Romancing the Dead

by Tate Hallaway

“Really?” I murmured politely.

  “Yes,” Marge said, apparently feeling emboldened by the merest hint of interest. “I’m FamTrad.”

  FamTrad was short for Family Tradition, which meant that she was a hereditary Witch and may have come from a long line of women who secretly kept the Old Religion alive after the Inquisition, or Burning Times. I had no problem with the first claim, but the second always raised my eyebrows a little. There is a lot of contention in the witchy community about the origin of our religion and whether it was made up in the twentieth century or if it has been practiced as is since some prehistoric matriarchy. I’d be happy with either answer, honestly, because it’s my firm belief that all religions were made up at one time or another and just because something is new doesn’t make it any less real or true.

  I had no doubts that the power itself was old. I had Lilith in my belly, after all. It didn’t matter to me, however, if She came to me because there was an unbroken method of practice since time immemorial or if the first modern Witch just happened to stumble on the key through meditation and good fortune. For me, what mattered was that it was real. It worked.

  However, that breezy attitude can get me in a lot of trouble with hard-liners. So I just smiled and nodded at Marge.

  Another customer frowned at Marge’s back. This one must have been from out of town, because, without the customary midwestern hesitation, he actually said, “I’ve got a lot of stuff here, lady, can you move out of the way?”

  Marge startled and took a step to one side. She mumbled an apology and gave me a sheepish look. I smiled kindly back. I knew she didn’t mean any harm. Marge just seemed like one of those oblivious people who never seem to get the hint that it’s time to go. I was about to be blunt with her about it, when she said, “I think in my past life I was Mata Hari.”

  O-kay.

  It wasn’t that I discounted the idea of past lives. I was more than certain that, like perennials in the spring, souls passed this way again. However, a little red flag always went up when people mentioned having lived the life of a famous, or infamous, person. The majority of us weren’t kings or queens. If souls did recycle, then a vast percentage had spent their previous lives much as they do now: toiling through an unremarkable existence. Again, personally, I think that’s perfectly wonderful. Even as a middle manager in the 1930s, a life lived is a worthy one, lessons can be learned, and wisdom gained. You don’t have to be Cleopatra to have been blessed.

  Between this and the FamTrad stuff, all these outlandish declarations made me wonder what Marge felt she had to prove to me. I already knew she had power. Not only had she seen the poster I’d bespelled, but I’d sensed it flowing from her aura.

  It was now about five minutes to close and there were still three people waiting to be helped. So I put on my kindest, most charming smile, looked Marge directly in the eyes, and said, “Listen, I’m sorry. I’ve really got to ask you to leave right now, but I’d love to hear all about it tonight, Marge.”

  And that was my fatal mistake.

  Six hours later, I was cornered—literally pushed up between my bookshelf and the window—by Marge, who was, in point of fact, telling me all of her past-life sexual exploits in excruciating detail.

  I eyed the pewter statue of Kali that sat within arm’s reach on the second shelf. If Marge didn’t stop talking soon, I planned to use it to bludgeon my way back into the middle of the room. Thing was, I hadn’t had a chance to talk to anyone else tonight, and, worse, we were running out of lemonade.

  The sun had gone down several hours ago, but it was still eighty-seven degrees. At least the breeze coming in off the lake through the open windows brought a little relief. My apartment was the upper floor of a creaky, old Victorian with wiring nearly as ancient as the plaster-and-lath walls, which meant no AC. Every time I tried to plug in an air conditioner, the breakers blew.

  Strategically placed fans shifted the hot air around, and I had provided lots of pitchers of ice-cold lemonade to mitigate the heat—except now we were running precariously low.

  “Hmm, mm-hmm,” I muttered as Marge continued to regale me with her former prowess in bed. I had tuned Marge out the first time she mentioned cunnilingus, because while it might be nice to experience, it was not a word I found palatable when bandied about with impunity.

  I tried to catch Sebastian’s eye, but he was completely focused on a leggy, blond foreign exchange student named Blythe. She was a comparative religions major and a Londoner. Neither of them noticed me frantically trying to get their attention.

  Marge seemed to notice my focus drifting. Her eyes darted to Blythe and Sebastian furtively, and then she’d blurt out something awkwardly embarrassing about sex and espionage. All the while, she twiddled with that dog pendant of hers.

  Marge started explaining some Kama Sutra position the Mata Hari had found particularly useful, and I broke in, “I’ve been admiring your necklace. Where’d you get it?”

  She stopped midsentence and looked down at the pendant between her fingers like she’d never seen it before in her life. “Uh, this?”

  Marge at a loss for words—this was interesting. “Yeah. Is it Anubis? Is it magical?” I asked, knowing full well it was from my earlier aura scan. Still, I thought maybe I’d seen one on someone else here tonight and I wondered if it was associated with some local coven I didn’t know about. “Do you think I should carry it in the store?”

  “Oh no, you couldn’t do that,” she said quickly, as if I had suggested doing something rude to her grandmother. Her eyes flashed to Sebastian and Blythe and then to the floor. “It’s just something silly and personal. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  Marge had just lied to me. I looked at Sebastian, who still only had eyes for Blythe. Why had Marge glanced at them? Was the dog some kind of symbol that involved Sebastian? Legend would have you believe that vampires can transform into wolves, but Sebastian always flatly denied he had the ability to change shape. He always started getting all nerdy whenever I brought it up, quoting laws of physics and the conservation of mass, whatever that was.

  Could the pendant be another vampire’s symbol? Was Marge a ghoul? “So,” I said, trying to act like I was changing the subject when I really wasn’t, “how’d you get interested in magic?”

  “Uh, well, my family, you know,” she stammered, taking a step backward.

  What was going on here? Most Witches loved talking about when they “came out of the broom closet” and how they discovered, or rediscovered, the Craft. Actually, the analogy with the gay and lesbian community was a good one. We often lived in a kind of secrecy in a world dominated by a religion not only very different from our own but which actively despised and misunderstood us. In safe places like a coven gathering, people tended to like to bond over “war stories” of growing up in a hostile environment.

  “So you’ve always been a Witch,” I prompted. Stepping forward, so Marge would have to move back. “What kind?”

  William inserted himself smoothly into my advance, like that rescue I’d wanted ten minutes ago. “Hey, Garnet, you’re out of lemonade. Do you have more you can make? Maybe in the fridge?”

  “In a second,” I said, but Marge had already fled into the crowd. “Damn.”

  William frowned. “Oh. Did I interrupt something?”

  I shook my head. “No, it’s fine. I’ll talk to her about it later.”

  So, with William in tow, I refilled the lemonade and chips, and then went to check in on Sebastian. Or, at least, I tried to.

  “Hey,” I said, coming up to where Sebastian stood. Sebastian looked good despite the heat. Sebastian was cool and collected with his Old World-style long hair tied back at the nape of his decidedly unsweaty neck.

  Looking at him, I could hardly believe this amazing man had asked me to marry him only yesterday. He was wickedly handsome—long, straight, black hair; sharp aquiline nose; and the sculpted, graceful body of a dancer . . . or, more accurately, a predator.

  Okay, so tha
t last part shouldn’t have been sexy, but it was. Sebastian had intense gold-brown eyes, not unlike that wolf I’d met on the road. It had been the first thing I’d noticed about him. I’d never met a real person who had an honest-to-Goddess “penetrating gaze,” but Sebastian did. It was captivating.

  Thrilling, even.

  That is, when he was looking at me—which he wasn’t right now.

  Not at all.

  Sebastian had murmured a quick hello, but he and Blythe were deep into a conversation about some obscure British television show I didn’t even know he watched. I listened to them for a few minutes and realized I had nothing of substance to add.

  Blythe’s chuckle cut above the ambient noise. Sebastian’s broad smile showed off the tips of his canines.

  His fangs had dropped! They only did that when he was excited, if you know what I mean. Sebastian was totally into Blythe.

  Lilith roiled in my stomach.

  I had the urge to interrupt Sebastian and Blythe’s nostalgia fest to point out that I harbored the dark Goddess Lilith in my body and so could crush any newcomers like a bug, but, well, that would just be petty.

  Lilith clenched my stomach again as if to say: petty, yes, but satisfying.

  I didn’t like to think of myself as jealous, but being engaged to a vampire would make the most laissez-faire person a bit twitchy. The problem was blood, of course. Sebastian needed a lot of it, more than one person could physically provide. There have to be others.

  Add to this the fact that while I found the whole biting thing to be an absolute rush, I hesitated to become my boyfriend’s main supply. Sexual politics were complicated enough without adding one’s place in the food chain into the mix. I wanted Sebastian to desire me for me, not for my fabulously salty and iron-rich O-positiveness.

  Which was why my nerves prickled around Blythe— who knew what interest Sebastian was showing? In a weird way, I’d be happier if he was just into her. However, as a potential meal, things got complicated fast. If she was a rival girlfriend, I had legs to stand on when I told him I’d rather he stayed focused on me especially given the ring on my hand. But a ghoulfriend? What could I say? Pick something else off the menu, I don’t like who you’re having for lunch?

  Lilith rattled uneasily against my ribs.

  That’s when I realized the room had hushed, as if everyone were suddenly holding their breath. People were staring. At me. Or rather, they were gaping in wonderment and horror at the fraction of Lilith that had slipped up into me.

  Even Sebastian stopped talking, and he and Blythe turned slowly in my direction as if expecting to see a monster lying in wait for them. Which, I suppose I was, except the slow burn I’d had on evaporated under the intense scrutiny of a room full of Witches.

  I decided to use this opportunity to turn the situation around. I cleared my throat. “Uh, we should probably get this meeting started, eh, Sebastian?”

  “Ah, right,” he said, though I knew he could sense that something ugly had nearly erupted a moment ago. He and I shared custody of Lilith, kind of. Thanks to a spell that had involved comingling of our blood, Sebastian was sensitive to Lilith’s moods. At least, he used to be. Over time, I’d noticed that our connection had been fading. Because Sebastian had regular blood transfusions, our empathetic bond grew weaker with each new ghoul.

  Humph. Another reason to hate them.

  Blythe gave Sebastian a possessive glance, and put a hand in the pocket of her loose-fitting cotton capris. She looked great, standing there. Her hips were full, her stomach, which I could see plainly thanks to the tan belly shirt, was flat and toned like a rock star’s.

  “So, uh,” I said, feeling suddenly kind of foolish to be caught with Lilith hanging out. “I guess everyone noticed the Goddess, eh?”

  There were nods around the room.

  “Is that what that was? A Goddess? It felt more malevolent to me,” said a character I’d mentally dubbed “broody warlock guy” in my head. His T-shirt glorified some death-metal band and silver skulls on his knuckles advertised his general badass-itude. He had long, blond Viking hair and wore a Thor’s hammer necklace.

  “Well, yeah,” I admitted. I looked over at Sebastian for support. Taking my hand, he smiled and nodded encouragingly. I squared my shoulders. I knew this part was going to be tough. I had a hard time talking about Lilith, especially with new people. Worse, fellow Witches might take umbrage with the fact that I had pulled down such an awesome power and unleashed it on anyone, even if they had just murdered my coven. I’d used magic to kill. No matter how you sliced it, that was black magic.

  “That’s the first order of business,” I said. “I kind of harbor the dark Goddess Lilith.”

  “Kinda? Isn’t that like saying you’re sort of pregnant?” a woman who’d introduced herself to me as Xylia said. Xylia perched on the windowsill, gnawing on a carrot (the only thing I’d provided that a strict vegan could eat). Rail-thin with a super-butch buzz cut and a muscle shirt from the Michigan Womyn’s Festival, she stood up now and narrowed her eyes at me.

  “Okay,” I confessed. “Lilith is a part of me, and I’m not just talking about when I call down the Goddess as part of a ritual. I mean, all the time.” I surprised myself by bringing up the central aspect of seasonal gatherings—the moment when the High Priestess symbolically becomes the Goddess. I hadn’t really celebrated the usual Wiccan holidays since merging with Lilith, partly because I didn’t know how to deal with the fact that I now was a Goddess full time, and partly, I realized for the first time, because I missed having a group.

  “Lilith?” Marge said in a small voice, as though she had just now absorbed the information I’d laid out earlier. She stood in the archway between my living room and dining room, gripping a sweating glass of lemonade with whitening knuckles. “You mean, like the Lilith.”

  I nodded.

  “Isn’t Lilith primarily a Christian goddess?” Blythe asked no one in particular.

  “Judeo-Christian,” Marge added. “She’s a succubus and baby killer in Jewish folklore.”

  “Excuse me! Baby killer . . . ?” I sputtered in protest, “Now wait just a minute—” But the conversation continued right over me.

  “Like with a lot of the vilified ‘demons’ of the Judeo-Christian myths, I believe there’s a root Goddess much older—Assyrian, maybe?” William added.

  “She’s associated with screech owls, I think,” someone I hadn’t been introduced to yet added. I was pretty sure he’d come with Marge. He was short and doughy in a pleasant I-love-cooking sort of way. I thought maybe his name was Max, but I couldn’t remember. He had long, straight, brown hair that he wore pinned back from his face. Large, thick glasses balanced on a pug nose.

  “Lilith kicks ass.” Broody Warlock nodded his approval.

  And so the debate began. Well, as far as reactions to my admission of harboring a Goddess known as the Mother of Demons went, it wasn’t necessarily a bad one. At least no one had run screaming for the door. Of course, we still hadn’t gotten around to mentioning Sebastian was one of the living dead, as it were.

  One major hurdle at a time.

  I gave Sebastian a return squeeze to let him know I was okay and let go of his hand. Since everyone was talking around me, anyway, I moved over a step in order to slump down into an empty spot on my bright orange couch. Sebastian perched on the arm, which creaked dangerously under his weight.

  The breeze coming in from the windows behind us finally brought a little relief. As darkness deepened, the buzzsaw hiss of cicadas gave way to the soft chirp of crickets.

  Barney, my cat, sneezed delicately from somewhere under the couch. She’d been hiding out since the first potential coven member arrived. Usually she was fond of company because it meant more attention for her, but she was allergic to magic—or, at least, she wanted me to believe she was.

  “How’d it happen?” Trust Broody Warlock to turn the conversation back to me. “Isn’t trapping a demon major dark-arts type stuff?”r />
  “Not demon, Griffin,” William said to broody warlock guy, having apparently learned his name at some point. “Goddess.”

  “Whatever,” Griffin said dismissively. “The point is you don’t control something that powerful by accident, do you?”

  Griffin’s question bothered me because I didn’t have a good answer for him. I shifted my seat, feeling the rough upholstery stick to my exposed, sweaty skin. Shrugging, I said, “I didn’t trap Lilith.”

  He squinted at me like he didn’t quite buy it. “Yeah, sure,” he said. “But why? What makes you so special?”

  There was the million-dollar question. Thing is, I never did know exactly why Lilith didn’t just return to the ether afterward. Why was she trapped with me? Or was it that she chose to say? I mean, I’d known other Witches who’d summoned the strength of Gods and Goddesses during times of crisis. None of them ever reported having gotten “stuck” with one on a permanent basis. Perhaps, part of the problem was that I didn’t just call on the strength of a Goddess, but on the Goddess herself.

  Actually, when I admitted it to myself, what I’d asked the universe for that night was much more visceral than just naming some Goddess for protection. I’d wanted vengeance. I didn’t care who or what aided me as long as they served up an eye for an eye.

  Uh. That was so not cool. I tried not to think about that or about the fact that Lilith might have been attracted to just that kind of thinking.

  “Back off, dude,” William said in my defense. “Garnet didn’t ask Lilith to stay, okay. It just happened.”

  “Yes,” Sebastian said, his voice smooth with just a hint of threat. “You sound jealous, boy.”

  Griffin took a step forward at Sebastian’s words, and I thought there might be a fight, so I stood up. “Look,” I said, “I really don’t know why Lilith stays with me,” I admitted. “It’s something I’d love to know the answer to. Maybe that’s something we could find out as a group.”

  I saw a few wan smiles that were beginning to warm to me.

  Griffin and Sebastian still eyed each other threateningly, so I thought maybe this was a good time to nudge Sebastian about item number two on our agenda. “So, Sebastian,” I said. “Should I tell them or do you want to?”