by Drew VanDyke
“Which would explain why the streets aren’t covered with witches, as many of their powers are suppressed,” Sister Nayala added. “I did my graduate work on the effects of dopamine and serotonin on a witch’s magical disposition.”
Adam seemed entranced, and Sister Nayala beamed back at him. The level of arousal in the room went up a notch and I growled at him.
Adam winked at me. “I think we’ve got this covered.” He rose as if to leave. “Ashlee?” he held out his hand as if beckoning me to come with him. My brother, the Knight Errant. “Nayala, would you like a ride back home after I drop off Ash?”
I noted his dropping the title “Sister.” Sister Nayala had come with Lena, but my brother was offering her a ride. I hoped she wouldn’t be just another of his conquests. Did Templars take vows of celibacy? I didn’t actually know.
“I need to stay and talk to Jackson and Will,” I told him.
Once Adam and Nayala had left, I turned to the guys. “Take a walk?”
Reluctantly, as if they knew something bad was coming, they followed me.
I walked past the corral. The horses were all in the barn bedded down for the night and we climbed up onto the rails of the corral, hooked our feet in the slats and stared up at the waning moon.
“So, I bet you’ve wondered why I’ve called you all here tonight.”
“Christ, Ashlee. Just get it over with,” Will said. “I can you feel you vibrating with tension all through the fenceposts.”
“Please don’t take the Lord’s name in vain,” I said, not so much defending my intermittent faith as taking the cheap out by being a petty bitch.
Jackson cut that argument off at the pass. “I assume this is about what happened during the Blood Moon.”
“So, what do you remember?” I asked Jackson.
“More than you, I suspect. Why don’t you tell me what you know and I’ll fill in the details.”
“What are you two talking about? I can’t remember a thing,” Will said.
Oh joy, I thought. Here goes nothing.
I told them about the street preacher’s invasion of my home. I told them about Colby trying to join us during the Blood Moon orgy. I told them how Amber rode Colby and watched what happened. How Will and I mated, and how Jackson and I…
You know.
I didn’t even have to look at him to know that tears were filling Will’s eyes. I could feel the vibration of his rage, and anger, and impotence.
Will hopped off the fence. Jackson followed.
“Um, Jackson,” I began, meaning to beg him off. Will always needed alone time to process things, but eventually he came back around.
I hoped. I prayed. Lord, don’t let it be this time that pushes him away.
“This is men’s business, Ashlee. Stay and watch if you must, but don’t say a word and for the love of the moon, don’t interfere,” Jackson said.
For once, I did as I was told.
Will sank to his knees and began to howl, and I sensed the beginning of the shift.
Jackson joined him, cradling the smaller man as both raised their faces to the sky.
As one they grappled, rising from their knees as if locked in combat. Arms rippled with muscle and fur, clothes split at chest, calf and thigh. Their claws lengthened as they held tight to each other, blood welling from the wounds until finally Will kicked his legs into Jackson’s stomach and they broke away.
The hybrid Anubis form was frightening on the least of lycanthropes, but these two huge males were positively terrifying. I couldn’t imagine interfering. You can say rah-rah, girl power all you want, but when it came to a physical contest, well…this was what nature designed males for: vicious fighting, win or die.
On a good day, such brutality worked to protect the pack. On a bad day, it turned against itself. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what kind of a day this was at all.
Like gladiators in the arena, they circled each other. A feint here, a touch there, they paced out a round and wove back and forth, looking for an opening. Moving forward to kick and slash, one scoring here, one scoring there. So fast, the wounds seemed to appear as if by magic, healing soon after.
Blood spurted on Jackson from a roundhouse to the jaw and I cheered Will on. I couldn’t help it. Then Jackson ripped a gash in Will’s thigh and I groaned.
Bruises and wounds came and went in the wake of the lycanthropic magic. I was spellbound and exhausted just watching the two of them. For fully half an hour they went at it, cleaving each other with their pain and anguish at the situation I’d put them in.
I don’t know why what happened next came as a surprise to me, but it did. Ghost Mom sat down next to me and I felt her marshmallow softness and inhaled her scent. They both love you very much.
They both loved me. In different ways, of course, and with different privileges and expressions, but I belonged to them. They both had hold of my heart. And I realized, this wasn’t a fight for dominance I was watching. It was two alpha males bleeding out the violence within themselves, clearing the way for a new version of family.
It was a battle for respect from each other, a battle that needed no winner.
It was a battle for love.
When the men were finally spent and their Anubis forms slipped away, Jackson held Will in his arms as if he were his son instead of his rival, memorizing his scent and helping him become one with his pack once again. The older male cocked his head as if just now noticing me and beckoned with his hand.
Ghost Mom gave me a push and I stumbled forward off the railing I’d been sitting on, not sure what to expect. Until then I’d never been privileged to bear witness to such a powerful display of raw male passion and gentility. Luckily, my wolf knew what to do, and I dropped to all fours, turned wolf and curled my silky fur into the man-beasts’ arms.
We lay that way, the three of us, until the waning moon hung low in the sky.
Chapter 11
The next few days at the Gordon-Scotts were busy. Adam set up state-of-the-art motion detectors, video surveillance and alarm protocols sent to a nondescript RV that sat behind the back fence near the irrigation ditch at the base of the slope. Sister Lena and crew invaded both Amber’s and my territory, leaving behind the scent of burnt sage and lavender and a buzzing in my sinuses that made my nose itch. Damn magic allergies, I thought as I sneezed.
But it appeared to have worked. No supernatural being could cross onto our property without an invitation. Once invited, they could come and go as they pleased unless that invitation was revoked.
Sister Nayala also gave all of us humans bracelets to wear to keep out Jeanetta. And yes, collars to wear while we were turned. They were made out of nondescript leather, thank God. It would have served Jackson right if they’d given him a sparkly rainbow one, but then, he probably would have worn it with pride. Or at Pride. Whatever. Anyway, they were supposed to protect us from any of Jeanetta’s attempts at possession. I wondered why they didn’t just give us a charm that made all spells against us null and void, to which I got a fifteen-minute speech on the impossibilities of such a thing. And Adam lapped it up. He really did like Nayala!
Things seemed to settle after that and I was starting to feel like maybe we were out of the woods and in the clear. It was a week before Halloween and we were putting the decorations up. Halloween had become an ever-expanding tradition in the Gordon-Scott household ever since JR got old enough to trick-or-treat. Amber bought a wicker man and even a wicker witch on a broom and Elle wired them with lights to create a whimsical tableau on the front lawn.
Adam and his team created a huge blue symbol like a medicine wheel on the slope above and behind our houses. He said it was some kind of Templar thing, containing the cross and other mystical protections. The rest of Knightsbridge followed suit with decorations galore. Imagine Tim Burton designing a new part of Disneyland and you’ve got Knightsbridge at Halloween. No plastic knockoff decorations from those fly-by-night franchise stores that appeared in derelict malls in Oct
ober. Knightsbridge’s downtown looked like it had been done by the set decorator of Hocus Pocus, so much so that I kept looking for Bette Midler, Kathy Najimi and Sarah Jessica Parker to come sweeping by on brooms. It was disturbingly beautiful, what with the leaves beginning to turn and drop and a slight nip in the air. It was California, after all, not upstate New York.
Time to layer up, I thought at Amber and began pulling the sweaters and boots out of storage.
I could have told you that weeks ago, she answered.
Oh hey, can I borrow some candles? I’m making an altar and I know you have that PartyLite stuff from those parties you used to throw.
Amber had spent a short time as a consultant for PartyLite Candles and Gifts, but she ate up all her profits by buying her own products. Her loss, my gain.
You break it, you buy it, she said.
What?
You know what I mean.
And of course I did.
I was rummaging through boxes with the garage door open, the bright white light of the garage interior beaming out into the night and drawing in the moths, much to my sister’s dismay, when I heard a car door slam shut, and then the sound of heels came up the walk. I looked up from a pumpkin candleholder that looked a little like the carriage from Cinderella and saw my stepmom Rhonda standing just outside the garage, watching what I was doing with a smile.
“Amber! So good to see you.”
“It’s Ashlee,” I sighed. The woman mixed us up half the time, and I half-believed she did so on purpose.
“Well, don’t just stand there, give me a hug,” she said. Though I knew such demonstrativeness was unlike her, I did. She gripped me hard for a second, then let her hands down. “You’re quite athletic, aren’t you, my dear?” Rhonda commented and tried to follow me back into the garage.
“Um, Ashlee?” she called as I headed to tell Amber that our Halloween houseguest had arrived. “Is there something I should know?”
I turned to watch her struggling against the spell, although it looked more like she was struggling against her suitcase.
“Oh, sorry. Come on in.” I invited her in and then went to help her with her bags. Guess the step-monster had a little magic inside her after all.
Hey Amber! I sent over the twin bond.
Already on it, Roz!
Elle, JR, Siegfried, Spanky and my sister met Rhonda in the garage and ushered her into the house. Oh, right. “Athletic” me, I got to carry the bag.
Amber and Elle got Rhonda settled into the guest room. Colby ended up on my couch in the pool house and spent the evening looking for jobs on the internet. She said she loathed the idea of working on Jackson’s construction crew. “I’m more of a head girl than a hands girl,” she said. I wondered if she realized how that sounded.
I got my candles and put the boxes back in garage storage, and then the rest of us sat around the main house living room with our first fire of the year blazing in the hearth. Well, all except JR, who went back into his bedroom to play on whatever PlayStation or Xbox he had this year.
Rhonda didn’t like dogs much, so after a few rebuffs, Spanky and Siegfried stayed over on our side of the wraparound sofa.
One fascinating thing about our stepmom, she’d spent most of her adult life as an emergency room nurse in a small town not far from Knightsbridge. She tells some real doozies about having to deliver babies when the doctor was too drunk to catch. It’s quite the contradiction, because she has absolutely no bedside manner. Or maybe that was a good thing in an ER nurse, the psychic constitution of a combat field medic. Apparently her lack of empathy extends to dogs and children too. It was no big surprise that she was semi-estranged from her own adult daughters.
Amber had poured us something she called “snugglies” and I wondered if there was more kick to this potion than the usual mixture of hot chocolate and peppermint schnapps. I sniffed and savored the aroma, but I didn’t sneeze, so that seemed to be a sign that the concoction was magic free.
“I thought you weren’t supposed to be here till next weekend,” I said to my stepmom. Open mouth, insert foot.
“Ashlee!” My twin said.
What? You were thinking it! I whined in her head.
Yes, but I’d never say so out loud. You make it sound like her being here is a bad thing. I could feel her exasperation and maybe just a little bit of amusement underneath it.
“No, she’s right,” Rhonda sighed. “Sorry if I’ve inconvenienced you. Your father is getting on my last nerve so I came early. I figured it would be easier to get forgiveness than permission.”
Well, she’s right about that one, I thought, to which Amber gave me a mental slap. Actually, it was more like dropping a cube of ice down my collar. Hey!
She smiled.
Okay, it was funny. I smiled too.
“Anyway, I know you must be busy. So, I’ll just make myself invisible. I’ve been wanting to catch up on my reading anyway. It’s volunteer season in Tucson and your father is busy whipping those young whippersnappers into shape. His words, not mine.”
Our father “The General” organizes the volunteers who serve at the Mount Lemon Camp for Disadvantaged Boys during the winter season, which in Arizona is the nice time of year, of course. These people get free RV hookups or basic housing in return for helping the charity do its job of providing low-cost outdoor experiences for kids from all over the region.
I spied on them once when I was visiting my dad and it looked like he was having a ball ordering about those big and little soldiers. The sad part about Adam being the son that Dad always wanted is that he wanted to repeat the process with us twins, but Amber and I didn’t make for good little soldiers, and he never quite got that. I know he loves us, but he never really liked us too much. It hurts, but I’ve come to accept it.
“Yeah, don’t get between Dad and his infantry,” I said, and then popped my hand over my mouth when I realized how that sounded.
Fortunately, everyone laughed.
Amber stood and asked if anyone wanted refills, but no one did. We all felt pretty tired, I think. All except for Rhonda, who sat in her chair idly twirling her index finger like she was spinning a web.
Amber said, “I’ve got a lot to do before the convention, but I’ve arranged for the Street Witches to keep you occupied until the opening ceremonies. I hear they’re even doing a spiral dance Halloween night.”
“Oh, I’ve heard of that. I think they do it in the city every All Hallow’s Eve,” Rhonda said and I thought it an obscure reference for someone just learning about witchcraft. I’d been dragged by my friend Xiana to it once and it was pretty powerful, even though I didn’t have a witchy bone in my body. Well, okay, maybe I did, since Amber seemed to.
“So, what kind of a witch are you?” I asked.
“Ashlee!” My sister again.
“Do you mean, am I a good witch or a bad witch?” Rhonda laughed. “I guess I prefer to think of myself as neither.”
Figures, I thought. Methinks the woman doth protest too much.
“I’m a solo practitioner of earth-based pueblo magic,” she went on.
“Never heard of it,” Amber said, voicing my thoughts exactly.
“It’s a form of hearth-craft - think feng shui with Arizonan, Native American and Mexican influences. We do everything from weaving our own dreamcatchers to spinning pottery.”
“So that’s what the dreamcatchers are about,” I said. We’d all gotten dreamcatchers for Christmas one year. I had mine hanging in the circular window on the north wall of the pool house cottage. The crystals she’d used, like teardrops on the strands of the mosaic in the centerpiece, caught the light and danced it in rainbows all over my kitchen. It made me smile at the thought.
“We channel our magic, which isn’t strong enough to affect things immediately like more powerful witches can do, into household items that hold resonances of joy, warmth, comfort, acceptance and security.”
“So, you’re a hearth-witch,” I said. The bits and pi
eces I’d picked up from the web said that hearth-witches were good at making people feel welcome and accepted, and though I thought she kept a nice house for my Dad, it never screamed “home” to me.
“I know I haven’t been the best maternal presence in your life. I used to try more, I suppose, but after my years as an emergency room nurse and the ugliness I saw, well, let’s just say I became a bit hardened to everything. Even my girls say so. This hearth-witchery helps me.”
I’d forgotten about my stepsisters, Beth and Brianne. The few times we’d seen each other we’d all laughed, commiserating about our lot with our parents and stepparents who drove us nuts. We’d all felt that our respective mothers and fathers had withdrawn from us a lot when they chose to marry each other. It was only when JR was born that they started getting involved again.
“I know you don’t think so much of me,” Rhonda continued. “I know I could never replace your mother.”
“You never even tried!” I exclaimed, shoving my foot further into my tonsils.
“Ashlee!” I could see the disapproval in Amber’s frown lines.
What? I’m sorry, but this is like the first time we’ve ever had a serious conversation with our stepmom without Dad being around to umpire or grunt his disapproval. Personally, I’d like to know why she’s here. I mind-butted Amber.
“No, Amber. Ashlee’s right. That’s one thing I think we have that’s a similarity. You, Ashlee, and I. People love us or they hate us,” she said.
I gave my sister a mental raspberry.
“So, why the sudden change of heart?”
“It’s not a change of heart. It’s me making an effort because I need to. Your father isn’t doing well.”
“He never said anything to me,” Amber said. She talked to him more than I did. I have Daddy issues.
“Oh, he’ll tell you about his physical pains, his knee replacement and his back issues. But I think your father is feeling his mortality. If it wasn’t for church and the camp…” she trailed off, then cut to the chase, which is what I was about to tell her to do. “I think your father may be clinically depressed.”