Homecoming

by Amber Benson

  The bar was hopping as she weaved through the crowd. She was careful not to get too close to any of the young hipsters and neighborhood cool cats, all here to listen to the three-piece jazz trio that always seemed to be playing whenever she came in for a drink. After her last experience with Eleanora, she didn’t dare touch anything human—even with gloved hands.

  Eleanora, Daniela thought, and sighed. With her plainspoken, no-nonsense manner, the master of the Echo Park coven was by far Daniela’s favorite blood sister. Eleanora meant what she said, and said what she meant, which Daniela appreciated.

  Boy, it’s a real bitch she’s dying, Daniela thought. Hits too fucking close to home.

  She’d just lost her mother, and now this whole thing with Eleanora . . . well, it was one of the reasons she wanted a drink—or three—and hadn’t gone home after she’d taken both Dev and Lizbeth back to their respective residences. Instead, she’d walked over to Echo Park Lake, braving the drizzle to wander aimlessly around the little park, sitting in one of the playground swings until the rain eased up and the moon came out.

  During the day, the lake was overrun with people and Daniela avoided it at all costs. At night, though, when the park was as devoid of life as a graveyard, she would find herself drawn there, eager for the solitude. She could close her eyes and almost pretend she was the last person left on Earth—but then a homeless person would amble by with a shopping cart full of glass bottles, or she’d stumble across a horny teenaged couple making out on one of the park benches, and the illusion of solitude would be shattered.

  Daniela sidled up to the long, polished wood bar and, staying far away from her nearest neighbor, lifted her chin to get the dreadlocked bartender’s attention.

  “Lambrusco. Two glasses,” she called out, and he went to grab a bottle of the sparkling red wine.

  For a tough chick, Daniela loved super-girly drinks. Piña coladas piled high with fruit and topped off with tiny pink umbrellas, sparkling dessert wines so full of sugar they might as well have been candy—if it screamed “Bachelorette Party” or “Girls’ Night Out,” then Daniela had probably ordered it.

  She threw a twenty and a ten down on the bar—which got a big smile from the bartender—and took her drinks over to an empty table in the back of the room. It had an obstructed view of the jazz trio, but Daniela wasn’t interested in the music, so it suited her fine.

  She draped her leather jacket over the back of her chair, putting a barrier between her damp shirt and the metal crosshatching of the seat back, and sat down. She closed her eyes and sighed, happy to be alone but ensconced within the frenetic energy of an anonymous crowd.

  She sipped the first glass of wine, the sweetness fizzing on her tongue, and let her mind relax.

  Lyse.

  Of course that was where her brain went.

  It was hard to see past her physical attraction to Eleanora’s grandniece. Those melancholy bedroom eyes peeking out from beneath disheveled black bangs, the winsome face, full lips, and slim body. What drew her to Lyse could not be ignored.

  “I wanted to speak to you in private. I hope you don’t mind.”

  Daniela opened her eyes to find Arrabelle standing over her table, beer in hand, dark eyes inscrutable.

  “What’d you do? Follow me here?”

  Arrabelle shook her head.

  “I figured if you weren’t here, you’d be at the lake.”

  Great, she was getting predictable in her wanderings. She was gonna have to mix it up. Stake out another bar or two in the neighborhood—which was a bummer because she really liked this place.

  “Don’t you know privacy is just an illusion?” Daniela asked. “There’s no such thing as a private conversation these days.”

  Arrabelle raised a manicured eyebrow, then sat down beside Daniela.

  “I know that if anyone can hear our conversation over the music, it would be a miracle.”

  Daniela laughed.

  “Touché,” she said, leaning closer to Arrabelle.

  It was true. The place was loud, but, in Daniela’s experience, there were always eyes watching, ears listening.

  “So, who the fuck are you?” Arrabelle said, launching in without any preamble.

  “Excuse me?” Daniela said, downing the last dregs of wine in her first glass and reaching for her second one.

  “You make those awful abstract paintings that you don’t sell,” Arrabelle said, “and you have no other job that I can see. Yet ten seconds after my blood sister Dezzie dies, you get sent here to join us—like you were being called up from the army reserves or something, by the way—and you can afford to buy the old Zeke Title house? Where the hell does your money come from? Not your mother’s estate—everything she had belongs to the Greater Council. Couple that with the way you keep tabs on Eleanora and the rest of us, and it makes me think you’re a fucking spy.”

  “Why did you drag my paintings into this?” Daniela asked, deflecting.

  “Because they’re terrible and you know it,” Arrabelle said, taking a swallow of beer. “And because I was annoyed and felt like being an asshole about something. Look, am I right? Are you a fucking spy or not? You went chasing out of the circle tonight to go protect Lyse. I want to know how you know so much about all the weird shit that’s been going on.”

  “No, I’m not a fucking spy,” Daniela said, and finished her glass. “Let’s get out of here. I need some fresh air.”

  She grabbed her leather jacket and headed for the door—away from prying eyes and curious ears. When she paused at the threshold, Arrabelle was hot on her heels.

  * * *

  To the others, Daniela was supposed to be a “normal” member of the coven. Only Eleanora knew her secret. She wasn’t just an empath who painted abstract landscapes (paintings that Daniela thought were pretty good, actually), participated in coven activities, was pleasant to be around, and, for the most part, did as she was told—but otherwise kept a low profile.

  Daniela was embedded in the Echo Park coven for one reason, and one reason alone: to protect the last of the Dream Keepers.

  * * *

  Daniela remembered the day her mother had called her to the Council’s apartments in Rome. She’d been vague on the phone, mentioning “a personal matter” they needed to discuss, and that was all.

  Marie-Faith was only supposed to stay in Italy for a few weeks, but for some reason the visit lasted more than two months. At the time, Daniela didn’t know this was because her mother’s life had been threatened—and only later, after her mother’s death, did she realize how close she herself had come to being buried in a shallow Roman grave.

  But that day, she merely found it strange to be summoned so far for something personal when her mother was going to be returning to the States at any moment.

  Daniela had arrived at the Council’s apartments in Trastevere, feeling only slightly jet-lagged by the nine-hour flight. She dropped off her overnight bag and, at her mother’s behest, joined her for an afternoon constitutional. They walked in silence, each lost in her own thoughts, until they found themselves standing in front of an old ruin, its crumbling façade overrun with feral but friendly cats.

  It was here that Marie-Faith handed Daniela a letter:

  Dearest Eleanora,

  The last Dream Keeper has been born. Unless things change, no others will ever follow her. Hessika was not the only one to dream of her. She came to me as well, and to one other, whom I will not name in this letter, should it find itself delivered into the wrong hands.

  She will find you. She will be no more than a child and will not know who or what she is, but you will. Please keep her safe. She is the last of her kind and could be (can be) the one to save us all—though the dreams are murky where this is concerned.

  I trust you and my daughter above all others. That is why I am sending her to you. Keep each other safe.
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  The Flood is coming.

  Beware.

  —M.F.

  “What is this?” Daniela asked after she’d finished reading it.

  “Metaphorically, it’s the truth . . . and your destiny,” Marie-Faith explained, brushing a strand of pink hair behind her daughter’s ear. “But literally, it’s a letter I’m sending with you to California. I don’t trust the post or the telephone, so I’ve booked you an evening flight to Los Angeles.”

  Daniela did not understand, so her mother explained further:

  At great danger to herself, Marie-Faith had used her standing as a member of the Greater Council to call into being a secret cabal culled from only the most trusted from each discipline—Clairvoyants, Diviners, Dream Keepers, Empaths, and Herbalists—to decide how best to protect a young girl, the only Dream Keeper born within the last fifty years, and the sole thing standing between the covens and the oncoming wrath of The Flood.

  “The Flood?” Daniela asked.

  “It’s an image from my dreams. I’ve consulted with some of the other Dream Keepers, and, so far, I’m the only one—save Hessika—who’s received the message. I think it started with her, she dreamed of it years before, but no one listened then. Now it’s stronger and it’s going to rush into the others’ dreams, breaking over our world like a giant wave.”

  Her mother’s words chilled Daniela to the core.

  “Sometimes there’s a man riding the crest of this wave,” Marie-Faith said, picking up one of the stray cats—a white one with green eyes—and stroking it. “He commands The Flood, encouraging it to overwhelm the world. There’s something missing inside him—but I’m never with him long enough to find out what it is. I just know The Flood is coming, and you’re one of the few I trust to help stop it. If that can even be done.”

  The task Daniela’s mother laid at her daughter’s feet was not an easy one. Daniela was to guard the last of the Dream Keepers—with her life even, if that proved necessary. At the moment, only a handful of people knew of the girl’s existence, but once the secret got out, Daniela would need all the help she could get.

  The question then became: Whom could Daniela trust?

  * * *

  “So?” Arrabelle asked, catching up to Daniela on the sidewalk. “You didn’t answer the rest of my questions.”

  Daniela shrugged and kept walking.

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?” Daniela asked.

  Arrabelle sighed, her long legs allowing her to easily keep pace.

  “If you’re a spy, then you’re a pretty shitty one.”

  Daniela snorted as side by side they headed up the steep incline of Echo Park Avenue.

  “So, maybe you’re not a spy.”

  “I’m not a spy,” Daniela said, exasperated. “Are you a spy?”

  “No,” Arrabelle said, “but I don’t go skulking around getting into fights with possessed dogs, either.”

  Shit, Daniela thought, surprised Arrabelle realized the feral dog that attacked Lyse wasn’t rabid, but under the control of someone, or something, else. The same was probably true for the dead crows that penetrated the eternal circle—someone trying to breach their coven’s protective spells by using an animal host.

  “You caught that, eh?” Daniela asked, and Arrabelle nodded.

  “I’m an herbalist, not an idiot.”

  Daniela slowed down.

  “These are dark times we’re living in,” she said to Arrabelle.

  “I know.”

  “So if I’m not a spy,” Daniela asked. “What am I?”

  Arrabelle zipped up her cable-knit sweater and shrugged.

  “Don’t know,” she said, slowing her pace thoughtfully. Daniela slowed hers to match. “But I like you better now. After this walk and talk.”

  Daniela grinned, liking Arrabelle more, too.

  “Thank you for walking back with me,” Daniela said, as they reached Curran and made the turn that would lead them to her house.

  Across the street at Eleanora’s house, all the lights were off, which was a good thing as far as Daniela was concerned. Eleanora and Lyse had both looked like shit warmed over when they’d left the clearing. A good night’s sleep would help with that.

  “No problem,” Arrabelle replied. “Thanks for letting me call you a fucking spy.”

  There was no handshake or hug good-bye.

  “See ya when I see ya,” Daniela said, and turned up the walk to her house.

  The cats were waiting on the porch, and at the sound of the gate opening, they both came bounding to meet her. Closing the gate behind her, she knelt to pet them.

  “My good girls,” she cooed, scratching behind their ears. “Let’s go inside and feed you, shall we?”

  She stood up and put her key in the dead bolt, turning the lock. She pushed the heavy wooden door open and belatedly realized that she’d neglected to leave a light on that afternoon, so the interior of the house was blanketed in darkness.

  “Shit,” she said, patting along the wall until her fingers found the light switch. She flipped it on and gasped.

  “Oh my God.”

  She stared at her wrecked living room. Every drawer in the built-in cabinets had been yanked out and smashed into splinters. Papers were fanned out across the floor like discarded ticker tape. The television was busted. The brown leather couches were pushed onto their fronts, the backs slashed to pieces.

  And she soon discovered the carnage wasn’t limited to the living room. The rest of the house had been violated, too.

  She shooed the cats out of the house and closed the door. She wanted to take inventory of the damage without them underfoot—because as much as she loved her babies, they could be real assholes when they were hungry and she wasn’t paying enough attention to their needs.

  She trooped through the living room, found the kitchen in disorder—dishes, cookware, and packaged stuff from the cabinets tossed into the middle of the kitchen floor, though the refrigerator was untouched—and discovered that the bedroom had been upended, too. Clothes and shoes had been flung across the hardwood, box spring and mattress slashed with a knife.

  The bathroom stank of cleaning fluid and crushed bath products. A twelve-pack of toilet paper had been dumped into the half-filled bathtub. Even her art studio had been taken apart: exploded paint tubes, shredded canvas . . . and, the worst, someone had taken oxblood paint and slathered it all over her latest piece.

  “Dammit!” Daniela said, wanting to scream, but she settled for kicking a tube of indigo paint across the studio floor instead.

  She called the police and, not wanting to contaminate the crime scene, chose not to try to salvage anything yet. She went outside and stood on the porch, the cats surrounding her. She didn’t know who was behind the destruction at her place, but she was going to beat the crap out of them.

  In a show of frustration, or maybe it was plain old hunger, Verity gently bit Daniela’s calf.

  “I’m sorry, girls,” she said. “I totally forgot. Just give me a second.”

  She went inside, leaving the cats meowing on the porch, and wove her way through the mess.

  Under normal circumstances, she didn’t keep all the house lights on at the same time, preferring to turn on lamps as she went, lighting her way as needed. But tonight she felt unsettled and violated, so she left the place lit up like a Christmas tree.

  The dry cat food was in the kitchen, stored in a cat-proof plastic container in the cabinet over the refrigerator. This was the only way to keep the girls out of their food. She’d once made the mistake of leaving a giant unopened bag of cat chow in the pantry only to come home to find the kitchen floor littered with kibble.

  Stepping over the smashed remains of her favorite dishware—pale blue plates and bowls she’d purchased from a local potter—she dragged the step stool over to the ref
rigerator and climbed up to the topmost step. She struggled with the cabinet door and ended up taking off her gloves in order to get a good grip on the door pulls. This particular cabinet tended to swell and contract with the heat, making it almost impossible to open.

  “Come on,” she murmured to the door. Finally, it came unstuck, and she reached inside for the Tupperware container of cat food.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a flash of movement.

  Shit, no gloves, she thought before she whirled around and slammed her right foot into the chest of a would-be attacker.

  Her kick surprised the hell out of him, and he went flying backward into the metal spice rack across from the refrigerator. A lone bottle of cinnamon—sans its top—had survived the first trashing of the kitchen. The impact jostled the bottle forward, tipping its contents out and unleashing a cloud of cinnamon on her masked attacker’s head. Sputtering, the man swiped at his face, trying to keep the cinnamon granules out of his eyes. Daniela used the distraction to slam the heel of her boot into his solar plexus.

  He hit the spice rack again, releasing another dust cloud of cinnamon, and she played the advantage, landing a kick to his belly.

  This time he grabbed her ankle, wrapping his fingers around the top of her boot and twisting her foot, so that she cried out in pain as her ankle made a popping sound. She tried to pull out of her attacker’s grip, but she used too much force, and the step stool toppled underneath her. She fell backward and cracked her head against the plastic handle of the refrigerator door.

  Stars exploded in her head as she hit the ground, and she fought to stay conscious. Her attacker grabbed her by the ankle again and began to drag her through the house.

  The pain in her ankle was exquisite, but she began to flail and kick out with her good foot, landing a blow on the soft underside of her attacker’s left knee. His leg went out beneath him and he crumpled forward, releasing his hold on her.

  She flipped onto her stomach and began to crawl toward the front door, refusing to look back, eyes focused on her escape exit. But then she sensed him reaching for her and quickly rolled onto her side, lashing out at him with her good foot. He dodged the attack, throwing himself on top of her and wrapping his hands around her throat.