Death's Primordial Kiss (The Silvered Moon Diaries Book 1)

by Romarin Demetri

  “I’m not sure I can help you out with your subconscious. And I get that you don’t want to bring it up to Maddi.” She looked down in thought. “Is there a chance that you might actually like him?”

  “I… um…”

  “It’s okay. We’ve survived worse.”

  I nodded.

  “Oh no,” Helaine said in an exaggerated tone.

  “What, Helaine?”

  “I technically got to snog your crush before you did.”

  “Stop it,” I laughed, “or you’re going to kill me.”

  As long as Helaine made me laugh, absurd and unfortunate things like this were funny. She also knew when to distract me.

  “Speaking of life on the love front, I’m going to ask my mentor about an attainment. A very specific one.”

  “What are the conditions?”

  “It’s the solitary witch attainment. I forsake the advances of ‘suitors’ until I am officially initiated.”

  “A year?” I gaped.

  “Just about,” she said. “It’s old school, reminiscent of the old rules, a way to honor the tradition.” She stuck out her tongue in jest with a sly roll to her eyes. “The Mages give me a power boost when I am initiated, and they’ll consider my gift power more seriously. It can be whatever I want. I finish as an initiate a season early too, and while I have to wait for the ceremony, I’ll technically be able to go out on my own and try and find Moon. I was going to ask you if you wanted to complete the attainment with me… but that’s impossible for you. I couldn’t ask to interfere with your training.”

  “After Kenny, and then the mix up with Jaime—more or less our bonding experience with him—I’m done with boys—and men who are far too old to be liking me—for now.”

  “Not unless they’re the boy of your dreams,” she joked.

  “Nightmares,” I corrected. “I am taking up painting to channel my energy into something that doesn’t have to do with justice or fire. I think I’m getting somewhere.”

  “That’s a nice green canvas in the corner,” she commented.

  I sighed.

  “There is something else you should probably know, Rose, and it’s not a big deal, but it might dishearten you enough to straighten out your dreams.”

  Helaine and I didn’t fight much because we always tried to work on our friendship, which meant coming clean and debriefing one another. This time, I wasn’t so sure that I wanted to hear what she was about to tell me.

  “Rose, when the whole event happened with your powers backfiring during Imbolc, we kept something from you.”

  I felt anger surge into my head and cloud my vision with a smoky red. I sincerely hoped that I didn’t go too far, and while Stan and Helaine said we weren’t left alone, that didn’t mean much.

  “It’s not what you might think, Rose.” Helaine cleared her throat. “You killed Jaime.”

  My mind was in a state of half reprieve and half fear.

  “Not to make assumptions, but I thought Jaime would have met enough Changelings to have immunity by now.”

  “He comes from a place where there weren’t any supernatural subcultures. He saved money for years to come here and find his family,” Helaine told me.

  “How did you know that?”

  “Emmy was talking about it after class one day,” Helaine said. “They are getting along well and Esper is quite upset that she has a favorite brother.”

  “I have to tell my dad that I k—”

  “No,” Helaine stopped me. “I know our code says you have to tell the Grand Master if you killed someone, but you can’t tell him. If someone overhears you—anyone—then it’s a big enough scandal to get you kicked out before initiation, Stan too.” She was right. “And hopefully,” she said, getting louder, “YOUR BLOODY SUBCONSCIOUS CAN HEAR ME AND KNOCK IT OFF.”

  I broke into laughter.

  “That should be enough of a distraction until I find other ways to manage all of this energy. Ways that don’t include seeing the dreams through.”

  “If you insist,” she teased.

  Of course, I wanted to see how far the dreams went and experience those things, but I felt like a voyeur in my own life, peeking in on fake moments. I was good at creative solutions, but I couldn’t say that I had battled myself before. I always used to be on my own side, but the energy I rearranged wasn’t my own, and these were foreign emotions.

  Perhaps Brigid had awakened something in me that had always been there… and maybe she knew I was ready for it, and I was just second-guessing myself. I couldn’t wait to see what else with messing with magic could do to my life.

  I quite liked when it messed with me back.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  Darkly Ever After

  Helaine

  At dinner the next day, the five of us caught up, a salad bar fresh from the garden in front of us. We had official, life-threatening, and world-protecting business to attend to, but that didn’t mean that it couldn’t be over bevs. I for one was growing accustomed to murder mystery dinners.

  The second I sat down at our dining table, everyone was quiet.

  “Guys, I’m really okay. Not even a scar. See?” I pulled down the v-neck on my shirt slightly to expose the milky skin on my upper chest. You couldn’t even tell.

  “You can put those away,” Stan instructed.

  “Sorry,” I said before laughing. The mood of the room was instantly lighter.

  “Three dead witch hunters,” Gregory commented. He had a pad of paper out next to his plate but hadn’t written anything down yet.

  “Three hot dead witch hunters and a fourth on the loose. I really should have seen that bloke hiding there.” I sighed, looking down at my salad, and for only the fiftieth time today realized how in reality, I should have been dead right now. I was still more sore about it than anyone who was currently living and breathing ought to be.

  “No one would have,” Maddi reminded me. “But finding where he’s at now is important. Were they really that cute?”

  “I have a sketch from the memory of the chalice you threw him,” Gregory said, opening his notepad.

  “Oh,” Rose agreed. “Yeah, that kind of murderer is going to have an easy life. Until I get to him that is. Are they all brothers?”

  “They’re related, but maybe cousins. They all had the same hair and eye color according to Helaine,” Gregory said.

  “Girls notice these things,” Helaine said, “and eye color in the underground is a telling feature. Changelings have purple eyes,” I glanced at Rose. “Luisons have crystal blue or clear gold; vampires have darker, more pigmented versions of human eyes, as do witches sometimes, but a brown-eyed witch is most common.” I smiled, that was me. “But hazel…”

  “It’s a human gene caused by incomplete dominance. A mix of brown and blue only found in humans,” Stan said. “If hazel appears in the underground it’s pronounced by an emerald green.”

  I looked to Stan.

  “My mum loved biology,” he said. “So I heard, and without her advancements, I wouldn’t be here. I have read all of her medical journals and she knew a lot about everyone.”

  “So humans with little training on combat think they can pick us off by canceling out our powers?” I asked.

  “I don’t suppose they want all of us dead. I think I’m onto something,” Gregory told us. “What do four of us have in common?”

  “A riddle?” I said, intrigued. “That depends on who number five is.”

  “You’re number five, Laurence,” he said with a frown.

  “We’re amalgams. We have more than one power,” Stan said almost immediately.

  “I didn’t get any powers from my dad’s side,” I admitted, “human powers usually manifest through need, and I didn’t have the need my father had. There is little evidence that a human’s powers are genetic.”

  “True,” Maddi said. “Powers like your dad’s mind-reading and telekinesis aren’t usually passed down, but the predisposition to develop powers�
��any power, is. I just don’t think you will because you’ve tapped into your water side.”

  “I surmise,” said Gregory, as Maddi shot him a look for using that word, “that someone wants amalgams in the Coven and is using witch hunters to rearrange us.”

  “So you’re saying that when I got in as Water, instead of Rose, like everyone thought she would—that I threw off someone’s plan of having a team of amalgams in the Coven? That they probably wanted Theodore Faziet,” Hold the good kisser line, “Sorry, Stan. Please don’t repeat that.”

  I won’t repeat nor verify.

  I chuckled before continuing, “Teddy was an amalgam with a family history of both fire and water, whose grandmum was a Spriggan.”

  “Maybe that’s why you have nightmares,” Stan said to Rose.

  “I thought you didn’t—” Rose shot me a look of warning, daring me to finish that sentence to Stan. I cleared my thoughts at once. Fortunately, Stan couldn’t read how awkward Rose was unless she blushed or gave another outward sign, and she would never forgive me if I revealed her predicament to him.

  “We should look into Teddy’s family just like we looked into Moon’s,” Gregory said. “We need to see if they’re somehow involved.”

  Stan looked to Rose insistently. It was her turn to talk.

  “When my mother met the island seer, Delilah, Delilah told her that I’d be the most powerful force for good there ever was, and the most powerful force for good can only exist if there is the most powerful evil exists as well.”

  Everyone was quiet, even Stan and I, who knew about the prophecy. Rose continued.

  “One Christmas, when I was five, and before I saw the first Coven auditions, I was absolutely terrified of the holiday season. I’d heard the song ‘God rest ye Merry Gentlemen,’ and the lyric ‘To save us all from Satan’s powers’ and was convinced that if Jesus was out there, that Satan would be too. If I had to get up in the middle of the night I would run down the hall trying to close my eyes. Sometimes I’d hide under my blankets, and the ceiling fan would startle me every time I came out from under them. Instead of being happy about the joy of the holiday season and that we were saved, I took it to mean the season of the devil. The shadows on the wall behind my photo frames even scared me, and I knew that the nightlight in the hallway couldn’t save me from him.”

  “Wow, Avereis,” Gregory said, “we’d all expect that from Stan, but from you?”

  “I grew up in a wonderful environment with loving parents who were well respected in the community, but it didn’t mean that I was safe from evil. I always knew that it was there. And now… we’re going to have to face the most powerful kind there is. I know it’s on its way. It’s probably already here.”

  “Say it’s here,” Gregory quipped. “What are we going to do about it?”

  “I’m invoking the solitary witch attainment,” Helaine said. “Whoever is out there won’t expect me to be able to go out on my own a season ahead of time, and we will have the element of surprise. After all of the pressure placed on me my whole life, I expected to rebel once I got here, but it turns out that I love the structure and by embracing it, I’ve grown more than I thought possible.”

  “Plus you know what invoking the attainment means right?” Maddi asked mischievously.

  “I’m going to meet someone as soon as I invoke it,” I said back, and we exchanged a high five over the table. I was hoping karma would bring me the other wick to my candle. I wanted more than anything to find my Twin Flame.

  “All of this murder and manipulation has got me thinking,” Stan said.

  “Here we go,” Gregory muttered.

  “I’ve been hiding from the people who killed my parents, and I don’t think I want to anymore. What if it’s the same people who killed the Hallorans? There is no trace of the person who hired the hunters, just like there was no trace on that night.”

  “It’s too early to say,” Gregory warned. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “Yes,” Stan said. “I think it’s time to give the Coven more power, and Althestan is the person to do it. With both Laurence and I in the Coven, and since the next presidential election isn’t for four more years, we have more say than ever. We’re going to need that.”

  “Are you sure you want to Stanley?” Maddi said.

  “Like I said, Althestan, or maybe Hades, they hold the power we need.”

  I gawked at Stan, flabbergasted that he would get rid of the veil he worked hard to create. His gift power and what he wanted more than anything was to hide. He was sacrificing that for us. Stan had a spine I didn’t know he possessed. I knew in my heart that I shouldn’t pass quiet people off as submissive, but sometimes it was hard for me to remember that Stan was always making a plan, even if he was just watching.

  “I’ve been living other peoples’ lives as a Bathory, and it’s about time I start to embrace my own.”

  “You’ve grown too,” Maddi said to Stan. “And you even let Avereis hug you for thirty seconds at the mausoleum.”

  I glanced and Rose, but quickly shifted my attention back to Stan when I realized how red her face grew in the fraction of a second. Us locking eyes would have made it return, so I had to pretend not to notice as she covered her face by taking another sip of her drink, sorting things out with her Changeling powers.

  “I have,” Stan said, the hug not being a big deal to him. “I know there isn’t a price for using my Spirit power, but it was mentally exhausting to see a friend dead, and the looks on all your faces. We need Laurence. I like her.”

  I smiled in his direction. Maybe it was alright for Rose to have a crush on him, as long as I didn’t think it too clearly, that is.

  “We’re all alright now,” Gregory reminded us.

  “My element isn’t perfect right now, and I didn’t expect to have such a trying year,” Rose admitted. “And the next time I kill someone, do me a favor and tell me, please.”

  She made all of our faces fall.

  “Thanks,” she said, offering an olive branch. “I’m an amalgam. I need to be working on my powers as a Changeling, not the driving forces of fire. I was so consumed with getting into university that I thought I’d catch up later, but that hasn’t happened yet. My powers have taken on their own persona.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Maddi said more than asked.

  “Yes. I think so. I’m just channeling more power than I can control sometimes.”

  “This is your responsibility, Stanley,” Maddi reminded him. “You need to take care of your charge. She needs you to look out for her.”

  “I understand,” he said in defense, “But we all know Avereis is capable of defending herself.”

  “Not against love sick Canadians,” Gregory poked.

  “Gregory,” Rose laughed, “careful, or next time I’ll rearrange things so he’s interested in you.”

  “I deserved that,” Gregory said back with his own laugh.

  “We’ll focus on control for your Changeling powers, but you only have a year left, Avereis. You can’t spend the whole time ignoring fire,” Stan said with an air of caution.

  “I wouldn’t dream of ignoring the fire,” she told us all, to which I nearly sniggered. “Just as long as Helaine promises to not ever leave me.”

  I was quiet and nodded. That got deep fast. Leave it to Rose.

  “We started this together, and we’ll finish this together,” I said. “But I’m still ahead of you right now.”

  “For now,” Rose said back to me. I could practically see her counting off her next trials and attainments and dreams in her head. “Just for now.”

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get a short story, “The Fire Seer”.

  It’s déjà vu for Delilah when she stops a pyrotechnic accident at a London punk rock concert in 1986, and realizes that she’s seen it before—and that she’s the first fire element seer the London Coven has ever had. After one of their own is abducted by rogue witches, it’s clear that someone high up is playing everyone as fast and hard as a fifth chord chorus. Delilah’s premonitions might not be enough to stop the witches in charge, or challenge an ancient, hedonistic ritual that plagues London Coven hopefuls—not unless she can work in harmony with the other four elements. Can Delilah put away the past and future, and focus on the present to bring the guilty parties to dead end justice? The Fire Seer’s story combines dark fantasy and urban fantasy elements found in Demetri’s urban fantasy repertoire and contains a prominent love story that is suitable for young adults and above.

  Get the exclusive story by clicking here

  The First three chapters of Night Fever

  Book Two of

  The Silvered Moon Diaries

  By Romarin Demetri

  Chapter 1: Myths, Lies, and History

  Helanie and Rose

  The foundations of the world as you know it will come crashing down every few years, but for us, we never imagined that our traditions and histories would completely disintegrate into dust around us. Our history became falling embers. Our foundation was turned to clay, then ground to silt and washed away in one fell tidal wave.

  As we abandoned everything we thought we knew, we realized that the merit in protecting us was a foolish whim of a pacifist protector. The things you learned in school were only a protective cocoon to shelter you as you grew, and there, we learned that the ghost stories you heard were only true if you believed in them.