by Anna Abner
“What was that?”
Svetlana smirked as if greatly pleased with herself. “A spell to prove your worth. If you ever think you might want to change things, go into the American headquarters and cast that spell on the circle of six or any other witch who challenges you. If you’re more powerful, they’ll have no choice but to kneel to you. And the best part is, once you’ve proven your superiority, the other witch can never cast a harmful spell on you again.”
Roz wasn’t sure she believed the tale, but she’d felt the authority in Svetlana’s spell. The problem was looking like a doddering fool saying that spell to anyone in the tower. They’d laugh her right out the front door.
“Why don’t you take over the Coven, then? Use its influence for good?”
“I’m retired,” she said again.
Violet coughed delicately into her hand.
“My friend.” In all the excitement, Roz had momentarily forgotten the reason they were there. “Can you help her?”
“Yes, yes.” Svetlana crossed to Violet and held out her hands. Maks took Jackson from her, and when Violet clasped Svetlana’s hand, the other woman pulled her to her feet. Her power, which had never calmed from the last time she’d called it, picked up momentum. “Reveal,” she hissed. Violet’s belly glowed through her shirt. “Oh, what a horrible thing to do to such a beautiful young woman.” She clucked her tongue. “But I don’t think it was meant for you.”
“No,” Maks agreed in a throaty voice. “It was meant for me. She suffers my pain. Can you take it away? Can you put it into me where it belongs?”
“Maks.” Violet paled. “No.”
Svetlana ignored them. “Roz, hand me the knife on the bookcase and a clean glass.”
Roz found the items sitting among potted plants in the kitchen. She handed both to Svetlana.
“Don’t you dare,” Violet warned. “He’s suffered more than his share. He doesn’t deserve—”
Her eyes going yellow, the witch nicked the tip of Violet’s index finger, and a bead of bright red blood appeared. “Expel,” she whispered before bending her head and suckling the bloody fingertip. Three sharp intakes, and then Svetlana turned and spat a wad of black mucus into the glass. The dark jelly vibrated as if alive. Quickly, the witch sprinkled it with vodka and then lit it on fire. She didn’t take her eyes off the muck until it had burned to a stain around the bottom of the glass.
“Oh, my God,” Violet exclaimed, pivoting pretty quickly from terror to outsized relief. “I’m starving!”
“Help yourself to anything in the kitchen,” Svetlana told her with a good-natured wave. “There’s bread and butter and all the vegetables you can eat.”
Roz watched as Violet rushed into the kitchen and began shoving anything edible into her mouth. Chuckling, Maks moved Jackson from one arm to the other. “I’ll go help her.”
“Food has never tasted so good!” Violet exclaimed from the next room.
Svetlana laughed, too, and it softened her eyes. She smiled at Roz. “How did you learn to access your power without calling it?”
“Um,” Roz tucked her hair behind one ear. “My boyfriend helped me push past a lot of my self-imposed barriers.”
“How old were you when you first became aware of your power?”
“Fifteen.”
“When did you apply to the Coven?” Svetlana wanted to know.
“When I turned eighteen,” Roz said. “My mother was not supportive, and I couldn’t apply before then.”
“Did anyone from the Coven meet with you before rejecting you?”
“No,” Roz said. “It was all done through the mail.”
Svetlana nodded as if things were becoming clear. Though to Roz, her situation was about as clear as mud.
“You were foretold,” Svetlana guessed. “The Oracle or one of the lesser seers knew of your existence and warned the Coven. Rather than kill you they decided to withhold a magical education from you in the hope that you’d wither away and never be heard from again. But they should have known better. A natural witch with your degree of power will never wither. Not even isolation and ignorance can keep you down.”
“I have a prophecy,” Roz admitted. “A witch from Miami will bring about a new age of magic in the Coven,” she quoted.
“Ahh.” Svetlana sat in a chair and adjusted her clothing. “Of course.”
“Can you tell me more about the circle of six?” Roz asked, hearing Violet in the kitchen making moaning noises and Maks’ appreciative laughter.
“I used to be the high priestess of the Coven,” Svetlana began, settling into her chair as if preparing for a long story, tucking fiery red hair behind one ear. “Back when the Coven included myself and three women. And we met at the library in L’viv to discuss witchcraft. On full moons, we’d gather in the woods where we cast magic and accessed our power.” She sighed, a tiny smile lighting her face. “We were a sisterhood. We loved and supported one another.”
“What happened?” Roz prompted because something had gone wrong. The current Coven was no loving sisterhood.
“Oleksander happened. His arrival twisted the natural world out of order—vampires multiplied, shapeshifters rose, seers became more than legend. Witches, too, were affected by this new wellspring of magic on earth. We increased and spread.”
“My first thought,” she continued, “was to protect the Oracle, which we did. We concealed and supported her so that she need only worry about her visions, not about some heretic coming in the night to cut her throat. And I wanted to teach the young witches how to use their powers for the good of humanity. Those were the principles we lived under in the old days. Things were simpler then.” Svetlana shrugged. “I must sound like an old fool.”
“Not at all,” Roz assured, thinking the beauty before her would never be called old anything. “Those are the same tenets the Coven follows today. You set up something that’s lasted for decades.”
“They believe those words in theory only,” Svetlana warned. “Fifteen years ago, Heather Connelly traveled to my country to be near the source of all magic. She rose in the ranks. She was a promising witch with more than average ability, but she thirsts for power and revenge. She lost people she loved. She lost her way. And the more witches who joined our Coven, the more young women she found with similar mindsets to her own.”
“But how did they usurp your control?” Roz asked.
“They couldn’t harm me with magic because of the spell I showed you, but they could hurt me physically,” Svetlana said. “They burned me alive.”
Roz blanched, with shock and a little shame at what they’d done. “How did you survive?”
“My power protected me,” Svetlana explained.
“Astonishing.”
“Have you ever been burned by fire?” she asked pointedly.
Roz shook her head. Of course not. That was medieval.
“Well, I don’t recommend it. After witnessing my girls light the pyre, I couldn’t be their leader anymore. I couldn’t even look at them. So, I retired, and I let the Coven be whatever it would be. But Heather Connelly wasn’t strong enough to run the entire cadre of witches on her own, so she partnered her power with a friend’s. But two witches still weren’t enough. They brought in a third, then a fourth. It wasn’t enough power until they were six. Between them, they have enough power to protect and conceal the identity of the Oracle and train young witches.”
“They needed six witches to replace one of you?” she asked. The First Witch must be fairly sparkly with mojo.
Svetlana shrugged. “You can replace them all with one of you.”
Roz started to feel uncomfortable. She was no leader. “I wouldn’t even know…” Where to start or what to do or how to talk to other witches.
“The Coven needs a fresh heart and mind,” Svetlana said. “You weren’t given so much power by accident, my dear, or for no reason.”
Violet and Maks returned, arm in arm, and yet Vi still managed to munch on an apple. “Th
ank you, I can’t tell you how much I needed a decent meal.”
“You’re welcome to whatever I have,” Svetlana assured.
“We should go,” Ali said, standing. “With this good news, we can get a flight out tomorrow morning and take Violet home.”
“Yeah,” Roz agreed. “We’re all a little homesick. This wasn’t exactly a vacation.”
Maks carried Jackson toward the door. “Good meeting you, Svetlana,” he said, some of his old flippancy resurfacing, “but I’m afraid I require less primitive accommodations.”
“Whatever he says,” Violet said, chuckling giddily around a mouthful of fresh carrots sticks.
Roz felt rushed. “I have so much to ask you,” she said to Svetlana. “So many questions.” Was she still in contact with the Coven’s circle of six? What advice would she give a witch rejected by the organization? Could she trust the Oracle—essentially an employee of the Coven?
The others filed out the door, and Roz was left standing alone on the stoop with Svetlana.
“Roz,” she said, suddenly serious, “don’t waste the gifts you’ve been given. There are less fortunate witches all across the globe that need a mentor like you.”
“Then why are you hiding in a cabin in the middle of nowhere? I could say the same to you.”
Svetlana’s face crumpled. “Watching my so-called friends laugh with glee as my flesh melted… I’m sorry. I can’t go back until the circle is broken.”
Sensing Svetlana would say no more, Roz passed her a card with her number and email printed on the front and simply nodded good-bye. “Thank you for breaking the curse. I hope we meet again.”
Svetlana waved from the doorway. “We will.”
Chapter Eleven
The relief Maks experienced walking out of Svetlana’s farmhouse with Jackson and Violet in tow could not be contained. He was nearly delirious with it.
The curse was gone, destroyed, and they were all fine now. No more looming threats, no more sneaky curses. Violet could go on with her life, a healthy normal human being.
“I’ll drive from here on out,” Maks announced, taking the keys from Roz as they stepped out of Svetlana’s home and into the dappled sunshine.
“Why?” Ali asked. “What’s wrong?”
He smiled at her, feeling parts of his crusty heart sloughing off to reveal bright, new tissue underneath. He couldn’t save Katya, but Violet was safe, and maybe he could help his daughter. “I left something here, something I want back.”
Frowning, obviously still suspicious of him—and he couldn’t blame her—she nodded. “Okay. Will it take long?”
“We’ll be an hour out of our way, tops,” he promised.
The three women climbed into the car, Ali in the front seat beside him. “Where are we going?”
“Home,” he said simply.
She didn’t ask any more questions, and he was glad because returning to his native land brought back memories, both positive and negative. His childhood in Odessa. Days at the beach. School. His family. Later, he’d become entangled with Olek and struggled to survive in a new world as a mythological creature.
But then Katya and Anya had come into his life and given it meaning. Going back to the house they shared was both agonizing and somehow a bit of closure.
Two hours out of the woods, Maks pulled onto a paved road that led into a suburb of Stryi. The houses were small, but cozy—white shutters, clipped lawns, and flowers in window boxes. It hadn’t changed much, other than growing a little rougher around the edges.
More weeds than he remembered poked through lawns and clustered along fences. Roofs were sagging a bit more than they used to. But overall, it was like stepping through time to a world he’d been grieving the loss of for years.
He parked the rental car behind a dark brown Japanese pickup truck in the driveway that had once been his.
“Can I come in?” Ali asked hesitantly.
Maks’ heart swelled. “Of course.” He rounded the car and offered Ali a hand to help her out.
“I’ll come, too,” Violet said, hopping out of the backseat with a bag of pork rinds pilfered from Roz’s backpack. She munched two at a time.
“I’ll wait here with Jackson, if it’s all the same to you,” Roz said, rolling down a window and sticking one leg out. “I want to FaceTime Lukas, and this is the first decent service I’ve found since we left L’viv.”
Maks, his heart in his throat, approached the front door and knocked briskly. In this house, he’d felt like a man. He wanted—needed—to remember.
A young man opened the door minus any sort of shirt. He was too young to have even been alive when Maks lived here.
“Hello,” Maks greeted in Ukrainian. “I used to live in this house with my sister,” he gestured at Ali. “Do you mind if we look around?”
He seemed ready to refuse, but Maks put his arm around Ali and pulled her close to his side. He tried to smile in a cheery way. He really didn’t want to kill the man to gain entrance.
“Yeah, okay.” The man let them in. “But I’m going back to bed. Just shut the door on your way out, and don’t touch any of my food.”
Maks gestured for Ali to precede him. The foyer opened onto a living room with a fireplace and cozy nooks for tea tables and lounge chairs. Off to the right was the kitchen, to the left a dining room. A hallway between led to the two bedrooms.
“This is where Katya would knit your booties and caps.” He nodded toward a sunny corner of the living room. “You slept in a cradle beside her. I often came through the front door and found you both here.”
Ali stared as if in awe, and he grinned, leading her further inside.
“Your bedroom was behind the dining room,” he said, leading the way. “The bedroom behind the kitchen got too hot for you to sleep comfortably.” He veered into the room he’d shared with Katya, but he stopped dead in the doorway. His enhanced senses could still pick up a trace of her scent embedded in the walls and floorboards, even after so many years, and his eyes teared up.
“Damn it,” he cursed softly under his breath. He hadn’t cried since he was seventeen years old, and he wouldn’t start now. Sniffing hard, he packed the emotion deep down inside.
He was so distracted by images of the past flickering into the present that he didn’t notice Ali beside him until she slid her hand into his. “You really loved her, didn’t you? I wasn’t sure until right now. You’re such an accomplished liar I honestly didn’t know what to believe.”
Maks met her eyes. “Everything I did, in those early days, was for Katya and for you, to make our lives better. I may not be your biological father, but my blood runs through your veins too. You’re my daughter, and I love you.”
She blinked suspiciously sparkly eyes and then threw her arms around his neck, holding him so tight, the same way she used to wrap her chubby toddler arms around him. He couldn’t speak for a moment, embracing her again, smelling her sweet scent, the same scent she’d always had. Her same blonde hair. Her same soft skin. Maks would never let her go again. He would protect her until his last breath.
“I love you so much,” he whispered into her hair.
When she pulled away, she ducked her head, wiping at her eyes and nose. “I was wrong about you,” she said with a hitch in her voice. “I didn’t realize the monster was all an act. I’m sorry I didn’t see it sooner.”
“How do you think I’ve survived so long?” he asked with a hint of his usual snark.
After a last brush against her long hair, he crossed the room to the corner by the window and knelt. He slid the new owner’s side table out of the way and used his fingernails to pry up a loose floorboard. The next one popped up a little easier, and the third one easier still.
“Violet, will you be lookout?” he asked.
“Uh, sure.” She shoved another handful of pork rinds into her mouth and then took position at the bedroom door.
Though to be honest, if the occupant of the other bedroom so much as fluffed the p
illow under his snoring, stinky head, Maks would hear it. He just didn’t need any surprises.
When he’d revealed a hole about three-square feet in size, he squeezed through the opening and dropped beneath the wooden foundation of the house.
“Oh, crap,” Ali exclaimed. “What’s down there?”
“Come and see,” he said.
Ali, brave girl that she was, slithered onto her belly and dangled her legs into the dark, dusty space. When she pushed off, Maks caught her and softened her landing onto a dirt floor. More than one kind of creepy crawly thing skittered inside the space about as big as a typical walk-in closet.
“What is this place?” Ali asked.
“I dug it out while we lived here to keep some things safe.” Along the far wall, he’d stacked a couple duffel bags atop a large metal footlocker. “Olek was raiding like mad, going from village to village, and stealing anything not nailed down. He didn’t notice when I helped myself to a percentage. To be honest, he probably expected me to. Part of being a monster.” He unzipped the top duffel and under a cloud of spider webs and dust, stacks of Euros lay waiting to be spent.
“Wow,” Ali admired, bending over his shoulder. “That’s a fortune. What, is it a million Euros?”
“Fifty million,” he murmured, “last time I checked.”
“Wow,” she said again.
He tossed the first duffel up through the hole, followed by the second. The footlocker, he saved for last.
He pried open the lid and nodded, satisfied at the amount of gold, silver, and fine jewelry within. Lots of nice, fine things stolen from innocent people. It had never bothered him before, but somehow with Ali looking over his shoulder, he felt remorse for having had a hand in any of it. At one point, he’d differentiated what was truly evil, in his mind, to what was sort of evil. Stealing from humans, beating humans, not saying a word when Olek raped, tortured, drained, and killed both humans and infecteds did not make him a guiltless bystander, the way he used to believe. These treasures were blood money.
But maybe, from now on, Olek’s spoils would be used to help people.
