by Pat Esden
“Don’t worry about it. You were just trying to help. And, for what it’s worth, I didn’t get a snobby vibe off him.” Chloe glanced at her phone, checking the time. “I’ve got to go. I’m supposed to meet him in the parking lot at six-thirty.”
With her suede jacket over her arm and the heels of her ankle boots clicking a sharp cadence, Chloe took off. It wasn’t dark yet, but a chill had settled in the air. It stole the heat from her anger and replaced it with a shiver of excitement. To an extent, Juliet was right. Tonight was about partying, not learning. But so what? She deserved some fun. Besides, she totally intended on finding out more about the Circle’s plans to access ancient medical knowledge at the same time, so it wouldn’t be all fun and games.
Plus, since her phone conversation with her father, meeting the Northern Circle had taken on another significance. The last thing in the world she wanted to do was shame her family further by becoming involved with disreputable witches. But a part of her also wanted to prove her father and his generation of magic practitioners wrong about the Northern Circle. Younger witches were as capable of managing a coven and doing great things as him and his cronies. Chloe didn’t know Athena, but she felt sorry for her, pre-judged because her father was a womanizer and the coven had gone to seed under her mother’s care, issues that had nothing to do with her. How could her generation become anyone or discover anything new if older witches didn’t give them a chance? Or a second chance, if need be.
Chloe hugged her jacket against her chest and scanned the street. Every parking space was taken. A woman with two young kids piled into an SUV. A truck loaded with hay bales and pumpkins rumbled past. She’d swapped a couple of texts with Athena about where and when she’d be picked up. She was right on time. Unfortunately, she’d failed to ask what kind of car she should be on the lookout for.
The sexy coven guy’s car. Her lips pressed into a smile. Devlin, she reminded herself of his name, saying it slowly, getting used to the feel of it on her tongue. Athena had told Chloe his name a little over an hour ago in a text. She’d been getting out of the shower when her phone chirped. Standing there naked and wet while she read his name for the first time had felt oddly intimate, ridiculously so.
A car horn blared, bringing Chloe out of her thoughts. An orange BMW coupe with several people inside had double-parked a few yards away. The driver’s door opened. Devlin emerged, then bent back into the car and pulled his seat forward as if readying for her to climb into the back.
When she reached him, he greeted her with a smile and a teasing sparkle in his eyes. “I wasn’t sure if we’d have to wait for you.”
She laughed. “It doesn’t take me that long to get ready.”
His smile widened. “Either way, you look really nice.”
Heat flushed through her, a delicious tension tugging just below her belly. “Thanks, so do you.”
She started to get into the back, but discovered only a narrow section of her seat still available. A burly African American guy in a yellow button-down shirt was manspreading across his seat as well as some of hers. Glossy dreadlocks studded with gold beads hung over his shoulders. A carefully trimmed beard outlined his chin. Gold-rimmed glasses. Classy aftershave, bergamot and lavender, if she wasn’t mistaken. Anyway, she was grateful he smelled nice, given how much room he took up.
“Hey,” she said, greeting him and a woman who sat slouched in the shotgun seat. Actually, the woman was skinny and looked more like a girl, though she probably was in her early to mid-twenties.
The guy eyed Chloe. “I’ve seen you around campus. You go to UVM, right?”
“Yeah. I’m hoping to get into the med school next year. Right now. I’m just taking a few last prerequisites.” She held out her hand. “My name’s Chloe. And you’re—?”
“Midas.” As Devlin put the BMW in gear and headed into the flow of traffic, Midas divulged that he was already in graduate school: geology with a focus on geophysics. He was all excited about his thesis, working on it and as a teaching assistant…
He yammered on as they drove along the University Green, and turned down the steep hill toward Burlington’s shopping district. Cars and buses rushed past. In the distance, Lake Champlain stretched across the horizon, stripes of darkness overtaking a fading sunset. Just when Chloe feared no one else would ever be able to get a word in edgewise, the girl in the shotgun seat swiveled around and interrupted him.
“I’m not going to school,” she said, softly.
The girl might have been pretty in a delicate china doll sort of way, but even makeup couldn’t hide her blotchy skin and the hollows under her eyes. Drugs, was the first thought that popped into Chloe’s mind, though overuse of magic left the same markers. Whether it was meth or magic or a combination of the two, the girl had done too much of something at some point in the past.
Devlin cleared his throat. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be a bad host.” He glanced in the rearview mirror at Chloe, then tilted his head in the girl’s direction. “This is Emily.”
“Em for short,” the girl added. Her haunted eyes met Chloe’s. “School’s not really my thing. I was staying at a halfway place in Albany, when I learned about the coven.” She bowed her head. “I—I mostly just talk to the dead.”
“Oh—” That’s nice? Awful? Chloe wasn’t sure how to respond to that.
Devlin came to her rescue, expanding on what Em had said. “When I was a kid, Northern Circle’s home base was in Saratoga Springs, New York—near Albany. The coven’s home base has been in various parts of Vermont for almost twenty years, but we still have connections in Upstate New York.”
The traffic intensified, and Devlin stopped talking. They passed Church Street with all its shops, and City Hall Park where the farmers’ market was held on Saturdays. They headed into blocks of older homes that Chloe was unfamiliar with. Warehouse buildings. Breweries. Art Galleries.
Chloe folded her arms across her chest. It was taking longer to reach the coven than she’d expected, and it was getting darker sooner than she’d counted on. It seemed impossible, but she must have miscalculated the coven’s location, somehow.
“Are there going to be any other potential initiates?” Em asked.
Devlin nodded. “One more. He’s already at the complex.”
Midas leaned forward. “I have another question too. I’m not clear on exactly what the Circle has to offer us—above the normal Sabbats and gatherings. What about mentoring? I heard Athena’s not much older than us. Are there elder members? Experienced witches?”
Devlin’s energy crackled in the air. He gunned the car, bumping over a set of railroad tracks. His voice toughened. “Don’t ever underestimate Athena. By the time she was eighteen she was more skilled than most middle-aged witches. The Circle takes learning and traditions seriously. But mostly we’re looking for witches who are innovative—and fearless.”
Innovative. Fearless. Her generation. Chloe bit down on a smile. That was exactly what she wanted. New things. Groundbreaking discoveries, like the cures and medicines he’d mentioned the other night. Second chances.
Devlin turned into a driveway with wasteland skirting both sides. “What you want to remember,” he corrected himself, “what you all need to remember is that tonight is a two-way street. This gathering is as much about us wanting you as your interest in us.”
Chloe swallowed hard. When Devlin had mentioned this before, she’d taken it as regular coven spiel meant to suck in new members. But he sounded dead serious now.
She sat up straighter and mentally switched from party mood to full-on competitive mode. If the Circle was looking for impressive and confident, that’s what she’d give them. An unwieldy thought slipped in to her mind and she pressed her lips together in a momentary frown. This also meant she needed to forget about flirting with Devlin, at least for tonight. She smiled—though finding out if he was available could still remain a p
riority.
Ahead, an abandoned three-story brick factory surrounded by a chain-link fence loomed out from the twilight. Its arched windows gaped darkly as if the rooms beyond them were vacant. But as they drove nearer, hints of what truly lay in store for her appeared on either side of the driveway.
Strange glass spheres and pyramids glowed in the weeds and hung from trees. There were junk cars painted with wild colors. Blossoming plants sprouted out of them, vines trailed over them. A concrete angel knelt under a cloak of ivy. Weird, artsy things, strewn everywhere.
They rounded a thicket and came to a place where it looked like the chain-link fence had been ripped open—just wide enough for cars to pass through.
“We’re not in Kansas anymore,” Em said, craning forward.
Chloe leaned over the front seat to see what Em was looking at. Arching over the hole in the fence was a gateway made out of twisted iron. At the very peak of the gateway were at least a dozen life-size flying monkeys created from car parts and other scrap metal. Some leered down, their fangs bared. Others spread their sheet metal wings, as if readying to take flight.
She swiveled around to catch another glimpse as the car cruised under the gateway. “Those are creepy—and amazing.”
“Fucking amazing,” Midas said. “Who made them?”
Devlin tapped on the brakes, slowing the car. “Chandler Parrish. She’s one of the coven members who lives on the grounds.” He nodded towards a cinderblock building off to their left where an old Jeep Cherokee and a kid’s bike were parked out front. “That’s her apartment and workshop. She’ll probably give you a tour if you ask.”
He pulled up and parked by the factory’s front door, a nondescript entryway that Chloe suspected was purposely plain to contrast with whatever mind-blowing things decorated the inside. She could barely wait for Devlin to get out and pull the front seat forward so she could escape. Well, that was until she brushed against his arm and their eyes met.
Then, for a heartbeat, she forgot all about the flying monkeys and the cool architecture, and what waited inside. She even forgot about the party, and Athena. And even her plan to put medicine and magic first. For a moment, her body hummed and all she wanted was to be alone with him.
Then life snapped back into motion as he herded them toward the front door.
Chapter 4
A girl with death on her hands shall free a demon from darkness, and he shall scorch the world of man.
—First Prophesies of Merlin
Devlin opened the front door and Chloe strutted into the foyer—projecting confidence while butterflies tangoed in her stomach. Midas and Em following right behind her. The foyer was small, nothing more than a brick-walled box. Straight ahead was an industrial-style sliding door made out of steel and opaque glass. On the other side of it, a shadowy figure of a person wavered into view. Chloe couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, but when the door slid open, she recognized the figure immediately, from when she’d used the invitation to look into the past. Athena: long mink-brown hair and cropped bangs, strong cheekbones, elegant nose and chin, a taut neck encircled by a black beaded choker. The only difference was that now her red and gold silk shawl was wrapped around her hips, accenting the eggplant color of her dress instead of covering her shoulders like before.
“Come in, come in.” Athena waved them forward. “Everyone’s waiting downstairs to meet you.” All around her the air shimmered and rippled in an impressive halo, an apt illusion Chloe decided was caused by the contrast between the darkness they stood in and the vibrant brightness of the hallway behind Athena.
They all followed Athena out of the foyer into the wide hallway. Even though Chloe had visited amazing places like the historic Eastern Coast High Council of Witches headquarters in Connecticut, she found it impossible to not gawk at everything they passed. To say the building was a factory-turned-home was an understatement. From the graffiti-splattered brick wall that ran along one side of the hallway, to the steel beams that stretched across the towering ceiling above, down to the dents and gouges in the wooden floorboards beneath her feet, this wasn’t just a restored building. It was an ultra-modern work of industrial art.
Athena turned right, toward where the graffiti-splattered wall gave way to an iron railing and to what looked at a distance to be the top of a wide staircase. As they got closer, Chloe realized they hadn’t entered on the first floor like she’d assumed. They were in fact on the second floor, headed for a balcony that overlooked the first story. A heartbeat of music and the hum of voices pulsed up from somewhere below.
Chloe stopped walking. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, listening to the drone of the sounds and absorbing the earthy-natural scent of the place: sage smoke, burning candles, houseplants, lots of plants. Energy caressed her skin, the touch of air enlivened by the closeness of so many witches. And, for that moment, it was like she was home again on the Summer Solstice with her family’s coven. It felt almost too good to be true.
“You did an amazing job with this place,” Midas said to Athena. “I assume it’s self-sufficient, energy-wise?”
“Yes, for the most part.” Athena stroked her throat, drawing a black-polished fingernail along her choker for a second, as though thinking back. “My mother deserves the credit for creating it. Devlin, too. Most of the stonework, water features, and a lot of the gardens are his work.”
“Devlin?” Chloe’s eyes flashed open. She hadn’t expected that. She glanced around looking for him in the hope that he’d explain further. But he wasn’t there. What the heck?
“I think he went to park the car,” Em said softly.
Athena flagged her hand. “We’re lucky he’s here tonight at all. He’s been hiding away, working on a project for a client who’s building an elaborate log home in the Adirondacks.”
“What exactly does he do?” Chloe asked. It sounded nosy and she should have been focused on questions about the coven, but she couldn’t help being curious. So much of Devlin was a mystery, one she badly wanted to unearth—or better yet, undress.
“He’s a landscape architect,” Athena said crisply, studying Chloe with shrewd blue eyes as if she’d read her thoughts.
Heat rushed up Chloe’s neck. “I guess—I assumed he was still in graduate school.” She bit her lip as a sickening fear unfolded inside her. What if Devlin played messenger for the coven and gave people rides not because he was nice or even because he was a coven member or worked for the coven part-time? What if he did things because he had a relationship with Athena, a very personal one? It wouldn’t be surprising, but it would really suck.
Athena’s dress shushed around her legs as she headed down the open-sided staircase. “Enough about Devlin. There are lots of other members for you to all meet.”
For a second, Chloe thought about taking one last run at trying to solve the mystery of Devlin’s relationship status, but the stylish grandeur of what lay below stole her attention.
The floor plan was open. On one side of the staircase, an ultra-modern pool table with electric blue felt took up most of the space. A guy and woman circled the table, involved in a furious game of eight ball. Across the room, a fully-stocked bar sat against the wall, glasses and bottles sparkling under blue lights. On the other side of the staircase, a half-dozen people—mostly women—chatted and lounged on chic furniture, amid potted palms and stands covered with flickering candles. Watercolor paintings of oak forests and moonlit skies dotted the brick walls. The furthest walls in that room—as well as in the lounge area—were tall sliding glass doors crosshatched by industrial steel. Beyond them, Chloe could see hints of light weaving through shadowed gardens, and perhaps the outline of a stone monolith.
As they reached the bottom of the staircase, Athena paused and turned to address them. “Feel free to look around and introduce yourselves. I need to finish up in the dining room. I’ll join you in a few.”
&n
bsp; “Do you need help?” Chloe asked. Not offering would have felt wrong, rude in fact.
“Certainly.” Athena gave an approving nod. “Come along.” She took off at a fast pace, her footsteps clicking smartly on the polished tiles.
“Will your father be here?” Chloe asked, as they strode past the bar and into a lofty, narrow dining room. This was something she really did need to know.
Athena laughed. “Definitely not. He’s less than unwelcome here. But it would be amusing.”
“Sorry. I didn’t realize—”
Athena’s expression tightened. “I suspect you told your parents about the invitation and they filled you with stories about the coven and my family’s past?”
Chloe lowered her eyes, shame blistering inside her. A small part of her brain argued that she had no reason to be ashamed. After all, Athena had investigated her as well—and she hadn’t told her parents anything. She raised her chin and met Athena’s eyes. “But we aren’t our parents or our pasts, are we?”
A smile softened Athena’s lips. “No we aren’t—and I thank you for realizing that. I like you, Chloe, and I truly hope the rest of the coven feels the same way.”
Warmth washed over Chloe. She liked her too. Athena was genuinely open minded and self-governed. Not at all what Chloe had expected, after talking to her father. At the heart of things, they had a lot in common. “It’s hard enough growing up as a witch without being surrounded by rumors and negativity.”
Athena stepped closer to Chloe, resting her hand on her shoulder. Her eyes studied Chloe’s, intent and unwavering, her hand moving up onto her cheek. Chloe stiffened, uncomfortable with the sudden intimacy of being close enough to feel the warmth of Athena’s breath. But she held still. Covens were like family, right?
The forceful clank of a door swinging shut nearby interrupted the stillness, making her jump back.
Athena’s hand dropped to her side and her gaze went to someone behind Chloe. “Fantastic. Thank you, Jessica. I was about to do that myself.”