“I did,” I said stiffly. “But she used it without my guidance or permission.”
“That would explain why it was so sloppy, an interruption more than a casual glance... You’ll have to speak to her about her intonations... she gave me quite a fright.”
“Yeah, well, likewise,” I snapped.
“I know, I’m sorry about that. I’ve never had two witches reach out in such a short amount of time. It’s been years since that happened... it’s like being caught on a party line. You understand.” Vivienne looked mildly contrite, but it wasn’t making me feel any less defensive.
“I just thought—“
“That you were the only one? Oh, ma belle, you are not alone. The Goddess planted her garden far and wide and Daughters have grown in the most unlikely of places.” Vivienne’s voice was comforting, and I felt a little of my anger subside, but I shook the feeling away. I wasn’t here for her, or her knowledge. I was here for Maia. Everything else could wait.
“Maia wanted to warn you.” I blurted out the words. I don’t know why I wanted to tell her these things, but I couldn’t help myself. Maybe it was because I hadn’t spoken to anyone like me in, well... ever.
Maia was young and inexperienced and Lacey was, just Lacey.
I’d spent so much of the last 330-ish years running and hiding that it was shocking to meet a witch living her lives in the open.
It was almost unfair.
“Warn me?” Vivienne looked surprised, as though the concept of being warned about anything was completely foreign to her. She even looked a little amused.
“Yes,” I replied, pushing through my frustration. “Your name, it was written in a book we took from a house in Spain. A Daughter, a very old Daughter, was hunting witches. That’s how we found you. You were in danger, you might still be in danger. The Malleus—“
“Malleus?” Vivienne blinked at me curiously. “What on earth are you talking about? Daughters don’t harm their own, that’s just not possible.”
I snorted. “Believe me, it’s possible. The Malleus are witch hunters, they stalk us, torture us... Burn us alive. And they love what they do. They’re fanatics following the orders of an insane woman...”
Vivienne reached across the counter and grabbed my hand, tightening her grip before I could pull away.
“She’s gone now, cher. I can see her death in your eyes. But something remains.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Oh, yes. There.”
I took a step back, jerking my hand out of her grasp. “No. It’s not possible. We—“
“Killed her? Murdered one of your sisters? Yes, Magdalena de Leon Abellan is dead... but there is a remnant, a glimmer. She wanted to live forever, did she not? To be the living embodiment of Hecate of earth.” She shook her head sadly. “You did the right thing. She would have drained your magic and taken your lives... all of them.”
I tried to get control of my breathing, but my heart was pounding desperately in my chest. How did she know so much?
“But your name is in her book. The Malleus will be coming for you!”
Vivienne shook her head again. “I do not think so. But they will be coming for you.”
12
Maia
Lacey might have been too freaked out to move, but I wasn’t waiting around for those ghouls to chase after us. I grabbed her arm and pulled her forward. “Come on, we’re getting the fuck out of here,” I whispered harshly, breaking her out of whatever frozen stupor she was stuck in.
“But we’re lost!”
“We’ll figure it out,” I said, looking over my shoulder to make sure that she was following me. “Stop stalli—“
Mid-step, I collided with something solid. The world tilted and the cobblestone street rushed up towards my face. I twisted at the last possible second and landed hard on my shoulder and hip. Dazed by the impact I lay there for just a moment trying to get my bearings.
“Ohhhh oh my god! Are you okay?” Lacey’s voice sounded panicked, and I started to reassure her that I was all right, when I realized that she wasn’t talking to me.
“I’m so sorry! We didn’t see you there, Maia... Maia just... I’m so sorry!”
I pushed myself up on my elbows to see Lacey helping an elderly gentleman to his feet. He had a cane. Of course he did. Maia Hickson, bane of the elderly.
“Maia, get up,” Lacey hissed between her teeth as she took the older man’s weight. I groaned and pulled myself up off the street. My shoulder hurt, and my hip would definitely be bruised, thanks for asking, Lace.
“It is all right,” said the older man, brushing something off his sleeve as he leaned on his cane. After the night we’d had, this was the last thing I wanted to deal with. Was his hip broken? Did he have insurance? Because I sure as fuck didn’t.
“I am quite well,” he said with a small smile. Lacey looked relieved. The man’s words were heavily accented, but not with the Creole lilt that we’d heard everywhere in New Orleans. It was Eastern European, it had to be.
“Please let us take you home,” Lacey was saying. “We insist.” The gentleman’s groceries were scattered over the ground, eggs broken on the cobblestones and a bottle of milk was shattered and spilling into the dirt of the street. Here, kitty, kitty... free dinner...
I groaned and bent to retrieve some of the items and put them back into the soft paper bag the man had been carrying. The bag was ancient. Just like him. Trust Lacey to get us roped into a chore. I just wanted to get back to the annoyingly bright hostel, take a hot bath, and sleep off whatever I’d just done to myself. The old man didn’t seem any worse for wear, which was just insult to injury.
“Oh, yes, that would be very kind. To be escorted home by two beautiful young ladies is a lonely old man’s dream come true. You remind me of my daughters when they were much younger...”
Great, just great. Next thing he’d be trying to grab our asses while we helped him up the stairs.
“Aww, Maia, did you hear that?” I rolled my eyes as Lacey dissolved into her usual expressions of gratitude.
I shoved a bunch of carrots into the bag. “Yeah, I heard it.”
Maia didn’t notice my mood, or seem to care, but she was really interested in the old man. She didn’t say anything to me, or even try to give me one of her super un-subtle signs that something was wrong. I didn’t know what to think, but something wasn’t quite right. I mean, it was only polite to take the old man home and make sure he didn’t fall into a gutter and die on the way, but my stomach didn’t feel right... and my stomach always knew when something was up.
“Maia, take his arm,” Lacey said through clenched teeth as I approached the pair. I sighed and shifted the bag of groceries to my other hip and linked my arm through the old man’s elbow to take some of his weight off Lacey. As I did so, I couldn’t help wondering what the fuss was all about, he seemed to weigh almost nothing, and I was curious as to why I hadn’t done him more damage. I was solid, and I know I’d hit him hard enough to cause myself some damage.
My stomach churned just a little as his wizened hand touched my arm. Yeah, something’s not right.
“Is your house far away?” Lacey asked him kindly. The old man’s pale eyes glittered behind his glasses.
“No, no. Not far at all, you are too kind to an old man. Too kind indeed.”
“It’s the very least we could do,” Lacey said, her gaze flickering to me meaningfully.
“What! I didn’t do it on purpose!”
“Of course not, of course not,” the old man soothed. “You are very kind to take such care of a stranger.”
“Don’t mention it,” Lacey said reassuringly. “We’re happy to help.”
I rolled my eyes as we began to walk in the direction that the old man indicated his house was located. I didn’t know where the fuck we were anyway, so it was impossible to tell where we were going. The street signs were unfamiliar, and I wasn’t even sure which way the movie theatre was now.
Lacey kept up a steady stream of small talk
that mostly revolved around the weather and the older gentleman’s favorite places in the city. I lost track of how many blocks we walked, but Lacey never ran out of conversation.
“My house is just through here, down the path,” the old man said finally, stopping in front of a huge wrought iron gate that was covered in blooming wisteria. A large magnolia tree, draped over the fence towards the street, its fallen blossoms rotting on the ground beneath our boots.
“Will you come inside for some tea?” He asked the question casually, and Lacey opened her mouth to answer, but I was quicker.
“We’d love to, but it’s late, we just wanted to make sure that you got home okay.”
Lacey pushed me aside, and I stumbled just a little. “Actually, we’d love to come in. It’s not that late at all, Maia’s just being silly,” she said, turning to fix me with a meaningful stare. “Aren’t you?”
What the fuck was going on? Lacey could be a little dippy sometimes, but this was out there, even for her. Was she trying to tell me something?
I shrugged. “Sure, you know me... silly.”
“Wonderful,” the old man said, gesturing for us to follow him. “This way.” He pushed the gate open, the hinges squealing as the pins turned, with barely any effort and walked down the darkened path towards the house that loomed above us. Lacey strode after him without hesitation.
“Close the gate,” she whispered.
I groaned quietly and turned to pull the gate closed behind me, but I couldn’t move it. “It’s stuck,” I said through gritted teeth to no one in particular. “What the hell.” I pulled again, bracing myself before I leaned back to put my weight behind it, but the gate still didn’t move.
I let go of the wrought iron bar and looked down at my hands. They were throbbing with the effort, and the gate hadn’t budged an inch. “Fuck this,” I muttered.
“Maia!” Lacey called from the dark. She might be able to see everything, but if I didn’t hurry up, I’d have to use my cell phone flashlight like an asshole. Fuck the gate. I ran down the path towards the sound of Lacey’s voice, hoping that nothing had happened. I hadn’t been feeling great about this to begin with, but now I was on high alert. There was definitely something rotten about this old guy... and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to end up as corpse #7 in the attic of this shitty old mansion.
And it was shitty. It might have been beautiful once, but those days were long gone. The balcony that ran along the upper floor was coming loose from the side of the building, and the wrought iron latticework was rusted and falling away. A thick layer of ancient ivy clambered up the side of the house, covering the brickwork and working its way into the mortar, pulling the house apart brick by brick as it climbed.
“This place looks condemned,” I said quietly as I came up to where Lacey was waiting for me. The space was lit by the porch light of the neighboring house, it wasn’t much, but I could see enough.
The old man was standing in the doorway, an ancient key held in his shaking hand. He didn’t seem to have heard me, but I would have said it louder if he’d asked.
“Shut up,” Lacey hissed.
The old man tried for the lock again and missed, the key gouging into the wood. It looked like he’d missed the lock a lot in recent years and the paint around the lock was chipped and dented.
“Why are we doing this? To be nice? Nice girls end up in body bags.”
“Even girls like us?” Lacey replied. Lacey smiled reassuringly, showing the sharp points of her teeth.
Right. We weren’t exactly normal. The last time someone had tried to kill me, I’d lit her house on fire and burned her alive in her bed.
“Fair enough.”
With a grunt, the old man finally got his key into the lock, and the tumbler turned with a resentful click. He pushed the door open, and the interior of the house yawned blackly in front of him.
“Please,” he said. “Come in.” He stepped over the threshold and disappeared into the darkness. Lacey made to follow him but I grabbed for her jacket.
“Are we really doing this?”
Lacey turned to face me, her eyes shining silver behind her glasses. “He’s... different. I can’t tell what he is, but, Maia, he’s not human. This might be the elder I’ve been looking for. Maybe I’ve finally found my mentor.”
She looked so eager, and it broke my heart to see her so lost. I hadn’t realized that she felt so abandoned. “Fine. But if we see any dead rats, we’re out of there, okay?”
Lacey smiled and held out her pinkie. “Pinkie swear, if there are dead rats, we’ll leave.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Pinkie swear?”
“What? You don’t do that? It was a huge thing when I was your age. Come ooonnn.”
I snorted and held out my pinkie finger. Lacey grinned and locked my finger with hers. “There. Pinkie swear. Now, come on. I don’t want to insult him.” She dropped my hand and rushed up the path and into the doorway, pausing for just a moment before hopping over the threshold and disappearing into the house.
“No, no. Wouldn’t want that,” I muttered, following at a slower pace. This was going to suck.
* * *
The moment I stepped through the door, I knew that this had been a really bad idea. The house should have been condemned, if it wasn’t already. The ivy I’d seen on the outside of the house had worked its way through the wall and was sprouting through the bricks that made up one wall of what once would have been a fancy parlor. A grand piano stood in one corner, its ivory keyboard crushed beneath a large chunk of plaster that had fallen from the rotting ceiling. Black mold spiderwebbed its way up the peeling wallpaper and I cringed just a little.
The old man had lit candles, which was probably safer than trying the light switches on the walls.
“How long have you lived here?” Lacey asked. She was perched on the edge of an upholstered chair that had seen better days... better decades even. A spring poked through the dusty damask near her head and I briefly thought about the tetanus shot I’d had last summer. Is that shit still good? The chair I sat in was in similar shape. Fit for nothing but the burn pile. Stuffing and shreds of fabric littered the uneven floor and I wondered how many rats had nested in it over the years.
“Not long, not long,” the man said, lighting another candle with a long match that had come from a tarnished silver box that rested on the mantelpiece of the ruined fireplace.
It had been humid outside, almost unbearably so, but inside the house it was cool and clammy. Like a tomb.
How long were we going to stay here?
“What brings you to New Orleans?” the old man asked. He pinched the end of the match with his fingertips to extinguish the flame before dropping it to the floor. I swallowed thickly. Lacey better have something good to say, I was a terrible liar.
“Oh, just the usual. See the sights, eat some great food, make some new friends... isn’t that what everyone does in New Orleans?” Lacey smiled in that engaging way she had and I breathed a small sigh of relief. Good. That was what we’d planned to say if we were ever asked. Fine. Everything was fine.
“Ah, moje dítě,“ the old man said quietly. “There is no need for such deception.”
“Deception?” Lacey looked confused. My tea cup rattled on its saucer, sloshing some liquid onto the low table it sat on. Oh, shit.
“You young ones, always with the lies. You think we don’t know. You think the régi vér cannot see through you. Cannot smell it on you.”
“Lacey, what the fuck,” I said quietly. “This is a dead rat, this counts as a dead rat.” I started to stand up, but the old man turned to me.
“Stay where you are!” he shouted, pointing a thin finger at me, his pale eyes shone in the candle light, glassy and hard like marbles. I felt my magic rear up inside me.
I could take the whole house down around us, but whether or not we would survive it was another story.
“You,” he said, his hand trembling slightly. “I have not encountered your kind befo
re. What are you?”
“What the hell business is it of yours? And what the fuck are you? What’s a ree-ge veer?” I said sharply.
“Maia, don’t,” Lacey said, raising her hand to shut me up. “I’ve heard that before... at Spiral. Old blood.” She looked at the old man, her eyes wide, her voice hushed. “Eli told me they’d gone into hiding.”
“More lies,” the old man hissed. “It is true, I am one of the last of the first bloods, ‘old ones’ they call us now. Régi vér. You owe me your humility, your reverence. Without me, without my kind, you would not exist, krŭvno dete.” Those last words dripped with disdain and I saw Lacey wince. “What are you really here for?”
Lacey bit her lip and my hands tightened into fists on my thighs. My palms burned. I could set everything on fire in seconds. But there was something about the way Lacey was sitting that made me pause. She was... hopeful.
“Answers,” Lacey choked out the word. “I want answers.” She looked down at her hands and then back to the old man. “I just feel so... alone.”
The old man closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. Lacey swayed slightly in her seat and I reached out for her, but she batted my hand away.
“Áruló,” the old man said. “I can smell the blood of the one who made you.” He made a face, his eyes shut tightly. After a moment’s pause his expression calmed, his ancient face relaxing. “I can see where you died, moje dítě... Your life was taken from you, and they gave you this instead. You don’t want it? Are you so proud that you would spurn eternity…”
“I just don’t want eternity alone,” Lacey said, her voice was small and shaky and her silver shined eyes glistened with tears.
“I can take it back,” the old Laudan said, his eyes opening slowly. “You should never have been entrusted with something so precious.”
13
Lacey
Áruló.”
The word, and the way he had said it echoed in my head. New blood. Unworthy.
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