“And don’t forget,” Sebastian pulled her into a hug. “I wouldn’t be here if not for you. What you did tonight was breathtaking. I was almost gone. I could feel that damned spell pulling my mind apart and I can tell you that nothing could come close to that level of terrifying. Then I felt you, inside my mind.” His voice was quiet and he shook his head slowly.
“That is very strong magic, Sarah.” Doc nodded. “Rosie would be so proud of you. Not just for figuring out how to use the power you have, but for using your power to protect and heal your friends.” Sarah sniffled. She could feel the tears rolling down her face and wondered when they’d started. She couldn’t remember.
“You’re not friends,” she said. “You’re family. For the first time since my dad died, I really feel like I have a family.” She buried her face in Sebastian’s shoulder again. At least this time she wasn’t sobbing in great sloppy heaves. She just didn’t think she could face anyone after saying something like that.
“I always wanted a sister.” Kai laughed. “Didn’t realize it’d be so damp though.”
“Kai Russell, you behave yourself,” Doc said. There was the sound of fabric whumping against something else, and Sebastian’s shoulder shook as he laughed too.
“Mom loves that she’s got a stand-in out here. She worries less, I know it.” Sarah could hear the grin in his voice as she tried to get herself under control again.
“Your mother should worry, the trouble you boys get into. What she’s going to say when she hears about today I don’t want to think!” Doc scolded.
“Well, for one thing, she’s going to want to make sure we’ve done a good job of groveling at Sarah’s feet in abject gratitude,” Kai said. “Which, I might add, we are.” Sarah sat up and saw that he was smiling broadly at her, even as she swiped her sleeve over her face.
“Oh, my dear. Use a handkerchief. Here.” Doc handed her a napkin and started fussing at her again.
“Which reminds me a bit,” Sebastian said, less cheerful now. “What about your mother? Won’t she want to know you’re okay?” Sarah pressed her lips together and didn’t speak. Kai and Doc noticed the drop in her mood and exchanged a glance.
“What is it, dear?” Doc asked. Sarah looked around at the worry on the faces of her friends— her family.
“I think my mother was the warlock’s other client.”
Twenty-two
“Sarah Rose Richards, where have you been?” Elaine’s entirely human voice was almost as chilling as anything Sarah had experienced the day before. She stepped into the house, wondering idly how her mother had gotten in to be sitting and drumming her perfectly manicured fingernails on the dining table. It was definitely time for some sort of security system.
“I stayed over with Doc last night.” Sarah answered. “It was an incredibly long day yesterday.” She moved aside to allow Sebastian in the door and pulled off her coat to hang on the hall tree’s hooks. Elaine narrowed her eyes at him, but said nothing.
“I see.” Elaine’s voice dropped even lower. “I have the documents here. They just need your signature and all this will be taken care of. No more long days necessary.” Elaine waved her hand around the room to indicate the house. Or perhaps California. Or maybe, Sarah thought, she meant to indicate Sarah’s whole life and possible happiness. Not that it mattered much.
“Oh?” Sarah turned to her mother and held out a hand. “Let me see them.” Elaine reached into a briefcase at her side, and pulled out a folder full of legal documents.
“I had them sent overnight so we can get back home as soon as possible We have a flight leaving for New York at four twenty-five this afternoon.” She folded her hands and watched as Sarah flipped open the folder to remove the sheaf of papers. Sarah nodded as she glanced through them.
“I see you have not only paperwork to hand over the deed to you, but also power of attorney and a few other things.” Sarah looked up at her mother’s glittering eyes. There was something in them that she’d never noticed before and wasn’t sure she could put a name to, but it wasn’t as cold as everything else she understood about her mother. “I’m not going to sign my whole life over to you, Mom.”
“Well it was clear to me that you are currently incapable of making your own decisions. I will resume that capacity until you have regained your senses, just like I did when you were a child,” Elaine said. Sarah sat down at the table silently, still leafing through the papers. She knew Sebastian was behind her, probably lounging against the wall. Knowing he was there was giving her more courage than she thought she could have had on her own, even though he was staying out of the conversation. Sarah put the papers on the tale and smoothed her hand over them. Elaine held out a pen, but Sarah just looked at her own fingers against the legal text.
“Why, Mom?” she asked quietly. Elaine’s eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch and she put her hand with the pen back on the table’s surface.
“Excuse me?”
“Why do you want me so completely under your control?” Sarah shook her head. “It’s been like this since I was old enough to notice, but the first real decision I have ever made for myself was the one to come out here. I’m almost thirty years old. Does that sound reasonable? Really?”
“I am your mother. It is my job to keep you from making foolish, dangerous decisions,” Elaine said. “Staying here is dangerous. Your grandmother—“
“My grandmother the witch?” Sarah prompted. Elaine flinched— very slightly, but Sarah was watching her closely and saw both the movement and the fear that flashed through her eyes. It was only a second then Elaine returned to the cold, perfect control she usually presented to the world. Elaine pursed her lips in distaste.
“Yes. As you say. Your grandmother associated with some extremely distasteful people.” Elaine’s eyes flicked to Sebastian. “If you aren’t willing to protect yourself from them then I will do so.”
“By hiring a warlock to harass me?” Sarah asked quietly. She saw the color drain out of Elaine’s face so fast it seemed to be erased.
“I… What do you mean, Sarah?” Elaine struggled to keep her voice strong and even. Sarah shook her head and reached her arm out so that her sleeve pulled up, leaving the marks on her wrist clearly visible. Behind her Sebastian made a low sound, but didn’t move. Elaine stared at the wounds from the rope, her eyes widening in shock.
“But…”
“Mom. I know you hired him to scare me away from here and back to New York. What I want to know is why.” After a moment, blinking at the sight in front of her, Elaine shook herself and snarled, jabbing with the end of her French-tipped fingernail.
“How dare you accuse me of any such thing? All those monsters want is to tear apart families and ruin people’s lives!” Sarah was stunned, seeing her mother snarl like that. Elaine’s eyes were wild with fury, and her movements jerky.
“You’re talking about Dad, aren’t you?” Sarah finally made the connection. She’d read all about the whole thing in Gran’s journal, but hadn’t thought about how it related to her mother.
“That woman convinced your father that those creatures were harmless! And look what happened to him!” Elaine stood in a rush, her chair clattering backwards to the floor. “He died! He was killed by one of those things when he was supposed to be on his way home from a meeting!”
“Mom. Gran went out and investigated. She took Mr. Young.” Sarah looked up at Sebastian, whose eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“Miss Rosie took a god to look into a car accident?” He whistled and shook his head slowly.
“What?” Elaine froze in her pacing mid-stride.
“Yeah. I was surprised too. Apparently there was enough suspicious about the accident that he agreed to look into it. And yes, mom. There were spirits involved.” Sarah turned back to her mother. “About a mile away there was a young woman trying to protect her infant child from an attack. She won, but apparently died from her injuries later in the hospital, and her child was left motherless. The fallou
t from that fight was strong enough that Dad could sense it thanks to having grown up around magic, and it must have distracted him. It could just as easily have been a deer, or a kid setting off firecrackers nearby like the police guessed. It was an accident, Mom.”
“That’s just typical. It’s never their fault, is it?” Elaine sneered. “They cause death and destruction, leave widows and orphaned children in their path, but it’s never their fault! And now you accuse me of hiring one of them? I bet that… that thing over there arranged whatever happened so he could pretend to save you.” She glared at Sebastian.
“Actually, Mrs. Richards, it was Sarah that saved me.” Sebastian sounded calm, but Sarah knew him well enough now to hear the pity and the outrage in his voice. She hoped she would remember to ask him about it later.
“What?” Elaine was clearly not expecting that.
“The warlock you hired was also hired for another job and felt he could kill two birds with one stone as it were.” Sebastian stepped over to stand behind Sarah and put his hand on her shoulder. “Sarah saved my life last night. And the lives of my brother and several of our friends. And it wasn’t the first time. Her strength and her courage are remarkable,and without her, I for one would absolutely be dead by now.” Sarah felt her face heating up and knew she was turning bright red again. She watched emotions flow across her mother’s face as Elaine processed that.
“Mom, whether you believe Sebastian or not, it doesn’t matter.” Sarah took a deep breath. She remembered thinking that getting on the plane was difficult. She almost laughed about that now, picking up the legal paperwork in front of her. “I’m not going to sell this house. I’m going to live here. I’m going to learn about Gran, and read the rest of her journals, and I won’t allow that warlock or the wights, or you intimidate me away from here just because it’s inconvenient for you.” Sarah ripped the papers neatly down the middle, then turned them sideways and did it again. She put the quarters in the folder and closed it. Then after a moment she stood up and tossed the whole thing into the cold fireplace. She glanced over at Sebastian, who broke into a grin and with a shooing gesture sent a small ball of foxfire to light the papers.
Elaine’s face turned purple with rage. She sputtered incoherently for a few minutes before Sarah spoke again.
“I love you, Mom, and I believe that you’ve done your best to keep me safe. But this is my life to live, not yours, and I think it’s important to live it here.” She turned slightly to smile at Sebastian for a moment, then back to her mother who had wrangled her emotions into a more controllable level. She was also returning to a more normal color in her face.
“If this is the repayment I get for raising you by myself after your father was murdered, and for protecting you from these… from all this…” A tremor washed over Elaine and for a moment Sarah saw such grief on her face.
“Mom. You can’t protect me from myself,” Sarah said calmly. “Gran was a witch, and Dad was her son. I inherited that capability. You can’t change that any more than you can change that I inherited Dad’s eyes, or your hair.”
Elaine simply drew herself upright, her spine rigid and her teeth clamped together. She picked up the briefcase and walked out of the house without a word, the clacking of her heels on the wooden floor and the bang of the screen door were the only sounds. Silence hung in the air for a minute as Sarah and Sebastian listened until the engine noise of Elaine driving away blended into the background noise from the freeway.
Sarah dropped heavily back down in the chair and put her head down on her arms to rest on the table’s surface. She felt Sebastian crouch beside her and put his hand on her back.
“I am so, so sorry,” he said. She smiled sadly into the crook of her arm, then realizing he couldn’t see that she sighed and sat up to look at him.
“Don’t be. I knew she wouldn’t take it well that I want to stay here, or that I want to learn everything Gran wanted to teach me. I just never realized why she hated it all so much. To the point of hiring someone to harass me.” Sarah opened her mouth to say more, but then closed it, her heart too heavy.
“I can’t even imagine how that could seem like a good choice. I mean how could a mother do that to her own child?” He sounded incredulous. Sarah shook her head again.
“She probably figured it was the less dangerous choice. She wanted to scare me away from here.” Sarah shrugged. “I can sort of understand that, in a way. It’s pretty clear now that she blamed magic and Gran’s involvement with it for Dad’s death. She must have been working so hard this whole time to keep me away from anything that could be related. She didn’t want to lose me, too.”
“Well that worked out pretty well for her, didn’t it?” Sebastian growled. Sarah leaned back onto his shoulder in an awkward sort of hug.
“Well, she didn’t know that he was also working for a homicidal lunatic. She’ll come around eventually, I think.”
“You could have been killed, Sarah. I’m going to have nightmares about that guy pointing a gun at you for the rest of my life.” He slid his arms around her waist and hugged her in earnest. She almost laughed at the ridiculous image they must be presenting with her sitting in the dining chair, and Sebastian trying to wrap her up in his arms.
“Well I wasn’t. And you weren’t either, and I’m not even going to tell you what you looked like. Not right now anyway, it’s too raw.” She shifted enough to sit up. “So what do we do now? Mom’s gone so that’s one problem down at least.”
“And the wights are gone,” Sebastian said, standing up to stretch. “That’s a huge relief for us, let me tell you. The parents in the Village were getting really worried.”
“I bet. And you guys got rid of two bonus basilisks, as well! Go you!” Sarah smiled, feeling lighter at the thought of everyone in the area being safer now.
“Go us. You helped.” Sebastian poked her shoulder and headed to the kitchen counter. He started rummaging for coffee making supplies. “I guess next we heal and rest.”
“And try to find out who the hell is sending warlocks and monsters after us. Because that is not something we can just let slide,” Sarah said, moving to help him. Sebastian turned to face her and leaned his hip against the countertop, grinning so widely Sarah was afraid he’d crack his face in two. “What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “I just really like how you counted yourself firmly as one of us.” Sarah ducked her head.
“Well, you are the one who keeps telling me that I helped out so much and all that stuff.” She took extra care measuring the beans into the grinder until Sebastian put his hand on her arm.
“You did. And I meant it,” He said when she looked at him. “I liked the way you said that, because it means you’ve finally realized that you are one of us. And I’m not the only one who feels that way, either. Welcome to the Village, Sarah.” He flicked his eyes up to the window and nodded his head to point. Sarah turned to look and saw Kai and Ellie ducking through the bushes in the back and picking their way up towards her back door. They were laughing and waved when they saw her watching them.
Sarah smiled and waved back.
“I guess I need to make more coffee then,” she said, and started the process of making breakfast for her chosen family.
Sneak Peek of A Spirit's Kindred
Kai settled onto the sofa with his beer and sighed, glaring out the window at the last scraps of daylight fading from the sky. His back ached. The almost healed wounds were becoming scars, he knew, but it was the cold that still sometimes silvered through it that worried him. It wasn’t constant anymore like it had been for days after the battle. The poison itself was surely out of his system by now, but he still felt its effects lingering. The cold was just the easiest symptom to deal with, and the most obvious.
He’d mentioned it to Doc earlier that evening, and she said that she would mix him up something. Mostly she said to get out into the sunshine more and laugh with friends since his flesh was almost healed. The antidote for the
dangerous poison that affected a victim’s spirit as well as his body was the light and heat of life— the opposite of the essence of a wight.
Damned wights.
It had been almost a month since they’d cleared out that wight nest nearby and pretty much everyone else had recovered weeks ago. Kai, however, had been deep in that hole longer than almost everyone else— the first in and nearly the last one out— and had managed to sustain the worst injury. Mr. Young had come around a day or so after the battle and chastised him for risking his neck the way he had. Kai was pretty sure that if the old man ever actually spoke to communicate, he’d have used phrases like ‘damn fool’ and ‘young idiot’ and ‘your grandmother would be appalled.’ As it was, Mr. Young’s silent method of communicating had gotten the point home more than adequately, but after expressing suitable chagrin Kai just shrugged. There hadn’t been any other choice for him to make. It was his duty to keep his people safe, and the wights were the worst threat they’d faced since his grandmother dealt with the rumors of ‘monster sightings’ fifty years ago.
Kai sighed and took another pull at the beer. Maybe there was something distracting on television? Or he could fire up a video game. He could find some pickup team to play with online, maybe. Still, he didn’t think he would be able to concentrate on a game.
He just kept turning the whole night of the battle over in his mind. Sarah and Sebastian had been attacked at the tail end of the evening. She had been jumped from behind and dragged off to be used as bait, and Seb had fallen right into the warlock’s trap and it had nearly ended him. Kai would never be able to repay Sarah for managing to break the spell and saving his dumbass little brother. She’d probably be terrifying once she had a little more training, he bet. They were all glad that she’d be a good witch like Miss Rosie had been before her, and Kai was even more glad that she and his brother were making each other so happy.
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