Death's Primordial Kiss (The Silvered Moon Diaries Book 1)
Page 39
“I do enjoy a pep talk more than I enjoy an apology,” I told Stan. He didn’t think he was wrong, so I knew he wouldn’t freely hand me an official “sorry.” “Even though you don’t even understand your own emotions that well, you know me better than I thought.”
“I also… and don’t hate me for this, but I think it’s a confidence issue.”
“Confidence?” I asked. “You really think so?”
“It’s a theory. If you didn’t have doubt once and a while, you wouldn’t be human… half-human?”
“Maybe a quarter but my dad’s side is a little foggy,” I said.
He was right, but I wasn’t going to think it. To channel my fire energy, I needed to channel it through someone. I had sealed my fate when I used lust to source my fire at auditions last year, and while refusing to use someone, as well as not spending time looking for a boyfriend, I was stuck. I had been preoccupied with Helaine’s attack, and those bad memories seeped into my dreams, allowing no room for my inner fire goddess to roam free.
Stan finally left me alone to paint out the blue-grays I caught from the other coven members. The only warm-colored emotion I had seen thus far was pink—the night I invoked Brigid, the goddess of the hearth, passion, and fire. When I started seeing the yellows and reds of joy and happiness, the positive emotions which I suspected were on the warm side of the color wheel, only then would I know that I stood a chance at controlling the other elements.
Chapter 3: The Remains
Helaine
Block Thirteen was the indoor, above ground shopping center where everyone shopped in hung out in the underground when the eclectic vibe of London wasn’t enough for their strangeness. I loved the strangeness, and I generally liked people, but my older sister right now… she was another story, and I was the only one allowed to say so.
My list of things to do this year did not include dying again, but I had my hands full. This year, I was trying to get closer to my older sister, find Moon Halloran, play matchmaker to Rose the moment she admitted she was hopelessly in love with Stanley, and flirt enough under my solitary witch attainment to grab the attention of my Twin Flame and the elders, but not give their crotchety old council grounds to make me spontaneously combust.
I waited for Brittany in the promenade of our above ground underground and indoor shops, at a round table that could seat four people. The open area was a welcome stop in the middle of the shops, serving as a food court. The concept of Block 13 was genius, and my father helped develop it. It was probably one of the reasons people kept voting for him every six years. Our president didn’t have a term limit, an as the first one ever, no one wanted to let him go, much like it was hard for him to allow me to begin a new life as a witch. I expected people to like me because I was a Laurence, but the general public never ceased to remind me that I was not my father, and the hits and stabs would keep coming for another year until I was permanently inducted and no longer the initiate water witch on the coven.
The Coven warned me about traveling alone with my initiate status, but after the attempt on my life a few short weeks ago, I needed to feel brave. Appearing fearless to the general public who didn’t exactly like me was the first step. I was easily the least liked out of the five of us, and it was because everyone thought I made it onto the coven based on who my parents were, and that dirty word: privilege.
It wasn’t my fault who I was born to. And it wasn’t anyone else’s fault who they were born to either. While people thought I always got what I wanted, in truth I was raised by over-protective parents that could hear my thoughts and would listen to them. I couldn’t get away with anything, but now I could in the coven, and I had wasted no time in completing the ultimate thing anyone could hope to get away with: cheating death.
I felt just as alone that I looked waiting in the open promenade so early in the day, so I decided I should go into The Magic Bean and get a start on my coffee, and maybe read the newspaper, instead of waiting outside looking down at my phone or smartwatch.
The Magic Bean ground their drinks fresh, and though I didn’t like the taste of straight up coffee like Rose always drank, I loved the alive and energetic overpowering smell of the fresh coffee beans that invaded my senses when I walked through the glass door of the shop. Directly off the upstairs promenade, The Magic Bean was a frequent meeting spot for coffee and tea drinkers alike.
There were eight other people inside the shop, which was typical for the early afternoon. I always counted people and exits as I walked into a room, a black belt habit that had been instilled in me since I began training at seven years old.
Regardless of being overly alert, the coffee and tea shop always made me feel comfortable with the soft light from the large hanging lanterns above our head. You could read a book in the light, but it wasn’t harsh like fluorescents.
I walked up to the counter, deciding to order a mocha latte with almond milk, and threw a copy of our newspaper, The Thirteenth, down on the counter for purchase. We got them delivered at home, but I needed something to occupy my time.
A mocha latte was a safer bet for my sense integration, but I still ran the risk of the coffee taste turning extra acidic as it hit my tongue. The milk component and chocolate usually balanced it out, as long as no one switched it out for cow’s milk. Goat’s milk was especially bad. I hadn’t enjoyed cheese in ages.
“Whipped cream?” The barista asked.
“Sure,” I answered back, handing over my credit card. Brittany would probably be short on cash, and I’d have to pay for hers when she got here.
I watched the young girl make my coffee, taking in the sound of grinding beans and steaming milk, with Maddi’s previous warning in my head, “don’t accept anything during your first two years as an initiate if it wasn’t made in front of you.” That caveat was always concerning, but I didn’t ask Maddi if she knew from experience.
The dark-haired girl smiled and pushed my coffee towards me.
Sitting on top of the whip was a chocolate syrup pentacle, and I paused a moment, taking in this rare spectacle and crystal clear message of approval. It wasn’t just a shape on the surface of the fluffy cream. The pentacle was the coven’s sigil, and the witches before me had made our symbol into a lotus shape with curved edges so that it resembled a flower.
“Thank you,” I said to the girl who drew the straight-lined pentacle on top of my whipped cream. Her simple action meant more than she knew. I finally had a stranger’s support, the support of someone I was sworn to protect. Usually, when I left the house, I just got a judging look for being the Coven’s most unpopular.
I sat down at a table to read the paper, knowing Brittany was already ten minutes late.
“Helaine Laurence?” someone asked from behind my right shoulder.
The last time someone had asked me that I ended up getting stabbed in the back, but this time I was ready.
I leaped up from my place at the table to face him, and sure enough, a dark-haired hazel-eyed boy stared back at me. It wasn’t the man who had stabbed me, but we knew they were all related. On a scale of one to ten, this guy was a nine, but his level of crazy was something supernatural.
“Everyone leave now,” I said calmly to the people around me. They knew who I was but moved incredibly slow in spite of me. At least I had the choco-syrup girl on my side
He took out a lighter, a witch hunter’s homage to all of the burning at the stake that they used to do. The people around us got to their feet, and it wasn’t until he lit a stake that they started to run.
“I’m not a vampire,” I told him, and then I saw another man who looked like him moved from behind me. The man who dare mutter my name was only a distraction.
His amulet glowed the same way the last one had, and I knew he was trying his best to cancel out my witch powers. Little did he know, I had received a boost in powers from the elders, a term of the attainment I was working on, bound to for a year, and my expanded powers stood a chance at destroying the amulet i
f I could distract the both of them.
“You didn’t learn the first time?” I asked him. “Don’t you blokes talk about how well the amulets work on martial artists? The answer is: shittily. Water isn’t my only offense.”
He lunged at me, and I side-stepped him, plunging the fiery stake into his side so that the fire caught on his shirt. He would have to take the time to pat it out, and I knew that the pain in his floating rib was thrumming through him.
The other one came at me, and I threw him into the table my coffee had been sitting on, obliterating the chocolate syrup pentacle I loved so dearly. Watching my witch’s brew spill all over the floor left a sour look on my face. He was able to shake off his confusion and run towards me again, so this time I executed a hip throw, making him land on his neck. It didn’t look broken, but he wasn’t moving from his new place on the ground.
I walked over to the man I casually set on fire thirty seconds ago and tore the amulet from his neck, and he cowered in fear. I could harness yellow light and had been practicing with Onyx, my mentor, ever since I took on the attainment a few weeks ago. I focused on the four elements and aimed my hand down at the amulet. The beam ripped through the amulet, and as long as it’s usually black surface stayed lit, its power-sucking properties were otherwise occupied. He looked at me in shock.
“I know, that’s not possible, right? Not for a witch alone in her first year?” I grinned devilishly, pleased that his fear made him into a two instead of the nine he started off as. Why were the cute ones brainwashed and evil? Then again, it didn’t matter with the attainment I had recently taken out.
I created a string of water and bound the witch hunters’ hands and feet, nearly feeling sorry for the one who was terrified of me. I had to make sure that the amulet stayed lit long enough for the rest of the coven to get here. I checked on the two unconscious men.
I didn’t think I had killed them, but one didn’t have a pulse. My body count was already at three since I had joined the coven, and this would make it four.
The choco-syrup barista looked at me hopefully, having watched everything unfold from safety behind the bar, pressed with her back against the wall.
“I’m bloody sorry about today,” I told her, one of the only people who was actually rooting for me. “If those customers come back in for coffee, their next round is on me.”
“That was bloody brill’,” was all she could say.
Also by Romarin Demetri:
Novels
The Supernatural London Underground Series (Dark urban fantasy)
Book 1: A Mirror Among Shattered Glass
Book 2: The Frost Bloom Garden
Book 3: Wanions of the Wicked
Book 4: The Lost Years
Book 5: The Hallowed Locus
Book 6: The Isle of Shrouded Souls
Short Stories
A Guide to Claiming a Scaredy Cat Anthlogy (Paranormal Romance)
Hunter’s Moon (2018 Evanlea Publishing)
The Fire Seer (Email signup exclusive)
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