‘He probably isn’t faking,’ I said, ‘Guardians often have other jobs. Pneuma need to hide in plain sight. As far as the sapiens know, the headquarters is as a government intelligence facility with hardly any employees on the official records, so I’m told. Menelaus would need a decent cover story to explain his income.’
Lorenzo nodded, holding his palms over the flames. ‘Funny, I can’t feel the heat anymore.’ He balled his hands into fists and shoved them in his jeans. ‘’ere, Guardians, they’re like police, right?’
‘Basically,’ I shrugged. ‘Police who are also social workers, counsellors, and spies with magical powers. It sounds as if Menelaus wouldn’t look out of place with a pair of handcuffs and a baton.’
‘Yeah,’ he smiled, ‘I can see that.’
It was too risky to pay Menelaus a visit during office hours. Father clearly believed ‘the Minotaur’ was a threat. The stained-glass windows absorbed my attention, the religious figures appearing animated in the flickering light, an illusion not unlike the mystery I was trying to unravel. I could see through it if I wasn’t so distracted by the symbolism, the veneer painted carefully on plain glass. Appearance loves to masquerade as the truth. Until I could rip the mask from Father’s lie, I couldn’t afford to spook the professor by confronting him directly.
‘If you see him, if he’s assigned to be your Guardian, will you tell me? Will you tell me what he says to you?’
‘What’s it worth?’
Great, I had to strike a bargain with a likely varmint. I plastered on an innocent smile. ‘A meeting with Raphael?’
He didn’t even hesitate. ‘Deal.’
‘See! We can agree on something.’
That’s when she walked in from the chancel, hair slicked back into a French braid, her eyes inky, malevolent pools, rimmed thick with kohl. I hadn’t felt her energy within the church before I’d come in. She was an absence, hollow inside, and I stared at her, repulsed but fascinated. It wasn’t that she was soulless, but that she had sold her soul to someone else, something else. I knew because my silent companion saw it, the cavernous descent of her aura into the earth, into the underworld. How did I not notice it before? She had been sitting when I’d met her in the Red Hawk, but this time she was standing, the flickering flames of the candles edging around her, avoiding her.
‘Penny,’ Lorenzo said. ‘He came. Just like you said he would.’
Flinted-eyes met mine and she flashed her teeth, a strange sort of smile that shrivelled the air.
16
Party In A Graveyard
I followed Penny and Lorenzo to the Old Vicarage for three reasons: one, I was curious – yeah, I know curiosity killed the cat, right? But they’d invited me. Two, I wasn’t about to skulk away through the crumbling gravestones, tail between my legs like, well, a startled feline. Penny definitely wasn’t whiter than white, but the darkness in her was appealing, unlike my other option and third reason not to go home: I couldn’t stand the thought of facing another night in a house of secrets.
Letting my father and uncle sweat was probably a good thing. I had to prove to them – and to myself – that I could handle the company of a few sketchy Pneuma without acting as dumb and trusting as a dodo.
A twisted path sprawled into a sweeping driveway, and there it was, a cobbled façade obscured behind an ivy curtain, the foliage shredded by the recent winds, and the lawn unkempt, giving the Grade II listed building a forlorn quality.
Inside, the vicarage was overburdened with plush sofas and Persian rugs. I bashed my hip against a drinks cabinet and an antique bureau, and nearly tripped over a footstool. The De Laurentis vampires had expensive taste and a wallet to match the overstuffed rooms. I was too busy watching where I placed my limbs to examine the various wall hangings and religious paintings.
Every lamp on the ground floor was lit, and the dining room table was laid out for a banquet, but apart from the whir of the refrigerator, and the churning of a washing machine, nothing stirred, not even a floorboard creaked. However, there were others in the house. I didn’t exactly have ample opportunity to delve down and play with my internal radar, so I was hazy on type and numbers.
I was sure they weren’t so hazy about me. The vicarage reacted as I crossed the threshold, the walls expanding as if I’d displaced the air.
We were in the kitchen when Malachi showed up, suddenly gathering form in a similar way to candyfloss moulding rapidly around a stick, except the stick was my hand, which he shook in a mock-familiar greeting, deliberately antagonising me.
‘I see Pietra’s allure has proven too much.’ He smirked, and Penny glared daggers at the traditional staking spot in his chest.
‘Pietra?’
‘Yes, a pretty name isn’t it?’ His tone was thickly sardonic. ‘It means stone.’ He tapped Penny-Pietra on the breastbone, at the exact spot she’d eyed up on him. ‘Her heart is made of it. I witnessed her birth, do you know that? Her mother cringed as her babe lay silent and scowling, refusing milk. She suckled blood readily enough though, even then.’
That speech raised more questions than it answered. I waited for a snide comeback, but instead, Pietra sucked in her lips and spun on her heel, waltzing over to the kitchen cupboards where she started pulling out jars filled with crescent-shaped biscuits. ‘Ignore him, Theo. You’ll call me Penny.’
I didn’t bother arguing, neither did Malachi, who’d already slunk away with a satisfied grin. ‘I don’t think you invited me here for tea and biscuits,’ I said, as she started piling plates on the counter. Lots of plates. ‘I’m hungry these days,’ I added, ‘but not that hungry.’
Lorenzo slipped onto a stool tucked under the island-counter and examined the food, exaggerating a grimace as he held a biscuit to his lips. He dropped it back on the plate with a clang. ‘If my cooking is so distasteful to you, Lorenzo,’ Penny said, ignoring my comment entirely, ‘then piss off and get the wine from the cellar before I set Strix on you.’
‘You don’t mean the mythological creature that preyed on infants, do you?’
Lorenzo leapt from his seat and whizzed past, pausing in the doorway to tell me Strix was a creepy old owl Penny owned. When he was gone, I asked her about it, taking Lorenzo’s vacated chair. ‘The owl belongs to the coven,’ she explained.
‘Ambiguous,’ I said.
‘Strix is Protean blooded. He can change to owl and human form when he likes.’ She shrugged, gathering an armful of antiquated goblets onto a silver tray, as if it were the most normal thing in the world to have a warlock-cum-shapeshifter named after a mythical vampire as a coven member.
‘How many coven members are there?’
‘Please, are you dim-witted? Has looking at your gorgeous reflection incinerated your brains? Thirteen, of course.’
Thirteen was traditional – a complete coven. So why the hell did she want me? Who exactly would I be replacing? She read my thoughts, or rather my expression.
‘Stregoneria covens favour balance. I am the priestess. If I merge my powers with a warlock of… sufficient standing… we will rule as one, enriched with ecstatic blessings from Diana herself.’
I almost fell off my perch. ‘Stregoneria? You’re Italian practitioners?’
‘La Vecchia Religione.’ She bowed her head in a mock curtsy and her accent was authentic, switching back to equally perfect English. I guessed she was native to each country, and I was willing to bet it was her mother who was Italian, since my European cousins-in-witchery tended to be matriarchal in structure – and in inheritance of ability.
I watched her in ponderous silence as she located a bottle-opener in a drawer, glancing often at the doorway, waiting for Lorenzo to return with the wine. Merge my powers… ecstatic blessings from Diana.
The vague statements she’d made weren’t hopeful or seeking consent on my part. The stool felt cold through my drawstring trousers — I’d been dressed for sleep when Lorenzo had triggered the wards. And after that little meeting, I’d gone straight to th
e church seeking answers.
A ball of saliva lodged in my throat as I recalled the early lessons with Father. We’d spent months studying the divine lineages, and the goddess Diana was a spin-off of the Greek Demeter, and her story overlapped with a favourite Christian character, Lucifer – her brother – with whom she fell in love. They had a child, so the myth goes, called Aradia, who taught witchcraft to her Italian followers.
She wants me to play Lucifer to her Diana. ‘I’m a heathen,’ I blurted, startling both of us, ‘not a stregone.’
‘Who is Thor, if not another incarnation of Lucifer? He’s the god of the thunderbolt, no? Lucifer is our god of light.’
That was a major simplification, but of course, I couldn’t think of a single retort before Lorenzo appeared carrying a crate of dusty wine bottles. ‘Not in here you cretino, in the parlour.’
He stomped out muttering a string of profanities, and I somehow got roped into carrying several plates of biscuits, which on closer examination proved to be mealy cakes, some a honeyed brown, others crispy like salty crackers. As Lorenzo and I loaded up the cloth-lined table in the parlour, adjacent to the dining room, Penny slipped into the hallway and rang the cowbell hanging on a string.
‘Who’s she calling?’ I asked, just as an owl swooped over my head, brushing my curls with its talons and landing on a high-backed chair, hooting triumphantly. Lorenzo shivered and adverted his gaze. Great, I’d practically been scalped by a creature that spooks a bloodsucker.
We were swallowed up in a crowd of young men and women, piling in around the table, laughing and joking, and acting as if we were in the midst of a house party. Music filtered through speakers artfully concealed between furniture, and a garland of rue and vervain found a home on my head. What the fuck is going on? I thought. It was as if I’d walked into a surreal dream. The faces that greeted me didn’t connect to my life, and the sudden celebratory atmosphere felt illogical after the night’s events. Wasn’t I meant to be pissed off and looking for answers? Why then did I have a goblet of wine in my hand and honey cake between my lips?
‘What’s going on?’ I asked, bewildered by the plethora of exotic voices flooding the room. I understood a little formal Italian, thanks to Uncle Nikolaj, who often sent me interesting books from the continent when he went on his travels. But mostly I was hearing snatches of official Italiano mixed up with a helluva lot of dialect. It made me uneasy, as if the whole thing were a charade, a joke at my expense. Be reasonable, I thought, there’s no way they could’ve known I was coming tonight. Maybe. Still, we weren’t talking about sapiens here, but witches and warlocks, strega and stregone. They could prepare for my arrival in a nose twitch.
My suspicious proved true when Penny tried to link arms with me, and I noticed she too was wearing a matching garland. Her sharp, painted nails clawed my forearm as I pulled away and sought Lorenzo for support – he didn’t seem to like her either – but he was busy drinking in the corner, not blood but wine, glass after glass, his expression bleak and gloomy. I had yet to ask him if he was okay, if being a vampire was something he enjoyed. Because he didn’t look as if he were enjoying himself.
‘It’s called a party.’ Penny rolled her eyes and patted my forearm, making out she was indulging me. ‘Let me introduce you to everyone.’
A swirl of names and faces followed: you know Strix, here’s Lori, Camilla, Lucia, Carlotta, Rosa, the twins Teramo and Tinia, Arabella with the golden hair, Faflon – Malachi calls him Teflon – and Ricarda – Bacardi –, and Maria but she doesn’t speak much. Everyone, you know Theo Clemensen. Let’s show him a good time.
And weirdly, after my goblet had been refilled several times, it started to feel normal, relaxed even, and conversation flowed. Some of the girls started dancing, slow, and languid, and I was transfixed, watching supple limbs twist and bend with graceful ease. This sort of carefree, social engagement, how long I had craved it, trapped at home alone. Alcohol and women don’t mix with magic. Who’d told me that stupid rule anyway? Everyone here was pouring liberal measures and soaking it up with crackers and sweet-cakes.
Because they’re varmint, said my inner passenger, the fiery snake inside me. Fuck off, I said. You don’t get to pipe up when it suits you. What are you, my conscience? Did you bring my father’s sense of pessimism with you when you slithered into me?
‘Theo,’ Arabella said, her floaty dress leaving nothing to the imagination, ‘Penny say you manifest outside church, correct?’
So she’d seen me. Just perfect. She must’ve been outside when I showed up. ‘Yeah, I did.’
‘You teach me, si?’
We attracted the attention of Faflon and Ricarda, who were holding hands. As the mini-audience burgeoned, I began to feel like a planetary body collecting moons, with similar disparity of size between me and them. In amongst the crowd of olive-skinned Europeans, I was every inch the Viking giant. ‘Well, I…’ I imagined Father’s livid expression when he found out I’d told a coven of strenghe the secrets of reverse astral-projection. As tempted as I was to rebel, I hedged my bets and acted lofty and mysterious, and wiser than I was. Knowledge is power. ‘It involves an interaction with molecules on the atomic level. Kind of a DNA thing.’
‘So you are key that unlocks structure of atom?’
Arabella’s accent was getting cuter by the syllable. I shrugged nonchalantly, even though I was perturbed by her use of the word key. I had a key, alright. I just didn’t know what in Jörð’s name it was for.
Slouching into her hip, she arched a perfectly plucked brow at me and tutted in disappointment. ‘You join me for dance at least.’ There was no question. She led me with playful tugs outside, the party spilling over into the graveyard, which someone had lit with carefully concealed lanterns and outdoor speakers. ‘Diana, he is bad dancer! Two left feet.’ Her giggle was chocolatey and warm, so divergent from Penny’s harsh cackle.
‘It’s not easy dancing with a girl the size of a pixie,’ I complained, as a rude interruption from Penny cut short our twirling.
‘My votaries,’ she said, addressing the group, ‘La Bella Pellegrina requested that her followers dine together in her honour, and we do so tonight, as our mammas have done since she first shared her blessings. Come.’
We were whisked back inside to the dining room, where the plates and cutlery were now accompanied by tall flutes and linen napkins. The platters in the centre had been empty when I’d arrived but now they were brimming with food: pasta and fish, spare ribs and salad, balls of mozzarella, and baskets of bread, bowls of olives, and a showpiece of figs, grapes, and enormous nectarines. I could smell the jugs of mead before I even saw Malachi pouring it out in slugs. My stomach growled and I was ready to feast. That was, until I noticed the young boy and girl dressed in shirts and waistcoats – servant garb – their expressions hollow of humanity. The light was on but no one was home.
I swallowed bile as Malachi dismissed the apparent slaves with a sharp click of his fingers, and they plodded out of the room like zombies. I knew vampires could Enthral sapiens as a version of mind control, but I’d never seen it done, or anyone suffering from its effects. Lorenzo stared at the vacant spots left behind by the servants, and slumped against the wall, stonier than he’d been all evening. He joined Malachi’s side when he was summoned with a jabbing point, and they left the room. Without him, I was isolated and alone with the coven.
No one else appeared concerned by the servants, and after a few minutes of gluttonous gorging my discomfort subsided. The dish of penne arrabbiata called to me but I sat patiently through the thanksgiving to La Bella Pellegrina – aka the Beautiful Pilgrim – who turned out to be Aradia. As soon as the grace was over, there was no stopping me. Faflon watched with thinly veiled astonishment as I loaded my plate for the fourth time. ‘How can you eat so much?’ he asked, his grammar precise, unlike Arabella’s.
‘I’m a growing boy.’ Failing to mention the reason behind my growth spurt was a wise decision, and I gave myself a m
ental pat on the back.
I almost choked on my bread when Maria piped up for the first time that evening, and said, ‘I’m glad you’ve chosen to join the coven.’
‘Excuse me?’ I dropped the chunk of bread onto my plate, and time stood still as thirteen expectant faces peered at me. ‘I don’t recall signing a contract.’ Penny looked ready to assassinate me with the carving knife. ‘Or even discussing it.’
Ricarda half stood in her chair, Faflon preventing her from vaulting over the table by holding the hem of her skirt. ‘Wait. You meet us and share communion with us, eat and drink body and blood of our Holy Pilgrim. You feast in her honour with us. You accept garland?’
She accused me with her whole body, willing me to deny the facts and incriminate myself as a sacrilegious imposter. Oh fuck. ‘I had no idea what I was doing! No one informed me.’
The coven broke out into violent gesticulations and hurled abuse across the table, but some of it was aimed at Penny. I slunk back in my chair and rubbed my temples trying to think of something to say to defuse the situation.
‘You say he prepared!’ cried Arabella, shaking her fists at Penny. ‘You say he ready!’
‘What retardo needs informing? Aren’t you a warlock?’
‘Well done, Maria! Keep your mouth shut next time.’
That’s when the doorbell rang. I read the confusion on the coven’s faces. They clearly weren’t expecting visitors, no one who’d ring a doorbell anyway. Bodies sprang from chairs. Taking advantage of the sudden chaos, I slipped away from the table, crept out into the parlour, and back into the hallway.
I was about to make a getaway through the back door in the kitchen when Lorenzo opened the front door and there stood Raphael, hands clasped over his bare belly, his dimpled smile dazzling through the dull hall. ‘You wanted to meet me?’ His voice could melt butter. Lorenzo growled and made to grab him, but Raphael was already gone.
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