by Nancy Holder
Amanda said something. He stared at her blankly. She waved her hands and moved her lips.
“…castle,” Amanda said. He could hear her again. “Do you think it was there all along?”
“Did you see the dragon?” he asked her. His ears were still ringing.
She smiled faintly. “How could I miss it?”
“How did it get here?” Richard said, giving Amanda a tight hug, then moving on to Nicole and his grandchild. “They say that every castle has a dragon in the dungeon.”
Tommy closed his eyes and staggered a little. Now that the crisis had passed, his nerves were beginning to take over. Amanda slid her arm around his waist.
“Come into the cottage and sit down,” she urged him.
“I thought I’d lost you,” he said in a rush. “I thought I’d never see you again.” Tears welled in his eyes. “Amanda Anderson, will you marry me?”
She stared at him, openmouthed. And then she shrieked with happiness and threw her arms around him.
Part Two
Balthasar
And the Deceiver who nearly destroyed us all will come again and this time his wrath will not be checked and the whole world will burn for him.
—Gospel of Balthasar
five
FRANKINCENSE
Twisting, turning through the year
Death and carnage do we cheer
We close our fists and we find
Our enemies torn, body and mind
Seasons change and we sing
For all the good that they bring
But we also shed a tear
For they also bring us fear
Scarborough: Tommy, Amanda, Nicole, Owen, and Richard
Richard didn’t trust the lawyer Derek as far as he could throw him. So he sat in the kitchen and watched as the warlock presented stacks of papers to Nicole. The incident with the dragon had rattled all of them a lot more than they were admitting to one another. It had served as a grim reminder that none of them was safe.
Which was why Nicole was making out her will.
“So, in the event of your death you have your father, your sister and her fiancé, and Philippe who could raise Owen. Which order do you want those put in?” Derek asked.
“What do you mean?” Nicole asked, looking confused.
“He wants to know which of us is your first pick to raise Owen,” Richard explained.
His daughter looked at him with anxious eyes that nearly broke his heart. “Why do I have to choose?”
“It’s just the way this is done,” Derek said, and to his credit, his voice still sounded patient even after three hours.
Nicole looked like she was going to cry. Richard sighed. “Sweetie, it’s not a popularity contest. None of us is going to take the order personally,” he said.
She seemed to brighten at that. “Okay, then, that order. First dad, then Amanda and Tommy, and then Philippe.”
“Great. Now, given that you are a witch and that the first three are here with you and the last one is…um…missing for now, who do you want as your backup?” Derek asked.
Nicole put her head down onto the kitchen table. “Aren’t those enough?”
“Ordinarily, yes. But you are far from ordinary. Even for a witch, you are extraordinary. Frankly, it’s a miracle you’re still alive.”
“Thanks,” she groaned.
“I’m putting a family locater spell on the will so that if all of you should die in the same incident…”
“You can say battle,” Richard informed him grimly.
Derek winced. “As Nicole’s legal representative, I do not want to hear about any battles or any other activities that might break the law of either of our countries.”
“So, trying to be an officer of the court and raining down the type of destruction I’m sure you’re capable of, you’re a masochist, aren’t you?” Richard asked.
Derek rolled his eyes. “I have been accused of having identity issues, if that’s what you mean.”
The lawyer turned back to Nicole. “The spell will find Holly, if she’s alive, and any other Cathers.”
Nicole straightened up. “You mean, that’s all we would have had to do to find other relatives? Holly didn’t have to go off with Alex? We could have just worked this spell?”
“No, this spell is the exclusive property of the law firm I represent. It’s one of the specialized services we offer. No one else can use our spell, and we don’t run a detective agency and so are not in the habit of using it just to find missing persons.”
“So, what, you’ve got a patent on the spell?” Richard asked, letting his cynicism show.
Derek smiled faintly. “Something like that.”
“So, then, just use the family locater spell,” Nicole said.
“Do you want to consider, as many witches do, putting the Mother Coven into your will as beneficiaries or possible caretakers for Owen?”
“No!” Richard and Nicole chorused together.
“Glad we’ve got that settled,” Derek said, raising an eyebrow.
“Can we be done now?” Nicole asked.
“I think I have enough here. I’ll have my assistant draw these up, and I’ll be back out Friday so you can sign them,” he said, gathering his stacks of paper.
Richard rose, ready to accompany the younger man to the door. They moved toward the side door of the kitchen, which led to a garden outside. The front entrance had been almost completely destroyed by the dragon, and Richard and Tommy hadn’t been able to finish clearing away all the debris.
“Do you want me to have the house repaired?” Derek asked, pausing for one last look around.
“We’re fine,” Richard said. The last thing he needed was more people in the house, where they could hide any number of traps and curses. “You sure that dragon wasn’t in the will?”
Derek shook his head. “I’m afraid not, which means they weren’t keeping it as a pet.”
“No kidding.”
It was the day before Thanksgiving, but Amanda felt anything but thankful as she made breakfast. Every day the darkness at the corners of her mind seemed to encroach a little more, swallow up the light. The worst part was, with the exception of the still mysterious dragon, there was nothing she could point out to her family. No, the danger seemed to be all in her mind, though she refused to believe she was imagining it.
Since the engagement, Tommy had been trying to coax her to stay in his room, but more than ever she didn’t want prying eyes upon her when she slept. She knew that she had nightmares, and more than once had woken up to find that she had been sleepwalking. Still, even though she recorded all her memories, it wasn’t enough. It didn’t tell her why every third night she woke up staring at a portrait of Sir William in what had to have been his study. She had been working on a spell, though, that, while it would not capture her dreams, would at least allow her in the morning to watch herself having them. It was a third night, and she was determined to watch herself in the moments before she woke up in front of the portrait.
She stared down at her notebook with her latest collection of dreams. There was the usual collection of people, Holly being predominant this time. There was also a series of images including a great phoenix with a key in his talons.
“I knew I shouldn’t have watched that Harry Potter movie on television last night,” she joked to herself, thinking about the phoenix the school’s headmaster kept as a pet.
She closed her eyes and tried to conjure the image to mind, fairly certain that the movie and not the house had been to blame for that one. What do I know about that phoenix? Suddenly she could hear a scream in her head followed by a woman sobbing and the crackle of flames. She gasped and opened her eyes. Around her the entire kitchen was engulfed in flames and her very skin was on fire.
She woke up screaming. Her bedroom door flew open and her father raced in, eyes wild and gun in hand. She stared at him wondering how on earth he had come to be there, or even how she had come to be in her room
instead of downstairs in the kitchen.
“Amanda!”
She shook her head and stuttered, “Wh-what? Where am I?”
Seemingly convinced that there were no dragons in the room, he settled down on the edge of her bed and grabbed her hand. “You’re in your room. It’s three in the morning.”
“It is?” she asked, her eyes seeking out the clock on her nightstand.
Sure enough, it was. She watched as the digital numbers changed to read 3:01. Why couldn’t she remember anything after breakfast? she thought in a panic.
“I’m looking forward to a turkey dinner tomorrow,” her dad said, suppressing a yawn.
She blinked at him. It was three a.m., which meant that she had been dreaming about being in the kitchen and fixing breakfast and thinking about the phoenix.
“Me too,” she managed to say back, despite the sudden fear that gripped her. The dream had felt absolutely real. Was she losing it? If she could no longer tell the difference between her waking life and her sleeping life, what did that mean? She shivered.
“You want me to get an extra blanket?” her father said, noticing and misinterpreting the action.
She shook her head slowly. “No, thank you. I’ll be fine. I’ll see you in the morning,” she said, desperate to be alone so she could try to sort things out.
Her dad, however, seemed to have other ideas. “You know, I’ve noticed something strange since we moved here.”
She perked up, actually daring to hope that she wasn’t alone, that she wasn’t crazy. “What?”
“I haven’t had any dreams.”
Disappointment flooded through her. She wished she could say the same. “Maybe you just don’t remember them.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think that’s it. Ever since the war, I’ve had nightmares. Everything that’s happened lately has made them worse, or at least more frequent. We came here, though, and not a single one. I talked with Tommy and Nicole yesterday. Neither of them is dreaming either.”
Amanda sat up straighter. Now, that was strange. As kids, Nicole had been a lot more prone to dreams and nightmares than she had. “And I’m having nightmares every night,” she admitted.
He nodded. “Yes. I don’t know what it means, but one thing I’ve learned in life is there are no coincidences, just plans you don’t know about. I’m starting to think we should get out of this house.”
“No!” Amanda burst out, surprising even herself. “If there is something going on here, I need to find out what it is. I feel like there’s something I’m supposed to do or find.”
He nodded slowly. “Anything I can do to help with that?”
“I don’t think so. If there is, though, you’ll be the first to know.”
She sat there staring her father in the eyes, praying to the Goddess that he understood.
“Okay, but if things get too intense, we go when I say, no arguments.”
She actually laughed. “Given the fact that we’re still here after the dragon, I’d hate to see what you think too intense is.”
He laughed for a moment, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “No, you really wouldn’t want to.”
He kissed her forehead and stood up, and moved toward the door. She glanced at it, still somewhat surprised that Nicole and Tommy hadn’t also come to check up on her.
“One other thing, sweetheart.”
“Yes, Father?”
“I saw you tonight in the hallway when you cast the sleeping spells over Nicole and Tommy. Just don’t ever do that to me. Are we clear?”
All she could manage was a nod as terror closed around her throat like a giant fist. She had no memory of casting those spells.
Outside Mumbai:
Armand, Pablo, Holly, Alex, and the Temple of the Air
Armand woke covered in sweat. As he lay still trying to slow his heartbeat and regulate his breathing, he tried not to dwell on the nightmarish faces that still swam behind his closed eyes. The hair on the back of his neck prickled, and he threw himself to the side and opened his eyes just in time to see a black, scaly demon slice through his pillow with a sickle.
Without a word Armand raised his hand and sent a blast of fire toward the demon. It hit him full in the chest and only burned a moment before snuffing out. The distraction was all that Armand needed. His lips moved in prayer, and a moment later the demon exploded, showering him and his sleeping covenates with gore.
“Not again, Armand,” Pablo said sleepily.
“I just washed my hair,” Holly groaned, sitting up and looking at him crossly.
A few weeks before, they would have thanked him. He knew it was confirmation that they shared his fears. Ever since he had exorcised Holly, something had changed. If there was a demon anywhere around, it seemed to sense him, to find him.
“Demon magnet,” Alex muttered before going back to sleep.
Two of Alex’s followers—Armand still didn’t know their names—rose and set to work repairing the wards that the demon had somehow managed to break through. It had become standard procedure to ward any place they were going to be at for more than an hour. Any longer than that, and the demons started coming.
Armand lay back down, but he knew he would get no more sleep that night. Something had to give. The demons who were being drawn to him were all different, and every time they came, he flashed back to exorcising Holly and the sheer number of different rituals he had needed to perform.
His path had never been an easy one. He had studied to be a priest and at the last moment had turned aside to study the ways of the Goddess. He had managed to blend the two religions and had found others with similar beliefs and needs. Sometimes he wondered what would have happened if he hadn’t quit. Would he have had his own parish by now? Would he have advanced through the ranks? Would he have ministered to the lost and suffering? Or would he have become an exorcist? For so long the church had stopped teaching the sacred rite. Almost too late they had seen their mistake. Now they were scrambling with only a handful of trained exorcists still alive, who were dying as old men without passing on their wisdom.
“Tell me what to do,” he breathed to whichever deity would answer.
A sudden thought came to his mind with such startling clarity that he knew it was an answer. He remembered when he was just a boy back in Paris, he had met a great man, a prophet who could see the future and read a person’s soul. He had come to speak to the congregation at Armand’s church.
His name was Jacob.
And he had told them that he lived in India.
On the outskirts of Bombay…now known as Mumbai.
How could I have forgotten that? he thought. But Armand had been only three years old then. How could he have remembered?
His heart began to pound. His mind tried to tell him that he didn’t even know if this Jacob was still alive.
Seek and ye shall find.
He rose silently, then froze. What if it were a trick, designed to lure him away from Holly and the others? What if, by leaving, he abandoned them to demonic attack and worse—possession?
And yet…Jacob had been a holy man. He had told Armand that he would become an orphan. His parents had laughed…and then crossed themselves.
They had died within the year, both of them. To a strange malady.
Perhaps Jacob had given them the disease.
I don’t know what to do, he thought. So he sank to his knees and prayed.
Venga, said a voice. Come.
Warmth spread through him, taking the edge off his terrible fear. Resolved, he touched Pablo on the shoulder and moved away from the others. Pablo was beside him in a moment.
I must find a man, a prophet named Jacob who lives somewhere near here.
Pablo closed his eyes in concentration. Finally he nodded and opened his eyes. He’s waiting for you. He lives a few miles away to the east. I’ll guide you, in your mind.
I will be back as soon as I can, Armand thought, laying a hand on Pablo’s skinny shoulder. I will not leav
e you here. It might be better if you keep the reason that I’ve gone to yourself.
I know. I agree.
Armand turned, made a hole for himself through the wards surrounding the camp, and slipped into the night. Once out of earshot, he abandoned caution and began to run. The farther he got from the camp, the greater the sense of urgency.
When he came to a small village, his feet guided him around it and to a house well past it, secluded and private. Gracias, Pablo.
He stopped, out of breath, and stood for a moment. Then he walked slowly up to the front door of the house, only mildly surprised to see that it stood open. Inside he could see into a back room where an old man sat at a table laden with two cups filled with steaming liquid, and a single candle for illumination. He was gaunt, with a long beard, and was wearing a weathered sweatshirt and a pair of tan trousers. His feet were bare.
“I’ve been waiting for you, young man,” he said in French.
“Jacob,” Armand whispered, walking inside and closing the door behind him. “How did you know?”
The old man chuckled. “Prophet, remember? Or have you forgotten that as well?”
“As well?” Armand asked as he seated himself at the table.
“You were just a boy when we met, but I promised you we would see each other again. One might say we have unfinished business. Have some tea.”
As Armand sipped his tea, he marveled at how with a few simple words Jacob had seemed to transport them back through time. Once again Armand was the wide-eyed child, eager to learn, to ask questions and to be told his future.
“Why did you choose to follow both the Hebrew God and the Goddess?” the old man asked, staring intently at him.
“I felt like there had to be something more out there. I wanted to know everything I could.”
“Then why didn’t you become Buddhist as well?”
Armand felt himself flush. “I guess I found what made sense to me, and…”