“Apparently not,” Sebastian said with a note of deep amusement.
I rubbed my head, trying to hide my embarrassment. Look, I was a young witch. How was I supposed to know faerie magic wasn’t just happy pixies and such? “I didn’t have Lilith then,” I pointed out. “And I got along just fine.”
Now Sebastian laughed in earnest. “That’s one way of putting it.”
I frowned at the bouquet of roses in my hands, my shoulders slumping against the hard back of the hospital bed. “I’m not like that anymore.” I stopped myself when I caught Sebastian’s eye. He looked more than ready to make a list of all the various magical mishaps we’d had over the years, as though all the zombies and trolls and monkeys were my fault. I quickly added, “And anyway, I could change my ways. I could be, you know, more responsible.”
“Yes, and what would be the fun in that,” Sebastian said.
“Hello? Weren’t you the one complaining about what Lilith did to the room?”
“Oh, this is about Lilith. I thought we were talking about you. I mean if you’re trying to make a point about how well you can take care of yourself without Lilith, you should never have left me alone with Courtney. She had a lot of tales to tell about you—including the one about the genie.”
It was my turn to be the annoying know- it-all. “Singular is djinn, and that was not entirely my fault.”
I pouted for a moment and Sebastian just smiled at me. But after a moment his grin faded.
“I still don’t know how you ended up here,” he said. “What happened?”
“Didn’t the doctor tell you? Larkin slipped me that date-rape drug—what’s it called?”
The color drained from Sebastian’s already pale face. “Rohypnol.”
“Yeah, that’s it. Although the doctor said the toxicology test came back with a whole bunch of other stuff and he figured I nearly OD’d because I completely passed out, which isn’t supposed to happen quite like that or something, I don’t know.” I smiled in that grim sort of if-I-didn’t-laugh-I’d-have-to-cry way.
Sebastian stood up slowly, deliberately. His face looked hard as stone. “Did he . . . ?”
I put up a hand to reassure him. “Oh! Oh no, nothing like that. I guess they just wanted to kidnap me, you know, for a ransom.”
“Did the doctors do a test? I mean, do you know for sure?”
“Yes, they did. I’m okay.”
“Okay? Jesus Christ, Garnet,” Sebastian exploded. “Why didn’t you tell me this right away? Why didn’t the doctors tell me? Or the cops? Although that explains that ‘poor bastard’ look they were giving me. My God, all this time I had no idea. And who the hell is Larkin?”
I didn’t take much stock in Sebastian’s rant. I totally understood where it came from. I was scared too when I first heard. But in my experience guys don’t really like it when you point out that they’re afraid of something, so I said, “Larkin is the guy who invited us to the full- moon ritual today or, I mean, last night.” Hospitals always messed with my sense of time. “The guy I stole from his girlfriend. When I was dating someone else,” I added that last part quietly.
Sebastian either didn’t care or didn’t notice my confession. “That guy? He came to the hotel? Where was I?”
“Upstairs dealing with the room,” I explained. “I went down to swim, remember?”
As if all the air had been knocked out of him, Sebastian sat down in the chair. “So this is my fault.”
My hand went to his shoulder. “No, of course not, honey,” I said.
He looked up at my unusual term of endearment; it had slipped out, but it felt right.
“If anything had happened to you—” he started.
I put my finger on his lips to stop him. “But it didn’t,” I reminded him. “Anyway, if I hadn’t trashed the room—”
“Lilith trashed the room,” Sebastian interrupted. “And She never would have done if Homeland Security hadn’t taken me away, which I suspect is all the fault of James Something and his goddamn Illuminati Watchers.”
“Because someone had to tip off Homeland Security, right?”
“Right. My cover is airtight. Austria makes certain of that. Only the conspiracy freaks think differently. I think James lied to you about his affiliations. He’s no knight, except in his mind.”
“Do you think Larkin is working with them? If the plan was to kidnap me, could it be part of whatever they want to do to discredit you?”
“I don’t know,” Sebastian said grimly, but I got the sense he was well motivated to find out.
“Just don’t . . . you know. I used to like Larkin.”
Sebastian’s mouth opened, and he had a kind of horrified look on his face. “You can’t be serious. That bastard could have raped you.”
“I put a love spell on him to get him into bed. I’m fairly certain I never undid it before I left town. Maybe he’s still under the spell.”
“That is no excuse,” Sebastian said firmly.
“But he didn’t do anything, and we don’t know that he was ever intending anything like that. All I heard from those guys was ransom this and their master that.”
“Guys?”
Oops. Had I neglected to tell Sebastian there had been more than one of them?
“Well, I thought they might be the same ones that tried to jump me in the parking lot.”
“I thought this happened at the pool.”
“The bar, actually, but, um—”
That’s when a nurse came in to check on me. Sebastian introduced himself as my husband and quizzed her on all sorts of technical bits that had the nurse asking him if he was a doctor. He mumbled something about having studied medicine in Europe, but if she could just check on such and such. She promised to do all that and told me that I should be able to leave once the medicine had a chance to work.
I thanked her profusely. I wanted to be out of this place so badly it almost hurt.
“I was talking to the manager about our room when the cops came in to inform me you were at the hospital. The hotel decided to drop everything out of kindness, I guess.”
Kindness? That seemed unlikely. I looked at Sebastian who was concealing a small smile. “You used your glamour, didn’t you?”
“Totally,” he said, breaking into a broad grin. “I convinced them it was a break- in. Their insurance covers criminal acts.”
“But not crazy Goddess guests, I imagine?”
Sebastian shook his head. “No.”
The morning rush- hour traffic had begun. Bright dots of neon and fluorescent shone blurrily through the thickly frosted window. The hard, cold whitewash of the room was softened a bit by the track lights over my bed that seemed to be perpetually on. Outside our door, the hospital bustled and beeped with consistency of emergencies, sickness, and death.
Sebastian and I sat in companionable silence for a moment, lost in our respective thoughts. He held my hand lightly, comfortably. I never got vertigo from touching Sebastian. Being a vampire, he apparently didn’t have an inner God or Goddess waiting to reveal Him or Herself to me.
I watched him fondly. He stared at the foot of the bed, his thin, dark eyebrows knitted together in thought. He’d tied his hair back into a ponytail. Add the artfully unkempt stubble on his chin, and he looked a bit like a rock star. It was hard for me to believe sometimes that I’d landed such a hottie.
And he seemed to actually love me. Most days, anyway.
Our argument had been foolish, really, hadn’t it? Lying in a hospital bed it was hard to deny that I certainly attracted my share of drama—if that was even what the fight had been about.
Of course, as Sebastian pointed out, if Lilith hadn’t trashed the room, I would never have ended up at the pool alone. If I wasn’t alone at the pool, well, then none of this would have happened. Now more than ever, I felt Athena was right. I needed to get rid of Lilith.
But how?
Perhaps I could do some creative visualization. I decided I needed to meditate. A glan
ce over at Sebastian revealed that my vampire protector had drifted into a light sleep. How ironic. My darling vampire was probably exhausted from having been up all night.
I knew he wasn’t out completely cold, because his body hadn’t returned to the position he’d been in when he died. Mostly likely, he’d start to fall out of the chair if he did and wake himself up.
With any luck the doctor would come to discharge me soon. It wasn’t even seven o’clock yet, however. I suspected I had some time before people came on shifts and all that jazz.
It seemed a good time to do a little light magic. It’s not normally advisable to practice any kind of intense magic when you’re sick or injured, but I thought, what the hell. When was I ever cautious about magic? Anyway, I was only thinking about doing a little meditation.
Athena had said—well, demanded, really—that I owed Her a sacrifice. She wanted Lilith out. I mostly still thought that was a good idea, but . . . well, Lilith had been with me for a long time. Certainly, all the time I’d known Sebastian. Despite everything, the positives of having Her had always outweighed the negatives of not having Her. Aye, there’s the rub. You see, I’d never really had another divine option before. My choice was always have Lilith or have no one.
Athena presented an alternative. I didn’t have to go without. I could get rid of the Queen of Hell and still have a Goddess to call on. Better than that, this one definitely fell into the “good” column.
So, really, the biggest obstacle was that I had no idea how to kick out a Goddess I never really invited in. Did I just chant, “I break with thee, I break with thee” three times?
Somehow I doubted it would be that easy. Especially since Lilith and I were slowly merging into one being if a Native American Trickster God could be believed. Of course, He was the same guy who told me I was now immortal and I bought that one. That was the other thing. What would it mean to separate from Lilith? Would I give up my extended lifetime? Would it kill me?
Maybe if I contacted Lilith on the astral plane, I could just, well, ask Her to leave.
Hmmm. I sucked at good-byes.
Still, I thought it was worth a try.
Since I had no candles or incense to get me in the mood, I focused on a small crack in the wall opposite the bed. It looked a little like a mountain range if I used my imagination to play with shadow and line. I took in a slow, even breath. Concentrating on pushing air in and out of my lungs, I let my shoulders relax. Slowly moving down my body, I released the tension from my neck, arms, legs, and all the way to my toes.
In my mind’s eye, I allowed the shadow image of a mountain range to take on form. Perhaps because of the weather outside, I pictured myself standing in a hot, arid place. Lilith had first been a Sumerian Goddess who was adopted and transformed by ancient Jews, so I filled in colors I associated with that part of the world—rusty reds, bright sunlit oranges, and blindingly hot gold. I imagined catching the scent of sea from the nearby Mediterranean. Sand heated the soles of my feet. Wind and sun caressed my naked body.
“Lilith?” I silently called to the mountain.
An eddy of dust swirled in front of me, stinging my skin with bits of sand. It grew larger and larger. I put my hand up to ward off the ripping force of the wind. It howled and screeched like something alive.
Suddenly, a woman stepped out of the whirlwind, as though pushing aside a curtain. The noise and chaos ceased. In its place stood a woman with midnight eyes. Thick, black curls framed a beautiful, sharp- featured face. She wore a simple, long purple robe that dragged on the ground. I could see the hint of a plump breast through the folds of Her dress, and a line of white feathers near Her waist. The feathers of Her owl half. In some images of Lilith, She was depicted as part snowy owl.
She’d donned Her guise as “seductress.” Interesting choice, I thought.
I regarded Her for a moment. She’d also chosen to appear approximately my height so I didn’t have to look up to Her. If you didn’t know Her history, you’d never guess this pleasantly plump, vaguely Israeli- looking woman was the Mother of Demons, Queen of Hell.
She held out her hand. I took it and immediately felt the bond between us strengthen. Her face blurred momentarily, and Her features took on a slightly more Norwegian cast, as though She were physically merging with me. Then, before I could ask any questions, She squeezed my palms so tightly I could feel Her taloned fingernails cut my flesh. After quickly looking behind Her, She pulled me close. Into my ear, She whispered, “Beware, child. Greece is fickle and has a taste for blood worship.”
I raised my eyebrows at that pronouncement. Did She know what Athena had planned for Her?
“I think you’re projecting,” I said to Lilith. “Blood is sort of your gig, isn’t it? Haven’t I already killed for you?”
“No, darling child,” she said. Letting go of my hand, She softly caressed my face with Her palm. “At your request, it is I who killed for you.”
She had a point. I preferred not to consider my own culpability in the death of the witch hunters, but She’d done exactly what I’d asked Her to do.
“Yes.” She smiled. “You see, I am but your humble servant, and I demand so little from you, really.”
I snorted. “Are you kidding me? You’re a burden! You’re a curse!”
She let go of my hand and retreated from my angry words. Her features began to blur as She was overcome by the whirlwind. “Yet,” She said, “I am your Mother and always will be. ‘You who seek to know me, know this: Your searching will avail you not, unless you know the mystery. For behold, I was with you at the beginning, and I am that which is attained at the end of desire.’ ”
Picking up a rock, I threw it into the wind. “Don’t be quoting the Charge of the Goddess at me!” Though it was hardly the first time She had . . .
Just then I felt a sense of disorientation. Everything was upside down. Somehow I stood on my head, or maybe floated, just above the sand.
“Time for breakfast,” Lilith said.
“What?” I blinked up into the face of a slightly overweight, bleached-blond nurse.
“Breakfast,” the nurse repeated cheerily. Unfolding a tray arm from some hidden spot in the bed, she expertly swung it in front of me. I pulled myself up on my elbows as she plunked down a plastic serving plate full of bright yellow fluff I assumed were eggs, two strips of brittle bacon, and an unnaturally shiny bagel. A single-serving carton of skim milk and individually wrapped butter, jam, and cream cheese also adorned the platter. None of it looked the least bit appetizing. “I’m a vegetarian,” I said.
“Oh,” she said, with a tone that implied “not my department.”
With a flourish, Sebastian took the bacon from my plate and munched it down in two bites. “Problem solved.”
The nurse seemed pleased with his solution, and, after checking over my condition a bit, she left. Sebastian got up to shut the door, as the nurse had left it wide open and the noise and the light from the hallway drifted in. Once he settled back into his chair at my bedside, he said, “Sorry about drifting off there. I guess the excitement of the day caught up to me. Plus I haven’t had my morning cuppa.” He frowned at the food. “I guess you’re still not authorized for caffeine, eh?”
“There’s probably a machine down the hall.” There always seemed to be those horrible hot-drink dispensers at places like this. “Or, who knows, maybe Starbucks has a franchise here.”
He snorted a laugh. “No doubt.”
My meeting with Lilith had left me a sense of unease. Before I’d talked to Her, my resolve to get rid of Her had been strong. Now I wasn’t so certain. What had it meant that She quoted the Charge of the Goddess, a prose poem my coven read any time we did a worshiping ritual?
“You’re not eating, love,” Sebastian noted. “What are you thinking about?”
“The meditation,” I said, unwrapping the filmy plastic from around a fork. Was anything in this place natural?
“Meditation?” Pulling the privacy curtain
around my bed, Sebastian sounded a little baffled at the idea, like he didn’t really picture me the meditating sort. “What about?”
I thought about saying, “Nothing much.” I hadn’t really kept him abreast of all the strange Goddess comings and goings over the past few days, so it must have seemed sort of awkward when I blurted out, “Lilith, mostly—like whether or not I should get rid of Her.”
“Can you do that?” Sebastian sat down in his usual seat beside my bed. He crossed his arms on the metal railing and looked at me with curious eyes.
I shrugged. “What if I could? What if I could trade Her in for a different model, as it were? What if I could have a new resident Goddess, like, say Athena, should I do it?”
“I’m not a Wiccan, but don’t you always say they’re all aspects of one whole?”
Maybe that’s what Lilith had been saying quoting the Charge like that. She was trying to remind me that She and Athena were really no different. “Except they are. Different, I mean. Even if you think of each Goddess as a different part of one whole, they’re still unique expressions. And Lilith is dark. Athena is light.”
Sebastian listened intently and considered his answer a moment before speaking. “I know what you’re saying, but—well, why fix something that isn’t broken?”
“You don’t think Lilith is broken? What about the hotel room? What about all the people She—no, really, I—have killed? Don’t you think having Her is a disaster?”
“I wouldn’t call it that, exactly.” Sebastian shrugged. “Besides, Lilith likes me. I’m inclined to return the favor.”
It was true that Lilith liked Sebastian, and the one time I asked Athena to help Sebastian, She declined. She wouldn’t have helped us at all if Teréza hadn’t also needed assistance. I got the sense Athena really preferred to come to the aid of women only.
But wouldn’t it still be better to have my inner Goddess be someone like Athena instead of Lilith? Wouldn’t that make me a better person? What did it mean that Lilith was not only so attracted to me but also attached?
“I know you’re a Catholic, Sebastian, but don’t alchemists have a belief in the divine spark being in everything?”
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