by MJ Caan
I felt a pit forming in the bottom of my stomach, but I had to ask anyway. “Where do they fill up? I’m guessing the local Exxon doesn’t sell the kinda high-test they need.”
“You would be correct,” said Aunt Vivian. “For men like that, we were Exxon. Warlocks stole our magic and held it captive, twisting it into something obscene and unnatural. The type of arcane arts they practiced was forbidden ages ago, but the laws that governed witchcraft never stopped them. They fed on us, bleeding us dry of our magic and enslaving certain witches to use as living conduits for them to tap into magic whenever they needed.
“Centuries ago, there was a great war—a rebellion, if you will—between a handful of witch clans and these warlocks. The battle was brutal and long, with heavy casualties on both sides of the war. But in the end, the witches prevailed, decimating their captors. The witches, through their connection with the power of Mother Earth, were able to cast a spell that created powerful allies. Through potent magics they were able to allow humans to tap the mystical energies around them for short periods of time. These humans were then able to take on animal forms, yet retain the intellect they possessed as humans. They loved the new powers we gave them, and in return pledged their allegiance to us and agreed to help overthrow the warlocks who kept us as living, mystical batteries.”
“Combined, our power was too much for the warlocks,” said Aunt Lena. “They were defeated and the witches that had been held in bondage were freed.”
“What happened to the warlocks?” I asked.
“They were put to death,” answered Aunt Lena.
I winced at the casual way she had replied. “Just like that?”
Aunt Lena narrowed her eyes at me and continued. “Believe me, girl, ending a life, any life, is something a witch takes very seriously. We are grounded in nature. Killing is anathema to us. But these warlocks, these monsters, were perverting the natural course of things. They were using out power to commit heinous acts against mankind. They bonded themselves to our magic in a way that left us no choice. Only death severed the bonds.”
“Plus, the act of tethering a witch to a warlock resulted in the death of the witch over time. It was an agonizing way to die, being slowly drained of one’s own life force. It was death by a thousand magical pinpricks,” said Aunt Vivian. “Between the witches and the Shifters, the warlocks were destroyed once and for all. But the effect of that battle reverberated throughout our history, forever changing the practice of witchcraft. It drove us back into the closets, so to speak. Those of our kind who survived vowed to never again live in the open. Many abandoned the practice completely for fear that doing so would only attract more warlocks. Turns out that fear was not warranted. More warlocks never showed up on our shores. It was whispered that the last of them had been wiped out, and the secrets of enslaving witches died with them. Even so, our numbers dwindled to near extinction levels. Soon, we were thought to be the creations of imaginative writers and storytellers, passing on into the realm of fiction.”
“And that was how we wanted it,” said Aunt Lena. “Obscurity suited us well. Over the generations, witches settled in small communities, blended in with the human inhabitants, and lived quiet, solitary lives. For the most part, their magic died out as practice stopped, and the craft was no longer passed from mother to daughter. No woman wanted to see her daughter potentially become an errant victim of a warlock, even if a warlock hadn’t been seen or heard from in centuries.”
“So one of those settlements was here? Trinity Cove?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Aunt Vivian, nodding. “Our family line is directly descended from the original witches that led the rebellion against the warlocks. We continued to practice here, and so did the ones who settled with us.”
“And what about the Shifters?” asked Gar.
“It was our lineage that cast the spell that created them. They were allowed to keep their powers, and in return pledged their loyalty to us witches forever. They lived in secret as well, keeping close proximity to the witch communities.”
“Something doesn’t add up,” I said. “If the Shifters are allied to the witches, why would one of them attack me?”
“Because,” came a voice from the stairs, “she hasn’t told you the best part yet. Tell them what you and your sisters did.” It was Officer Hunter. He was standing on the stairs with the blanket draped over his bare shoulders, trying to steady himself. His dark eyes were narrowed towards my aunts. “If you’re going to tell her, tell her everything.”
11
“Young man!” said Aunt Vivian sternly. “You should not be up just yet.”
Gar and I rushed to the policeman’s side to bolster him up as he took a tentative step off the last stair onto the hardwood floor. I draped one of his arms over my shoulder and Gar did the same. Though I tried to block it out, I was reminded of what had transpired only hours earlier when we had dragged him through the woods in the same fashion. He was very warm to the touch; fever was running through his body, and the effort of walking was making him shiver in our grasp. We made our way to the couch that sat just outside of the kitchen and eased him down. I was only slightly annoyed at Aunt Lena protecting the furniture by making certain that the blanket draped around his upper body slid between the couch and his wounded back.
“Officer…” I started before catching myself. “I mean, Cody. You shouldn’t be up. You need to rest so you can heal.”
“I think I’m healing just fine, all things considered,” he replied, indicating his back. I caught a glimpse of it before he lay back and was shocked to see that while the wounds were angry and white, the bleeding had stopped and the flesh was already starting to knit back together. “No doubt a courtesy of whatever the two of you did for me,” he continued, nodding at my aunts. “Thank you for that.”
“You’re welcome,” replied Aunt Lena.
I was surprised by her answer. I expected them to dodge having anything to do with healing him, give him a cup of tea laced with God-knows-what, and send him on his merry way with a wiped memory. The fact that they acknowledged that he knew something above the norm was encouraging and frightening at the same time.
“I’ll get another blanket,” said Gar, heading for the guest bedroom down the hall. I realized that the officer only had on a pair of red, stained pants: he was bare from the waist up. His olive-toned skin was on full display, and the sheen created by the layer of sweat only caused the definition in his abs to stand out even more. The only hair on his torso was a small dark line that started lightly above his belly button and dove in a straight line into the waistband of his black underwear. I swallowed and looked away, thankful when Gar showed up with a blanket and covered his half-nakedness.
“What exactly did you do?” he asked.
“A combination of potion and spell,” replied Aunt Lena. “Both meant to heal and soothe the spirit. Under normal circumstances they would not have worked this fast. You were attacked by a supernatural being, and in all honesty I wasn’t sure they would work at all. You are very lucky.”
“Well, I’m grateful, that’s for sure,” he replied. “But don’t let me interrupt. I believe you were about to tell Allie the second half of your tale.” He leaned back, resting his head fully against the large teal throw pillows.
Aunt Vivian narrowed her eyes at him as she made her way to the large sitting chair opposite the couch. Gar and I sat on the oversized ottoman between the two while Aunt Lena headed back into the kitchen to put on another kettle of water for tea.
“Your family has been in the Cove for as long as ours has,” Aunt Vivian said to Cody. “I assume your parents told you tales of our kind?”
“And my parents’ parents before them,” he replied. “My mother is one of you, isn’t she?”
Aunt Vivian nodded before continuing. “Yes, your mother is a witch. While outing her to you is not our place, I am afraid that right now we don’t have a choice.”
“Wait,” I said, “where is your mother? Al
l through school we only ever saw your father.”
“Oh, so you did notice me,” he said with a twinkle in his dark eyes.
I tried to ignore my blush as I continued. “I just mean I don’t remember ever seeing your mother at any of the school events we attended.”
“My mother left us a few years after my sister died,” he said. “She drowned in our pool shortly before I was even born. My mother blamed herself because she had left the back door open accidentally while she was doing laundry. When she found my sister, it was too late. She never got over the guilt, and eventually it proved too much for her, so when I was a toddler she abandoned me and my father and moved out west. My father is the only parent I’ve ever known.”
“I’m sorry,” I managed to say. “I had no idea.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “Like I said, it’s been awhile. I’ve come to terms with what happened.”
“I am sorry as well,” said Aunt Vivian. “I knew your mother well, and I know that when your sister died, so did a part of her. She wanted so very badly to be the mother you needed and deserved. In the end, however, she opted not to expose you to a lifetime of her sadness. She wanted more for you, and she felt that as long as she was hanging around, weighing you down, the darker your future would become. As a witch, losing her only daughter was more than she could bear. So she did the unthinkable and abandoned her child. I can’t imagine the strength and the weakness it took to do that.” I looked up, expecting to see her focused on Cody, but was shocked to see she was staring at me as she spoke. She smiled and looked away, turning her attention to Cody.
“Did your father tell you about your mother?”
“Yes,” Cody replied. “He was angry at her for walking out on us. He told me everything when I was old enough. He hated witchcraft, blamed her disappearance on you and your kind. He said it wasn’t the death of my sister that caused her to leave us, but it was the stress of keeping secrets that did it—one secret in particular.”
“What is he talking about?” I asked. “We said no more secrets, remember? So what’s he talking about?”
Aunt Vivian cleared her throat before speaking up. “As I said, we lived in peace and harmony for generations after the destruction of the warlocks. The witches that survived and wanted to continue the craft lived in communities where they looked after one another and protected one another. Here, in Trinity Cove, there were only a handful of witches. We lived with the Shifters and built this town into a haven for supernaturals. We grew complacent, and with that complacence came a false sense of security. We dropped our guard.
“And before we knew it, he was among us.” She stopped, adjusted her posture and to a more comfortable position for her before gathering her thoughts and continuing. “A warlock had found our Cove, drawn by the immense flow of eldritch energies within the ley properties around us. But this warlock was different from any that we had heard about before. He came prepared. He was armed and protected himself against our magic with talismans. He used silver collars to bind us; silver is one of the few metals with innate qualities that can be manipulated to disturb magical rhythms. Before we knew what was happening, he had taken some of us and retreated to a cave behind the Singing Falls. There, he leeched power from the witches and used it to create more talismans, talismans that were designed with one purpose: to pervert the age old magic that we used to create the first Shifters.”
She paused to see if we had any questions. Aunt Lena brought in a tray with freshly brewed tea and passed the cups out to us before returning to the kitchen, all without breathing a word. The air in the room was heavy with tension, and I waited patiently for Aunt Vivian to continue.
“This warlock was far different from the others that came before him. He was savage. Calculating. Cruel. The things he did to the witches in his control were unspeakable. But nothing prepared us for the monsters he created. He created hybrid Shifters that could halt their shift in mid-transformation, trapped between a man and an animal. He preferred the wolves for this twisting of our magic, creating great, hulking beasts that walked on two legs with ten times the strength of a wolf, and none of the wolves’ fears or sense of restraint. They were savage monsters, loyal only to their dark master.
“He used these creatures to tear through Trinity Cove on bloody rampages when the moon was full. It wasn’t that a full moon was needed for the change, it was because there was more light available so that the humans could see what was being done to them. The werewolves ravaged the other Shifter clans, decimating their numbers and driving them deep into the mountains, far from Trinity. Humans were slaughtered by the dozens and witches were captured and taken back to the warlock. After a while, there were only a few witches left. We knew that our time was limited, and we also knew that once the warlock was finished with Trinity Cove he would move on to the next community and the next after that…drinking them dry of magic, and making slaves of our sisters.
“Those of us who remained were the most powerful of the covens. We gathered together with a few of the humans we trusted and came up with a plan. We knew that we had to fight back, just as our ancestors had. Taking out the warlock wasn’t the problem: together, we witches were more than a match for a single man wielding stolen power. No, the warlock wasn’t the challenge. It was his guardians, his nightmarish werewolves that were the issue. They were fast and strong. Their fangs and claws would rip us to shreds before we could get close enough to finish off their master. So, we came up with a rather grim plan. Desperate times called for desperate measures.
“Your mother, Lena, and I met with the remaining few witches in the clan in secret at night, and agreed on a course of action. We knew that the wolves were at their most lethargic during dusk and dawn, the nether time when it’s not dark, but no longer light either. The magic within them would settle before Shifting along with their body to one form or the other. Most of the werewolves reverted to their human form during the day, but some of the more powerful creatures could maintain their lupine forms at all times. They were the ones that watched over the warlock until nightfall.
“We gathered here, in this very room, seven witches, and eight humans. We didn’t dare tell the rest of the Cove what we were planning lest they attempt to stop us. A few of the residents had fled, leaving everything except what they could carry. But that was before the warlock decried that if anyone else left Trinity Cove before he had completed his…business here, he would have his wolves hunt them down no matter how far they ran, and peel their skin from their bodies inch by inch. So no one left. The humans knew it was only a matter of time before all of the witches were either dead or captured, at which time the warlock would pull up stake and leave. So they turned a blind eye to us. That was the beginning of the hatred for our kind that can still be felt to this day.
“But that hate was one-sided. We witches knew it was our responsibility to protect the humans and destroy this madman once and for all. So we met on a night when there was a quarter moon, when the pull on the wolves would be the weakest. We waited until just before dawn, when we knew they would be resting in the caves that surrounded Singing Falls. And then we cast a spell, one that consumed so much of our energy that two of our coven mates were rendered powerless forever. It was a spell of undoing. We reversed the spell that allowed Shifters to exist.”
The silence was deafening. “You can do that?” I asked.
“Normally it would not have been possible,” said Aunt Vivian. “But remember, it was our ancestors that created the spell in the first place. My sisters and I were the three most powerful witches in the Cove. Your mother was the most powerful of the three of us, and together, we were able to undo the spell that allowed humans to walk as animals.
“The wolves were swept up in the spell. It locked them in their weaker human form. Overcome by the lethargy the magic created, they dropped where they stood, falling in piles on top of each other. That was when we, and our human comrades, crept into the caves and killed them. We walked through the human
pile and drove pikes through their hearts, killing each before they could cry out and rouse others. We moved through the cave until we came to the last passageway, deep in the tunnels that ran behind the falls. That was where we thought we would find the warlock, and put an end to this terror once and for all. But it wasn’t him we found…”
Her voice trailed off, and I thought I could see tears reflecting in the light. She leaned back, closing her eyes.
“What did you find?” asked Gar.
Aunt Vivian took a deep breath and opened her eyes.
“We found a room where the walls had been lined with wooden torches and the floor was covered in the pelts of various woodland animals. It was plush and deep and somehow made the cave incredibly intimate. Lying on the pelts were…were…babies. A dozen of them, just lying there quietly. It was eerie the way they made no noise as we walked up beside them. They were awake, looking around, stretching, trying to roll over. They were only days old, but so alert; their bright eyes were open and I swear they watched us…tracked us, as we moved.
“My sisters and I could smell the magic in which they had been bathed; they were werewolves, but there was something different about them as well. They had yet to go through their first Shift. In breaking the spell we had trapped them in human form; a form that had never known the dark kiss of transformation.”
She stopped talking, letting her words dangle in the air.
“What happened?” I asked, wide-eyed.
“Go on,” said Cody when Aunt Vivian remained silent for a second, “tell them what happened. Tell them how you and your sisters callously slaughtered a room full of innocent babies!”
Aunt Vivian instantly snapped to attention. Her spine became rigid as she focusing her gaze on Cody. The flower vase on the table behind the couch burst into shards of glass, spilling its contents across the hardwood floor. I could feel the magic leap up in Aunt Vivian, like a dragon poised to unleash liquid napalm.