The Companion Witch, page 12
Margaret Jones.
And then he was awake. He could hear Lulu downstairs, but there wasn’t time to say hello. He wrapped himself in the blankets from the bed and headed to the library to dig among the dead professor’s books.
Lulu
Lulu didn’t sleep until the afternoon, but she did wake up around nine in the morning thanks to a chipper bird outside her window. She ripped off the blanket and saw a pile of freshly folded sheets and pillow cases on the desk in her room. She hoped she hadn’t been snoring when he dropped them off. Magnus was nowhere to be found, probably holed up in his dark bedroom with the shutters drawn tightly. She hopped out of bed and dressed in comfortable clothes before heading downstairs to make breakfast.
Coffee was of vital importance. She used the freshly cleaned machine and set it to run. Mornings outside of her apartment felt strange. She could trust Jinx to take care of Lucifer, and Lucifer to take care of himself, but it was odd to be in a new place. After buying her apartment, it’d been her home base. She’d never stayed in another house on assignments, only hotels. She rolled her neck as she watched the coffee drip. Maid Magnus had arranged the fruits she brought in a bowl on the counter. She plucked an orange from the immaculate presentation and dug in the fridge for a few eggs.
After breakfast, she went to the living room. While Seymour ensured Magnus would have his research collection, she had different priorities. A neat stack of weights, resistance bands, and a yoga mat sat in the corner waiting for her. As she rolled out her mat, she could smell the lemon fragrance left over from Magnus’ cleaning frenzy. Her muscles ached as she began to stretch them, unused after three days besides actual combat. The spot where the harpy had scraped her fangs still stung, but it was bearable.
The first thing Lulu had done when she left the coven was find a job. Her savings were a few hundred bills in an old coffee can that Arabella managed to smuggle out for her along with a duffel bag of clothes. Stripping was the easiest job that Lulu could find without a high school degree. Magic certificates of education weren’t exactly accepted at employment offices. Before she landed in Cat’s Meow, she had a brief stint in a seedy club in Chicago. The second thing she did was hunt down a martial arts gym in her neighborhood. She needed to protect herself. Being a companion witch wasn’t her goal…but things happen for a reason.
She ended her stretching routine and opened an upbeat pop playlist on her phone. Headphones on her next trip to the grocery store, she thought, and hoped Magnus wouldn’t mind the tunes. It sounded like he was digging around in the library, but that could be a family of racoons for all she knew in this old house. Muscles were fantastic things, she decided, as they snapped back to her usual routine. Her body remembered even when her mind was frazzled. She brought herself through the warm-up phase of her workout, a routine of bodyweight exercises. This was the part that she’d learned to love with training. Her body and mind working together. Her muscles gradually growing over the years, hardening into pillars of strength that she could wield. When she danced and performed for her audience, there was the thrill of knowing that nobody could know the extent of what her body was capable of. Her magic, her hard-won work.
Her first martial arts teacher, an older man who introduced her to basic self-defense, told her something important: To depend on one’s self is the greatest survival skill. How refreshing to hear that after Celestine had spent years hammering into their witchy skulls that Lulu was nothing without her coven. Nothing. She snorted. And yet, here she was, surviving and thriving without her coven. Eat that, darling Celestine. The greatest act of love that Lulu could carry throughout this life was to promise herself belief in her own abilities.
She wasn’t in Chicago long before she made her way to New Obsidia, before she found Oliver and Cassandra, before she’d stumbled into vampiric death threats. Six years was a funny span of time. How was it for vampires? Six years was like blinking their eyes, she imagined. As she was talking herself through a set of grueling pushups, a pair of feet in black socks padded in front of her. She glanced up at Magnus, who was clutching a book to his chest and staring down at her.
“Keeping your girlish figure?” he asked.
“Keeping my fighting figure,” she replied firmly and drew herself up, ignoring the sweat dripping down through her sports bra and tank top. She paused the music. “Did you come to read me a story?”
“I can’t sweat anymore, but I hated it when I was human.” He was wrapped up in a blanket, giving him the odd appearance of a cocooned vampire. His long claws flipped elegantly through the text in his hand. She glanced at the faded emerald green cover with thick black letters that read: Rethinking the Salem Witch Trials.
“Not exactly the reading I’d share with a witch,” she said with a sniff.
“Our dear professor has left us a gift,” he said. His eyes flashed with wicked mischief. “Miss Lulu, would you be interested in a field trip tonight to a graveyard?”
She sighed and ran over her head. “Salem, Massachusetts? I’ll have to bewitch the car again. We need a hotel. It’s too dangerous.”
“Nonsense, I’ll Vecturate us. I’m healed up enough,” he told her.
Her eyes narrowed. “Magnus, you’re not fully healed. That’s why we took the car.”
“You didn’t seem this concerned for my health when you shoved me in the trunk.”
“That was different,” she insisted. “Teleportation work takes an enormous amount of energy. You could get hurt.” She was bluffing on those last lines. Vecturation was vastly different for vampires, but it was still dangerous. Teleportation could be tracked by a savvy enough magic user. Was he strong enough to teleport them and cover their tracks?
“If I die from my own stupidity then your job is done and you still get the money,” he said brightly. She buried her face in her hands and groaned between her fingers. “That’s the spirit!” he cried and then marched out of the room, his blanket cape trailing behind him. He glanced back over his shoulder. “If you need me, I’ll be submerged in the bathtub.”
She stared at the empty doorway and shook her head, feeling suddenly tired. Coffee again and then she would finish her workout. And there would be the weekly call with Arabella. She bit her lip. In which Lulu would have to explain how she went from refusing to work for vampires to travelling willingly with one after a poisoned harpy attack. She took her coffee to the back porch, staring at the overgrown backyard. Her leg twitched. She walked out into the yard, kicking bits of crumbling old planters into the grass. From this vantage point, she could see into the field nearby with a crumbling barn and an assortment of random junk.
The phone rang.
“Hey,” she said, sipping her coffee.
“What’s happened?” Arabella asked. “I did a reading and saw things.”
Lulu cleared her throats. “What things?”
“A fire, a fight, a promise, movement, hiding.”
“Damn,” Lulu said. “You are good.”
“Divination was always one of my strongest subjects,” Arabella whispered into the phone. Lulu heard rustling on the other side of the phone. “Sorry, I thought I heard Celestine’s voice. Tell me everything.”
“I can only tell you some things,” Lulu said. “Honestly. Only some. For the sake of my client.”
“The vampire,” her friend said, breathless. “Lulu, you didn’t!” There was a touch of excitement in the woman’s voice.
“Things happened here,” Lulu explained. “I decided to take him on as a client.”
“The fire and the fight. Are you okay? Surely, you can tell me that.”
“It was bad, but it’s okay. I’m okay,” she replied and for the first time, it struck her that she was fine. For the moment. “How’s Mom?”
“She’s fine, the same.” A nervous twitter had snuck into Arabella’s voice. “Lulu, I told you I had a bad feeling and—”
“My work is dangerous,” Lulu said in a calm voice. She tried to make it as soothing as possible. She’d stolen the voice out of her own mother’s throat. “I’m a trained professional, Bella.” They pulled out childhood nicknames against one another in these moments. Except Lulu was always going by the nickname that Arabella had given her.
“Lucy,” Arabella fired back. “I’m worried.”
“You’re always worried,” Lulu said. “I know. It’s hard. I’m not with the coven anymore.”
“Celestine grows more paranoid every day,” Arabella said in a hushed tone. She’d be worried that she was being overheard. Lulu wanted to scream: SO LEAVE. But it was too hard. Few witches left their homes unless they were forced out. Like she was.
“You’d be a much better coven leader,” she decided to say instead. Her reflection stared at her in the coffee. “You’re kind and worried in the good way.”
A strange sound caught on the other side of the phone. “Celestine keeps pushing a birthing for the coven.” Lulu let out a loud cackling laugh.
“How ironic coming from the woman who told us that we had to protect our bodies for ourselves. Do you remember all that nonsense? Our sex education was a presentation on the joys of masturbation and the idea that one day, perhaps, we’d decide to use a human man for a sperm donation. I don’t recall Celestine being keen on pushing us for babies back then.”
“The coven is small. My mom is getting tired of arguing with her,” Arabella said in a defeated tone. “I keep telling them I don’t want to. I don’t want a child right now. I want to study plants.”
“Then study them and tell Celestine where she can shove her hypocritical ideas.”
Arabella’s laughter was soft and sad. “Things are hard in the coven.” Lulu wanted to say that they’d always been hard. That the coven had never been a safe place since Celestine had overhauled their group with her fear and tight grip. Lulu had escaped, not by choice, but still…
“I’m in the South,” she said softly. “Even the breeze is muggy here.” How desperately she wanted Arabella to feel it for herself. There were other covens out here, progressive ones that were allowing witches more freedom. Hell, she and Arabella could start their own. A painful throb settled into her chest. But who would take care of Lulu’s mother? Who would attend to her each day to ensure that her breath was even and that her closed eyes were peaceful? “Thank you,” she added.
“For what?”
“You know. For everything.”
Arabella sighed into the phone. “I miss you.”
“I miss you too,” Lulu replied with a wavering tone. She forced it steady. “I can’t call until this job is over. It’s too dangerous. If something happens, you’ll get word. I promise.”
“May the goddesses shine their light upon you,” Arabella whispered. “I’ll be keeping you in my thoughts and magic. Goodbye, Lulu. My love is always with you.”
“Bye, Bella.”
Lulu sat in the wild grass with her head between her knees. She could remember things about the coven. The burning of the cut on her wrist. The shadows that reached for her. The way the darkness asked for her heart’s desire.
What do you wish for, witch child?
She wasn’t a child anymore. The coffee cup, held tightly in her hands, began to shake. The spring breeze caught her tears and brushed them away before she had to admit that she’d cried them at all.
Chapter 18
Lulu
Lulu had teleported twice in her life. Once at her coven when a gifted witch in transportation arts had visited and once with a client, an alcoholic elf that had stolen a teleportation amulet from a warlock after a bad breakup. She hated the feeling. For mortal bodies, half of the people vomited, and she’d never been one for rollercoaster rides.
“Nervous?” Magnus asked in a chipper tone as he cleared the area in the living room. “Can we use your little mat for a jumping off point?” He was holding her yoga mat in his hands.
“If you don’t incinerate it by accident.”
He hesitated and glanced down at the mat. “I’ll buy you a new one if that happens.”
She sighed. “Are you actually okay to do this?”
“Yes,” he insisted. It was hard to argue with him in this moment. He looked exceptionally handsome without his blanket burrito, dressed in a tight black turtleneck and dark jeans with polished boots. A small leather satchel was thrown over his shoulder. She muttered quick protection and concealment enchantments over them before joining him on the yoga mat. He laced his arm around her and hugged her against his body. “Ready?” he asked, looking down at her with a grin. She nearly shivered against him, the sensation of his cold claws brushing against her thin sweater.
“Ready,” she lied.
It was fast. It was always fast with teleporting. The living room vanished into a terribly ugly pool of melted colors and then they were falling. She nearly yanked herself away from him, it was the natural reaction, but his claws kept her tightly in his grasp. She’d never been so thankful to be in the arms of a vampire. After the falling came the stomach somersaults. When the landed in a patch of dewy grass, she collapsed to the ground and lifted her hand.
“I’m fine,” she said. “I might vomit, but I’m fine.” He stood beside her as she gulped down the dinner threatening to come back up. He removed a flask from his satchel.
“Take a sip,” he told her. She smelled a strong fragrance of liqueur and gagged, but he brought the flask to her mouth. Reluctantly, she took a sip and retched after a sip. A strange sensation of calming came over her and she stopped. “Ginger whiskey with a few magic bits,” he explained. She took a deep breath and he helped her up. Her stomach settled and finally, she could see where he’d taken them. A faded sign boasted the town of Salem, Massachusetts.
"I can't say this is the number one travel destination for witches," she commented. He smirked and led them to the entrance of a creepy churchyard.
"If it makes you feel better, it was only 19 people killed,” he said and opened the gate. The wrought-iron groaned at the movement, releasing a haunting echo into the churchyard.
"It doesn’t. Most of those people I doubt were even witches. You don't talk to non-vampires often, do you?"
"I talk to non-vampires for research."
"Do you have friends?"
“I have families,” he said. “And enemies.”
“I imagine,” she said as she stepped over a headstone, “Tell me about the enemies. That’s my concern.”
“Well, there was Cornelius. We went to school together as boys, but I slept with his fiancée.”
She rolled her eyes. "Is he alive?"
"Oh…no. I've made a few who are still kicking though."
"Any interested in your research?"
"Not sure if they’d tell me. I had a run in with one of the Vlatsi boys when I was exploring an old monastery a few centuries ago. That’s why I doubt it's them. They're not the brightest lot."
"Says the vamp bringing us to a potentially haunted cemetery at night.”
“We’re looking for the grave of Margaret Jones.”
“Was she an old friend’s fiancée?”
“Not quite. She was before my time. She died in 1693. She was one of the first victims of the witch trials in Massachusetts.”
She grimaced, a sour taste coming into her mouth. The coven had covered the Salem Witch trials well during their lessons. There’d been much worse witch hunts in history, but it was the closest geographic reminder that a witch needed to be careful. There was a reason they existed in covens. Celestine seemed to take great pleasure in showing them illustrations from witch hunts. Black and white ink cuts showing women being led to the gallows. She shook the haunted faces from her mind.
“Was Jones an actual witch?” she asked. It was hard to tell when looking at historical records. She’d looked at them herself during her history lessons, wondering if they were actually leading a magic worker to the grave. Most of the men and women seemed to be ordinary folks, according to witch historians. They were falsely accused by paranoid neighbors.
He cast a sly look her way. “I was hoping you could tell me,” he said. “She was an experienced midwife and rumored to have been knowledgeable about herbal remedies.”
She laughed. “So, she was either a gifted doctor or a witch. I guess that meant a witch no matter what back then.”
“Puritans enjoyed their patriarchal ideas.”
She raised a brow. “Weren’t you raised in the 17th century, old man?”
“Yes, but my parents were German Lutherans in the Netherlands. Even then, it was a bit more progressive than colonial Salem.”
“Whatever you say, Professor.”
“The records show that Margaret was supposedly regularly visited by an imp.”
“An imp? You don’t hear about those anymore. Usually people say demon. They meant whatever the creature was, it was like a familiar?” she asked.
“Sort of. The story goes that they believed witches had imps that would visit them to feed of their magical energy. There was someone who claimed he saw an imp visit Margaret during the day.”
“That doesn’t make sense. A demon isn’t stupid enough to visit a witch during the daytime in front of human eyes and most witches don’t make contracts with demons. If she was a healer,” she wondered aloud and then stopped. She lifted her head in the direction of a decimated grave. It was crumbling, a pathetic pile of stones that was fighting a losing battle against weeds. “If she was a healer then she wasn’t likely to work for dark forces.” She advanced towards the stone, feeling around the edges of the gnarled ivy.
