“Sea salt for looking into the present; check.”
The book of names, all the Daughters of Hecate out in the world, was sitting on the couch where I’d left it this morning. I retrieved it and set it on the table, opening it to the page that held the name of the witch I was trying to locate.
Vivienne Surette
“I can do this. I can do this,” I muttered. I sat down at the table, perched on the edge of the chair and beckoned to Suki. “Come on beastie, this is where you come in.” Suki stepped down from the table and into my lap obligingly, settling herself down on my thighs. “I can do this.” Suki began to purr, and I took that as a sign of agreement, and somehow that made me feel a little more confident.
I lit the candles and took a deep breath before picking up the pitcher and poured the water into the bowl. As I waited for the water to be still I closed my eyes and visualized what I wanted. I wanted to see this Daughter, hidden in New Orleans. What did she look like? How old was she? How could I find her?
I needed a vision. Something clean and memorable.
I placed my hands on the smooth stone edge of the bowl and focused on my breathing, the steady thud of my heartbeat, and Suki’s rumbling purr. My magic surged forward and tingled in my palms and fingertips, charging the water with power and my purpose.
One more breath.
I opened my eyes slowly and stared at each of the candle flames in turn, willing them to burn a little brighter. The herbs that smoked in the incense burner tickled my nose and I held back a sneeze.
Suki purred louder and dug her claws into my thighs.
“Ow,” I muttered, trying not to break my eye contact with the final candle. It was hard to stay still with those little needles digging into me, but I had to do it. I took another deep breath and felt my palms itch as my magic poured into the marble bowl.
Here we go.
I closed my eyes and sat up straight in the chair, my bare feet flat on the floor. I concentrated on the feel of the hardwood under my toes, the grooves in the floor where the chair had scraped over the years, the grain of the wood. The smoke from the candles and the herbs burning at my left hand wreathed around my head and wound into my hair and the cat in my lap was warm and encouraging.
“Vivienne Surette,” I said softly. “I seek you out... A sister seeks you out.” I didn’t really know what to say, but the words seemed to come from nowhere. I could feel something churning at the base of my spine as my palms got hotter against the sides of the scrying bowl.
“I ask the goddess to reveal you, to show me a sign.”
Suki’s purring grew louder, rumbling in my ears as my heart began to pound. A hot wind rushed through the kitchen window, blowing my hair across my face, but I didn’t move to swipe it away. Something was happening.
And then, everything was still. The only sound in the room was Suki’s rhythmic purr, and the hammering of my heart in my ears.
I opened my eyes halfway, staring down at the still water in the bowl. I let them drift in and out of focus, the bowl blurring and becoming sharper until I saw something, a shape, a shadow maybe, move across the surface of the water. My eyes flew open and I leaned forward. I took a shallow breath and blew across the pale golden water. When the ripples died away, I bit back a gasp.
As the ripples faded I could see shapes moving in the water, as though I was looking through a mirror. A tall woman with impossibly long hair, blood red and curling down her back, stood behind a counter. She was dressed in black, layers and layers of lace and velvet. I couldn’t see her face, but the room she was in grew sharper as I concentrated. Candles, crystals, tarot cards, books with gilded spines and statues of angels and ancient gods filled the shelves. Posters advertising tarot and palm readings covered the walls. The sound of a wind chime tinkled gently in my ears.
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” I whispered. Suki’s claws dug deeper into my leg and I tried to focus, but the image was fading away. I hadn’t even seen her face. “No! No, no, no... shit.”
I lifted my hands from the edge of the bowl and dipped a fingertip into the water. It was ice cold. “What am I supposed to do with that?” I asked Suki. The cat stood up and stretched, and jumped down from my lap to sit near the apartment door. “Thanks a lot,” I muttered. I dipped my fingers in the water and pinched out the candles one at a time. I had just extinguished the last one when the apartment door opened.
Shit.
“Shit is right, what the hell are you doing?”
Ophelia was standing in the doorway with Suki in her arms, staring at me with a mixture of anger and disbelief on her face.
“Little traitor,” I muttered at Suki, who yawned and gripped Ophelia’s shoulder with her little black paws. “It was nothing. I just wanted to see if I could...”
“You don’t know anything about this,” Ophelia snapped, striding into the room. The apartment door slammed shut behind her and I flinched just a little. “What if you used the wrong spell, or too much magic, or not enough? These things are sensitive—“
“How do you know?” I said, rising from the chair and pulling Magdalena’s book against my chest. “You don’t know any of this shit any better than I do. No one taught you anything! You’re the last person who should be giving me shit!”
Ophelia’s lips pressed into a thin line and Suki jumped down from her shoulder and trotted into the living room.
Oops.
“I should never have encouraged this. You’re obsessed with this book and obsessed with whatever that crazy old woman was writing in there. It’s all bullshit. All of it.” Ophelia was mad, but so was I.
“It’s not bullshit! You’re just scared!” I knew that I should have stopped talking, but the words just poured out of me. “I know you don’t want to face anything that happened in Spain. You don’t even want to talk about it! Magdalena did something to you, and you don’t want to admit it.”
Ophelia stared at me.
Oops.
“So what the fuck am I supposed to do here, huh?” I could feel Ophelia’s anger crackling off her, and I should have counted myself lucky that she wasn’t shooting purple fireballs at me. “You’re touching my stuff, on purpose, you’re casting without me...”
“Come on, Fee. It’s not what it looks li—“
Ophelia stared at me incredulously, and pointed at the table. “Am I supposed to believe that all of this stuff just fell out of the cupboards and arranged themselves on the table in this specific order... that my grimoire just magically opened to this page...”
“No. I didn’t...”
You’re in deep shit now, Maia.
“Bullshit. You’re just sitting here; breaking my rules and casting shit you don’t even understand.” She shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest. “This is my fault. I knew I was showing you things that were beyond you.”
“Hey, that’s not fair!”
“Not fair? Let’s talk about fair,” she snapped, pointing at the curtained area in the living room. “Lacey was fucking around with shit she didn’t understand, and she called down a goddess that possessed her body and tried to murder me. Is that fair?”
I’m sure I looked like an idiot, my mouth hanging open in surprise as I stared at Ophelia.
“Are you serious?”
“Dead fucking serious.”
“But you saved her! She’s here, she’s...”
“She’s here because I killed her, and Eli brought her back. I had to kill her to get the goddess out of her. That’s what happens when you fuck with things you don’t understand! You die.” Ophelia looked at the table and everything I’d laid out, and she shook her head sadly. “Get out.”
“Wait, what?”
“You heard me,” she said quietly. “Get the fuck out. I need to clean this up and cleanse the apartment. Who knows what you brought in with your clumsy attempts at... whatever the fuck you were trying to do here.” She wasn’t looking at me, but I could feel her magic pushing me towards the door. Tears stun
g my eyes and I held Magdalena’s book tightly to my chest.
“Tomorrow we’re going to burn that book,” Ophelia said flatly. “And we’re going to leave all of that shit behind us.”
6
Lacey
The front door of the apartment slammed shut as Fee and Maia left for Haven. I sat down on my bed with an unladylike grunt. Suki blinked at me and set her small black paw on my laptop.
“Bus tickets, I know,” I said quietly. Maia wanted to come with me to New Orleans. She hadn’t actually left me a real choice. If she told Ophelia what I was planning there would be no way she’d let me leave. And I couldn’t stay here. Not without some answers. But I knew that I wouldn’t be getting any of those anytime soon.
Everyone wanted me to be patient. Patience wasn’t going to get me anywhere. Besides, I’m a Leo, or I used to be... patience hasn’t really ever been one of my favorite things. Not when I could do it myself. Fuck being patient.
I giggled just a little. It was daring. Defying everyone like this. Bishop thought he knew everything, Eli thought I was a stupid little baby bat who didn’t deserve to be taught anything. But I’d show him. I’d show them all.
I opened my laptop with determination and plugged in my credit card details. Two tickets to NOLA.
Booked.
The bus left at sunset, and would arrive in New Orleans just before sunrise.
Perfect.
A private room in a hostel in the French Quarter.
Done.
I closed my laptop and set it on the floor beside my bed before laying back against my pillows. Suki jumped onto my chest and sat down. She stared at me with her emerald green eyes for a moment before licking my nose with her rough tongue.
“I always wanted to be a witch and have a familiar just like you,” I said, rubbing my fingers over her sleek fur. “That obviously didn’t work out, but I’m glad you’re my friend anyway.”
Suki settled down on my chest and I turned off the lamp on my bedside table and set an alarm on my phone. I texted Maia quickly, something innocuous that wouldn’t make Fee suspicious if she saw it. Getting Maia in trouble wouldn’t help anything.
I’d have to be awake before sunset if I wanted to get my shit together and get out of here in time to catch the Greyhound.
As my eyes drifted shut and Suki started to purr I knew that everything would be okay. Maia and I would go to New Orleans together. We’d find the answers I was looking for, and maybe answer the questions she had too, and then I’d be able to decide what I wanted to do with the rest of my eternity.
I woke up groggily to a pounding headache and the hairs on my arm standing up with static electricity. I hadn’t had a hangover in months. Long enough to almost forget what it was like to even have a headache. I lifted my phone to peek at the time.
It was way too early for me to be awake.
I groaned and rolled over.
Suki wasn’t in her usual place on the pillow beside me, she didn’t usually move from that spot until Ophelia got home. I touched the pillow, and it was still warm. She hadn’t been gone long.
“Suki? Where you go, kitten,” I called softly.
There was a crash from the kitchen and the sound of slamming cupboards. I sat up straight and my heart thudded heavily in my chest.
“What the fuck,” I whispered, sliding off the bed and onto the floor. There was someone in the apartment... but I couldn’t tell who it was. I could smell smoke, and candles... it must have been Ophelia. No one else would be here. Maia didn’t have a key; she always came and went with Ophelia. At least, I didn’t think she had a key.
Another thud right behind me, cupboard doors being kicked closed.
That was definitely Maia.
I could feel the crackle of electricity in the apartment, a sensation that could only mean one thing.
“Casting without me? Oh, that’s so unfaaair!” I said bitterly. Ophelia knew how interested I was in watching her teaching Maia how to be a proper witch, and it made me feel a little more included when I got to help out. But she’d been more and more secretive about what she and Maia were doing, and I was trying not to take it personally. I didn’t need her to tell me that none of this stuff was for me... but I liked it anyway. It wasn’t every day you got to watch your two best friends create colored fire out of thin air.
I could hear someone in the kitchen talking, but the was voice low and heavily accented and I was having trouble understanding what they were saying.
“Suivre la lune au coeur de la flamme...”
“Maia?”
It had to be her. That was definitely not Ophelia’s voice.
I parted the first layer of curtains and slipped into the space between. There was daylight only a short distance away, but I had to know if it was her.
I pinched the heavy velvet and tried to pull the curtain back, but the shafts of sunlight that pierced through the heavy drapes that Ophelia had installed on the living room windows burned my fingertips.
I stuck my fingers in my mouth and retreated back into my sanctuary.
Okay. So I couldn’t leave my dark little nest, which meant I had to shout for whoever was in the kitchen to come over here to tell me what the hellfire was going on. My favorite.
“Maia?” I called out softly, hoping that it wasn’t too quiet. There was nothing but silence from the kitchen. The smell of the herbs she was burning stung my nose and I sneezed loudly.
Still no response.
“Maia?” Louder this time. Ugh. It felt like I was trapped in a bathroom shouting for a stranger to hand me some TP.
Dignity, what was that?
I waited a minute longer. Still nothing.
Then the apartment door slammed open and the feeling of magic that had permeated the space abruptly faded away, leaving me feeling a little colder. I rubbed my arms and stood at the curtain opening straining to hear what was going on.
“Maia? Fee?” Someone had to answer me this time.
“What the hell are you doing?” A different voice echoed angrily in the kitchen.
That was definitely Ophelia and she did not sound happy.
I listened for a moment as they argued. They’d been doing that a lot lately, and I’d always made a point of making myself scarce when it started. But this time I was trapped behind my curtains. They probably thought I was still asleep.
Dead to the world.
Ha ha.
It was awkward listening to them, and I had a feeling that if I kept listening, that I was going to hear something I didn’t want to hear. That’s what always happened when I eavesdropped. It was the worst super power ever.
My backpack was sitting on the floor near my bed. I’d half-heartedly shoved some clothes into it when I’d gotten home this morning. But I hadn’t been thinking clearly. Now the bus tickets were booked, and (with or without Maia) I was leaving tonight. As soon as the sun dipped down below the apartment building next door I would be able to leave my curtains and get the hell out of here.
“Hey! That’s not fair!” Maia shouted in the kitchen. I let out the breath I didn’t know I’d been holding and tried to hum something to block out the noise. I wondered how many times I’d used that same argument... I didn’t remember that it had ever gone very well.
Pack and distract. New Orleans in summer. Hot, muggy, and more than likely buggy too. Ick. I re-packed the bag with a few more practical things and slipped my silver crescent moon necklace over my head. Ophelia had given it to me after Halloween... I guess it was supposed to make me feel more connected to her. I could never be a Daughter, but we were still like sisters. She hadn’t said as much, but I knew that’s how she felt. At least, I hoped that was how she felt.
I slid my laptop inside the bag and zipped it up before edging over to the curtain again. They were still arguing, and I could feel Ophelia’s anger filling the air.
The tune I was humming died on my lips as I touched the curtains. Ophelia was shouting at Maia now. The ‘not fair’ argument
had clearly been deflected.
“She’s here because I killed her, and Eli brought her back. I had to kill her to get the goddess out of her. That’s what happens when you fuck with things you don’t understand! You die.”
There was a pause and I felt my heart drop into my stomach as Ophelia’s words pierced my brain.
“Get out.”
“Wait, what?” Maia sounded as shocked as I felt.
“You heard me,” she replied quietly. “Get the fuck out.”
Wait. What? Ophelia had told me what happened on All Hallows Eve under the light of that moon, she’d told me why everything was different... she’d taken me back to my ruined apartment... but she hadn’t said anything about that.
The apartment door slammed as Maia left and I could hear her boots thudding on the stairs and then the sound of the front doors crashing open as she burst through them and stepped out into the street.
I felt like crying. I felt like drinking. I felt like throwing up and then crying some more.
I could hear Ophelia, my best friend, my sister... my murderer... moving around in the kitchen. The clink of glass bottles as she cleaned up whatever mess Maia had made. I clutched the necklace she’d given me, the sharp points of the silver crescent digging into my palm. Hard enough to draw blood.
I opened my hand.
It’s not even your blood.
There was that throw up feeling again. The cold sweat and the roll of the stomach. I yanked the necklace over my head and threw it on the bed, my chest heaving as I tried to get control of myself.
My phone buzzed on my nightstand and I lunged for it. I didn’t want Ophelia to know I was here. The last thing I wanted to do was talk to her. If she knew that I’d heard what she said...
When do we leave??
My hand shook while I replied to Maia’s text message.
In a few hours. Meet me at the bus station. I’ve got the tickets.
Power of Three: (Urban Fantasy) (Daughters of Hecate Book 3) Page 5
