by Martha Woods
“Can't they fight it? He told me that he stopped when he was younger.”
“I've heard of them doing it. Maybe they do fight the spirit, but you can't fight yourself forever. Rapists and murderers feel sorry for the things they do, but that doesn't make them stop. It's a part of who they are. That's why your mother promised me to never teach you.”
“What happened to her?”
Margaret turned around and flicked her wrist, sending the pot off the boil. “When she was younger, she fell in love with a vampire. Sara didn't know what he was, or what he was really doing. All she knew was that she wasn't going to tell me a single thing about it. That was just her way. She didn't want me meddling in things, I suppose.” She took a sip from her mug which was sending off the stark aroma of peppermint and a hint of liquor. “I knew that she was seeing somebody. Otherwise, she would've been home, so I let it go on for a little while until I pulled out my tarot cards and figured out what was going on. When I found out that he was a vampire, I forbade her from seeing him. She refused, of course. She was sixteen. She ended up having to be rescued from atop of a cliff a few hours later. After that, she swore off magic.”
“Why? I mean I'm sitting here, watching you make dinner and move things around without even giving it a second's thought.”
“Vampires are like flies hunting down filth so they can devour it. They'll always find you. You'll never be safe from them. I am older than you will ever know and not once, not in my entire life have I managed to escape them.” She looked around. “This isn't my sanctuary. It's my prison. Because of my protective charms, this is the only place I'm safe. The second I step off the land, it's hunting season.”
“Well, can't you kill them?”
“I'm capable of it, but I wouldn't dare,” she laughed. “Where there's one, there's a hundred. They'll come at you with some ancient grievance, saying you killed their long lost lover or their family. They love fiery vendettas, and one springs up as soon as one of them gets killed. The only thing you can do is stay put because they will do anything to have you and they're smart. They've had centuries, a few even thousands of years to learn how to hunt.”
“That's disgusting.”
“Exactly. Thinking back, your mother had the right idea. She begged and begged me to never teach you magic. That was a slap in the face. That's my right, you know. Bishop grandmothers are meant to teach the children to spell. That's a sacred duty.” She took a sip of her drink. “I was livid. I told her she had no right trying to keep you from your birthright. I thought it would be a disaster.”
“I've always felt incomplete.” Sara's curiosity got the better of her, and she took a sip of the liquid in her mug. She nearly spits it out realizing it was freezing cold schnapps, but she forced herself to hold it down and let it settle her stomach.
Her grandmother smiled. “It's to calm your mind down,” she pointed at the mug. “Parts of your mind are quite a bit more developed than a human's. You probably think too much. You can't sit still. That's the energy that you’d use to make magic. It gets all pent up inside you till you think you're going to explode.”
“Exactly.” Sara thought about sitting at home the way she did, staring at the clock while her mother was working. She could never withstand dead silences like that. It seemed like she was always waiting.
“There are differences between humans and us. They're subtle, but they are there. Are values are different for one.” She took another sip of her schnapps. “They don't value family the way we do. To a Witch a family is an extension of herself. When your mother moved away, it tore me apart. I watched her every day, sat right where you are sitting and read her cards. I looked into your life too, and you know what I saw? Magic would be her undoing.
She was right. The best thing was to keep you as far away from magic as possible. Now, because you've been going around acting like a typical teenager, instead of the witch you are, I have no choice but to teach you.”
“I'm sorry.”
“I have to go back on a promise that had defined all of our lives since before you were born. I don't want to have to do this.”
“Had I known that you were just following her wishes, I would've let it go.”
“It was inevitable.” She shook her head. “Just like killing is to vampires, magic is a part of a witch's soul. The fact that the power came out of you when you needed it tells me that it's just been lying dormant for a long time. It's no wonder the power took the form of the blue fire. It's building up inside you ever since you were a little girl. You could probably blow this place to pieces without even thinking about it.”
“That was incredible.”
“Was it?” She laughed. “I've never seen the blue fire before. I did a reading right before I brought you here. When the cards told me that it was making an appearance, I moved as fast as I could. It's an elastic force, powerful that no natural object can withstand it. You're lucky to be alive.”
“I believe you. It was just exploding everywhere. It rolled out of me before I even knew what was happening and destroyed whatever I wanted it to. I could control it, but it came so easily. If I wasn't careful, I could've easily killed everyone there without even meaning to.”
“Blue fire is what is called a vital energy. It's spiritual power, saying it doesn't exist on our plane. Which is why it's so potent when it's unleashed. It doesn't play by the same rules as other forms of energy.”
“The vampire told me that he couldn't be killed by an earthly power.”
“They have to be killed using a spiritual power. A vampire’s weakness is something called Hades Scythe. It's a killing curse that is conjured by summoning up death's vital energy and hurling it towards them. Like the blue flame, Hades Scythe is extremely dangerous. Unlike blue flame instead of learning to focus the power, you have to find out how to contain it. You draw a little box in your head, a coffin they say and you keep the power in there while you open the lid and pull it out of the spiritual plane. It's not an easy spell to master. I watched my niece get killed that way before your mother was born. She got in the way and got herself killed as my sister was trying to kill a vampire.”
“Jesus.”
“You're not going to be able to learn to kill them, Sara. You just have to learn to tell them no, stay in public when you're out and stick close to home.”
“They're always around, aren't they?”
“Always. They want us, Sara. To the spirit, we represent the ultimate form because we are able to control both spiritual and physical power. I need you to promise not to see him anymore.”
“I promise.” There was no way she was giving him up.
Her grandmother raised an eyebrow and cocked her head to the side. “That was too easy.”
“I'm not dumb like that. My mother spent my entire life protecting me from those things. I'm not going to let some adolescent seduction trick me into going for a psychopathic killer, especially now that I know what he is.”
“You've always had good sense.” She downed the rest of her schnapps and looked Sara. “Drink up.”
Sara did and shook her head back and forth from the shock of the burning sensation traveling down her body.
“Come on. I'll show you how to make a fire.”
Chapter 14
Sara was just placing the shelves back inside the refrigerator when her mother walked into the house. “Oh my God, Sara. It smells amazing in here.”
Sara turned around, beaming at the spread she'd laid out on the table. There was a vase of arranged flowers in every single color imaginable and a pure white tablecloth she'd pulled out from the cupboard above the refrigerator.
“Do you like it?” She ran up and gave her mother a hug, letting her nose take in every last drop of her perfume.
“I love it. What are you cooking?” She followed Sara into the kitchen. Where she looked over her daughter's shoulder while Sara stirred the pot.
“I thought we'd have boiled heart.” She pulled the beating muscle up wit
h the spoon to show her mother and shrieked when she turned around to see her mother falling on the ground, clutching the gaping hole where her heart had been.
Sara shot up off the bed, shrieking and fell over onto the ground from thrashing around. She lay there staring up at the wooden ceiling beams with the corner from her bedside table sticking into the back of her head. She deserved that. Learning magic was like tearing her mother's heart out. She knew her mother well enough to know that she sacrificed everything to keep Sara from learning, but Sara wasn't going to live without knowing her true nature, or the power that came with it.
The magic was interesting. She got up and started getting dressed. It was all about learning how to capture the essence of something in your mind and bring it out. When she used to cook for her mother, Sara would think about the kind of mood she wanted to bring to the evening. On casual nights, she would choose pizza because it was casual. It had the same essence of casual. Then there were the toppings. For something simple, she'd want cheese. Cheese is white, plain and simple. When she wanted something more substantial, she'd pick pepperoni. If she wanted to shake things up a little bit, she'd add sausage.
She found the essence that she wanted and used ingredients that seemed to embody that spirit. Magic was similar. She felt the spirit of fire and brought it out. The same could be done with ice, air, and water. She just had to understand it first. Then, she could manipulate it. They spent most of the evening talking about magic, while her grandmother taught her simple spells. She showed Sara how to make it rain inside. Then she showed her how to make ice out of nothing. Sara was learning were the essential, preschool spells every witch masters before they begin to delve into real magic. She might have been able to do some pretty amazing things, but she was barely scratching the surface.
When Sara walked down into the kitchen and set her bag down on the table, her grandmother turned around and handed her a plate of eggs and toast. “Put that thing away. I'm not going to make you go anymore.”
“I can't stay locked up in here. They're going to come at me anyway.”
“No, they're not.” She summoned two cups of coffee and set them down on the table. “The house is protected. A witch's space is sacred. They can't come in so much time as the proper charms stay in place. You need to listen to me, Sara.”
“I want to finish school eventually. I can't stay cooped up here. If I'm going to survive, I need to know how to go out in public.”
“You need to be careful.”
“I will.” Sara got up, hugged her grandmother and dashed out the door to go to school.
As soon as she left the property, she heard a whistle coming from the bushes. “Hey.” He knelt up from his position behind the bushes near the mailbox.
Andrea motioned for him to go, and ran off the property to follow him. They met at the point where the hill curved down enough for them to be out of sight. Then she grabbed him and kissed him, teasing out the electric burst of adrenaline that she knew he could provide. Then she stood back and took him in.
He was every bit a joker, demented but beautiful. Even if she were afraid to die, she wouldn't want to lose him.
“Did Margaret teach you how to spell?” He asked.
She answers by jolting her finger upwards, shooting a bolt of lightning down from the sky. It cracked like a cannon blast and fell a few hundred yards away.
He stared at her smiling. “Amazing,” he shook his head. “Come here.” He grabbed her by the front of her shirt and ripped her forward until their chests were touching.
She looked up at him silently.
“Why aren't you running away? Didn't she tell you about how we wait for years seducing you until we find the perfect moment to kill you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you believe her?”
“I don't care.” She pecked him on the lips and turned around to walk down the street.
He stormed after her, a dark tinge of energy trailing behind him. “What do you mean you don't care?”
“I mean I don't care.”
He grabbed her by the arm to stop her and pulled her towards him. “Why not?”
“Because I want to die.”
“It's not going to happen that way. If you think talking to me will get you killed you can turn around come back the way you came, because I will not, not for one-second watch you throw your life away because of some momentary grief.”
“Do you really think that's the only reason I talk to you? I just ran up and kissed you. What about the fact that you won't let me die? There's more to this, Caleb. I'm not giving you up even if you were a killer. I'd rather live a decade or two longer and spend it with an extraordinary creature like you than spend my life alone like a goddess among mortals.”
He didn't say anything.
“If that's what you want then, by all means, Caleb, come around, spend as much time with me as you want. You can kill me or keep me alive, I don't care, but you're the only person I feel like I can actually talk to right now and I want you nearby.”
“I don't like your suicidal tendencies.”
“They're not going anywhere, and you have free will in this matter. You can stay or go.”
“I would never go.” He snapped. “I want to be with you, but you have to start caring about your life.”
“I don't have a reason.”
“Can I take you home?”
“You have a house?”
“Of course. Where'd you think I live? In a graveyard?”
She thought about it. “I don't know. I'd love to see it.”
“Come.” He snatched her up off the ground and held her close to his chest. He kept her in place while his feet started moving so fast she couldn't even feel them on her. The wind was so bad that she had to face his chest just so it didn't hit her in the face. She couldn't see anything, but she did feel the lay of the land moving below her. They ran downhill and over a level plane then up and down, probably through the hills until the ground sloped upwards for what seemed like a quarter of a mile.
Then she jerked forward, and they stopped. He put her down effortlessly while she took in her surroundings. They were standing at the top of a forested hill on which an English country home had been built. There were rows of windows in every room and chimneys creeping up out of the ceiling. It was massive and could've easily fit five or six homes the size of Sara's.
There were rows of perfectly manicured hedges, some encircling Greek statues sitting in the center of dry fountains, and rose bushes of every color surrounding the house. Sara could see herself sitting and reading out on the veranda under an umbrella table with a pitcher of tea. She'd have her own room with a four-poster bed and a closet stuffed with designer labels and fabrics from foreign countries. She didn't just want to see inside. She wanted to see what it would be like to wake up there every morning and come down the stairs.
“It looks like a lot, but it has its issues.”
“What do you mean?”
“The house was built in the mid-17th century. I bought it when it was nearly a hundred years old and still have yet to do any of the repairs. It's completely off the grid. There is no power, no running water or indoor plumbing, but I do have a well that's particularly sweet.”
“So it's pure in its authenticity.” She added a refined air to her voice while she walked up the porch steps, noting the rotting rocking chair a few feet away.
“It is.” The porch was dusty, and the floorboards had collapsed in some places. The whitewash on the door had been almost entirely worn away, and there was a cobweb veiling many dangers up in the corner. “Watch your step.”
He opened the door without unlocking it and walked inside. She understood why he wanted her to be careful. Many of the floorboards had long since decayed. There were holes in the floor where they had collapsed, and it looks like some were starting to fall in. Sara didn't focus on that very long. The inside of the house was a treasure trove of early American and ancient European artifacts. There were pai
ntings, mostly portraits, and landscapes covering every square inch of the walls. Below they were console tables holding strange oddities like old metallic devices, music boxes and figurines. It was tasteful, but not in the refined way that that Sara would've expected from somebody in that time.
The foyer gave way to a marble staircase lined with a crumbling banister that branched off in both directions halfway up. Sitting on the center wall above the landing was a single picture of a blonde woman wearing a green dress with an emerald necklace. She reminded Sara of a supermodel, because she was tall with a straight neck.
She must've been somebody important, Sarah thought because there weren't any other portraits surrounding it. “Who's that?” She pointed at the painting.
“That's an old friend of my brother's.”
“She seems to have had a central place in your life as well if you're looking at her every time you walk in the door.”
“She did, but things changed over time. She was a witch.” He took her hand to lead her up the stairs. “I loved her dearly, but she betrayed me for my brother. She hated herself for doing it, but I couldn't take her back for that, not after what she'd done so she was forced to stay with him.”
“Is she alive still? I mean, can witches...”
“There're rumors of witches living beyond their natural years, but I've never seen it and I'm not sure I believe in it.” He turned to Sara. “We want to die at some point. We get tired. After centuries of living, your life and your ambitions begin to decay, and you forget about the future. After that, vampires long for death like an addict needs their fix. It's all they think of.”
