‘Next time I’ll teach you about cutting people off,’ Fletch said.
It was gone midnight when the girls left, leaving Lorenzo to heave Menelaus to the carpark out back. ‘It’s a good job I’m a vampire. You weigh a bloody ton.’
‘You don’t think I hear?’ Menelaus’s voice sobered against the cool air outside. ‘What my students call me? Minotaur. Like I’m some kind of freak.’
‘You’re not a freak. They admire you.’
‘Pffst. They don’t even see me. No one does. They don’t realise. When they stripped my powers. Invisibility is in every cell.’ He sighed, squinting in the headlights before the driver – Theo – dimmed them. Lorenzo tackled Menelaus into the back seat and rounded to the front passenger door.
His sharp eyes caught movement. He looked up – Malachi stood on the rooftop of the brewery attached to the pub, feet in a wide stance, hands clasped behind his back, emanating quiet fury. ‘Sorry,’ Lorenzo mouthed, ‘I belong to someone else tonight.’
22
Blood Magic
‘There’s a drunk bull in my car,’ I said, watching Menelaus roll around the backseat, fumbling with his seatbelt.
‘It’s Penny car,’ said Lorenzo.
Satisfied that we all met legal safety requirements, I crawled the car out into the busy street. I took a steadying breath; this was the first time I’d met Menelaus while knowing that he was my cousin. Despite his bulk, he looked pitiful, half-unconscious as we drove back to the Old Vicarage, streetlights casting an orange pallor to his skin.
‘Where’s Raphael?’ Lorenzo asked.
‘He refused to stay in the attic,’ I said, ‘he claims he felt like he was suffocating. We agreed he could stay in the dilapidated bell tower at St. Michael’s. That way I could ward the walls and keep him from view. Only you, me, and Raphael can enter. But he can leave whenever he wants.’
Lorenzo tapped the dashboard and fiddled with the radio. Groaning came from the back seat. ‘Penny will be pissed if he throws up,’ he said. We exchanged a grin.
‘So how did you end up lumbered with him?’ He’d sent a text asking for help but had been sparse on the details. I had been talking to Lolita, who had finally woken up.
She had remembered everything.
Ava had two paralysing visions while we were trying to explain. That alone convinced her we weren’t complete lunatics. Picking up Lorenzo and Menelaus was the excuse I needed, and besides, the truth always sounds better from family. Not that I would know. When Lolita was strong enough, I’d try and reverse the spell that Father had used to erase her memory, too.
‘You missed the exit.’
I tapped the brake, checked my mirrors, and performed a U-turn. Menelaus clamped his hand over his mouth. ‘Sorry, I was thinking.’
When we neared St. Michael’s, Lorenzo said, ‘Espen told him he’s a dhampir and that Elspeth is his mother. Or was. Whatever.’
I almost sent us through the windscreen. ‘When did they talk?’
Lorenzo shrugged. ‘Must’ve been where he took Toby.’
‘And he’s still alive? After meeting my father?’ I picked up speed down the little road and parked behind the church. Together we helped Menelaus into the church, leaving him on a pew. I gathered the energy tumbling in my chest and held out my arms, mimicking Jesus on the cross, and shot two bolts of light from each palm that travelled down the walls of the church, lighting the candles hidden in the grooves in succession.
Lorenzo ambled to the wall by the entrance and flipped the light switch.
I laughed. He switched it off again; the candles were more ambient. ‘I’ll leave you to your cousin,’ he said. ‘I want to see Raphael.’
As he approached the door of the bell tower, I caught his elbow. ‘Wait, what’s going on between you two?’
He smiled, half hidden in shadow. ‘We’re courting. Is that okay with you?’
I tried not to snort. He’d take it the wrong way. ‘That’s…fine. I mean, great. I’m happy for you.’
He nodded and opened the door. ‘I figured that if I’m destined to go ballistic and Raphael will be captured, we might as well enjoy ourselves meanwhile.’
‘I’m working on it, Lorenzo.’
Just before he stepped into the ruined tower, he added, ‘You’re the only one I trust to protect us, Theo.’ I saw Raphael’s hands gather around Lorenzo’s neck. Lorenzo kicked the door shut with his boot, so I turned my focus to Menelaus, who’s eyes were fixed on the altar.
‘I was christened there,’ he whispered. ‘I was left there. Elspeth. My mother. She left me.’
I walked over and sat in the pew in front, twisting around to face him. ‘I know.’ Mum, he killed you. Mum, I’ve hated him for so long, before I even had a name to hate. I hate myself for not avenging you. She didn’t answer. I had to deal with this alone. In the end it came down to that motto: Familia Super Omni. Menelaus hadn’t known that love, partly because of the actions of my parents. ‘Listen, I’m sorry I attacked you before. I was angry.’
‘You have your father in you,’ he said.
I lowered my head. ‘Loss hardens you.’
‘I never had in the first place,’ he said, echoing my thoughts. He folded his arms and shrunk into himself, turning into some kind of rock. ‘The day Isobel – my aunt – the day she died. It was Raphael, you know, who stopped me from jumping.’ His eyes fixed on mine. ‘I never told anyone that. He saved me. I was going to kill myself, Theo. He swore that one day you’d need me and if I died I’d fail you again.’
I felt sick, imagining Menelaus jumping off the cliff, just like Frigg’s prophecy warned my father would do too. I stared at the scar on his chin, where he had fought with my mother just before she had died.
My hand slid over the pew by itself, finding Menelaus’s, tugging it away from his chest. ‘I forgive you.’ The words seemed to ring in the church louder than any bell.
His reply, when it came, arose from somewhere deep and hidden. ‘You do?’
‘We’re victims in someone else’s plan, always have been. I’m starting to put it together.’
He nodded. ‘So am I.’ He squeezed my fingers. ‘It’s time we kicked the board over and reclaimed the pieces.’
‘Let me guess, you’re the knight?’
He tilted his head slightly, and a jolt of recognition threatened my composure; Mum had often looked at me like that, as if assessing my very soul. We sat in silence, reflecting a past in each other we’d never known existed. ‘I’ll do whatever I can, Theo, to help with the trial. Any information I glean is yours.’
‘How exactly?’
‘That’s where I need your help.’ His hazel eyes glittered with excitement. ‘Restore my magic. My invisibly – that was Elspeth’s parting gift. I’ll be a part of her again, in a way. I’m empty without it.’ He scrunched his fists into his solar plexus. I thought about the burning heat in mine. What would it be like if it suddenly went out?
‘I can do that.’ For the sake of my aunt, at least.
Tears slipped down his cheeks. ‘Thank Christ,’ he said. ‘Perhaps St. Michael’s can be my salvation once again.’
Ten minutes later, Menelaus sat cross-legged on the cloth-covered table at the cross-section of the church. I arranged the candles in a circle around us on the floor so that we didn’t set ourselves on fire by accident. After Frigg, I wasn’t taking any chances.
‘So how does this work?’ Menelaus asked. I couldn’t quite believe how quickly he had sobered up, but his sheer size must’ve had something to do with it. That, and even half-breed vampires process alcohol quickly.
‘When’s the last time you cut your hair?’
He curled the tip round his fingers. ‘Never really. I’ve always let it grow.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘That means it’s the same hair as when the magistrates passed their sentence.’ I hoped that if anything happened to me after the trial, there’d be someone able to reverse the damage like I was attempting now. ‘I need som
e.’ I had found some scissors in the first aid kit in the back of Penny’s car.
He took the scissors and chopped off two inches from the bottom. ‘Is that enough?’
‘I haven’t exactly done this before. And we’re assuming your powers are actually stored somewhere.’ I swallowed. ‘And that no one will notice it’s missing.’
The hair was rough, no doubt thanks to his dip in the sea after Lorenzo had saved him. Would he have died if the vampire hadn’t intervened? If he had, it wouldn’t have been from a slit throat. He wouldn’t be bleeding out in some trench. Does that mean we’re guiding Fate’s hand? Has saving him from the cave delivered him into the mercy of his future killer? It did no good to think like that.
I cupped my hands, the lock of hair curling in my palms. This time I was determined not to rely on the gods, so I focused on Anchoring to Jörð like father taught me, cutting loose the energy ball and letting it tumble down into the core of the earth. Heat slammed into my feet, shooting up my legs. When I looked up, the church glittered like a jewel, the stained-glass windows wobbling in the frames.
Menelaus, cross-legged on the table, was hidden in a dull, hazy cloud, skin slate grey. A dead man, a soul stripped of its uniqueness. The Praetoriani had done this to him and to Aunt Elspeth. Menelaus started. ‘What are you staring at? Is it done?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘I haven’t even begun.’
‘Oh.’
The Gatekeeper, housed within my body, was the source of all Pneuma magic. To locate Menelaus’s magic, I reasoned, I just had to find his Vital Essence and call it back to me. A magical Return to Sender.
Right. Easy. I glanced at Menelaus. His hopeful expression caused a spurt of panic. I closed my eyes, allowing Jörð’s power to flow up from the earth, mingling with the very force that gave it substance – the Gatekeeper, that alien being lodged within. I’d given it commands before. It usually responded, rarely in ways I’d expected.
Sending pulses of Anchored magic to the wavy hair in my hands, I marshalled my most commanding internal voice. Find Menelaus Knight’s magic. At first nothing happened. Had I been specific enough? It wasn’t like there was a guidebook to these things. I made a mental note to record the results in the Gatekeeper Book for future reference – not that I felt confident any future generation was going to see it.
A faint tremor spread through the church. Anchored, I could see Menelaus gripping the sides of the table through my closed eyelids. I soon discovered I was, quite literally, fused to the ground. The Gatekeeper split from my solar plexus, reaching out like two feelers into the earth. The feelers crawled underground, travelling far outside, under the seabed, across the county. The hair in my hands glowed like lava from the pit of Earth itself. They spread farther.
‘You’re on fire,’ said Menelaus.
I looked down at the flames lighting my skin, seeping out of my clothes, but they didn’t burn.
Menelaus Braec. Menelaus De Laurentis. Not my thoughts. The Gatekeeper was musing, in my own head. Hair just like his mother’s, only darker. Just like Isobel’s. We remember the feel of it through Espen’s fingers.
It had never been that vocal before. That, person-like. This thing, it must’ve known the whole time who Menelaus was; it possessed the memories of every Clemensen that had contained it, including my father. It had kept its secrets. I didn’t know whether to feel relieved or angry. Maybe one day I’d have secrets I needed it to keep. Keep my mother out of this, I said back to it. She loved my father, not you.
The tremors increased, coming from outside the church too.
Lorenzo called from the tower behind me. ‘What the hell, Theo?’
‘It’s alright,’ I called back. ‘You’ll be safe inside!’
I heard nothing more from the vampire.
We can taste it. The Gatekeeper’s tendrils curled up, fingers cracking through rock.
The roots ripped back through the ground, sucking something bright and heavy back into my body. I flickered in and out of sight, suddenly liberated from the church. Still there, but not.
‘Theo? Where are you?’
‘I’m here,’ I said. ‘I think I disappeared.’ I could move again. I wriggled my toes and shook my feet.
‘I could only see the fire.’
‘I think I was invisible.’
Menelaus froze. His cut hair was still vibrant. Concentrating on that heavy, warm energy, I pushed it down my arms. My palms tingled and burned. ‘Odin, Thor, and Freyr, that’s hot!’
The tremors died away as the hair disintegrated into smoke. Smoke with weight and texture. It swirled in my hands and blasted them apart, forcing me back a step. Smoke shot up into the arched ceiling of the church before plunging back towards the table upon which Menelaus sat, staring up at it. It looked like a giant spider tumbling in the air. It clung to Menelaus as it hit his face.
He gasped, the smoke rushing into every orifice; nose, ears, eyes, mouth. It was his turn to glow from the inside, his aura awakening as if from a lengthy slumber, becoming convoluted and…beautiful.
His presence grew with it, matched his size. Menelaus filled the room, as he was always meant to do. It was like meeting someone again after a long absence; recognition lurks beneath the change on the surface. ‘You’re alive,’ I said, suppressing the vision of him in a trench somewhere, throat slit.
‘Did you expect me to die?’
I shook my head. ‘I meant that you’re different. Even your voice is richer. How do you feel?’
‘Amazing. Hot, like, warm. Does that make sense?’ He scrutinised his hands in fascination. They melted away, leaving a ghostly sketch, from fingertips to elbow, behind them. ‘Can you see my hands?’ he asked.
‘Only the wispy parts,’ I said, reaching over to touch the phantom limbs, which turned out to be as solid as the rest of him.
He climbed down from the table. ‘You shouldn’t be able to see that,’ he said. ‘Maybe it hasn’t worked properly.’
‘It worked. But our mums were identical twins. Magic and DNA aren’t an exact science. Father told me that Vital Essence binds with DNA but isn’t equivocal. Our mothers had different gifts, for instance, but there’s enough cross-over between them that maybe you can’t hide entirely from me.’ That, and I’m the Gatekeeper.
‘I guess that makes sense.’ He wasn’t in the least bit inebriated now. I wondered if the return of his magic burned up the remaining alcohol in his system. ‘But what I don’t get is where your magic comes from, Theo.’ He played with his limbs, switching his invisibility on and off like a blinking light. ‘And why I can’t cast spells like a normal warlock, considering Elspeth – my mother – was a witch.’
‘Clemensen magic has a long history. Our family travelled around to find the right partnerships. It gave us some unique abilities. Most other Pneuma tribes interbred for centuries, limiting the powers their DNA could express. That whole “pureblood” nonsense.’ That explanation was the truth, the ‘how’ rather than the ‘why’. ‘As far as your powers are concerned, I’m guessing having a vampire for a father messed with the usual inheritance protocol.’
‘Yet I don’t need to drink blood.’
‘But you’re very strong, maybe stronger than you realise.’ I eyed his muscles. He eyed me back. I wasn’t quite as big as Menelaus, maybe a couple of inches shorter and narrower. I’d been a lot smaller before my twenty-first birthday, when I’d become the Gatekeeper.
‘I’ve always had a very good sense of smell, too. Come to think of it, I’ve always been a night owl.’
‘There you go, you’re just a regular dhampir.’
The porch door creaked open. A moment later, Penny slinked into the aisle, knee-high boots somehow silent against the flagstone. ‘Who are you talking to?’ she asked.
I made a show of looking around so I didn’t give away Menelaus’s location, although I could see him, an outline drawn in the air. Penny and the coven had gone behind my back with the Hellingstead Hair Raids. There was no way I would
allow her to interfere with this. ‘Just my multiple personalities. We often squabble.’
She stalked past the pews, peering into the shadows. ‘Where’s Lorenzo?’
‘He dropped by earlier. He said he had plans tonight.’
‘Which are?’
I shrugged. ‘Sultry, steamy sex, followed by a climb up Mount Everest. I don’t know, I’m not his secretary.’
‘Malachi wants him.’
I turned away from Menelaus, who was wisely standing very still, and leaned over Penny. Frigg’s vision showed us kissing. Penny waited, expectant, eyes widened by sphinx-like mascara. ‘You’re not his lap dog, Penny,’ I said, touching her arm. ‘You’re better than that.’
She stepped forward. Her hair, high up in an elaborate French braid, nearly brushed my shoulder. She tucked a few stray curls behind my ear, pushing up to tiptoes. ‘I know you think you’re smarter than me,’ she whispered, her breath icy against my neck. ‘You’re protecting Lorenzo; you’re neglecting the coven.’ Her lips tickled my earlobe. ‘Careful not to betray me, as well. The last man who did that… You remember Hecate’s throne of bones, don’t you? They come from somewhere.’ She stroked my hair as she pulled away. ‘Hecate is yet to weave the final strands of your gift, Theo. I asked her to wait. She’s more patient than me.’
The temperature of the church seemed to drop. Penny walked away, the door swinging shut on her way out. I eyed the bell tower where Raphael and Lorenzo remained safe behind my wards, thankful Penny didn’t try to look in there.
‘She’s sort of sexy in an utterly terrifying way,’ said Menelaus. His voice, louder than expected, startled me.
‘What is it with you trying to steal my women? First my childhood sweetheart, now my priestess?’ I admit, his dating Ava was still a sore point. He faded back into the room, solid and more imposing than ever.
‘Ava’s the clairvoyant, not me. How was I supposed to know she was your long-lost love? She chose you anyway.’
The Descendants of Thor Trilogy Boxset: Forged in Blood and Lightning; Norns of Fate; Wrath of Aten Page 50