by C M Thorne
Marc was surprised to see that Loïc had let his long dark brown hair streak with silver. His short beard was still dark as ever however, and he realized that the mortal binds on his appearance were fading, but he still had a decent amount of silver gleaming in his dark hair. His wife, Enora, clung to his side, her extremely long wheat blonde hair sweeping around her rich brown coat. She smiled at everyone in the room and reached an arm out to pat her daughter’s arm. Briaca Le Pen was tall with golden, but still darker colored hair than her mother, currently cut into a perfect chin length bob. She was a strong looking woman in a plain black long-sleeved shirt tucked into tight jeans, all of which showed off her muscular, working body.
He raised his hand and waved his fingers in an almost salute like gesture. He looked around, realizing that one of the Welsh cousins was missing, as were the three Irish sisters that were his immediate cousins. Marc looked around and caught the shadow standing in the hallway off of the great room, which lead down to the library. He peered at it and Aaron Howell came more into view. The gloomy man nodded to Marc in respect and then melted back into the shadows and obscurity. “Well,” he thought, “that just leaves the sisters three.”
As if on cue, he heard the sound of footsteps from the large hall at the back of the kitchen, which led to the backstairs and the laundry. The Nolan sisters walked out together, as he suspected they would. They were sisters and one. One goddess, but three. The last triple aspect left of their combined pantheon. Brona, as she was currently known, led the sisters out, dressed in a dark grey sweater dress with her long curly black hair partially pulled back away from her face. Her icy grey eyes were striking even from a distance, adding to the fierceness of her sharp, high cheekbones. She nodded to Marc as she stepped into the kitchen and casually scooped up a full glass of wine waiting on the counter.
Maeve was behind her, appearing slightly older now with her thick fiery hair French braided back and a wheat-gold, cable knit sweater over dark jeans that seemed somewhat matronly. Her dark eyes assessed the room slowly as she stepped to the side for their last sister to step out of the hall.
Aoife Nolan was a stunning picture, as always, in a long-sleeved dark green wrap dress. Her dark auburn hair was up in a crown braid, with strategic, curly tresses falling free. She wore sparkling, dangling golden earrings and a diamond heavy necklace resting above her cleavage. She was wearing shiny golden heels and he noticed that her toenails were painted a deep violet, matching her fingers which curled around the glass Brona handed her. She caught Marc’s gaze and grinned before sipping the wine.
Brona spoke first, “Welcome family. It has been too long.” Several of those gathered agreed quietly and Marc bowed his head. The Nolan sisters were by all rights the leaders of their family. They were descended from the line of kings and held tremendous power. They were the last triple deity left, partially because no sister would stay dead without all three in the grave, or so the prophecy went. He had only seen two of them fall, one time each, in their thousands of years of existence. They had all outlived their consorts and were now the seat of power for those who had divine Celtic blood. Marc knew he could challenge them, being the son of the brother of the first king, but he had never wanted the power. He was a wanderer at heart, and he knew the crown would weigh too heavy on his head.
“Unfortunately,” Brona continued, “we do not gather under better circumstances.” She looked to her sisters and took a breath. “It appears war is on the horizon. Someone has murdered Zeus and Apollo.” Murmurs broke out throughout the space and Marc noticed that Brona was softly glowing golden with bright flares of silver, her divinity showing through her mortal glamour. She and her sisters were war goddesses after all. The prospect of returning to a true battlefield would invoke something within all three of them. Marc watched them as Brona continued speaking and he hoped that they would not rush off to war to feed whatever was awakening inside of them.
CHAPTER 6: A DIFFERENT KIND OF VOODOO QUEEN
TRIX GARNEAU WAS grinding some powders in her shop on a typical Tuesday morning in the French Quarter. “Mama’s Cauldron”, her little magic shop, was a favorite among locals and tourists alike. She mostly practiced sympathetic magic and herbal remedies. Small gris-gris occupied a long glass cabinet along the far wall and was one of her most popular items, though she admittedly did not put much into them. She swept a stray curl away from her face and blew out a long breath. Trix was working to busy herself, to distract herself from the current state of things. The six families had met out at the Webre estate over the weekend to assess where the families would stand with the terrible changes that appeared to be imminent to the immortals of the world.
Trix did not want things to change. The Quarter was at peace. The families were thriving in the south and throughout the Caribbean. No great woes had come their way. Nothing they couldn’t handle. Now, there was a great uncertainty. The old days were to come again according to her husband. All life followed a cyclical pattern, Trix knew that better than most. She had just hoped in vain that the cycle had developed past the brutality of the past. She shook her head and slammed the pestle down on the counter she was working on, sending a crack through the hard, old wood.
“Merde!” She cursed and waved a hand over the counter, forcing the wood to heal, sealing the dark gouge. The bells of her shop jingled and a tall, dark man came in. “Morning,” she called out, looking down at the counter to inspect her work. “What can I help you with?” Trix’s voice dripped with the distinct New Orleans accent and cadence as she looked up at her visitor. She noticed the man had slipped behind one of her taller shelves of candles.
“Maman,” the man breathed out in a gravelly, deep voice that made a chill run across her skin. She reached out with her power and felt the cold, emptiness of the man’s dark power.
“Who be you?!” She called out. “Coming into my shop like such a manner! Reveal yourself!” She shed her mortal guise, growing a little taller and more youthful, a dark golden glow emanating from her skin.
The man stepped out from behind the shelves, narrowing his near black eyes on her and sending a shock wave of wispy grey energy at her. Trix threw up her right hand, forming a golden shield of energy, which his blasts dissolved against. She pushed the shield forward, knocking over the shelves around him and ripping his shroud of darkness away. He was a tall and well built, yet on the thinner side. His hair was braided back against the night brown hue of head and his dark lips were pulled back into a snarl over his perfectly white teeth. Trix did not recognize the man and demanded again, “Who be you?!”
“Voodoo queen,” the man spat in a thick African accent that she couldn’t quiet place. “The land calls the families home and you are not invited.”
“Who says my family wants whatever home you be claimin’?” She spat back. “I been in this family longer than most you been alive. Don’t trifle with me, boy.” She said the last word with disdain, narrowing her green eyes on the man.
He laughed, deep and from the belly, “Maman Brigitte! Your blood don’t run true with me and mine!” He pulled a jagged looking obsidian knife from his waist. She noticed the beads and feather dangling from the hilt, telling her that the blade would not shatter and was spelled to harm immortals. It could not kill her, but it would hurt.
She lashed out, forming a spear of white energy that hit the man square in the chest and sent him hurtling back to the window. Trix raised her left hand, reaching to stop the man from crashing through onto the street. She reached out and cried for her family with her mind. A second later three men popped into her shop at her sides. Bastien, her husband, stepped slightly in front of her protectively. His short afro of black hair bore the signs of a sleepy, lazy morning and she noticed that he was wearing an old shirt, flannel pants, and was barefoot.
“Who are you to attack my wife?” His deep voice rumbled with power and he became illuminated in grey light and dark energy.
Her step son, Nicolas, flanked her on the other side,
dressed smartly in a maroon suit and black shirt. He nodded to her and focused on the man, who clamored up to his feet. Her husband’s immediate younger brother was on the other side of her son, wearing his dark suit and high hat, as if to compensate for his short stature. He winked at her and she felt reassured.
“Brothers,” the man smiled, teeth and lips now wet with his own dark blue blood. “I only came to warn maman of what is coming.”
“You ain’t no brother of mine!” Bastian growled and lashed out at the man, sending a shelf of athames at the tall man. The blades mostly deflected off of the dark shroud he raised around him, but one broke through, cutting his arm.
“Mortal blade do you harm,” Trix smiled sinisterly, “you ain’t no full fledge, fucking connard!” With her last word, Trix leapt forward and slammed pure force down on the man. He fell to the ground and she gracefully came down on him, left leg pinning his arm and her right knee pressing into his chest. She caught his hand with her free hand and pinned it to the ground.
“Bitch!” the man spat, anger roiling in his dark eyes.
She let go of his hand and willed his obsidian blade that had flown away from him to fly into her hand. Trix swung the blade down, piercing the man’s arm and pinning in to the wooden floor. Deep blue, near purple blood pooled out onto the floor and he grunted in pain. “No half-blood is going to attack me so boldly and live to tell the tale.” His eyes widened as she plunged her hand into the man’s chest and ripped out his half-human heart. His hot blood ran down her arm and she felt the power fly from the man’s body.
Trix stood up, clutching the still warm heart in her hand and rushed to her back room. “Clean that up will you,” she asked the men casually as she pushed past the beaded curtain and rounded the dark corner to her workshop.
She placed the heart on her dark marble counter in the middle of the room and willed her books to float to her, opening up to the spell she wanted to perform. Various tools floated up to the counter, as she read the incantation and preparatory steps. Her husband walked into the room as she muttered under her breath. “Fucking bastard coming in here, spitting shit at me!” She laughed, “Voodoo queen! I show him some voodoo!” She spat vehemently and glanced at her husband, who looked amused.
“Guess I was right, chère,” Bastien smiled at her. “We cannot avoid what be coming.”
“Hush!” She shook her head and light a white flame under the hovering black cauldron. “I want to see where this piece of shit be coming from!” Water, rum, and dark wine poured into the cauldron from silver pitchers, which danced away after filling their share. Trix waved her hand and herbs and powders wound their way up as well. She held her hand over the cauldron and pushed the dark blood forward. It ran to her finger tips and poured into the cauldron until not a drop was left on her hand.
She let her power fully show as she chanted her spell, grabbing the heart in her right hand once more. “Sang à sang! Os à os! Trouve-moi celui qui donne la vie. Coeur à coeur! Pouvoir au pouvoir. Trouvez-moi le père de celui-ci!” She plunged the heart into the cauldron and watched the concoction boil, letting off a faint blue steam. Trix met her husband’s eyes as she reached in and grabbed the burning hot heart free. It had turned black from the spell and she set it back on the marble table. A bone athame flew into her hands and she stabbed down, slicing the heart open. Red and dark blue blood poured from separate parts of the heart and she watched the pattern that took shape.
Trix cocked her head to the side and hummed softly to herself. Her husband stepped forward, “What is it, chère? What do you see?”
“A tortoise, mon coeur,” Trix looked into his warm red brown eyes. “The trickster alusi was this one’s father.” She shook her head and looked down to the bloody tortoise that had formed around the black heart. “We may have just provoked a war of our own.”
“No, chère,” Bastien put his arm around her and kissed her forehead. “They did this, no mistake. We have right to protect ourself. No one tries to hurt you, mon chère. No one.”
He kissed her forehead again and she glared down at the symbol that made her gut feel hollow. Peace was gone, thought the Voodoo queen as she waved her wet hand over the table and set the shop to cleaning itself. She looked up and met her husband’s lips, letting him teleport them away. She knew that the boys would finish up and lock her shop for the day.
CHAPTER 7: CH-CH-CH-CH-CHANGES
THEA HAD BEEN given the whole week off of work. She wasn’t sure what she would do, even if she did go in. Since being struck by lightning in the dance studio parking lot, she kept having jolts of electricity when she touched things. She’d shorted out the power in her apartment, exploded her phone, and she’d done some kind of irreparable damage to the television that the repairman was totally baffled by. Now it just sat in the living room, displaying a fuzzy screen of colors, no matter what her roommates tried to do to it. Thea didn’t want to crash all of the computers at work, or worse, so she didn’t even try to force herself into work. She could only imagine the damage she could do.
She sighed and put her book to the side, crawling out of her huddle of blankets. She had locked herself away in her room with a trashy romance novel, in lieu of anything else to do. But she could tell that both of her roommates were home, though she couldn’t explain exactly why she knew it with such surety. Thea could even tell who was who somehow. Chris was busy in the kitchen, flitting around, probably cooking. Reagan was strewn across one of the couches in the family room, close to falling asleep. They were both home out of worry for Thea, even though she insisted and argued that there was no reason for them to stay with her. She knew how to take care of herself after all.
Thea swung herself off of her bed and looked around her room. She felt that her room was getting messy, clothes strewn around the hamper, rather than in it, and her bedside table was cluttered with cups and a haphazard stack of books. It wasn’t a mess by anyone else’s standards, she could practically hear Reagan’s voice telling her to leave her room be. Regan was a hopeless mess with her own room, though Thea had to admit that the girl kept the rest of the house looking fine. She had been a friend of Chris’s from classes at UNLV. Thea and her got along well enough, even though they could not outwardly be any more opposite. Reagan was free-spirited and outgoing, always exuberant and full of life. She was a chef for one of the major restaurants on the Strip and typically worked evenings, which was perfect for the morning-hating woman.
She smiled to herself and grabbed her towel from the rack on the back of her door, stepping quietly into the hall. The sound of Chris’s off-key singing floated down the laminate floors and she hopped across the hall to the bathroom she shared with her. Thea slipped into the room as she heard Reagan heave herself up from the couch. Thea closed the door quickly, locking the door and turning both the light and the fan on with her elbow. The electricity buzzed loudly, coming on too bright and loud, fading, and then settling to a normal place. It had been happening all week and Thea was certain it was because of her, though the girls tried to insist that the building was aging and was in need of serious repair.
Turning the shower on, she shed her shirt as Reagan knocked on the door. Thea knew it was her before she spoke, just as she knew Chris had paused in the kitchen and was peering over the counter down the hallway, making eye contact with Reagan. “Sweets,” Reagan called through the door, “you doing alright?”
She reminded herself that they only were showing that they cared, sighing lightly. “Yeah, Reagan, I’m good. Just going to shower, then I was thinking of having a bite to eat.”
“Oh!” Reagan exclaimed. “Sounds good! Chris has been puttering around with something for dinner. Want me to make some grilled chicken for lunch? I can set Chris to preparing a salad.”
Thea smiled as she stepped out of her fuzzy pajama pants. “That sounds fantastic. I would really appreciate that.”
“Great!” Reagan exclaimed and Thea felt the girl move down to the kitchen.
She poked
at her phone, an old model that she had dug out of a box from the back of her closet. It kept shorting out, but would come back when she powered it off and back on, unlike the one she had exploded on Saturday. She poked at her music app, connecting it to the wireless speakers in the shower and putting on some upbeat music. She told herself that the music was just for her roommates to hear, so they would think she was doing better. She had to admit to herself, however, that the music did make her feel a little lifted.
Thea danced a little as she slipped her underpants off and stepped into the shower. The music kept her stomach from dropping as the water hit her skin and crackled with electric energy. Little blue and white flashes sparked along her sun-kissed skin, and she felt giddy as she laughed a little. Thea had sobbed the first time it happened, but now she couldn’t help but laugh. Something was changing, or had changed, within her and she couldn’t stop the laughter that pealed out of her open-mouthed grin.
Thea covered her mouth as she laughed, pressing the button on the side of the rubbery blue speaker to turn up the music. She wasn’t sure how she would explain her slightly hysterical laughter to the girls and didn’t want them to revert back into full, helicopter mom worry mode. The laughter died down to a smile and she quickly lathered her hair, running her long fingers through her tangled curls. She turned the heat up on the water as she rinsed, barely noticing that energy crackling across her any longer. Her hair probably needed a good conditioning. Her curls had been extra frizzy since Saturday. “Being struck by lightning isn’t great for frizz,” she muttered softly to herself and broke out in a deep chortle.