Rayven stepped forward and its fangs flashed. What was going on?
Figures were appearing out of the smoke, dragging the wounded––a great cry went up and the full blaze of the bonfires lit up my face. What was it that I wasn’t getting? Who could make me understand? My Harm None ring flashed.
I don’t know what made me say it––he was withdrawing, maybe that was it––but I said, “I’LL BE WAITING FOR YOU, RAYVEN. DO YOU HEAR ME? I’LL BE WAITING FOR YOU!” I shouted.
He turned and was gone.
Quickly, I went to check on Ballard. The room was empty. Had he been gotten? When I came back down, they were all coming into view, including Ballard... the fire was following them. Oh no.
I would like to say we magicked our way out of it. But there are some things that not even the best intentions can solve, and an out-of-control fire burning through the forest is one of them. A great smoke overhung Stromovka, much the way a veil of something evil overhung Prague. I would find out soon enough. About everything.
* * *
I quickly made a list of to-dos. Do find out about Selwyn. Do find House Rookmaaker. Do get back to Rome. Do the things Houses are supposed to do. The trouble was, I didn’t know what that meant, exactly. The only thing I could think was what St. Martley’s had taught me––abstinence, control––
It had been a place where young witches were educated, but not in magic.
Quickly, an idea began to form––a sense of what House Rookmaaker could become. A place far from Prague, and all its rules––a place hemmed in by power––because I had the wolves––a place for anyone.
House Rookmaaker would become a place for New Magic. A kind of oriflamme around which the Eclectics could rally; after all, I was uneducated too. Perhaps not knowing any better was a virtue. Did Ballard know any better when he became Head Wolf? Would I, when I led House Rookmaaker? Besides, my parents would’ve wanted it that way. The problem was thirteen-or-greater. I had no idea whatever else Houses had to genuflect to.
Perhaps the idea of a House was what was wrong.... Perhaps there should be no Houses at all! Did I ever think of that?
Ballard and I grabbed our motorcycles. The benandanti would make their way to Rome. I informed them of the letter I’d sent Lia, explaining what had happened to Ballard. “Don’t be surprised if they expect your visit,” I said. Then Ballard and I prepared to depart. We were still going to Prague.
Manon came running over. “We’ll look for you, Halsey, and Ballard.”
“Blessed be––or something,” I said.
And then Ballard and I were off. It was a short drive to Prague––but we passed through a wasteland of ash. This was what happened to Houses that did not get along. Certain rogue entities were sent to destroy them. Somehow, I imagined it would be much harder to send Rome up in flames, but it had been done before, and others would try.
Chapter 13 – The Council of Magic
Was Lenoir the necromancer I had fought with? If so, could he bring back all the dead? Perhaps the Dark Order would rise again.
My mark was silent now, free of the shooting stabs of pain I had been obliged to endure since turning eighteen; one would think, given a place such as this, where the Grigori were prevalent, it would be acting up, but no, it was either connected specifically to Rayven, or something else was going on.
Coming around the bend, the entrance to the Districts of Magic appeared. Not a soul was in sight. “So this is it, huh?” said Ballard, unimpressed. “And what’s-his-face will be there?”
Two misshapen figures in cloaks were huddled in a corner looking at us. Ballard unraveled his bandages, brushing himself off; for the first time, I saw his scar. It was worse, somehow, than when I had seen it before. Badly-knitted flesh disappeared down his neck, to hide in his undershirt. What was this strange precognition that enabled me to see things before they happened?
I deliberated, but again refrained from telling Ballard about my Wiccan House. When I had ironclad proof, when I found the place, then I would tell him about House Rookmaaker.
At the Sign of Magickal Objekts & Wonders, an old thrift store, a witch sold Ballard and I a Star Wheel (“For my Luminarium,” he said), an eight-sided wheel remarkably like the website I had visited; “Spin it to know which virtue thou shalt be,” said the old crone, spookily.
We spent the day catnapping on benches, going through shops, or else lollygagging around, waiting for when it got dark.
Golden Lane had become a wasteland. Leering gargoyles stared down at us––their mouths opened in silent screams. The ground began to slither and shake. It was like my body was in scales. Fire spewed from the earth and an orb of white light surrounded me.
What is happening to me? I wrote in my Diary, when I woke up.
I had gone down the street as it twisted out of sight, willing myself not to panic, when a voice behind me had called my name. “Halsey!” Ballard continued to snore beside me. I had no idea how long I had been asleep.
I woke Ballard, who clutched at the Star Wheel, wiping the drool off his mouth. “What is it?” he said. “I was having a dream. We were running...”
Was he having the chase nightmares like I had been having?
“I think I may know how to find Selwyn,” I said. I explained to him what I was thinking about.
“I don’t know if that’ll work,” said Ballard. “I’ve never done it on purpose before.”
“But you will be able to?” I asked. Now that I’d had the idea, I couldn’t think of anything else. A note of desperation was in my voice.
“What if I hear them?” he said, dropping his voice so that only I could hear. “It’s like a CB radio. If I turn into a wolf, and use my powers to detect Selwyn, I might hear him, sure; in which case we can find him; but there are others out there, Halls, who might hear me. It works both ways. When I’m turned, I hear the Grigori, and the benandanti. It’s like this shadow world. How else do you think I knew where to find you when Rayven attacked? He may not have shifted, but his mind was on the hunt.”
“I thought you had a feeling-thingy?” I said, remembering when he used to get bad vibes.
“This is my feeling-thingy––only it’s getting powerfuller––powerfullest––whatever––I’m becoming badass,” he said. “The true Head Wolf.”
Was I a fool? Ravenseal was after me.... But I had provenance, a birthright. The red marker was in my bag, along with my diploma from St. Martley’s. “We can’t fight them all,” said Ballard, “the Ravenseals and the Grigori––there’s no telling how many of them there are in Prague... I’d be giving our position away or something... Plus, Selwyn would have to be in cat-form,” he said. “I dunno. It seems awfully risky. What we need is backup.”
* * *
We couldn’t use telepathy to find Selwyn for fear others would find us. In which case, Ballard and I would be in deep trouble. First things first, I went to the hotel room to fetch out my bag. Ballard waited in the lobby. I left the Star Wheel on the table, along with a good-bye note to Lennox, telling him where we’d gone. The concierge was most helpful. “Ravenseal? Hum. You might want to check the Directory,” he said. He slammed a behemoth red-leather volume on the counter, flipping it open. “Here you are. Ravenseal... with an R. Big House on the left. You can’t miss it,” he said. His finger slid down the Directory; on every page were lists of Houses... Wiccan Houses...
“Are these all real?” I asked, staring at the list with my mouth hanging open.
“Certainly, they’re real. The Directory is no laughing matter, Miss. It’s kept very up to date, according to the solstices. Why?” he asked.
“N-Nothing...”
“Halls, what is it?” said Ballard.
“And this holds every House? Even the ones that are extinct?” I said.
“Especially the ones that are extinct,” said the concierge. “Otherwise, how would we know which ones are still alive? Honestly, it’s like you aren’t even a witch.” He looked on sadly. “If you want
, the new one’s just come in, you can keep this one if you want? The Directory gets shorter every year, almost as though Magic were dying.”
“I really appreciate this, sir, really!” I said. I stuffed the Directory as quickly as I could into my backpack along with the Everything book.
“It’s past the Master House. You be careful, Miss.”
* * *
“You know they’re after us, right?” said Ballard. “Ravenseal. And you want to go there? To their House?”
“Lux can help us, Ballard. He’s a Styles Master.”
I felt giddy. Here was a way to find my House. The Directory revealed instructions not just to find the secret location of House Ravenseal, but all Houses, including my own.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure they’re a great House!” said Ballard. “And Ravenseal would be the perfect vantage point from which to spy on the Master House, but I don’t think you should go there, Halls.”
“Why not?”
“For one, Lia’s grown very fond of you.”
“And the second reason?” I asked, snuggling up to him.
“Vampires aren’t exactly welcomed in Prague,” said Ballard. “He won’t be able to visit much.”
Would Ballard join my House? Could he, now that he was Head of the cyanthropes––of all the cyanthropes, because the Benandanti still owed him their allegiance. The Bennys had essentially hived from the Sons and Daughters of Romulus––but Lux, who had taught me of hiving, was right: Houses didn’t just break from other Houses, not really.
“Traduttore, traditore. Gaven was right. Look at this place,” said Ballard. He stared up at the Master House. “I could just peek, you know? If Selwyn’s in there...”
“He may not be turned, Ballard. Come on,” I said, dragging him away.
We rushed through a crowd of shoppers, down the Lane as it forked to the left, until we were walking along a hedgerow, out of town. The Districts of Magic were disappearing behind us.
According to the book, Ravenseal House was somewhere down this avenue, we just had to find it. I stopped to get my bearings, but also check my House.
Hair blowing helter-skelter I found the page I was looking for. “R, R,” I whispered to myself, turning the pages frantically. Ballard must’ve thought I was a madwoman.
A new tingling was in my fingertips. Was I about to discover the secret whereabouts of my House?
“It’s not here,” I said, flipping through the Directory despondently.
IF YOUR HOUSE IS NOT LISTED, said the book, SEARCH THE BACK OF THE DIRECTORY.
Of course. The index listed Houses no longer with us.
THESE ARE THE HOUSES THAT WERE, BUT ARE NO LONGER, said the book.
I flipped to the back. Whereas the living Houses––those that had not been eradicated––listed physical addresses, along with those who were in them, their Heads and so forth––what I called the dead Houses listed only the House names and dates of obliteration. No other information was presented. No wonder the book was shrinking. There were hundreds of them... Thousands of listings... Houses from the past that had been wiped out––most of them pre-dated the twentieth century––but no House Rookmaaker. I didn’t know where it was at.
Hoping it was some kind of mistake, I turned to the title page, but it was last year’s copy. Rookmaaker, if it existed, should’ve been listed. “But it’s not!” I said, slamming the Directory shut.
Ballard seemed antsy––“Um, Halls?”
“Yes, Ballard?”
I flipped back to Ravenseal. A list of eleven names was presented, with Veruschka’s at the top.
HOUSE RAVENSEAL
&
its Members
Veruschka Ravenseal *
Rumor Scroop *
Balthasar LeFlaq
Pirapong Bonewits
Rosamund Rasmussen
Tatiana Tower
Polixines Derevjanik
Pericles Pike
Lara Tanner
Djonga Hardesty
Lux Aeterna *
––missing
*Symbols next to names denote powers not usually associated with Wicca-craft. Names ranked in order of their significance.
Lux was at the bottom. I got a kind of icy prickle when I saw the twelfth spot, where I should have been listed. No twelfth. Missing.
“I hate to bother you and all, but you might want to get ready for a fight,” said Ballard.
“What?”
I looked up. Two witches and a wizard were making their way down the hedgerow. It was getting late and the clouds were making parhelia, sundogs, bright spots of light on either side of the sun, which may have been their Lights. The Wiccans were shooting them at us.
I put my book away, stuffing it into my backpack, when suddenly Lux appeared. Comprehension dawned on his face.
“Halsey? What are you doing here?” he said.
“Hello Professor Lux.”
He formed the W. The talons were on his fingers, tridents which helped him to craft. Had he been? That would have been unusual. He didn’t normally do magic.
I hoped he didn’t inquire as to the further development of my Mark. As always when I was around him, I felt my shortcomings like a hard edge, cut into my flesh.
Ballard seemed to encourage a confrontation. The sun was not fully down yet. I didn’t want to get into anything without Lennox present. We were still within the purlieus of the Districts of Magic, were we not? I hadn’t been caught on Ravenseal territory, unawares, had I? If so, I didn’t know what I would do.
Lux looked towards Stromovka. The cloud of ash had still not dissipated. How must I look? I got an uneasy feeling, like Ravenseal knew what had happened, almost like they had been in on it. But what did they know of the Benandanti?
Ballard shifted infinitesimally.
“Right. Introductions,” said Lux. “This is Pirapong Bonewits––” he said, pointing to a tallow candle of a witch––“and Rumor Scroop––”
“Hello,” I said.
“Ladies, allow me to introduce Miss Halsey Rookmaaker!”
“Wait, not the Miss Rookmaaker?” said Bonewits.
“As in our twelfth?” said Scroop.
“Turned us down, I’m afraid,” said Lux.
Rumor Scroop continued to stare at me like I was a bug.
“It’s not right,” said Bonewits.
“No, it’s not,” said Scroop. “I think you should come along with us, now, dear. Leave the dog. I daresay it’s not Housebroken yet.”
“Now, now,” said Lux. “Clever pun aside––that was rude.”
Ballard let the insult roll off him. The only question I had was why Risky and my parents had been so rock-steady, being as they were, respectively, a wolf, a wizard, and a witch, when it didn’t seem like the two sides got along? Werewolves had originally come to Rome to get away from wizards and witches.
“Well? Are you coming or not?” said Scroop. She made what looked like a C instead of a W, reversed and laid horizontally, and then pointed her two fingers at me. “I’m waiting,” she said, dramatically. She had hair tinted the same color as her mistress––shocking blue––in a wave down her left eye; snakebites; and a stud in her upper lip. Her eyes were like two black holes sucking upon the irises and on the tips of her eyelashes were decorative white droplets.
Why was it the most powerful Wiccans looked this way? I immediately cautioned myself against her. How powerful was she, anyway?
I shook my head no.
“What do you mean ‘no’?” she said. Wicca light shone from her eyes. “We are a House. The House, in point of fact. Council or no, you will serve this House!” said Scroop. “Come, Pirapong! Our Headmistress shall know of this! Better not dally, Lux.”
The two of them turned on their heels and left.
I looked at Ballard, who continued to mutter under his breath: “I know what you can do with those three fingers,” he said.
“We better leave,” said Lux. “Before––before they com
e back.”
* * *
“I apologize again for her threatening you like that,” he said. We wended our way along the hedgerow back into Prague. “They––well––they bully Eclectics. Scroop’s number two. She will become the Head of House, once Veruschka leaves.”
“So Veruschka does mean to go to the Master House, then?” I said.
“If only I could leave as well,” said Lux, who sighed.
It was dark, now. The Districts were coming alive with magic. Lux bought three newspapers: London, Paris, Rome, paying for them with some skillingr, from his pocket. “There! You see?” he said, pointing to the front-page headline on one of them––I could see London’s Millennium Wheel on the cover.
PRIVATE SCHOOL IN ASHES FOLLOWING MYSTERIOUS FIRE
LONDON––The British skyline was lit up last night as a series of rare lightning strikes targeted one of the city’s oldest buildings.
According to one eyewitness, London’s House of Peril was reduced to cinders following the crazy cloudburst that seemed to avoid every other major structure. “Lightning is never this destructive. Much less this vicious,” said the eyewitness. “Crazy.”
“The House of Peril. Isn’t that Padget and Pilar’s House?” I asked.
“Here’s another one,” said Lux, nodding his head.
HE’S BACK. UNKNOWN ARSONIST STRIKES AGAIN.
PARIS––The banking world is in upheaval following the break-in overnight of one of Paris’s oldest institutions. “Forget the Rothschilds. Banque du Sang is one of the oldest––if not the oldest––bank in existence. How anyone could’ve broken in there, much less torched the place, is beyond me,” said Rufus Séverin, member of the Chair of Trustees, himself one of the largest shareholders in Banque du Sang.
“Banque du Sang?” I said.
“Vampire gold,” said Lux. “Banque du Sang means ‘blood bank’; it’s where they store their mana; one n, not two, as well as the wealth of the Paris underworld. Someone broke in there. Read.”
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