Unholy

by Bill Bennett

  And what lay ahead for her.

  She hopped out of the shower, grabbed a big white fluffy towel and dried herself as she walked back into her bedroom. Freddie’s housekeeper had laid out her clothes on her bed, all freshly cleaned and laundered – her jeans, her black t-shirt, her tan leather jacket and boots. Her clothes – her boots. How did they get here? The last she’d seen of them, she’d left them outside the cave where she’d been initiated. Where Luna’s body lay. They must have gone back and retrieved them. And probably retrieved Luna’s body too, and given her a proper burial.

  The thought stabbed into Lily’s heart – the thought of how her great-aunt – the Chalk Witch – gave her life to allow her to escape. Lily would live with that guilt till her dying day.

  She didn’t want to put on her old clothes – the uniform of a previous life. Her once-favourite clothes didn’t seem right for her anymore. They were a part of a life she would never live again. Right at the moment, though, they were all she had to wear, so she began to get dressed. Soon she’d have to figure out a style of clothing that better suited her new self.

  What do white witches wear? she wondered.

  As she was putting on her boots there was a knock on the door and her mom came in. She stepped up to Lily wordlessly and they hugged. Lily savoured the moment. Only a few days earlier, she’d faced the very real possibility that she’d never see her mother alive again. Hugging her now was blissful, and an act of love and intimacy that she would never again take for granted.

  ‘I think it’s time I did some explaining,’ Angela said, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  Lily smiled. ‘I don’t think so, Mom.’ She sat beside her and took her hand. ‘There’s no need to. I understand.’

  ‘No, Lils, I kept things from you for so long, and in retrospect I really shouldn’t have. Your father and I had long discussions about it. He wanted you to know everything as soon as you were old enough to understand it all. I didn’t. I wanted you to have your childhood, free of the burden of who you are.’

  She looked down at their two clasped hands, then looked back up at Lily and smiled sadly.

  ‘I missed out on mine, that’s why,’ she said. ‘My mom was taken from me, killed by Baphomet when I was very young. I went into hiding straight after, and I became skilled in the ways of Cygnet from a very early age, so I missed out on so much. I didn’t want that kind of life for you. Your father and I finally decided we’d tell you when you turned eighteen. But then they killed him, and you and I went on the run, and then there was never a chance …’

  ‘You don’t need to apologise, Mom. I get it.’ Lily paused, then said, ‘But I’m going to find the person who killed Dad. And there’s nothing you can say that’ll stop me. I’m going to find him, and I’m going to make sure he gets what he deserves. Or she, if it’s a she.’

  ‘Your father will come back,’ her mother said. ‘He’ll come back in some other human vessel and the next time around he’ll be wiser for what happened.’

  ‘You mean reincarnation?’ Lily asked.

  A flash of pain crossed behind Angela’s eyes. ‘Yes. When I met him, he’d already lived many hundreds of lives. I’ve never met anyone with such an understanding of how it all works. It was his time to go – and his passing helped create who you are right now, and who you will come to be. So there was purpose in his death. It’s taken me a long time to realise that.’

  Lily didn’t understand, and she wasn’t sure she believed in past lives and reincarnation, but then again, she’d seen so much over the past few weeks she never thought she would believe, she was kind of at the point where she could believe anything was possible, even reincarnation.

  ‘Are we going back, Mom?’ Lily asked. ‘Back home, to California.’

  ‘That’s up to you, sweetie.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What you want to do, from this point on.’

  ‘I want things to go back to how they were, but maybe that’s not possible.’ She hesitated, thinking, then added, ‘But what I really want to do is get The Book of Light back.’

  Angela smiled. ‘Well, then you’ll need to develop your powers way beyond what they are right now.’

  ‘How do I do that?’ Lily asked.

  ‘By devoting your life to the art of light,’ her mother said simply. ‘One day you’ll lead Cygnet. You will be their leader, their commander-in-chief. For that, you need to learn and grow – energetically, spiritually.’

  ‘Commander-in-chief? Are you kidding me?’ Lily laughed. The thought was crazy, that she would one day be head of Cygnet. She looked up at her mom, but she wasn’t laughing. She was deadly serious. Was this her destiny? Lily wondered. She was after all a descendant of a line of witches that stretched back hundreds of years, that headed up an organisation which was locked into a constant battle to keep darkness at bay. At some point many years from now, she would take over her mother’s position. It was inevitable. But that was way off. Too far in the future to give any real thought to now.

  Angela leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek, then she stood. ‘Now, Freddie’s prepared a celebratory lunch out on the verandah. And I believe there’s a very handsome young man waiting for you too. Come.’

  They all stood as Lily and her mom walked out onto the terrace. And they began to clap – Freddie, Victoria standing beside him, Gabby standing opposite them, Gummi and Kee, Marley and Olivier, and Joe, standing separate from all of them. But Lily only had eyes for Skyhawk, who grinned proudly as he clapped her. Lily blushed as they walked over to the table. She’d never had a standing ovation before. And she’d never had such a beautiful young man stare at her like that either. She tried to hide her face from him as she sat, aware that her cheeks were probably embarrassingly red.

  Freddie had laid out a vast lunch of freshly grilled tortillas, quesadillas, vegetables and salads. He sat Angela at the head of the table, with Lily at her side. Then he walked down and sat at the opposite end, beside Joe. Lily noticed that Joe’s forearm was bandaged. She instantly recalled Kritta’s knife in the foreleg of the grizzly bear, at the basketball court. There’s no way that bear could have been Joe, she wondered. Could it?

  Marley and Olivier were both heavily bruised. Lily could tell that Olivier was weak, and it looked like he was wearing bandages under his shirt, but they both seemed happy, and Lily could tell they were holding hands under the table, believing no one could see. Despite his frailty, Olivier looked dashing with his black eye-patch.

  Gummi was chatting to Kee, but every now and then he’d steal an adoring glance at Lily. She caught his eye and he smiled, embarrassed, then quickly turned back to Kee, who sat calmly, saying nothing but watching everything.

  Sitting at the far end of the table was Skyhawk, his long dark hair flowing down to his shoulders, laughing at a joke that Gummi had just told. He must have sensed Lily looking at him because he turned and smiled at her. She felt a shiver run through her body. She smiled back.

  She hadn’t asked him directly about the majestic cougar that had fought the Grand Master. He’d turned up soon after the cats had gone. He was cut and injured, although she hadn’t seen him fight at all.

  The wild-cat attack had made the news, of course, and the next day the Deep Sink Mine was inundated with crews from around the world. The state authorities organised an immediate hunt to track down the killer cats, as they were dubbed in the media, but strangely not one cougar could be found.

  There was some talk that the event up top of the black mountain had been a satanic ritual, but most media outlets reported that it was a bunch of amateur astronomers that had been mercilessly mauled by the wild cougars. Some of the more colourful TV talk shows claimed that the wild cats must have been induced into a killing frenzy by the unique starbursts that night.

  Freddie stood, tapped a glass of lime juice with his fork, and everyone fell quiet and turned to him.

  ‘I’d like to start off proceedings today – proceedings being a scru
mptious lunch …’ Freddie said, smiling, and everyone laughed, especially Victoria, ‘by welcoming two new associates into Cygnet – Marley and Olivier.’ He turned to the two cops. ‘This morning they took the oaths and so they’ll be undercover agents for us while still performing their duties as law enforcement officers. We look forward to working with them in the very near future.’

  The rest of the table clapped heartily, and Marley and Olivier stood and nodded their thanks. Lily swapped a glance with Marley. She’s cool, for a cop, Lily thought. Prior to meeting her, Lily had had a very low opinion of law enforcement officers, because of the way they’d handled – or not handled – the investigation into her father’s death. But now that Marley was a part of Cygnet, maybe she could help her find her father’s killer. Lily looked forward to the prospect of working with her and getting to know her better.

  Freddie was shifting into full-on Master of Ceremonies mode. ‘But the main item on our agenda today is to express our appreciation for these two remarkable women,’ he looked across to Angela and Lily, ‘and to say just how grateful we are to be sitting around this table with them today. It was a rough ride, but we got through it, thanks ultimately to their special love and boundless courage, and to the efforts of everyone here today.’

  Lily looked at her mother. Much as she tried to stop them, tears of joy sprang to her eyes. She didn’t want Skyhawk to see that she was crying, but what the hell, she thought. If I can’t cry with happiness on an occasion like this, when can I? She could see that her mom’s eyes were glistening with moisture too. Lily reached across the table and they held hands while Freddie led the toast. Everyone cheered them and they drank.

  The lunch was full of laughter and jokes and wild exaggerated stories. Everyone congratulated Gummi on how he’d hacked into the FBI Director’s personal email and sent out a Top Priority alert regarding an imminent terrorist attack at the Deep Sink Mine. Gummi explained how technically difficult it had been, and how he was the only person in the world to have ever done such a thing, angling his self-aggrandisement in the direction of Kee, who was suitably impressed, or at least gave that impression to him.

  Victoria – Vicky, as her Uncle Freddie called her – was dressed like she’d stepped out of a fashion mag for forty-somethings. Her blonde hair was perfect, her teeth were artificially white and mathematically correct in every way, her Dior suit was immaculate. She hung on Freddie’s every word and tittered at his every joke, especially the bad ones, which were frequent. Lily didn’t like her. She didn’t trust her. She would dig deeper, later, find out what her game was, because there was no doubt she was playing her uncle. For his money? Or for the secrets of Cygnet? Lily was determined to find out.

  Amid all the conversations no one talked about the Fallen Priest, or the Grand Master – both of whom had used advanced magic to escape. And no mention was made of the missing Book of Light. Everyone knew that would dampen the joyful mood. And Lily never told anyone, not even her mother, about how Kevin Johnstone had killed his father and saved her life. Why had he done that? If he had become a Golden Order witch then why, after killing his dad, hadn’t he killed her too? He’d had the chance. All she knew was that without his intervention, she’d be dead.

  As the afternoon wore on, Gummi kept the table in stitches with stories from his student days, creating social chaos with his hacking sprees. Vicky told showbiz stories, salaciously spreading celebrity gossip and constantly dropping names. Lily watched her mom politely laughing along with the others at her outrageous stories. The last time she’d seen her mom laugh was that Saturday morning at the market. Another world ago.

  She looked for Skyhawk but he’d left the table. She glanced out to the lounge room and into the open-plan kitchen but couldn’t see him. And then a movement down in the garden caught her eye, and she saw him walking out through the back gate heading towards the gully and the desert brush.

  She quietly left the table.

  He had stopped beside a couple of large cacti on the edge of the gully, and was looking out at a fat buttery sun starting to drop behind distant dusky hills.

  Lily walked up behind and slipped her hand into his. ‘Hi,’ she said.

  He looked around and smiled. ‘Hi.’

  ‘When are you heading back to Yellowstone?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  She paused, and then said, ‘I’ll miss you.’

  He smiled. ‘You can always come visit.’

  She nodded. And then said, ‘It’s not over. They’ll keep hunting us. Especially now, with The Book of Light. They’ll be able to use it to break through all our defences. We have to get it back before they kill us all. That’s now my priority. I lost it, I’ve got to get it back.’

  Skyhawk smiled. ‘You’re your mother’s daughter.’

  ‘You’re your father’s son.’

  They laughed and Lily held his hand tight. The two of them on the edge of the gully, looking out at the setting sun.

  She felt him shiver.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

  He turned. Behind them, a huge black storm cloud was moving with alarming speed across the salmon scalloped sky. As if on cue, lightning cleaved the sky and thunder rumbled around the desert hills. They stood there, a young witch and a young shaman, hand in hand in the waning golden light, as the storm clouds roiled overhead, threatening to blacken the sun.

  EPILOGUE

  The fire was warm, the burning logs crackled and spat; she sat beside her mom, both of them reading, not talking but each comfortable in the other’s presence and a word crept into Lily’s mind. That word was cosy. Yes, she was cosy. They were cosy. She and her mom. The fire, too, was cosy, as was the new cottage, and being close to Uncle Freddie now was also cosy.

  The horror of six months ago was slowly fading.

  Angela had decided to move closer to her brother so she could work day-to-day with him in the Bunker, and so shortly after they returned to the farmhouse at Mill Valley they’d packed up and moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico. They found a cute little house to rent about five minutes’ drive from Uncle Freddie, a stone cottage on a large block of land set way back from the road, with no neighbours around. There were tall long-armed cacti throughout the garden, and desert brush everywhere Lily looked, and out back her mom had started a garden – not to sell to market anymore, but for their own personal use. Squashes, zucchini, fat juicy carrots and fennel and crab-apples – she had managed to grow a huge variety of delicious organic vegetables and fruits so that they rarely had to buy from the supermarkets.

  Lily had enrolled in the local school and she’d even managed to make some friends. No one of course knew that she was an initiated witch, or that she was next-in-line to take the reins of an ancient organisation of witches whose task it was to save the world from evil. Even thinking that made Lily smile at the absurdity of it – like it was the plot to some cheesy TV series you’d see on Netflix or Hulu, the kind of show she would never watch.

  But when it came down to it, that was the truth of it. And perhaps the reason she now had some friends was that, since her initiation and the fight on the top the mountain at the Deep Sink Mine, she now felt more confident, more outgoing – she didn’t have to hide anymore in her jacket and her boots. She still played the harmonica, but now it wasn’t to retreat into a world only she knew, it was for fun, the delicious thrill of making music and honouring the blues masters. And her dad.

  She now wore sneakers and yes, she also still wore jeans, but her choices in clothing had become softer, less FU. She’d kept her tan cracked leather jacket, only because it had been a gift from her father many years earlier, bought as a birthday present from a vintage stall at a suburban Seattle Sunday market. She’d always worn the jacket to keep alive a constant reminder of her dad – but she didn’t need that now, either. Because she had purpose. She was going to find his killers, and she was going to make them pay. First though, she had to skill herself up. And that was going to start very soon.

&nbs
p; That’s why she was sitting by the fire listening to a Japanese-language tape and following the text in the accompanying book. Soon she would be going to a small remote Japanese island to train with a ninja master, who also happened to be an elite Cygnet witch. The man was nearing a hundred years old, and blind, and of course he only spoke Japanese – but in Cygnet he was revered as a god. Her mom had organised the tutorship and Lily hoped that by the end of the three-month intensive she would have a bunch more powers and skills than she currently had.

  Since the night of Unholy she’d kept in touch with Skyhawk. Fairly constantly. They texted and messaged and FaceTimed regularly, and their relationship had actually strengthened by being apart. He’d gone back to Yellowstone to continue working as a park ranger, but in his spare time he worked with the old shaman in the trailer near the casino, learning the ways of his spirit folk. So her boyfriend – Lily almost blushed at the thought of calling Skyhawk her boyfriend – was also skilling himself up.

  Her other boyfriend, if he could be called that, had disappeared. Kevin Johnstone was last seen briefly at his father’s funeral, according to online gossip from some of the girls at her old school. His father’s house was soon sold for some obscene amount of money, and being his father’s sole beneficiary, Lily guessed that KJ was now a very rich young man and could do whatever the hell he wanted.

  He had never tried to contact her and she was still confused about why he’d saved her life that night of Unholy. He must have deactivated his phone because she once tried to call him, if for no other reason than to thank him, but the number was dead. Had he taken up with that tiny little witch? Kritta? Or had he used his father’s inheritance to go overseas and complete his schooling in England or somewhere else? These were questions she had no answers for – and perhaps that brief glimpse of him up top of that mountain, just after he killed his father, was the last she would ever see of him. Or maybe not. Who knew …