wouldn’t want to let something like that go.”
I pursed my lips. “Are you saying I’m keeping Lilith because I like having access to her magical strength?”
“Aren’t you?”
Before I could formulate a response, Micah turned and walked away. I watched him bound down the stairs. The trees cast deeper shadows along the sidewalk where the streetlights couldn’t penetrate the dense leaves. I watched him move through the strobe of dark and less dark. In one lighter patch, I saw a man turn to look at me. In the next, there was a coyote, nose to ground, padding silently away.
I was so preoccupied with the questions Micah had left me with that I almost walked past the blinking red light on my answering machine.
I hit play. My breath caught as I heard what sounded like Sebastian, but I couldn’t be sure since the message was a weird, slow-mo amalgam of voices that I couldn’t understand at all. Very Exorcist. It took me a second to realize that somehow my answering machine had chosen this moment to stop erasing previous recordings. Instead, it had recorded new messages on top of previous callers. So, it sounded like the dental office was reminding of an appointment from a month ago, while Sebastian was trying to communicate to me.
I screamed in frustration. Sure, I was a cheapskate for reusing the microcassette tapes, but have you tried to find those little buggers since everything has gone digital? Why now!? Of all the bloody times?
I picked up the answering machine and banged it on the bookcase.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid.” I punctuated each word with another slam, not entirely sure who I was yelling at—myself or the machine. I took some pleasure in watching pieces of plastic fly off it, since I knew I’d be at Target tomorrow buying the goddamn top-of-the-line (in my price range) replacement. Which—bang!—would not—bang!—take— bang!—tape—crunch!
In the kitchen I heard Barney sneeze and make a hacking sound like she was tossing a hairball. I gave the answering machine one last withering glance as I dropped the pieces on the table and went to check on the cat. When I entered the kitchen, Barney sat primly in front of empty food bowls and looked at me with sorrowful eyes. “All that noise just to get fed?”
She blinked innocently. I filled up her bowl. I sat down at the table, still covered in my astrology books and papers. Remembering the sight of Sebastian coming into the kitchen, I felt tears stinging my eyes.
He’d tried to call. At least I knew Sebastian was still alive. Or was when he left the message, anyway.
My neck ached, and my hands rubbed absently at the slick bandages around my throat. The surgical tape itched, so I picked at it. Goddess, what a day!
I considered the idea of luck as I traced the letters of Dane Rudyard’s Astrology Now. Didn’t I look for patterns in the tides of fortune? Wasn’t that part of what I believed— that everything happened for a reason? Maybe something was happening in the stars, something that if I knew about, I could counteract.
Even though my eyes were gritty from a lack of sleep, I pored over my chart, ephemerides, and my entire astrological library for the next two hours. I found nothing. In fact, progressing my chart only showed that this was supposed to be a pleasant, benign time for me. I checked transits. I unearthed Sebastian’s chart from my notebook, our combined relationship chart, and anything else I thought might be useful. Still, I found no illumination, no clue. Finally, my eyelids drooped and the words I scanned blurred into senselessness.
I gave up. Dragging myself into my bedroom, I didn’t bother to change into pajamas
. I was out before my head hit the pillow.
The alarm didn’t go off and I overslept for the second time in two days. I probably would have slept the day away, but Barney decided she’d waited long enough for her food and knocked a pile of paperback novels off the bed stand. The crash brought me to my feet. When I noticed the time, I frantically undressed from the clothes I had fallen asleep in last night and redressed in the first things I grabbed out of my closet, cursing the entire time because somehow every movement twisted my neck muscles in just the wrong way. I called William to tell him I’d be there as soon as possible, threw food in Barney’s bowl, grabbed a breakfast bar and a protein shake for me, and ran downstairs and out the door.
Halfway to the store, it started to drizzle. Even as my bike kicked a stripe of wet up my back, I wished the sky would just open up into a full-fledged thunderstorm. At least then there would be a chance that the humidity would drop afterward.
I parked my bike in the alley behind the store and used my key in the back door. Stopping at the employee bathroom, I attempted to style my soggy hair and retouch my makeup. The bandages on my neck had mostly peeled off in the rain, so I removed them the rest of the way. The burn marks on my neck looked puckered and sore, but not horrific. I had a tendency to heal a bit faster than your average girl thanks to a blood transfusion from my vampire ex, Parrish. I adjusted my collar to hide the marks as best I could. Taking a deep breath, I felt ready for the day. Confident, I walked out into the front only to see Eugene, the owner, waiting for me with a frown on his face.
Oh, crap. I’d forgotten I’d asked him to come in so I could talk about buying this place. Well, two and a half hours late made me look really responsible. Way to impress the boss.
We meandered through the store negotiating as Eugene compulsively rearranged materials to his liking. I resisted the impulse to fix them back to their original order as we discussed cost (Oh, my god, really? That much?), financing options, and contracts.
Eugene looked more like a customer than the owner in his striped short-sleeved shirt and what could only be referred to as a man skirt or, perhaps more generously, culottes. He had quite the look going with his knee-high, dark-colored socks that showed through open-toed hemp sandals. By the end of it all, we were standing in the pagan greeting card alcove having come to a tentative agreement.
Romancing the Dead Page 10