by John Conroe
“Other witches?” Caeco asked.
“I’m not sure who else could do it, so I’d have to say yeah,” I replied. “Which probably means they can sense the book.”
“I’ll go in. The quicker we get this done and then drag that damned book away, the better,” Chris said, following Darci back inside. I headed over toward the old barn, my two friends in tow.
“So what does setting a circle entail?” Caeco asked.
“It’s just busy work. Anyone could do it, and it won’t take long. It’s more of a distraction than anything,” I said.
“A distraction? From what?” she asked, a frown on her face.
“To keep Declan out here and away from the spell work,” Rory said.
“And away from that book,” I added.
“Why? Shouldn’t you be learning this stuff?” she persisted.
“That book is evil. I felt it when they opened its container. It draws witches with promises of power. It wants us to use it. Aunt Ash doesn’t want me near it.”
“She doesn’t trust you to stay clear of it?” Caeco asked, looking slightly offended.
I smiled at her for that, then shook my head. “The book is not really a book anymore. It’s an object of power, and it almost has its own agenda. It wants me to use it. It’s like an itch in the back of my head.”
“You’re saying it’s like the one ring in Lord of the Rings?” Caeco asked, looking incredulous.
“You’ve watched LTR?” Rory asked, open-mouthed and wide-eyed.
“Just because I didn’t grow up in a house or a town doesn’t mean I don’t watch movies, Rory Tessing!” she said, squaring off in front of him. Not a good sign, but thankfully one he was able to pick up on. He held both hands in front of his face.
“Don’t hit the smart kid! I was just shocked you’d watch a fantasy movie instead of a war flick,” he explained.
“It’s full of fights and battles,” she said, then turned to me. “But why does your aunt not trust you near it but trusts herself?
“It’s more a matter of the fact that she has experience and discipline, but it’s also because of my potential.”
“Because you’re powerful?” she asked.
“Yeah, it wants the most powerful witch it can find. It wants me,” I said.
“And think how bad it would be if Declan got all twisted by it and went nuclear,” Rory said.
She looked at me thoughtfully as I opened the shed door. “Does that hurt your feelings?”
“Listen, my father was basically a rapist. So half my genes are tainted by that fucker’s bad mojo. I wouldn’t trust me, either,” I said, heading into the dark interior.
I deliberately left off telling her that part of me, a tiny, twisted part, wanted to grab the book and see what I could really do.
Chapter 53- Declan
I handed the circle post and rope combo to Rory, who had set his share of circles before. Being a mathematical perfectionist, he usually did a more precise job than I would.
“Okay, we’ll let the boy genius get the circle marked out while you and I prep the bonfires,” I said to Caeco, leading her further into the barn. Enough light seeped in from the door, the dirty windows in the back, and the gaps in the walls to see the contents—stacks and stacks of split firewood, rounds of unsplit logs, and a stack of dead, dry pine poles. My favorite splitting maul and my Estwing axe leaned up against the big round maple chunk that I used for my splitting base. I handed the Estwing to Caeco, then pointed to the poles.
“We need to build four bonfires about three, three-and-a-half feet high. I stack the split wood then lean up a whole teepee arrangement with those poles. So if you would cut a bunch of three-and-a-half feet sections, I’ll get started with the split wood.”
She hefted the ax, which had been my first, a gift from Darci when I was twelve. It was a twenty-six-inch camper’s ax, all one-piece metal like the hammers Estwing makes. She twirled it in a loop around her, the stainless steel flashing a silver line in the dim light.
“I like this. It’s got great balance,” she said with the kind of enthusiasm that most girls reserve for shoes.
Picking up a six-foot pole, I set it on the splitting base so that it was equally balanced and waved her on. She stepped smoothly forward, the ax blurring up, around behind her, and slamming down on the pole at an angle. It usually takes me several chops to get through arm-thick pine. She did it in one—the wood jumping apart into two equal lengths.
“You good?” I asked. She nodded, smiling, already headed to the pile to get another pole.
I grabbed an armload of the stacked stuff and headed outside. Rory was using a sharp stick attached to nine feet of cord scribe a circle in the dirt.
I set my first load of wood down at the north compass point of the circle, which already had a shallow, ash-filled depression. Then I headed back for more, using multiple trips to pile wood at each of the four Cardinal direction points, each in their own fire pit. Then Caeco and I carried her rather abundant supply of pine poles out and leaned them in teepees around the hardwood.
Our ritual area is outside the barn on the far side from the restaurant. Most of it is blocked from view by the barn itself. We also have another bonfire space for party-type fires. That one is directly outside the main dining room window and we use it for public events, fundraisers, and various other times. Our public bonfires are popular—people love to say they partied with real witches even if we don’t admit we are.
Rory had finished the scribing and was now pouring white sand from a big plastic jug into the freshly scribed track, making the circle more visible and slightly raised from the ground.
“Is that special sand?” Caeco asked, coming up beside me, the axe on her shoulder. I studied her for a second, noting the casual and slightly possessive way she held the Estwing. Hmm, I know what to get her for a Samhain gift, I thought.
“No, it’s just sandbox sand from Home Depot,” I said, and then the attack came.
I felt it immediately—a pressure on my mind. Rory and Caeco both grabbed their rune amulets at the same time.
“What was that?” Caeco asked, looking at her necklace. “It shocked me, a little.”
“Someone just tried out a spell against us… sleeper spell, I think,” I said, turning toward the uphill side of the property and gathering power.
My aunt burst out of the house, running right at me. “Declan, don’t do it! Don’t you respond, lad!” I stood still, waiting for her, clenching my fists but doing nothing else.
“Aunt Ash, they attacked us!”
She arrived; out of breath (my aunt doesn’t get enough cardio). Behind her, Chris, Tanya, Levi, and Darci streamed out behind her, all looking puzzled.
“Yes, Declan, and it bounced right off our wards, now didn’t it? Like as not, it went right back in their own faces. So you don’t need to be doing any of your own, now do you?” she asked, getting right up close and in my face. “Do you?”
Frustrated, I looked away from her, toward where I felt the attack come from.
“What happened?” Chris asked, his girlfriend by his side. The others were still coming across the lawn, but Chris and Tanya had kept pace with my aunt without effort.
“Well now, if I had to guess, I’d say someone else has found you and that book. They tried a coma spell on us. It didn’t get through our protections and likely reflected back onto them. Now Declan, why don’t you do something useful with all that you’re holding and dump it back into the wards?” Ashling directed, nodding at my clenched fists.
The ring of iron spikes circles the whole property, including the road front and parking lot, the spikes pounded right down into the asphalt. Four lines of additional spikes run into the property toward the Rowan tree, like spokes on a lopsided wheel. The lines run along North, South, East, and West.
The North line of spikes was closest, running from the restaurant toward the tree. I found the nearest spike, about twenty feet away, and dumped the overload of powe
r I was carrying into it.
“Whoa! What was that?” Chris asked, eyes wide.
“Me nephew dumped the response he was carrying into the wards. It jumps from spike to spike and stone to stone, strengthening all of them,” Aunt Ash explained.
“Yeah, I could see it race around the property. Why?” he asked.
“Because I don’t want him responding. They got their own attack thrown right back at them, so we don’t need to be doing anything rash, now do we?”
“Offense is the best defense,” Tanya noted, sounding a bit puzzled. My aunt whirled on her, completely unmindful of danger, or maybe in spite of it.
“That’s fine for you and yours, my dear,” she said in an arctic voice. “But I’ll not have me nephew headed down that road just yet.”
Tanya looked honestly baffled.
“She doesn’t want D going over to the Dark side,” Rory said, then blushed bright red.
“’Cause ya know, I’m half there already!” I said, too angry and embarrassed for words. I spun on my heel and headed back into the barn for more wood. A soft step behind me told me that someone had followed. Gathering up more pine, I turned and found Chris gathering an armload of his own. He wasn’t looking at me when he spoke.
“I’m supposed to be God’s Hammer on Earth. Supposed to have been one of the Host. But even if that’s true, I’m tainted. Tarnished beyond repair.”
I stopped, confused. Of everything I thought he might say, this wasn’t it. I just looked at him.
“See, when I first met Tanya, I was injected with demon blood, and it bonded to me. Or so they tell me, I really don’t remember. Apparently, it melded with my dark side—the part we call Grim. So I have to be careful… more careful. Everyone has a dark side as well as a light side. Mine is a bit more aggressive than most. The demon blood boosts my dark side, making me want to indulge my abilities. To let them out and go crazy. If I ever do, my hope is that Tanya kills me quick.”
I was frozen, eyes wide, trying to process what he’d just said.
He smiled at me. “Your aunt is worried you’ll get to like using your vast abilities, Declan. It doesn’t matter whether your father was good or bad, the seeds for evil live in all of us. It’s part and parcel of the human condition. Part of free will. You are a young warlock, and you’ve got a right to be angry with what’s been done to your family and you. But that anger can take on a life of its own. Trust me, I know—I know exactly how that works. So Ashling is trying to protect you, but you, being just about adult, feel you should be trusted to decide when and where to use your abilities. It’s a struggle that actually goes on between every parent or guardian and their kid. Most just don’t have the ability to lay waste to a town with a thought or two, though,” he said, chuckling at the end. “And Declan? I don’t think it has the slightest bit to do with who your father is or was. Tanya is a born vampire, the only one ever. She’s probably the most perfect predator to walk the planet, the product of powerful vampires. But she doesn’t hunt humans at all. None. Just me, and I hardly qualify. And that’s because it’s her choice what she does with her abilities. And I’ll confess to one last thing, one I’ll deny if you repeat it to anyone,” he said, pointing one finger at me. I shook my head rapidly. No way I’d repeat this guy’s secrets.
“Part of me absolutely loves to fight. To use my abilities to their fullest. And I’m a really good fighter, Declan, but I choose when and who I fight. Me, the thinking, feeling, in-control part.”
“Me too,” I said. “No so much fighting, but using my abilities. And she’s right to mistrust me. I haven’t always made the best choices with my abilities.”
“Who has?” Chris asked. “Why, not long before I came up to see you folks, I used my abilities to harass a soccer referee. The bastard was so biased, it was ridiculous. But I got in a world of trouble with Toni’s mom over that one.”
“Me too,” I said again, feeling like a broken record. “With the whole referee thing. That’s one of my bad decisions.”
He shrugged. “They’re only human, but they’re supposed to be objective. Pisses me off.”
“But how much trouble could Mrs. Velasquez give you? She has no powers, does she?”
“Ah, but see, she’s my friend, Declan, and your friends have the ability to hurt you a great deal more than your enemies. If she’s angry with me, I don’t like it, so I tend to avoid making her angry with me for no good reason, although I’m not ready to concede that that ref wasn’t a good reason.”
He ran out of poles, so he set the stack down and went over to the uncut ones. Picking up a seven-foot length as thick as my upper arm, he casually held it out in front of him with both hands and snapped it cleanly in half with a twitch. The way I snap pencils, but maybe with less effort. He snapped five more, added the halves to his already mountainous pile, and headed out. I followed quietly, thinking about what he’d said.
My aunt was looking over the circle, nodding to herself, but she glanced my way when I came out, a vulnerable look on her face. I was still embarrassed and maybe a little angry, but much less than before. I gave her a nod and carried my wood to the north fire. Caeco met me there to unload.
“If it helps, I think he’s right,” she said with a nod toward Chris. “Mother and I have had the exact same argument. I’ve spent my whole life training for combat and spycraft, and she still argues with me about letting me do it. I think it’s a parent thing.”
“You heard him?” I asked, not really surprised. She nodded, shrugging. I laughed. “Your mom does good work, huh?” She laughed, too, and the adults all looked our way, startled, except Chris and Tanya, who just smiled at each other.
“We’re done with the book, Chris. It might be best if it were shut back in its salty pail,” my aunt suggested. Tanya disappeared, literally there one moment and gone the next, only the wind of her passage and the snick of the restaurant door closing to announce her exit.
“I still don’t know how it’s possible for anyone to move that fast. Yet they do it,” Caeco muttered, looking peeved. It took me a second to realize she was envious.
My aunt and Levi headed back inside, probably to get the rest of the spell ready. Darci headed my way.
“I’m gonna rustle lunch together for this crowd. Want to help?” she asked, her eyes searching mine. I nodded.
“I think we’re all done out here; can you use some more help?” Rory asked.
Darci looked around and saw Caeco, Chris, and my little buddy all nodding. “Well, sure. I think there is both a ham and a beef haunch we can carve for sandwich meat. I imagine a few of you are handy with knives?” she asked with a chuckle, heading toward the door.
When I took the first step to follow, the itch at the back of my head suddenly dissappeared.
Tanya must have resealed the Book of Darkest Sorrow in its saltwater bath. Feeling a little relief, I trudged after my friends but paused at the doorway to look uphill where I had felt the attack. Whoever had sent it was still there, probably recovering from the bounce back, but still there. I looked at the wards with my Sight, seeing the protective energies shimmer in the fall sunlight. In a few hours, it would start to get dark. Aunt Ash would begin her spell after darkfall, and our unseen enemy would probably try again. I’d be ready.
Chapter 54 – Declan
We ate a lot. Massive ham and roast beef sandwiches, beef barley soup the cook had left still warm on the stove, and a couple of apple pies. Even Caeco couldn’t out-eat Chris. And after lunch, Rory, Caeco, and I cleaned up the dishes while Chris went off to feed Tanya. For once, even Rory kept his curiosity in check.
The sun began to wane in the early afternoon, as it does here in the Green Mountains of Vermont in early October, and before long, my aunt declared it was time to move outdoors and begin the spell itself.
She laid out a section of deerskin inside the circle, the two God Tear amulets lying on it along with bundles of herbs and little cotton pouches of powders, all beside a wooden mortar and pestle
. Then she studied Levi’s handwritten notes a final time before beginning. In the eastern sky, the half-full moon was beginning to rise above the treeline.
“Chris, I’ll be needing you here inside the circle with me. Tanya, you as well. There’ll be a point where you’ll have to be holding him if you can. He must remain still, and this won’t be fun,” she said.
“I’ll hold him,” the beautiful vampire said firmly.
“Declan, I’ll need you to close the circle, lad, then feed me power when I need it like,” Aunt Ash told me. I nodded.
