by John Conroe
He nodded.
“You must hold him as near motionless as possible,” Aunt Ash said to Tanya, one eyebrow raised in question.
“He will not move from this spot. Can we sit?” Tanya asked.
Ashling nodded, so Tanya sat on the ground and pulled Chris down in front of her. She hooked her legs around his and wrapped one arm over his left shoulder and one arm under his right, clasping them tight. She kissed his neck and nodded her readiness to my aunt.
Ashling picked up one of the God Tear amulets and placed it over Chris’s head. Holding the handwritten spell, she read out loud, this time in Latin. At the first word, the first sound of the first syllable, Chris arched his back and clenched his jaw, his feet drumming on the ground.
I saw the guy tear steel like taffy and pull a reinforced prison cell door from concrete, yet the slim beauty held him frozen to the ground like they were cemented in place. My aunt continued her spell and, despite the awful, obvious pain he was enduring, she never rushed or hurried her words. She finished the first page, flipped the paper over, and continued to read, all while ignoring the bulging veins and twisted tendons of her patient?... victim?
I looked at the entwined couple on the ground with my Sight and almost had to look away. Almost. Sharp violet energy was flaring around Chris’s entire body, but brightest around his head. At the same time, white light flowed from Tanya through and around Chris and down into the ground. I got the impression the white was like anchoring cables, holding Tanya and her mate tight against the earth, but the purple light was wholly Chris, and it looked like it was being pulled apart.
A violet teardrop formed, about the size of a softball, pulled almost literally from Chris’s face, and when it finally tore free from him, he slumped in exhaustion, eyes shut and chest heaving for air. My aunt placed her hands above and below the orb, not touching but still able to guide the violet bundle across the circle till it was hovering directly over the second God Tear. She held both hands over it, palms down, and with a sharp, powerful motion shoved the globe of energy into the amulet, which jumped an inch off the ground.
She studied it for a moment, no doubt with her own Sight, just as I was. It glowed with a purple hue, the energy racing around and around the chain as if seeking escape. Finally, the glow dimmed and evened out across the entire necklace. When it was done, she picked it up and handed it to the exhausted man on the ground.
“It’s done, and unless I be badly mistaken, it took the spell well, it did. Though I don’t know how to test it,” my aunt said, rubbing her lower back and looking tired, herself.
She turned my way and nodded. I broke the circle, absorbing its energy back into myself.
Chris was holding the amulet in one hand and comparing it to the other around his neck.
“How would we test it?” he mused.
His girlfriend slipped the necklace from his hand and put it over her own neck. “I think I know how,” she said, then disappeared in a rush of air.
Chapter 56- Declan
I couldn’t find her for a second, but Caeco’s head swiveled to look down at the wood line and, lo and behold, there she was, standing on our side of the wards, facing about seven or eight corpses. Without even a glance our way, she stepped over the line and right into the middle of the witch-controlled bodies. At least four arms reached for her, almost simultaneously, one actually touching her shirt. Purple light flashed out around her figure, and all seven bodies exploded into dust.
A shimmering violet figure hovered just to her side, manlike, before blurring into the woods. A split second later, all the remaining corpses fell soundlessly to the ground, puppets with their strings cut. Violet light flashed across the sky uphill, leaving me with a purple after-vision.
I glanced at Chris and saw his normally tan face was pale.
My aunt was watching him as well. “How did that feel?”
“A little draining, like a sudden drop in blood sugar. Also, my vision was sort of doubled—my normal sight plus someone else’s. I also don’t think there will be any more attacks from that particular source,” he added a little grimly.
“So what did it do?” Caeco asked.
“Chris’s dopplegheist or shadow self, lives, for lack of a better word, in that necklace. It is spelled to be released when the bearer of the necklace is threatened. The dopplegheist then deals with the threat,” Levi said.
“With supreme effectiveness, it would seem. But how can it affect such violence?” Dr. Jensen asked.
“According to the book, the spell was created for a witch to form a second self, mostly for observation and to intimidate the witch’s enemies. But in Chris’s case, and using that God Tear thing as a base, it has much, much greater power. But it will always draw power from you, Chris, weakening you, distracting you with whatever it sees or hears,” Levi said.
“Then we must train you to deal with both the power drain and the distraction. We will begin as soon as we get home,” Tanya said, back again in a perfumed swirl of air.
“You just love excuses to train, don’t you, zayka?” Chris said.
I have no idea what the word meant, but the super vampire lit up like it meant the world to her.
“Training is vital,” Caeco said.
“I like this one, Christian. She is a kindred spirit,” Tanya said, smiling at Caeco.
“Well, we need to be cleaning up this mess and the mess in the woods, then I’m to bed,” Aunt Ash said.
Aunt Ashling was right… there was a lot to do. Rory and Levi disassembled the circle while my aunt put away her unused supplies. Caeco, Chris, and I got the wonderful job of pulling the fallen bodies into our land and burning them to ash. It was disgusting, and I couldn’t wait to draw every erg of power from the dwindling fires, effectively exhausting their fuel and putting them out. The flash of white fire that consumed the corpses was so hot, it melted some of the rocks on the ground.
Tanya and Darci drove up the road in Darci’s cruiser to check the cemetery. When they got back, we were just finishing up.
“What did you find?” Chris asked.
“A ritual space surrounded by twelve piles of dust. Tanya says the dust was human remains. We also found two rental vehicles with purses and clothes. Addresses on the ID all down in North Carolina.”
“That’s where the book was found. Several Circles of witches tried to get it from us down there, but I don’t remember their names… it was just before I got shot,” Chris said.
“Christian, do you remember the name that your little blonde cur laughs about?” Tanya asked.
“Stacia? Yeah, she says there was an old lady witch with one of the Circles down south named Cercia Swallows, which always makes her laugh.”
“You laugh right alongside her, Christian,” Tanya said, her voice a little chill.
“Well, it is an unfortunate name, you have to admit,” he said, mouth twitching in an almost smile..
“Was… it was an unfortunate name. Found it on the license in a purse on the front seat of one of the cars,” Tanya said.
“Circle of the Eastern Star,” Aunt Ash said. “They were customers. Bought supplies through the website.”
“So you have two rental cars with money, wallets, and I.D. in a cemetery less than a half mile away, and no bodies. That’s going to lead to questions, won’t it, Deputy?” Chris asked.
“It would, if the personal items were still in the cars. I believe they are now missing,” Darci responded with a glance at Tanya. “So the cars will be found, but nothing else. Macomb Road is the most direct route south out of Castlebury. Not unusual to find an abandoned car on it.”
“You have no problem with that, Deputy?” he asked.
“I have a problem with supernatural forces attacking my family, forces that could never be brought to justice the mundane way,” she said hotly.
He nodded. “Yeah, I’m told I had the same issue when I was a cop as well.”
Darci looked surprised at that, but before either could
speak, Tanya interrupted. “Christian, we need to drag this Godforsaken book back to its vault in the city.” She turned to my aunt. “Mistress witch, I have instructed my people to transfer payment to your bank account. You as well, Mr. Guildersleeve.”
“But we never gave you our bank information?” my aunt said.
“No… you didn’t. Christian, I want to get home so we can check on Toni and start training,” she said, gathering up the pail. “Thank you all so much.”
She shook hands all around except she put the pail down to hug myself and Caeco, then vanished out the door.
“She’s not big on goodbyes,” Chris said, looking after her. He, too, shook hands, but when he came to where the Rory, Caeco, and I were standing, he paused. “Declan, remember what I said about choices and friends. Caeco, keep an eye on him and you—” he pointed at Rory “—keep an eye on both of them.”
“Mr. Gordon, I’d ask that you test that thing we created a great deal more before burdening that poor wee girl with it. You wouldn’t want to be causing a massacre at primary school over a harsh word or something, now would you?”
“Believe me, Ms. O’Carroll, I wish I didn’t have to put this on her. And as my girlfriend indicated, my immediate future will be nothing but testing and training. But when I agreed to be Toni’s godfather, I put her life in immediate and never-ending danger. It’s already been proven that I can’t always be there to protect her, and my main job seems to be closing all these damned demon portals that keep opening.”
We must have frowned at him because he took a minute to explain that random portals to Hell were popping up around the globe. They apparently were the result of some side effect of the Large Hadron Collider in Europe.
“Ah, Chris, about the portal thing. What’s going to happen at Samhain… er… Halloween?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, Samhain is the point in the year when the barriers between worlds naturally thins the most. Won’t that have an effect on these portals?”
He stared at me for a full three seconds. “Wow, that’s a little ray of sunshine, isn’t it?” He thought about it some more. “I may need to call on your consulting services again, Ms. O’Carroll, and your nephew’s, as well.”
Looking worried, he turned and headed outside, waving one last time before climbing into the passenger side of the sleek little Mercedes. The engine revved and the car shot out of our parking lot, turning left and accelerating up Macomb hill.
With that, the rest of us said our goodnights. Rory would spend the night with me in the metal man cave while Caeco and her mom headed home. Levi left for his own place, and my aunt and Darci disappeared into their room.
Chapter 57 – Declan
Rory woke me up the next morning, earlier than I would have liked, his snoring sounding like a dull chainsaw unable to cut through a thick tree.
I threw a pillow, two smelly socks, and a sneaker at him, but the noise continued, unaffected. I contemplated levitating him up and out the door, thinking that leaving him on the roof of someone’s car would be really funny, but I noticed that it had gotten cold enough to frost overnight. Embarrassing my buddy was fine. Causing frostbite, not so much.
So I climbed into sweats and headed inside. Nobody was in the living quarters, so I entered the restaurant. It was packed. Sometimes, when we hang out our psychic do not disturb sign, it has almost the opposite effect when we take it down. Like unnaturally driving people away brings them back in droves when you stop. Rory says it’s a supernatural return to the mean. That’s too much math for me, but I get his point.
The place was jumping. Every table was full, and I could see my aunt across the main dining room, her back to the big picture window. She was talking to a table of people, but I couldn’t see who they were. I snagged a mug and filled it with coffee, mixing in lots of sugar and cream, then turned to sneak back out. From across the room, my aunt’s gaze pinned me in place. She waved me over, a glint of something in her eyes.
Wondering if I had left a random body part from one of the revenants lying around, I crossed the main room slowly, pausing to return greetings from some of the regulars who were enjoying Sunday breakfast.
As I got closer, I could see that there were four people at the table, and then I could see that they were all women. Young ones. A blonde, a brunette, a bottle-bright redhead and… oh, shit… a girl with black hair. I froze in place, unable to take a step forward, then started to pull power.
My aunt’s head snapped up and she made a short, sharp motion with her hand. The empty chair at the table just to my right shot out six inches and banged into my shin hard enough to make my eyes water. The power I had been gathering fled in the face of the unexpected pain.
The couple at the table with the chair that attacked me looked startled, but not unduly so. It probably looked like I’d hooked the chair with my foot or something.
“Sorry about that,” I muttered while pausing to rub my shin. Straightening up, I continued forward to meet my aunt and the four other faces now turned in my direction.
All four of the Sisters Eire watched me from their table in front of the picture window, but I kept my eyes locked on my aunt’s. Her sharply delivered chair message had my full attention.
“We never caught up on your Friday night outing with yer lads, Declan, but these fine ladies tell me they met you in Burlington,” Aunt Ash noted. She was angry.
“Rory’s dad won a gift certificate to Katie’s for the night they played. We had a bit of encounter after. With your guests around yesterday, I wasn’t able to talk to you about it,” I said, trying to hold my temper.
“We were a bit shocked to meet Declan when we did, but he was actually brilliant, coming to Ryanne’s rescue and all,” Aileen said in a smooth, even tone. The four sisters could obviously sense the tension between my aunt and me but were gamely carrying on. “Then we were in Williston last night, shopping for some of this and that, when we felt a bloody great Crafting froom this direction. And another and another. So we thought to drive this way today and find the root of it, ye see,” she continued.
“That’s right, Ms. O’Carroll. First, to meet yer talented nephew, then to come across such a use of power. What are the odds?” Gael asked.
“Indeed, ladies. I can’t find fault with your curiosity, even a mite. But Declan, lad, surely we could have found just a wee moment yesterday to discuss your new friends?” Aunt Ashling asked. I got her unspoken message pretty clear. After all these years, how could ye fock this up so grandly, lad was what she probably really wanted to ask. Five female witches waited on my reply while I looked out the window at the Rowan tree that had done its best to protect us.
“Oh, I’m sure I could have done better, Aunt Ash. But you seemed pretty tied up with your clients, and I thought it a poor time to distract you with my mistakes,” I said, unable to keep my tone apologetic. Her eyes widened a bit, but before she could respond, Mary, the really quiet sister, spoke.
“If ye had a hand in the workings we sensed, then truly you were Crafting at a level that none of us have ever seen before. It seemed incredibly complex and easy to bollox.”
Breaking off her hard stare at me, Aunt Ash acknowledged the complement with a nod and a smile. She pulled a chair over from another table and sat down with the Sisters. I started to step backward, but another chair wiggled at me, so I grabbed it quick before it caught any of the regular people’s attention. Turning to the table once more, I found a space had opened between Gael and Ryanne, both of whom were listening to my aunt but watching me with smiles.
“Here now, we’ll just split him between us, eh, Ry?” Gael asked with a smirk.
“Bite ‘cher tongue dear, there’ll be no splitting of nothing,” Ryanne replied, giving her sister a mock glare and tugging on my chair as if to pull it closer to hers. I was very aware of her jean-clad leg almost touching mine.
Aunt Ash had, in the time I had taken to sit down, deftly changed the topic from the recent
spell crafting to news of Ireland.
“Have ye been away a while, then?” Aileen asked.
“A while indeed,” my aunt replied.
“Ye know our mum used to tell about a pair of sisters, one named Ashling, the other Maeve, who were absolutely brilliant at the Craft. They disappeared a long time ago,” the blonde witch continued. “You wouldn’t be one of the same, now would ye?”
“When I left Ireland, the elders always took it upon themselves to tell young witches who they could or couldn’t marry. Does that still go on?” Aunt Ashling asked without answering the question.
“No, it’s knackered out. There’s too much communication, what with cellies and e-mails, for the old bats to keep us under their thumbs. We pretty much have our own say now,” Gael supplied.
A deep male voice cleared itself behind me and I turned to find Michael West standing about fifteen feet away, waiting to catch my attention. I excused myself, moving to meet him.
