Tied With a Bow

by Lora Leigh

  “I’d prefer to wait until they’re inside to continue our discussion,” Robin said. “They know about the land-tie, but they have opinions. About everything. I’m not in the mood to hear their opinions about my revealing it to you. That’s purely my decision.”

  Did she mean the twins had opinions about Benedict already? Before they even met him? Probably. Arjenie had talked to Seri a few times since she met Benedict and moved to California, and her young cousin been typically nosy but hadn’t seemed especially upset or worried. Sammy, now . . . he hadn’t been curious enough, had he? Bright and cheery and full of his own news, not asking many questions. Which struck her as odd now.

  “Arjenie tells me the stone used in Clay’s workshop was quarried at the same place that supplied the stone for the White House,” Benedict said conversationally.

  Aunt Robin took up the topic gladly, talking about other local buildings built from sandstone as the twins approached—Sammy at his usual amble, Seri hurrying ahead with Havoc. “. . . used a mix of lime, rice glue, casein, and lead to seal the stone back then, which is why those buildings were—Seri, good grief.”

  Seri had wrapped her arms around Arjenie in a hug—and boosted her right off the ground. “It’s so good to see you!”

  Arjenie’s cousin was a full head shorter than her and nowhere near strong enough to pick her up this way—except that her Gift gave her a boost. Telekinesis. “Okay, Wonder Woman, you’ve been practicing. Now put me down.”

  Seri did that but kept her hands on Arjenie’s arms. “You look fantastic.”

  “So do you.” Arjenie grinned and flicked a strand of Seri’s very short hair—a new look for her, but Seri liked to change things around. So far she’d changed her major twice. “Got that unisex thing going, I see. It’s cute on you.”

  “Unisex!” she cried, indignant.

  “Now pretend you have some manners so I can introduce you. Benedict, this brat is my cousin Seri. Seri, this is Benedict.”

  Benedict had bent to offer Havoc his hand to sniff. Either the little terrier had forgotten their earlier encounter, or she’d decided all that dominance stuff was resolved. He straightened and held out his hand. “Good to meet you.”

  Seri let go of Arjenie and smiled to give Benedict the benefit of her dimples as she took his hand. “You’re a big one, aren’t you?”

  “Big enough. I hear you like to ski.”

  “I love to ski, and I’m good at it. Much better than my twin.”

  Sammy arrived with a snort of amusement. “She likes to fall down. Good at it, too.”

  “And who broke a leg winter before last?”

  Sammy turned to Benedict. “I’m the better skier, but like I said, she falls really well. Much better at falling than me. She’s had so much practice. I’m Samuel, but everyone calls me Sammy.”

  He didn’t hold out a hand, but then, his hands were full with those sacks.

  “Good to meet you,” Benedict said. “You’ve been collecting holly.”

  “For wreaths. Seri got this notion that she just had to make a couple wreaths, and nothing would do for that but fresh holly, so we’ve been tramping around the woods for hours. Not that the wreaths won’t look great, but—”

  “They know about Uncle Nate’s dream,” Arjenie told him.

  “Oh. Well, in addition to looking gorgeous, they’ll offer some protection when we add the elderberries and a whiff of magic.”

  “Hazel,” Seri said firmly, and bent to pick up Havoc, who was panting tiredly.

  Sammy shook his head. “Not hazel. I keep telling you—”

  “Why reinvent the wheel when—”

  “Persimmon seeds worked in the—”

  “Which was a totally different—”

  “But without the lemongrass. I know.”

  “Feverfew?”

  “Not unless the North is—”

  “I don’t think so. West and Air.”

  “Air? Air? Are you nuts? See you inside,” Sammy added to them, and the twins moved off with Seri stroking Havoc, arguing in the abbreviated way that made sense only to them.

  Benedict watched them leave, his head cocked. “Are they telepathic?”

  “Not in the usual sense,” Robin said. “I wonder what they’re up to.”

  “Ah.” Arjenie nodded. “I wondered about the feverfew. Feverfew does not make sense for protective wreaths.”

  “Plus they were off the land for about an hour earlier.”

  “You didn’t ask them about it.”

  “They’d tell me they were gathering holly. Which they undoubtedly did, and if I asked what else they were doing, they’d tell me what they saw on their walk, where they stopped to look at an ant bed or something. Everything that actually occurred except the thing they don’t want me to know about.” She looked at Benedict. “They don’t lie to me, but they are ingenious about avoiding the truth at times.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “You think they called Coyote here?”

  She shook her head. “They’re up to something, but not that. They know better. Magically speaking, you can mix traditions in a spell if you’re careful, experienced, and knowledgeable. But invocation is spiritual magic. Spiritual magic is accessed through faith, through a particular religious or spiritual practice. Basically, they’re too Wiccan to try contacting Native Powers.”

  “You’re sure of this.”

  Arjenie exchanged a look with her aunt. “They know better,” Robin repeated.

  “Feedback loop,” Arjenie said.

  A small V appeared between Aunt Robin’s eyebrows. She looked at the house, where the back door was just shutting behind the twins. “Feedback loop,” she said slowly, “is family shorthand for what happens when Sammy and Seri stop arguing.”

  Arjenie could tell Benedict needed more explanation. “When one of the twins gets an idea in his or her head and gets the other one to buy into it, a self-contained reality sets up shop in their heads. It is very hard to penetrate all that certainty. Sometimes,” she added, wanting to be fair, “they’re even right. Like with Amos Brown.”

  Robin sighed. “Being right one time in five just makes them harder to convince the other four times.”

  Arjenie thought about the summer of the aliens, the “gate” that blew up a small utility shed, and the time the twins decided everyone was wrong and telekinesis really could be used to fly. “They’re older now,” she said, trying to convince herself.

  “Even Seri and Sammy couldn’t suddenly believe that invoking a Native Power would work out well for them,” Aunt Robin said slowly, “but an invitation . . .” After a moment she shook her head. “The use of invitation is so basic, so fundamental to Wicca. It’s hard to believe they’d suddenly decide they could use it for other Powers.”

  “There’s a difference between invitation and invocation?” Benedict asked.

  Robin nodded. “A large difference, actually. An invocation is like tugging on a Power’s sleeve—or even summoning one, if it’s a minor power and you have enough power yourself. An invitation is more like an e-mail. If you address it right, it goes where you intended, and the Power can answer it, ignore it, or act on it.”

  “Wiccan rites usually offer invitations,” Arjenie added. “We invite the Powers of the North, South, East, and West to bring their protection to a circle, for example. We don’t compel.”

  Benedict’s eyebrows went up. “Your spells depend on the whim of these Powers?”

  “Rites and spells are different. Most spells don’t have a spiritual component. In Wicca, the rites do.” Wanting to give him a more complete picture, she added, “Non-Wiccan practitioners like Cullen will tell you that North, South, East and West are fundamental energies, not Powers. That’s because these energies aren’t animate, not personalities or beings, so the spiritual component isn’t necessary. And they’re right on one level. You can cast a circle and practice magic without being Wiccan or of any other faith. But we believe that the spiritual component both enhances our magic
and grounds us in the larger reality.”

  He thought that over a moment. “Could someone offer an invitation without including the spiritual component?”

  “I don’t see how. Unless they somehow convinced themselves they were working with a type of energy and not addressing a Power, but no one who knows anything about it could . . .” Arjenie stopped. Because once in a while the twins convinced themselves that down was in fact up.

  For a moment no one said anything. “I need,” Robin said, “to talk to Sammy and Seri. Now.”

  Chapter Five

  Benedict managed to get in a couple more questions as they headed back to the house. He needed to know how best to integrate what his guards did with what Robin knew and could do with her land-tie.

  She did not give him much information. Of course, she considered herself in charge of security here and he was still largely unknown to her. Not that she came out and said so, but the assumption was implicit in what she did and didn’t say.

  Pity she didn’t know what she was doing.

  Knowledge bias was unavoidable in security work, of course. Generals were always fighting the last war. You couldn’t help focusing your resources—which were always limited—on the threats you knew and understood. Take Homeland Security. They knew how to protect against shoe bombs and certain liquid explosives, but as the “underwear bomber” had proved, they didn’t know how to guard against all explosives. And they completely ignored the possibility of a magical attack on a plane in flight. It had never happened, so how likely could it be?

  Robin was in a similar position. Her family and her coven had been safe here for a long time. She knew how to protect them from familiar threats—suspicious neighbors, sensation seekers, the occasional fervent antimagic activist. She did not know how to protect against attack or infiltration by a determined enemy who possessed excellent technical, magical, and monetary resources. It had never happened, so how likely could it be?

  Plus, Robin hadn’t had the land-tie, and the responsibility that went with it, for long. The woman Arjenie called Nana—Belle Delacroix—had held it until last year, when she decided to turn over responsibility for the land and the coven to her son’s wife so she could travel with Andrew, her remaining husband. Her other husband, Samuel, had died a little over two years ago.

  Benedict’s Chosen had not been raised conventionally.

  “. . . won’t wake up if an animal wanders onto the land, no,” Robin was saying, “but if a human does, I will.”

  She’d already said that cars created an interruption in the energy of the land, one that would wake her even if she wasn’t on alert. But cars weren’t the only way people moved around. “What about a human on horseback?”

  “I can tell the difference between a horse that’s being ridden and one that’s wandering loose.”

  “In your sleep?”

  Robin’s mouth opened. Then closed in a frown. She was still frowning as she reached for the back door. “We’ll talk more later.”

  In the short time they’d been outside, the temperature had dipped from crisp to chilly as day slid into twilight. The bright, warm kitchen was inviting. Benedict smiled as he stepped inside—taking the rear, because threats were less likely to come from the house.

  The silence was his first clue. Then the smell—anger plus other emotions he couldn’t sort out in this form. There were a lot of tense bodies in that warm, welcoming kitchen.

  “What?” Arjenie said, frowning as she stopped and looked around.

  “Clay?” Robin said.

  “We need a family meeting.”

  “Wait a minute,” Seri began.

  “It’s not always best to drag everything into the open,” Sammy said.

  “And at Yule—”

  “Hurt feelings.”

  “Sit,” Robin said. “And be quiet until it’s your turn.”

  Carmen’s brother’s name was Ben, which disconcerted Benedict when he heard it again. How had he forgotten a variant on his own name? Pure distraction, he supposed. That other Ben was very politely asked to relieve Gary of kid duty so Gary could participate. Partners counted the same as spouses in the Delacroix clan—as family.

  Benedict wondered if he was considered Arjenie’s partner. He offered to go chop wood, but Arjenie told him he was family and an adult so he would certainly take part. No one argued, though Sammy looked uneasy and Seri tossed her head. But then the meeting was probably about him. Made sense for him to be there.

  There was enough room for all of them at the big cherry table, though they were a bit crowded. Benedict had just enough time to check in with Adam and Josh before Gary joined them.

  Robin sat at one end of the table, Clay at the other. A fat pinecone sat on the table in front of Robin. Gary seated himself on Benedict’s right, Clay gave Robin a nod, and the two of them held out their hands. Arjenie took Benedict’s hand on one side; after a second of observation he understood what was required and held out his other hand to Gary. Once everyone was clasping hands, Robin spoke. “We seek wisdom and clarity, and ask for the patience needed to reach these goals, and for the memory of who we are as individuals and as a family to guide us. Blessed be.”

  Most of the others echoed “blessed be,” though there were a couple “amens” mixed in. Arjenie and Gary both squeezed Benedict’s hands before releasing them.

  “All right,” Robin said, and set a pinecone on the table. “Clay, you asked for this meeting. I have something to bring up, too, but it may be connected to your issue. I’d like you to go first.” She passed the pinecone down the table.

  When it reached Clay, he held it in one hand as he began. “Seri and Sammy have a concern about Arjenie’s relationship with Benedict. I don’t care for the way they’ve expressed this concern, but it needs airing.”

  “I—” Seri started, then visibly controlled herself. “Excuse me.”

  Clay smiled and handed her the pinecone.

  “Thank you.” She sat up very straight. “I didn’t want to do this in a family meeting because I thought it would hurt Arjenie. But here we are, so”—she turned to Robin—“I’d like to open this up.”

  Robin thought, then said, “Ten minutes open discussion.”

  Seri moved the pinecone to the center of the table. “Here’s the deal. Arjenie didn’t come home for my and Sammy’s birthday.”

  “I explained that!” Arjenie protested. “And I hated to miss it, but I called. I sent presents.”

  “Yes, and I love the sweater, but this isn’t about presents. You didn’t come, and I . . . well, I’m sorry, but I didn’t believe your explanation.”

  Sammy snorted. “Too busy at work. Yeah, that’s believable.”

  Pink flags flew on Arjenie’s cheeks. “Since my work involves helping the people who stopped other people from destroying the country, maybe it should be believable.”

  “Our birthdays were after those horrible Humans First rallies.”

  “And you thought that meant the problem was solved?”

  “It’s not like that’s the only thing,” Seri said.

  Sammy picked up that thought and ran with it. “You moved across the country. Pfft. Just like that. You haven’t been home since you took that mysterious trip to San Diego—”

  “Which you have never explained—”

  “Except that Dya was involved somehow, but she left before we got to see her. You stayed at the lupi clanhome and you won’t tell anyone why—”

  “Even though you didn’t know any lupi before you went there—”

  “But you stayed at their clanhome and met Benedict, and while you were there a mountain sort of collapsed—”

  “When its node imploded, and I know you were involved, but you won’t talk about it, and you say Benedict can’t move here, but—”

  “You won’t explain why. You told Mom that you two are plighted—”

  “But he’s lupi, and everyone knows they aren’t monogamous—”

  “And you plighted after y
ou’d known him a few days! No time at all for that kind of—”

  “Life-changing decision, and no one in the family had even talked to him, so—”

  “We think Benedict’s controlling you somehow.” Sammy finished with a scowl, which he aimed at Benedict.

  There was silence for a moment. Carmen broke it hesitantly. “Arjenie deals with top secret information, with sensitive information . . . I don’t think we can lump in her silence about the collapse of that mountain with her silence on other subjects.”

  “And yet,” Stephen said, his narrow face thoughtful, “they’re connected. Not directly, but there’s a connection.”

  “Stephen,” Arjenie said reproachfully. “You, too?”

  He spread his hands. “I’m not jumping on the twins’ bandwagon. Just saying that you’re keeping a lot of secrets, and those secrets are connected somehow.”

  Stephen Delacroix had a weak but well-trained patterning Gift, according to Arjenie. He must have picked up on the pattern that connected Arjenie to all those event and their common denominator: him. “If I understand correctly,” Benedict said, “open discussion means I can speak.”

  Robin nodded. “Yes, of course.”

  “Arjenie is a member of my clan now. She knows clan secrets that do connect obliquely to—”

  “What?”

  “She’s in your clan?”

  “Are you saying you turned her into a lupus?”

  “Don’t be an idiot. You can’t get turned into—”

  “Does that mean you’re married? And you didn’t tell us? I can’t believe you didn’t—”

  “Lupi don’t get married! Everyone knows that.”

  “So what’s he doing here if he isn’t Arjenie’s plighted partner?”

  “Enough.” That was Clay, not yelling but putting enough volume and certainty in his voice to cut through the exclamations and comments coming from everyone. “I think,” he said dryly as he claimed the pinecone, “we’d best go to directed discussion. Robin?”