Bane

by Trish Milburn

  As I climb into the passenger side of his truck, I try not to think about ever losing him.

  Keller slides into his seat and slips the key into the ignition. He starts the truck and puts it into gear. He drives out of town past Pioneer Village, a historical site that sits on the opposite side of the harbor from downtown Salem. About a mile before we reach Marblehead, he turns down a street on the right. A few houses down, he slows and points out my side of the truck. “That’s Sarah’s house.”

  I look out across a small lawn toward a little white clapboard house, the type of house a librarian might live in.

  Keller eases by as the front door opens and Sarah heads out to her car with a thermal mug, purse and book bag. When she looks toward the street, I lean back in my seat so she hopefully doesn’t recognize me. Keller stays calm and drives on by at a normal speed and makes a right at the next street.

  For the next several minutes, we follow at a distance as Sarah drops mail into the box outside the post office, goes through the fast food drive-through for a breakfast sandwich, and finally heads for the library. Since the library isn’t yet open, Keller and I go back to the restaurant and drive through for our own breakfast. We park at the end of the block that holds the library.

  “Well, she seems perfectly boring so far,” he says between bites.

  “Looks can be deceiving.”

  My phone rings so I pull my gaze away from the library to answer the call from Egan. “You have something new?”

  “Yeah. I found several Davenports in the earliest records for the area, including Reginald, but the references stop shortly after the witch trials,” he says. “They don’t show up again until about fifty years ago.”

  If Sarah is related to Reginald and Penelope, where had her family gone during all those intervening years? And why did they come back?

  “I also ran over to the herb shop to look at all those old property maps again. You know, the real ones. I didn’t catch it at first because they’re not on the same map, but it turns out good old Reginald Davenport owned the property behind the Phersons. Don’t know if that helps at all, but thought I’d mention it.”

  “Thanks.” When I hang up, I share the information with Keller.

  “The plot thickens.”

  So we don’t look so obvious about basically stalking Sarah, Keller and I wait until the library has been open about half an hour before we go in. She’s at the front desk when we walk through the entrance.

  “Good morning,” she says and smiles. “Here to take me up on my offer of help?”

  “Maybe.” I step close to the counter. “I’m really intrigued by that crypt we saw at the cemetery the other day. Thought it would be interesting to learn more about this Penelope Davenport and her family.”

  “Have you found a connection to your family?”

  “As a matter of fact, I have. Turns out Reginald Davenport and my ancestors were neighbors.”

  Sarah tries to hide her shock but doesn’t quite succeed. I imagine her mind racing, trying to figure out how I could have possibly figured that out based on the faulty maps upstairs.

  “Always interesting when you find another piece of the puzzle,” she finally says as she reaches for a book on the countertop.

  I notice a silver bracelet on her wrist, one adorned with several swirls of raised silver against a smooth background. It’s hard to tell, but it seems to have a double spiral at its center. The sight of it shakes me because it’s similar to the design on a belt buckle and earrings my mother gave me for my last birthday before she died. “That’s a pretty bracelet,” I say.

  Sarah tries to be sly about it, but she casually shifts so that the cuff of her blouse covers the bracelet. “Thank you.” She takes a step back. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to go lead storytime.”

  I wait until she’s left for the children’s room before I turn to Keller. “Think I hit a nerve?”

  Though we’ve already gone through all the material in the history room, we head upstairs for appearances’ sake. Once we’re behind the closed door, we use the time to do check-ins. I text Toni to see if she’s found any new information in the basement o’ documents, and Keller checks in with his dad. We both come away empty-handed.

  “What was with the comment about Sarah’s bracelet?” Keller asks.

  “Maybe it’s nothing, but I have a belt buckle and earrings with the same symbol, ones my mother gave me.”

  “Do you know what it means?”

  I shake my head. “I always thought it was just pretty. And maybe that’s all it is. Sometimes I feel like I’m reading too much into every little thing that I would otherwise chalk up to a coincidence.”

  “Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.”

  We spend a half-hour sifting through materials in the room just in case something new miraculously pops up and says, “Hey, I’m important.” What I want to do is just walk up to Sarah and stop beating around the bush. But the middle of the public library doesn’t seem like the best place to confront someone who may be another witch about her identity.

  I push away from the table. “Let’s go.”

  But when we reach the first floor, Sarah is nowhere to be seen. Storytime is over, and she’s not behind the checkout counter or in the stacks.

  I head for the front door. As I expected, her car is gone. “Crap.”

  “Come on,” Keller says as he grabs my hand. “Salem isn’t that big. She’s got to be around somewhere.”

  But after driving through the main part of Salem, past her house, down what feels like every street in town, and passing by the library again in case she’s come back, it feels more like she’s gone up in a puff of smoke.

  After grabbing a couple of to-go coffees, we head for the Wildwood Cemetery on the off chance Sarah has gone to the crypt. But the place is empty except for the long departed.

  “Well, I don’t think the CIA is going to be tapping us to be spies anytime soon,” I say.

  “She’ll turn up.”

  “Not if we’ve spooked her.” Damn it, why hadn’t I just confronted her at the library and depended on Keller to keep me calm should the need arise?

  By the time we roll back into Salem, it’s lunchtime so we stop at a burger place on the edge of town. We get our food to go so we can head over to the herb shop. But when we come outside, Sarah steps into our path as we approach the truck.

  “Why are you following me?” she asks, all hints of her former friendly demeanor gone.

  “I could ask you the same question, Miss Davenport. Along with a ton of others, like why you broke into our cottage.”

  Sarah doesn’t respond, and we’re set to have a stare-down until I decide to cut to the chase. “I know you’re a witch and probably a member of the Bane.”

  “How can you possibly know that?” Sarah doesn’t even try to deny it now. The time for that is past.

  “That’s not important. What is important is the fact that I need to know if the Bane really exist and if they can help me.”

  “A dark coven witch wants help? Doing what, destroying mankind? You are doing a pretty good job of that without our help.”

  The darkness inside me surges to the surface, stronger than before. Keller must notice it because he places his palm against my back. Despite his touch, it takes longer than the other times for the darkness to recede. I notice that it doesn’t completely go away and try not to think it’s growing in strength.

  “Do you honestly think that if that’s why I was trying to find you that you’d still be alive right now?”

  Sarah narrows her eyes. “Why else would you seek us out?”

  I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself against her barrage of doubt and accusation. “Because you all have been around since the beginning of the dark covens. I need to know if there is a way to neutralize or strip the covens of their powers.”

  Sarah looks more confused than ever. “You’re a coven witch.”

  “I’m not like other dark witch
es, never have been. Neither was my mother.” I tell her about my mother’s attempt to flee the coven, her murder, and my determination to escape.

  Sarah watches me, probably wondering if she can trust a word that comes out of my mouth.

  “Eventually, the covens will find us, and they’ll come after us. I don’t think you want them returning to Salem any more than I do.”

  “We don’t have the power to defeat the covens,” Sarah says. “If we did, we would have done it long ago.”

  “I think maybe I do.”

  “One witch?”

  “How about one white witch?”

  Sarah’s eyes widen as I tell her about what happened at Shiprock. “Not everything I took from the earth that night was good though. There’s a new darkness inside me, separate from what’s always been there.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  So I do. “Can you help me?”

  Sarah hesitates for a moment, possibly still letting everything I’ve thrown at her sink in. “Perhaps.”

  I start to take a step. “Great, let’s get to it.”

  Sarah holds up her hand. “Not so fast.”

  “Time isn’t likely something we have a lot of.”

  “We have spent our entire existence hiding from your kind. I’m not about to invite you in with open arms without checking out your story.” She glances around and seems to make eye contact with someone. Amanda? Another member of the Bane? How many of them have been watching us this entire time?

  “If what you say is true, we have a lot to discuss,” she continues. “I’ll be in touch.”

  “When?” I ask as Sarah starts to walk away.

  “You’ll know when you hear from me.”

  I growl under my breath, fighting the urge to follow her and demand answers now.

  Keller takes my hand. “We’re a lot closer than we were a few minutes ago.”

  “Not close enough.”

  Chapter Nine

  Just because we have to wait for Sarah to make the next move with the Bane doesn’t mean there aren’t things we can do to prepare for an eventual showdown with the covens. We all decide to dedicate mornings to research and afternoons to training. With Rule’s help, we find an abandoned piece of property far from the nearest neighbors.

  “Old man Gantry died about five years ago,” Rule says as he rounds the front of his car next to a weathered, two-story house. “His kids live in New York. I don’t think anyone ever comes here anymore. Not sure why they don’t sell it, but it’s a good thing they haven’t.”

  Keller pops open the cover on the bed of his truck, eliciting a whistle from Egan. “I’m impressed,” Egan says as he slaps Keller on the back. Even though he’s still not talking to Toni, Egan seems to have made up with Keller.

  One step at a time, I guess.

  When I reach the back of the truck, I see the source of Egan’s appreciation. A wide assortment of guns, knives, bags of rock salt, swords and rope fill the truck. “Wow, Hunters R Us seems to be in business,” I say.

  Toni reaches into the truck bed and retrieves a pistol.

  Before he thinks, Egan reaches for her hand. “Careful. You’ll kill yourself with that thing.”

  “Guess you wouldn’t have to worry about the covens doing it then, would you?”

  Whoa. I don’t recognize this Toni, and from the stunned look on his face Egan doesn’t either.

  “That’s not fair,” he says.

  Toni shrugs. “Life’s not fair.” She steps back from Egan and walks away. She doesn’t stalk as if she’s angry, and she doesn’t look sad. More like she’s erased any feelings at all where Egan is concerned.

  Egan looks dumbfounded as he watches Toni’s retreat. I know he wants nothing more than to go after her and take her in his arms, but he doesn’t let himself.

  I meet Keller’s eyes, and he shakes his head slowly. We’ve got to let Toni and Egan figure this out, but it’s hard to stand by and do nothing.

  While the guys unload the truck, Toni and I start constructing targets by placing soda cans atop the fence posts that line the edge of the property behind the house.

  “Toni?” I say as we work side by side.

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Will be when I get the hang of all these weapons.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “Oh, you mean Egan.” She shrugs. “Yeah, fine. What’s done is done.”

  “Are you sure it’s done?”

  She looks at me then, and beyond the resolve I see a tinge of sadness in her eyes. “Couldn’t be more done.”

  I don’t believe it. I don’t believe she believes it. And despite his mulish determination to keep himself apart, I know Egan doesn’t believe it. I just have no idea how to fix things. At the moment, I feel more capable of taking on my coven again than mending the rift between my friends. I hate feeling helpless.

  You’re not helpless. I gasp at the loudness of that voice in my head.

  “What’s wrong?” Toni asks.

  I lift my hand to my head. “It’s nothing.”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  I take a slow, deep breath, but the darkness doesn’t want to retreat. I feel as if it’s giving me an evil smile.

  Stop resisting.

  “Sometimes I just feel like I’m losing my grip. This darkness inside me . . . I’m scared it’s going to win. It feels like it has a mind of its own.”

  Toni takes my hands in hers. “It won’t rule you. You won’t let it. I won’t let it. You’ve come too far.”

  I force a smile. “You’re a good friend, better than I deserve.”

  “I could say the same thing, but then it would just turn into the world’s silliest conversation. Let’s just say we’re both really lucky.”

  I nod. “Deal.”

  When the guys drop the final bags of weapons on the ground, it’s time for the lessons to begin. I watch as Keller demonstrates how to fire the various guns. It makes him look powerful, in control, perfectly capable of keeping himself safe. And sexy. It makes him look very, very sexy.

  “Careful, your drool is showing,” Toni says next to me.

  She doesn’t fare much better though when Egan takes a turn, though she tries really hard to hide her yearning. I open my mouth to say something but then remember there’s evidently nothing I can say to make things better. Only time will tell whether Egan and Toni can find their way back to each other. I look at Keller and am profoundly glad that we’re not at odds anymore.

  “Despite the fact I won’t need to use a gun, I have to admit that’s sort of a rush,” Egan says.

  “They’re not toys,” Keller says, probably echoing something his father told him years ago.

  “Neither are these.” Egan holds up his hands and lets a little bit of power arc between his fingertips.

  “That doesn’t get any less freaky each time I see it,” Rule says.

  “And we don’t need to be seeing it,” I say, reminding Egan that we’re here to train in conventional weaponry since we can’t exactly practice with our full powers.

  “Your turn,” Keller says as he looks at me.

  It’s odd how I have a huge well of deadly power within me, but the thought of the bullets inside the pistol give me the wiggins. Yes, I shot that spirit back in Baker Gap when I was out with Keller, but that was different. The gun had been loaded with rock salt for getting rid of spirits, not projectiles that could kill humans. Am I ready for that? Killing people?

  The darkness seems to double in size within me, pushing at its confines, demanding to be set free. To kill. My breath catches halfway up my throat at how suddenly the darkness has bloomed to full life, like it’s tired of waiting around for me to give in. I shake my head, wondering if it’s just some mixed-up side effect of my white witch power mixing with the dark, a need to protect twisting into its opposite. I’ve got to figure out how to separate the two and banish the darkness.

  I need for Sarah to give me answer
s and fast, before it’s too late.

  “You okay?” Keller asks as he takes my hand.

  The darkness lessens, but it doesn’t go away. It’s like a dog fighting against a leash, doing its best to break free. That scares me. Really, really scares me.

  “Jax?”

  I look up at Keller and see his concern. If he’s going to be a part of any fight that’s coming, he doesn’t need to be worrying about me. He needs to keep all of his focus on staying safe. “Yeah. Kind of silly to be freaked out by a gun, isn’t it?”

  “No, not really. It’s not part of who you are.”

  Not like the dark half of my power.

  “Here, I’ll help you.” Keller places the pistol in my hands, shows me how to hold it, then steps behind me to help me aim. “Just take your time. Best to learn how to do it right slowly so that you can do it quickly when you need to without even thinking.”

  We both know that when the time comes, I won’t be using a pistol or any of the other weapons he’s brought along. I’m a weapon, a lethal one. The surge of joy at that knowledge causes my heart to skip a beat. Is that joy a result of acknowledging I’m powerful and may be able to defeat the covens or of the idea that I can be lethal? I fear it’s the latter. The darkness is getting more restless, more relentless in its effort to make me cave.

  Leave me alone! I don’t say it out loud, but the scream in my head sounds like cannon fire. It bounces around and reverberates throughout my entire body. Before I realize what is happening, a surge of power has traveled down my arm and causes the gun to fire amid a shower of sparks. The can on the post is obliterated, and I’m pretty sure it’s not the bullet that caused its demise. Smoke rises from the top of the charred post.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. I drop the gun and walk away.

  “Jax.” Keller tries to follow me, but I hear Egan telling him to let me go. Keller shoves Egan aside and catches up to me, but he doesn’t grill me with questions. He’s just there, a supportive presence.

  I don’t know how long I walk, but by the time I stop and look back we’re on top of a hill looking down on the farmstead. Our friends continue to practice what Keller has already shown them.