The Last Dream Keeper

by Amber Benson

  Finally, Weir couldn’t stay silent any longer. Lyse had expected this—maybe some part of her even craved it—and he did not disappoint her. He got up from his seat at the tiki bar with enough momentum to knock the beer coozie out of the skeleton’s hand. It rolled across the floor, and Weir nearly missed stepping on it as he began to pace back and forth in front of the bar.

  “Am I losing my mind?” he asked, running his hands through his hair, almost as if he were trying to wring answers out of the wily blond strands. “Witches, magic, monsters from another dimension—”

  “Monsters are in every dimension,” Thomas interjected.

  Weir ignored him.

  “I think you’re all crazy. And I actually have a pretty open mind, considering,” he said, and shook his head. “But I saw some impossible things today that I don’t have answers for. So, if you’re crazy, I guess I am, too.”

  This was the Weir Lyse knew and loved. He wasn’t inflexible or rigid in how he saw the world, but willing to give over to things he didn’t understand. Things he’d deemed impossible only seconds before. This was why she’d fallen for him—it was true, she cared more for him than she’d even realized—and it made her very happy to have been wrong about him.

  “What I’m saying is . . . use me how you will,” Weir continued, staring pointedly at Lyse. “What’s your plan? Let’s go. I’m game to help.”

  Lyse hadn’t exerted command over the coven before, had been scared of the responsibility, but now she channeled her inner Eleanora.

  “Tonight, we perform the ritual releasing spell for my grandmother.”

  She locked eyes with Thomas.

  “You stay here, bound, under lock and key. Weir, you said you’re game?”

  “I am,” he answered.

  “Then you’re on security duty”—Lyse smiled at Dev—“and when Freddy gets home, you have to tell him everything. Weir is gonna need help. This doubting Thomas is a sly one.”

  At the mention of his name, Thomas sat up and winked at her.

  “You’ve got my number,” he said. “Though I still wish someone would itch my nose.”

  Lizbeth knelt down in front of him. Reaching out a long index finger, she gave his nose a scratch.

  “Much obliged. I can see why my brother’s so smitten with you.”

  Lizbeth stood back up, pushing her long hair out of her face.

  “Stop it,” Lyse cut in, not liking the way Thomas was playing with Lizbeth’s feelings. “Keep your mouth shut, ’cause you’re not winning any friends when you open it.”

  She turned her attention away from Thomas and back to the rest of the room.

  “We’re not getting anyone from the Greater Council involved,” Lyse continued. “Not after what happened to your mother, Daniela, and to Eleanora. At this point, we just make a decision not to trust anyone. Not even someone from the Greater Council. Arrabelle, go to your friend, but come back to Echo Park afterward. Dev will need you here.”

  “You think keeping this to ourselves is best?” Arrabelle asked, not convinced.

  “For now, yeah. Yeah, I do,” Lyse replied, trying to sound firm. “If we talk to the wrong person . . . it could be catastrophic.”

  “Then what happens?” Daniela asked, eyes narrowed. Lyse could tell she didn’t like being told no. “You’re just gonna let Lizbeth and Weir leave the country alone?”

  Lyse shook her head.

  “Of course not—”

  “You can’t do that,” Lizbeth cried, glowering at Lyse. “I have to go to Rome. It’s imperative—”

  “—and you will be going to Rome,” Lyse interrupted. “But Daniela and I are coming with you. As Daniela said: It’s non-negotiable.”

  For the first time in her life, Lyse understood what it felt like to be a general leading an army into battle—and it was exhilarating.

  She wondered why she’d ever been scared of it.

  It was the greatest job in the world.

  Lyse

  Lyse placed the tip of the match against the side of the matchbox, pausing for a moment as her hand trembled slightly—not from anxiety, but exhaustion—and then she dragged the cherry-red head against the striker. The acrid scent of burning sulfur filled her nose and she sneezed, almost blowing out the match she’d just lit.

  “Dammit,” she said, sneezing again, and then once more for good measure.

  Lyse always sneezed in threes. Unless she was sick, and then all bets were off.

  She grasped the delicate wrist of the hand holding the match, steadying her arm. She knelt down beside the stone altar and lit the wick of the long white taper resting atop it. The candle flared to life, a pulsing pillar of flame that gradually settled into a squat orange-and-gold triangle of fire. The match was beginning to gutter, so she quickly moved to a second white taper, and it, too, blazed to life beneath her fingers.

  She stared at the flames, at the living fire she’d trapped on pale white columns made of string and wax. The fire wanted to be free. To leap from her hands and take root in the brittle brown leaves carpeting the floor of the eucalyptus grove and the clearing.

  “Ow,” she yelped.

  She almost dropped the match as it burned down to its end and singed the skin of her fingertips. That was what it wanted: to catch her off guard and force her to help it escape. Instead, she shook the flame out, a trail of smoke issuing from its burnt black end. She dropped what was left of the match onto the top of the stone altar, then stuck her burned fingers into her mouth. The pain was sharp and fierce, and it woke Lyse from her exhausted stupor.

  She swiveled on her heel, turning back to look at the others.

  “It’s done.”

  There was so much Lyse needed to learn now that she was the master of the Echo Park coven of witches—and since there were no books for her to read, no lesson plans to follow as a guide, the four women standing behind her would be her de facto teachers.

  “Good,” Arrabelle said as her lips twisted into the facsimile of a smile. There was no warmth in her serious dark brown gaze; she was too emotionally raw for that.

  With her muscular athlete’s body and perfect posture, Arrabelle cut an imposing figure. She’d taken a pair of shears to her hair that afternoon in preparation for the Releasing Ritual they were about to perform. Now her once thick hair was a blanket of soft fuzz against the skin of her scalp.

  She was wearing a flowing scarlet sheath dress belted in at the waist with a cord of cream sateen. Offset by the rich brown of Arrabelle’s arms and throat, the red fabric shimmered like silken rubies. Pinned just above her left breast was a small brooch made of hammered bronze, its intricate woven pattern reminiscent of a Celtic knot. Yet when Lyse observed it more closely, she saw that it was, in fact, an abstract representation of the eternal aspect of the universe: an infinity symbol that resembled a swooping figure eight.

  “Your grandmother would be pleased with all of this,” Arrabelle added, and this time she gave Lyse a real smile.

  The word grandmother sounded surreal to her, felt rough on her tongue whenever she said it out loud. She’d spent over a decade in the dark, thinking Eleanora was some distant relative with very little blood connection—and it was only upon her death that the truth had finally been revealed to Lyse. It was still bizarre to think she was so closely tied to Eleanora. She was just sorry it had taken death to right this wrong.

  Not that death was the end. She knew this now . . . and even in death she would always be aware of how much Eleanora loved her—and she, Eleanora. That was a given.

  “Come join us,” Dev said, and Lyse’s gaze shifted from Arrabelle.

  Short, round and maternal, she was Arrabelle’s polar opposite. In the moonlight, her strawberry-blond hair hung loose down her back, the ends curling slightly as they reached her shoulder blades. Her freckled skin was milky white with undertones of pale pe
ach, and she wore the same scarlet sheath dress as Arrabelle.

  Actually, they were all wearing the same outfit, but each had chosen a unique object to add to her ensemble—like Arrabelle’s brooch—almost like a reverse version of the bridal saying: “Something borrowed, something blue . . .” To this end, Dev was wearing a burnished gold cuff on the meaty part of her left forearm, with a beautifully etched pentacle cut into the wide gold band.

  “We should begin,” Dev continued, “before the candles start to burn too far down—”

  “Give her a minute,” Daniela said, interrupting Dev. Her pink Louise Brooks bob had been pinned back, giving her a less quirky, more regal look for the evening. “She needs a second to collect herself. She’s fucking exhausted. We all are. And we need to be focused to reconsecrate the circle.”

  Someone had breached their wards, using the power of the flow lines running through the grove to create some kind of storm spell . . . Lyse really didn’t understand all the magic stuff yet—but she promised herself that she soon would. Daniela, who was the coven’s resident badass, had explained it as “someone calling up a mass illusion”—which still didn’t one hundred percent explain things to Lyse.

  Petite and delicate-boned with intense eyes that never stopped moving, Daniela had learned some serious fighting skills in her life, and she would most likely kick the living crap out of anyone who tried to cross her. She was the kind of woman you only wanted to meet in a dark alley when she was on your side of the fight.

  The red sheath dress she wore was too big for her tiny frame, making it seem like the dress was wearing her instead of the other way around. Her piece of ornamentation was the most gaudy: a small tiara of copper and the clotted merlot of Brazilian garnet. It perched high above the curve of her bangs but kept sliding forward because it was too big for her.

  “I’m okay,” Lyse said, standing up, her own red sheath dress pooling around her feet, its hem dirty from the walk through Elysian Park. “Sleep hasn’t been my friend lately. That’s true. But I’m fine. Really.”

  She caught the eye of each of her blood sisters, in turn, reassuring them with a wan smile. Only Lizbeth remained silent on the topic of how tired Lyse looked. She didn’t comment on the dark circles ringing Lyse’s startlingly blue eyes, or the deepening hollows underneath her already sharp cheekbones—not eating or sleeping would do these small damages to an otherwise healthy body.

  Lizbeth fixed her gaze in Lyse’s direction and flared her eyes, letting Lyse know how sorry she was that the others were harassing her. Lyse gave a slight shake of her head in reply: It’s okay.

  Lizbeth lowered her eyes, and Lyse felt an outpouring of maternal love for the girl.

  Not a girl anymore, Lyse thought. She’s changed. Something happened up at the Dragon. Something to do with a man named Temistocles.

  Yes, Lizbeth was a teenager no longer. She’d always been the tallest of them, but now she carried that height with confidence. Gone was the super-shy child who could only communicate through pad and pencil, her newfound preternatural self-assurance setting her apart even more.

  A stunner even without makeup, she’d inherited her beauty from both sides of her parentage: thick russet-colored hair streaming down past her shoulders, golden-brown sphinx eyes, glowing olive skin dotted with freckles. No more was she the coltish and awkward beauty not quite comfortable in her adult body . . . now she was a willowy goddess.

  Earlier in the afternoon, Lyse and Lizbeth had combed through Eleanora’s jewel box, each choosing a piece of jewelry to wear for the Releasing Ritual. Lizbeth’s choice was a pair of earrings that were a favorite of Eleanora’s: flat metal discs split down the middle with carnelian on one side and smooth copper on the other. Lizbeth said they represented the last quarter moon, or the Crone aspect of the Goddess; they also signified release, which both of them thought was apropos for the night.

  Lyse had chosen something simpler, more intimate even, for her ornament. Buried deep within the smooth balsa wood jewel box underneath tangled skeins of gold and silver chain, cut-glass jeweled rings, sparkling bracelets, and other sentimental trinkets, she’d unearthed a small silver charm suspended from a short sterling silver chain.

  “What’s this?” Lyse had murmured, plucking the necklace out of the box and holding it up to the light.

  It was fashioned in a curling Gothic script that made it hard to decipher at first, but then, with a start, she’d realized what it was.

  “E for Eleanora,” she’d whispered. The tiny charm caught the afternoon light streaming through the quartered panes of the casement window, throwing reflections all around the room.

  Now she let her fingers drift to her throat, where the charm lay nestled in the hollow of her throat just above the neckline of her own scarlet dress.

  “I feel strange leading this ceremony,” Lyse said as she joined her blood sisters inside the circle of burnt ash they’d sprinkled in the clearing.

  Their first order of business would be to consecrate this circle, making it safe to perform the Releasing Ritual that would be the coven’s final memorial to Eleanora.

  It’s strange to be here, in this place again, Lyse thought. I spent so many years being frightened of it, and now it’s where I’ll help my blood sisters give Eleanora a proper send-off.

  Before Lyse became a member of the coven, her only experience with the grove had been in her dreams. It was the scene of a recurrent nightmare she’d had all through her teenage years, in which she was stalked by something outside the circle of ancient trees, an evil presence that wanted her dead and would wait as long as necessary to taste her flesh and blood. Even thinking about it now gave her the chills, and she felt goose bumps peppering her arms.

  “It’s your job,” Dev said, giving Lyse’s shoulder a reassuring pat. As if she’d guessed what Lyse had been thinking. “Give it a try and soon it’ll be old hat—”

  “Tell her it’s just like riding a bicycle, Dev,” Daniela said, and giggled.

  Dev rolled her eyes, but then something in the sky caught her attention and she fell silent.

  “No making fun of me,” Dev said finally, eyes still heavenward like she expected something to drop out of the sky. She looked back at Lyse and smiled. “I’m used to talking to little girls, not grown-ups.”

  Lyse imagined that living in a house with two kids changed your brain. For one thing, you always had to be careful about saying inappropriate things. Just in case one of them decided to repeat it at school. It was something she’d been highly aware of when she’d spent time with Carole and Bemo. Especially now that Bemo was starting to parrot back everything the adults said.

  Damn, she missed Athens.

  “But seriously,” Dev added, shivering as the temperature dropped and the wind began to shake the boughs of the trees. “Daniela’s right. It kind of is like riding a bike. Once you do a spell, it tends to stick with you and never get lost.”

  “You have what I wrote out for you?” Arrabelle asked, and Lyse nodded. Arrabelle had been kind enough to write out the spell so Lyse could say it without fumbling the words.

  “Thanks for that.”

  Arrabelle smiled, and once again it reached her eyes. If only for a moment.

  “Of course.”

  Lyse knew Arrabelle had wanted to be the master of the Echo Park coven. That she’d thought the job was hers until Lyse had shown up and taken it away. Now Arrabelle was forced to help Lyse learn the ropes.

  Funny how things work out sometimes, Lyse thought, grateful to Arrabelle for being so kind to her. Had the roles been reversed, she wasn’t so sure she’d have been as gracious a loser.

  Lyse cleared her throat, stalling a bit out of nervousness. She looked at the faces of her blood sisters, taking comfort from their presence and from the beauty of the clearing, which had been decked out for the evening like an autumnal fairyland. Because it was so close
to Halloween, Dev had asked her daughters to carve miniature pumpkin lanterns for the event. They’d risen to their task, gouging out the pumpkins’ flesh in strange swirling shapes and then stuffing the innards of the small gourds with tea lights.

  Dev and Lizbeth had festooned the trees with the lanterns, then added garlands made from brown leaves and dried garlic. Small burlap bags filled with dirt, seeds, and spices sat like stones around the edges of their about-to-be-consecrated circle. This would give them even more protection for the evening’s ritual.

  Lyse had only learned that evening, as she’d helped Daniela fill the burlap bags, that powerful charms were buried underneath the roots of the trees, protecting the grove from evil interlopers and keeping the location of the witches’ ritual grounds secret from prying eyes.

  Which was why Daniela finding those binoculars in the grove had been such a frightening blow. It meant the wards had become weakened . . . or worse, one of their coven mates had broken the others’ trust and allowed something evil into their midst.

  I don’t believe that’s the case, Lyse thought. Maybe no one has considered this, but what if The Flood is just stronger than us?

  Even she didn’t like to think about that, but it was an idea she hadn’t been able to shake. The Flood wanted to own their world. To do so, it would have to wipe the covens off the face of the map. She didn’t one hundred percent understand their motivation . . . but she knew that discovering this key piece of information would be integral to defeating them.

  “Shall we?” Daniela said, her words a gentle nudge to get Lyse moving.

  “Yes,” Lyse said, and took a deep breath.

  The moon had risen high above them, the moonlight making it easier for Lyse to see what she was doing.

  “So let’s make this happen,” Lyse said, shaking out her shoulders and rolling her neck back and forth like a prizefighter.