The Companion Witch, page 17
“What are these?” she asked.
“Assurance pendants,” he explained. “One for your and one for Magnus. It represents the bodily state of the other person. For you, it will tell you if Magnus is in danger. For Magnus, it will inform him of the same thing except about your safety. It is old technology and I would prefer to use better methods, but these cannot be tracked.”
“And we have no pendants for you? Or Rima?” she asked with a furtive glance towards him.
“Your job is to protect my brother,” he assured her. “Rima and I will take care of ourselves. We will make no movements to travel to the house. You can always activate the communication mirror if there’s an absolute emergency, but it will only work if I’m around it. The pendant will turn red if you’re dead or the blue will fade if you’re in danger. ”
“And the color to represent that we’re safe?”
“Blue,” Magnus said. “A rather nice robin’s egg blue.”
“You do remember,” Seymour said with a light smile.
“Why do you hate these?” she asked Magnus. He sighed.
“Let the old man explain how the set-up for these bloody stones work,” he replied and gave an expectant, bored look to his brother. “We’re waiting, O Ancient One.”
Seymour folded his clawed fingers carefully as he glanced towards her. “Archaic magic calls for some archaic offerings.”
“Blood?” she ventured and then frowned. “No, then it wouldn’t work well for vampires.”
“Life force,” Magnus muttered. “Feels like the worst headache of your life.”
“Only for a moment,” Seymour said carefully. “I have to dive a bit into your life force as Magnus said…It is a quick process, but unfortunately painful. I have to do each process alone with each of you. It is not especially comfortable. You can imagine it is like someone else taking a step into your mind.”
“Into my mind?” Her heart skipped a beat. “Will you be able to see anything?”
“Fragments of things, maybe,” Seymour replied smoothly. “There is very little one can make out.”
“He says that now,” Magnus sang out. “It’s all fun and games until Seymour realizes it was me who paid a warlock to enchant his neckties to be crooked.”
Seymour didn’t turn to look at Magnus. “I knew that without having to consult your mind.” A nervous tremor ran through her, one that she forced down. Seymour slipping into her mind…She bit her lip as she stared at the stone, sitting like an ugly promise on the table. Magnus caught her look.
“You don’t want to know I’m safe and sound?” he asked in a high-pitched tone as he threw a hand over his chest.
“I see you every day,” she hurled back. “I know you’re safe.”
“I’ll take Magnus first into the living room,” Seymour said. He took one pendant in his hand as he stood from the table and then headed to the living room. Magnus huffed, but followed dutifully. They left her at the table, worrying her hands as she stared at the remaining stone necklace left. He wouldn’t find anything, she told herself. She took a deep breath in and out. She would think of happy things, of summers spent with Arabella in the creek beds looking for the shiniest rocks near their coven.
Indeed, a few minutes was all it took before Seymour came back with Magnus. The latter was clutching his head like he’d been clubbed. He collapsed at the table, cradling his skull in his arm, his blonde hair fluttering as he moaned his complaints. Seymour placed the necklace, a pale flickering blue, on the table and scooped up the other.
“A few minutes,” he promised as he took her by the hand. He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze, which felt nice even with his claws. The living room was still set up with string lights and candles. He’d left the chair in the center of the room and led her over to it. She would much rather another striptease from a vampire than this. “Breathe deeply,” he told her. “It will be over soon.”
“Seymour,” she said. Her own voice cracking sent a shock of fear through her. “Please try not to look too closely.”
His eyes held her gaze. What he was thinking, she couldn’t guess, but he gave her a shoulder a reassuring pat as he asked her to close her eyes. She did and prayed to any goddess or ancient witch listening that her mind would be strong.
“It begins,” a hushed voice told her. It may have been Seymour, but it was too hard to tell before the room fell away. Gone were the enticing memories of thrall. Here was a cold and bitter hug from the universe. No, a void of the universe. A sickly feeling that sucked out any sense of living. Tiny metallic strings tugged at her heart. She gasped, choking, remembering the chill of Dante’s hold on her. “Breathe, Lulu.”
She tried to stop the thoughts before they came, but the voice was too much like her mother. She remembered all of it. The healer witch on their front porch, a hanged head, telling teenaged Lulu to not expect much. Witches rarely recovered from this disease. Whatever afflicted her mother, whatever magic illness had swept through her delicate bones, there wasn’t hope for any recovery. Ease the suffering as it goes. They wanted Lulu to watch her mother die slowly. Arabella telling Lulu that they would do it together. Celestine’s unforgiving face. Covens stick together. They would not go for outside help. What are you going to do? Run from your coven? Who would take care of you if you got sick? Pledge allegiance to your tribe or face ruin alone while insidious mystic forces unravel your cells.
She knew that her mother would die slowly. Her mother was still dying slowly. Back at the coven, under Arabella’s watch. And whose fault was that? Celestine, bitter and snarling. Get out and never come back. Lulu hovering over the chalk symbols on the floor of her old bedroom, her fingers singed with ash and her stuffed animals staring in horror. She’d been trying to save her mother. Celestine screamed so loud that it shook every door off by the hinges.
The dark whispery promises reached out of Hell and grabbed Lulu’s hands.
What do you wish for, witch child?
And she made a bad wish. A selfish wish. A wish that wasn’t hers to make. To go against nature was unholy for a witch and she knew that.
But, to let her mother die like that?
They granted it. One soul to keep her mother’s breath going and dark powers that she should call upon in a great hour of need. Powers that would likely rip apart her body before the demons came back for the scraps of her soul.
There was more after the contract. The bus ride to Chicago. Crying alone in a park with a coat barely warm enough to stave off the chill. Alone. Dreadfully alone. Her magic, changed. Her soul, marked. The memory of that demonic force calling out for her.
How it would always call for her in the dark of the night.
When the crying started, she thought it was her. Her eyes fluttered open. She hissed at the pain that sprung into her mind. It was until she saw Seymour, bent at the waist and clutching the necklace, that she realized what was happening. He lifted his face and she sucked in a breath. Tears streaked down both his cheeks. She opened her mouth to speak. The painful throb screamed at her. He lifted his hand and shook his head.
In a single movement, he was holding her. She felt his claws stroking her hair and the shudder of a final sob. He muttered things in a language that she didn’t understand. When he pulled away, the pain seemed to dull.
“I am sorry,” he told her. She stared at him. It was the first time someone had apologized for what happened to her. And then, in a definitive tone, “I will speak of this to no one.” Least of all, Magnus. That’s what he wanted to say, she knew. She nodded gratefully, but the pain forced her to cradle her own head as the waves of nausea shook her. He straightened and she heard his jacket sleeve dragging across his face.
“Let us return to the kitchen,” he said. She allowed him to take her by the hand, refusing to open her eyes again. The light was too painful. She collapsed in a seat at the table next to Magnus, who was faring better. His face was going back to its usual permanent shade of sunny vampire.
“Did you see those dreams she has about me?” he asked in a teasing voice as Seymour followed behind her.
“Take your pendant,” Seymour said gruffly and shoved the necklace towards Magnus. She heard him march out of the room.
“What bit him in the ass?” Magnus asked. She forced her eyes open to glance at him.
“Probably your very existence.”
He grinned. His bright white fangs made her headache worse. “Glad to see your fighting spirit is still there.” His quick fingers found the necklace that Seymour had brought back, and he slipped it around his neck. With the other, he placed it around her neck. She was too weak to protest an invasion of her personal space. They were a long way past that mark.
“Gorgeous,” he breathed.
“They are pretty,” she muttered, fingering the pendant around her neck and staring at the matching one around his neck.
“Did you think I was talking about the necklace?”
She turned away from him. “My head hurts too much for this.” He laughed and she felt his hands softly stroked her hair. The claws were oddly hypnotic. Her eyelids grew heavy as his voice faded into the background.
And she didn’t stop him.
She fell asleep at the table and dreamed of blue light.
Chapter 25
Magnus
“I dream here,” Magnus announced. He’d taken a sleeping Lulu up to her bed and retired to the kitchen with his brother. Seymour’s exhausted face flickered with faint interest. They nursed two full glasses of blood. The wine glasses were in the dishwasher, so Magnus had poured them into large mugs with motivational quotes. He read his: Seize the day! Seymour’s mug had a picture of a happy puppy that said something about positivity.
“Impossible,” Seymour said. His brother hated to believe in impossible things. No wonder he was tired all the time.
“It’s true.”
“We do not dream,” Seymour insisted and rubbing his tired eyes. “Did you talk to Lulu about this?”
“Not yet,” he said. “It just occurred to me.” Seymour said nothing and took a healthy sip of his drink.
“Vampires do not dream.”
“Repeating something doesn’t make it a fact.”
“Says the fellow who has spent three decades chasing the same obsession,” Seymour said. He leaned back in the chair and let his neck roll back. “Be gentle with the witch.” It was a weary prayer.
Magnus sat up straighter. Not on purpose. “What do you mean? Did you see something?”
“You know I would never tell you even if I did,” Seymour said with a sniff. He arched his head back with a groan. Energy work was tiring no matter how powerful you were. “I’m surprised you have not dragged her to your bed yet.”
“I’m not an animal,” Magnus protested.
Seymour glared at him. “Oh, using the thrall was a fun parlor trick? You cannot fool me, Magnus. What would you have done if I had not appeared?”
Magnus raised his eyebrows. “Do you really want to know?”
“No,” Seymour admitted with a sigh. “I would not.”
Magnus smiled and said nothing.
Winners didn’t have to.
Lulu
Lulu woke up early. She immediately went to the living room and cleaned it, arranged her weights and yoga mat into the center. Hard rock music poured through her new headphones. She warmed up and then dove into her training with gritted teeth. The sweat began to pour. She pushed harder. Her muscles protested. Her neck tingled. Her head throbbed. She shoved all of the feelings to the side and did pushups until her arms were on fire.
She set down an enormous weight plate and collapsed onto the mat. It was slick with her sweat. She made a half-hearted movement with her towel to wipe away the product of her hard work. An earbud slipped out and she listened to her hard-labored breathing. Her hands tightened into fists.
“Your workout is making this stone unbearably hot,” Magnus announced, sticking his head in from the hallway. “It’s like a match on my skin.”
“Take it off,” she muttered, too tired to lift herself up.
He huffed. “No.” She heard him take his offended tone down the hall. His feet shuffled towards the library. An additional comment rang out: “We’re travelling in a few days. Don’t exhaust yourself too much.”
“Sure thing, Dad,” she muttered. She drew herself up from the mat and relaxed onto her heels. Her body protested. Food, protein shake, hot shower. She went out into the hallway when something caught her eye. There was a small stack of books on the hallway table shoved in between two bookends in the shape of horses. She’d never paid attention to them before. They were old and faded like everything else in the house. A weathered red spine caught her eye. On a whim, she plucked it from the shelf and made her way to the kitchen.
The days had been running together before Seymour’s surprise arrival. He left a note on the kitchen table wishing them words of good luck. She closed her eyes and let herself lean against the fridge door, arms full of her pre-made lunch and protein shake ingredients. How long would she and Magnus be spending in this house together? How much longer could she take? A plastic salad dressing bottle in her arms tumbled to the ground and rolled under the table. She sighed and went to fetch it.
Make lunch and take a hot shower. She gave her tired brain the instructions and let her body move mechanically through the kitchen. Her eyes hardly registered Magnus when he came in the side door as she was removing her meal from the microwave. He sniffed the air and regarded her grilled chicken with distaste.
“Cooked meat always smells foul to me,” he said. She moved to the kitchen table.
“Good thing it’s not for you,” she shot back. God, she was in a mood and she knew it. He said nothing and played with the fruit in the bowl. It wasn’t like him to lurk in the kitchen. The only books here were about Southern cooking. Somehow, she couldn’t imagine that he wanted to learn how to make fried chicken. For good measure, she took a bite out of the chicken in front of her. Cooked meat did just fine for her.
“Do you have a father?”
She almost choked on the chicken. His claws danced over a delicious crisp apple. She swallowed and took a swig of icy water from her glass. “What?”
“A father,” he repeated with a casual look of amusement. “You know? The being whose genetic donation caused your—"
“I know what a father is. Why are you asking me this?” she asked.
“Isn’t that what friends do? Ask each other questions about their lives?” he asked, the rising performance of innocence filling the kitchen. She glared at him.
“This from the vamp who told me to stop playing therapist?” she asked. “And my friends and I aren’t usually asking for family history. More like where we buy our sequins or who tips well.”
“Even Arabella?” He batted his heavy eyelashes with all the grace of a doe. She focused her glare on his cheekbones, unwilling to be taken in by those eyes.
“She’s from home and not concerned with burlesque,” she said and took a savage bite of her dinner. “She’s the only one I talk to from there. Besides, witches don’t generally keep their fathers around. It’s a largely matriarchal society. Men, on the whole, have a reputation for violence. War, rape, the usual laundry list of atrocities.”
He sniffed the apple. “Fascinating. I don’t disagree. You never knew your father though?” She relaxed into her seat a bit, remembering Alphonse’s absence, remembering that Magnus had already lost one human father to the sands of time. Perhaps there was grief buried beneath his perfect face.
“No,” she admitted with a shrug. “When a witch becomes of age, she usually seeks a temporary mate, if she wants to reproduce. Human men don’t cancel out a witch’s energy when she reproduces. There’s no weakening of the magic, if you will. Some witches look for warlocks or druids or even wayward monks if they can find them for added bonus to their offspring. I’m not sure it actually adds any special magic. Maybe just bragging rights. My mother—" Her throat closed, and she forced it open, stuffing down the pain of it. “Before our clan became so conservative, the witches were allowed a bit more freedom. She attended a liberal arts college. She met some handsome graduate student there, I think. She didn’t tell me much. Only that he studied art history or astronomy or something. She came back to the coven after that, pregnant with me. It was on purpose. She knew she was never getting out of the coven again.”
“Covens sound like delightful prisons,” he said with a raised brow. “Although yours sounds like an especially witchy Sparta.”
She snorted. “You’re not wrong, but not all covens are like that. Copper seemingly comes from a similar group, unfortunately. Most covens are more progressive now. They’re allowing witches to have families or get educations outside of the coven. It’s catching up. Slowly.”
“We’re as slow as humans on the uptake more often than not,” he muttered. The red skin of the apple was so shiny that she could see the faint reflection of his floating shirt. “You don’t ever want to find your father?”
“I don’t think about him,” she said. “Why would I?”
“Families are funny things.” He shrugged and finally released the apple from his clutches, back among its fructose friends in the bowl. “I’ve never known a witch closely. Or a woman quite like you.”
Heat crawled up her neck. “And you…are you close with Alphonse?”
“No,” he remarked. “Not close. It’s more involved than your situation, naturally. Alphonse took pity on me.”
“You were homeless on the streets.” She tried to remember the moment back at the Imperium Estate, all eyes focused on Magnus, as he enchanted everyone with his personal history. A slick strange smile came upon Magnus’ face. He raked a hand through his hair, let the waves tumble back onto his shoulders. His movements shifted his tunic slightly and she could see the strong promise of his muscles. A stab of arousal came before a feeling of jealousy that he didn’t have to do daily training to keep that body.
