When I asked him why not, he said, “For lots of reasons.” But then he smiled at me and went back to petting his sculpture. Gaven wore his biker jacket over his tux.
For a tricenarian, he was very hot.
Tricenarian. Gaven was losing his power...
“Ballard tells me you’ve been having funny dreams,” he said.
He stood up and looked at me; I nodded.
“It isn’t that he can’t keep confidences. Ballard is a werewolf,” said Gaven. “He is in my pack. He has an obligation to inform me if anyone is experiencing the Calling.
“Is that what this is? I have––funny dreams,” I said. “I hear––voices almost.” Immediately I had betrayed myself after swearing I would not tell anyone that I was crazy.
Gaven stuck his thumb back at the obelisk. “I have just been talking to Asher about this obelisk. Funny guy, Asher. But trustworthy, you know? Has things to say. Apparently this meeting place rests on my ancestors. This obelisk is their tomb. Their headstone, in point of fact.”
He didn’t expect a response––which was good, because I had none to give. It was so late at night that any ordinary formalities ceased to exist.
Maybe Gaven was used to being by himself. Leaders were like that. Because he went back to staring at the obelisk, and forgot about me. But of course he spoke again.
“I didn’t know what I was at first,” he said. “I was just some teenage hormonal biker chasing girls––not that I’m not that guy still––at heart. But then it started happening. I would lose time. I would cease to be me, and I would be the Wolf, instead. It is an amazing and terrifying experience. This ferocious joy would overwhelm me. Then––alone––I would run to meet the night.”
He turned and smiled at me. I could see for a moment what he was talking about. It was like something had hold of Gaven. Some force larger than he was.
Mind you. Gaven was big.
“This was bigger,” he said. “Better than anything I had ever known. But when I went to share it with other people I realized I was all alone. That is what it is to be the Alpha. Even when Lia turned, I could not share everything––what all of this meant to me––even with her. I have been a werewolf now for ten years. And I can feel it slipping away from me....
“So much for my little bildungsroman. The Calling, Halsey, is the werewolf coming of age. For seven years those whom it selects are forced to serve. Old men forget or they never knew. This party tonight is an example of that. Things are not as they seem. They are not as others would choose to believe. The Dioscuri have seen to that....
“I think I may know what is hunting you,” he said to me.
I didn’t know why, but I told him––there and then––what I thought it was.
“Some kind of animal, Gaven. I dream about it every night. And Ballard. Ballard is part of it. Ballard...”
“Ballard,” said Gaven, “is special.”
“He’s protecting me,” I said.
Gaven fell silent again.
It was a while before he spoke.
“Promise me,” he said, “that if you should ever take leave of Rome––no, listen to me. Promise me that you will take Ballard with you. I think he is meant for more than this. He’s worth ten times as much as me. I just hope we are not too late. He will need your guidance before the end. Well, my end. For you and Ballard, this truly is beginning.
“You are like the Wolf, Halsey Rookmaaker. The Wolf that I was. I look for him, now and then, but he is gone. Ballard will explain to you. I will let him in on the secrets of our Pack. Risky would have wanted it. He was the greatest werewolf who ever lived, Risky. But he had his time. Watch out for Ballard. He doesn’t say it, but he will need your help. Come with me. I will take you back.”
* * *
The next morning was a buzz of dullness, until over breakfast Ballard explained to me what had happened. He had been riding around all night.
“I’m famished,” he said. He dug into his pajata, which was calf intestines, calling it the quinto quarto, whatever that meant. Plus he ate oxtail stew. I watched him, slightly sick to my stomach. Maybe it was all the mint juleps the night before. Or maybe there was something different about Ballard. I couldn’t put my finger on it. It was like he had changed. Like the old Ballard was gone.
Lia made a point of ignoring him. But I knew Ballard. He would just think she was being jealous. After all, as a Wiccan, Lia had been shunned, in a way, from the Pack––and this after being its co-Head, the alpha female. To top it all off, she had still not figured out what was going on with her shifting––if she could anymore, or if it was gone forever.
Now was Ballard’s turn to exhibit.
“That blood-lipped vein drain is gone, I take it. Last night,” he said, “with Liesel. Guy comes up to me. Tries to start a fight.”
“He wasn’t starting a fight, you idiot. He asked Liesel for a dance.” Lia couldn’t control it any longer. “But no. You have to go and cause a scene. Mom and dad...”
“If you mention my mother and father again, I’ll––”
“What? You’re becoming a real problem child, you know that, Ballard? Come on,” she said to me, “we’re going to be late...”
I hurried after her. Ballard went back to his food, with an angry look on his face.
“What was that all about?” I asked.
Lia slowed down once we were out of Meadpalace.
“He just doesn’t think. I swear––I thought he was going to shift, right there, when he shoved that vampire. We’re supposed to be getting along with these... people. If Ballard’s not careful, he’ll end up starting a war.”
We turned a corner, and went down the tunnel to the Star Room. I liked it better when it was decked with witchhazel and all of the other flowers. Now it was cold and stone. And Lux was, too, when he finally got there. Maybe he was still hurting from the night before.
We had never had that awkward moment, Lux and I––of whether it was a date or not––or what was the protocol, and so forth, for ending the evening.
There was that guilt again.
An image of me, locked in Lux’s arms––Lennox, scrutinizing us from a doorway.
“Vampires... What kills them... What they can do... And what we can do to counteract some of their nastier aspects. That will be the lesson for this morning,” he said.
He stood around waiting for someone to speak.
“Anyone?” said Lux. “Come on. Don’t be shy. Yes, you there. Shaharizan, is it not?”
“Yes sir... I was just thinking... well...”
“I see. You feel that we should be friends with vampires. Is that it? You see them here and you think that this is their normal behavior. By all means, let us here from you next.”
Another Neophyte had raised her hand. Badgley, I think.
“It’s just, it’s a little––and I mean no disrespect––but it is a little––two-faced, don’t you think? I mean, here we are trying to make friends. And then the next second we’re learning how to kill each other. It’s just rude, is all.”
“Isn’t it?” said Lux.
I got that swashbuckling sense from him again, even though he was a little hungover, or whatever, with the pain from his Wiccan scar. Maybe it had interfered with his niceness, because he was being more direct with us than he had ever been before, less inclined to coddle––I almost wrote cuddle––us.
“Wiccans make war. So do vampires,” he said. “We like to kill each other.”
“But––”
“This is not an ivory tower, it is a sandpit.”
Badgley stopped talking.
“Rude perhaps. But I think you’ll be glad of the training you received from someone like me if a vampire ever tries to attack you.”
Was that a possibility?
As I felt to my neck, I knew that it was
“Besides, this is an intellectual discussion,” said Lux. “You will not need your callouses.”
The wit of that. Like we woul
d have to build up our resistance to sentimentality. I looked at my Mark, wishing it would appear.
It went from the most contentious to the funnest lesson we had ever had, and the most informative. We learned about sires, brood sizes, and certain telepathic powers they possessed (“They feel a connection with their brood master,” said Lux), something Lennox had never explained to me amply, and also about what kills vampires.
This was the part I shied away from. The other Neophytes and I looked at each other––except for Vittoria, who said, “I just wonder what kills those big hairy balloon animals?”
She pantomimed making a werewolf out of a balloon. Apparently her date with Paolo hadn’t gone that well.
Lia overheard this but didn’t say anything. She may have been mad at the werewolves herself. From what I had seen, they had started treating her shabbily. I was going to have to have a long talk with Ballard about that.
Lux signaled for the end of the lesson.
“One last chestnut,” he said, “–– yes, Lia?” Lux looked surprised. Lia hardly ever raised her hand.
“I don’t know about you guys,” she said, addressing the other Initiates, “but I could do with a ladies’ night out. What d’you say to getting out of here for a while?”
The other Neophytes and I looked at each other.
“Seven o’clock?” she said.
We nodded. It was agreed upon.
“Tomorrow is a big day,” said Lux, drawing us back temporarily. “We have a guest speaker. Try not to be late.”
“We won’t be long,” said Lia.
Lia and the rest of us shuffled out of the room, with Lux disappearing to wherever he went. Vittoria was looking at Lia like some kind of boundary had been crossed, but let it go. The other Neophytes and I whispered excitedly together. We agreed to meet at seven o’clock at the tunnel the Wiccans took to get in and out of the Gathering. There was a big van, or something––and some other cars there, that we could take. My inner-Gambalunga snorted some.
* * *
November visited the Roman countryside that afternoon with thunderclouds and a fierce torrent of rain water, so I spent the time writing in my diary, waiting until nightfall, when the storm subsided somewhat, and everything cleared up.
We had a little surprise waiting for us when we got there. Two little surprises.
The first was that Vittoria wasn’t coming.
Cool with me, I thought.
“It was almost like she didn’t want to come,” said one Initiate in a hushed voice.
Lia smiled at this.
“Vittoria was all buddy-buddy with Veruschka Ravenseal at the party,” she whispered to me. “Two guesses who they’re picking.”
It sounded like Ravenseal had their new Initiate. Vittoria Ravenseal.
When I thought about it, it made me sick. I didn’t tell Lia that Ravenseal had only one opening. It didn’t seem to matter anymore. “I’m not joining any House she’s a part of,” I said.
The next surprise was that Ballard’s ape van was waiting for us, a curious little vehicle that rode on three wheels. There was a single driver’s seat and a little homemade chair behind it. The other Initiates would have to make do in some of the other vehicles I saw lined up at the Gathering.
It was obvious that the majority of them had driven here. I didn’t know what I had expected, broomsticks and magic carpets. But we piled into as few automobiles as possible. It was Lia and I in the ape van. The rest would have to follow.
When I crawled inside, there were bits of straw, like chickens had lived in it. The front end was badly damaged but the motor had been fixed. It was the color of a pale blue sky, covered in rust. Lia started the ignition and the engine rattled to life. “Gaven brought it,” she said.
“How is Gaven?” I asked, but she just shrugged. Lia more than anyone needed to get away from here. It was clear that she longed for the city––for the piazzas and all the places she knew. In a sense, I knew where she was coming from. But she had it worse.
My homesickness had abated. I was merely a potential who might possibly be recruited by a prestigious Wiccan Household. Lia was in the Hopper with the rest of us, but if no one picked her, if she wasn’t selected, she didn’t have the past that she could fall back on, of going and being a werewolf again. And even though she had Gaven, neither did he. Losing your animal was like dying, I thought.
The bashed-in ape van wobbled and picked up speed. The leaves on the trees were in their last gasp of life. And the moon through the clouds was crescent. It was a blue moon. Lia’s eyes were bright and sad. I could see them through the rearview mirror, which dangled like it had done something wrong.
We went that night to a piazza, whose stalls were open, just to walk around. The other Initiates, none of whom were from Italy, took the opportunity to walk around and admire the jets of water bubbling up from the fountains, and to buy interesting knickknacks.
Lia and I bought some roast chestnuts from a vendor, popping them into our mouths, while we spoke about, oh, lots of things.
“I want to show you something,” she said. We took our purchases to one of the fountains. I think it had a satyr in it. Anyway....
The light from the moon and stars reflecting in the water––
––revealed her Wiccan Mark.
It was faint. But it was there. She hid it with her hand so that only I could see. It had a fingerprint. A sort of unique swirl at the tip of her index finger. Silvery-blue like streaked lightning. But so finely wrought that it was almost invisible. Her delta––that was the point of her elbow––looked like an intricate knot work of silvery veins that glowed when she hid it in her other hand––it came out in the dark. “Lia... it’s... beautiful...” I said.
She glowed.
But then her eyes got sad. “I’m going to start having to wear manica langas,” she said. “That’s what we call it when someone is sly. It is said they have long sleeves. I hate that we have to hide. Wiccans, I mean. Gambalunga means long legs, by the way. So at least you’ll be able to run really fast, if you have to get away.”
We joined the rest of the Wiccan Neophytes I kept thinking of as Initiates because the Houses had still not made their selections yet.
It was like joining a fraternity. A sorority, because we were all witches. Why was that, by the way? Why were the Initiates all female?
“I have been reading my book a lot,” said Lia, who was referring to her codex, “and it’s... ––they’re looking for somebody,” she said. “This... super witch...”
“Is that what this is all about? Which House will get her?” I asked.
Lia shrugged.
“The others think that that House will take over,” she said. “They’re angling for supremacy, the Houses. Even the vampires and werewolves are interested in finding her. Maria––you know she will be there at the Wiccaning, right? She’s brought a psychic wereleopard, remember? It’s where they read our minds. She’s as interested in finding her as the rest of them are. Maybe even more so. It would be the missing piece. The one thing Maria needs to take over––to start another war. Maybe I’m being paranoid.”
She popped a chestnut in her mouth. Lia motioned for the other Neophytes, who returned, carrying their purchases.
We sat that night around the fountain, talking.
It would come and go, the rain.
I learned the rest of the Initiates’ names.
There were ten of them.
Nora Blackknight, Larissa Nightbloom––Badgley Ravenscroft, Azura Darksky––Lizette, Pilar, Padget, Shaharizan, Astra, and one last one, the strangest of them all––Gemma Moonflower.
It was a matter of Houses, of who would go where, and what they would do. Perhaps Lia understood that. She was, after all, the oldest of our lot, a Mistress in her own right. We treated her like Big Sis.
* * *
I spent the rest of the night fretting––pursued by Maria––she brushed the tops of the trees, in her witch’s feet––foll
owing me over countryside––wondering if it were really true––if they were really waiting for her to be this super witch––or, well, one of us––whoever she was.
The Wolves were waiting for her and the vampires had their own claims staked–– Not to mention the Wiccans...
It got me thinking where my choice was; if I even had one?
A cold draught fluttered the hairs on my forehead and I went back to sleep. In the morning I had no sense of the way things had gone––but it bubbled up like something out of a fountain, the idea of the One, during our training session with Lux.
He had brought someone with him. Asher––Maria’s psychic wereleopard.
I was puzzled because both Ballard and Gaven had vouched for Asher––as had all of the covens.
Yet why was everyone so wary of him? In particular, the Wiccans.
He was wearing his indigo-colored vest and other accoutrements, but it was Asher’s eyes, like fire opals, staring out at you, like slitted cat’s pupils.
Lux cleared his throat, enjoying our reaction. Asher was so impressive he merited staring at––a lot. Some girls were drooling.
Lia had to shake her head. She was in her robes, her Wiccan robes, which hid her Wiccan Mark. Neither one of us could discern a virtue yet. But then babies all start out the same too. My money was on Awesomeness, whatever she selected (“You’ll be able to,” I said. “It’s your choice.”)
“This is Asher, who is–– do you mind if I say?” said Lux.
“Not at all.” Asher looked like he was rather enjoying himself. He winked at me and I returned the greeting.
“Asher is a Half Lighter. Does anyone know what that means?” said Lux.
Half the hands in the room went up. “Vittoria?”
Neophyte Page 18
