Witch-Mage Breaking, page 2
Jax shook his head. “Not quite. All I mean to say is, I’d do just about anything for a teammate and friend.”
Thea’s phone buzzed. She expected to see something from Kira, Mia, or Claire but instead found, to her alarm, a message from Mother Folsom. Her heart dropped. It was the first direct message from her coven Mother she’d received in months. Folsom had sent word through Claire many times, but this one went directly to Thea. Shit.
Our annual Christmas party is tonight at the coven estate. You are expected to join. Festivities begin at 7 p.m. Don’t be late.
No, “Hello, Theadora, it’s been a while. How are you?” Mother Folsom went straight to giving orders. It was also like her to send orders last-minute, sending Thea scrambling to please her. She was beginning to think she’d have to hire a therapist simply to get her through matters with the coven.
Thea groaned, and Jax asked her what the matter was. Thea showed him the message, and he raised a brow. “The first thing she tells you directly is to come to a party? There has to be something else.”
Thea nodded. “There is. Tonight is the winter solstice, so ritual and spiritual things are involved. My coven Mother will expect all thirteen of us to be present for one reason or another.”
“But you don’t think that’s all?” Jax queried, reading her expression.
“Right. She’s inviting me because she wants to speak to me about something.” Her term with AID, according to the coven’s desires, was coming to an end. Folsom probably wanted to tell Thea she was fired to her face.
Jax reminded her again that he was there for her.
“Thanks, big guy.” She called him this often when he called her “kid.” Sighing, she climbed from the car. It was time to go home and pick something to wear for tonight.
CHAPTER TWO
“Covens have been worshipping the Triple Goddess (Maiden, Mother, and Crone) for thousands of years at the four solar holidays—the spring and fall equinoxes and summer and winter solstices. Many modern-day covens will focus on a different mythos from their history for their winter solstice celebration.
“The winter solstice is widely regarded as the most spiritual and powerful time of year for conducting many kinds of rituals. One of the most popular stories modern-day covens use for their winter solstice celebrations is the ancient Celtic tale of the Holly King’s death and the Oak King’s rebirth. The death of the Holly King marks the end of long, dark nights. The rebirth of the Oak King marks the return of the sun.”
—Orlena Gorbana, The History of Covens and Their Adjacent Societies
Thea sat in her car outside the coven estate, gathering her courage for whatever meeting she’d have inside. It had been several months since she last came here, and that ended with a fight between her and coven Mother Folsom. Though Thea didn’t exactly regret what had happened, she wasn’t keen on repeating the experience.
Through the glass windows, she glimpsed the cheery dining hall decorated with holly, bright red rowan berries, candles, and trees adorned with tinsel. If there was one thing her coven had always been good at, it was throwing parties. Now, with hedge witches involved, a homier atmosphere awaited her inside the main house.
Thea imagined the smells of the food waiting for her. One person she’d always liked in the few months she lived here was the estate cook, a jolly old man named Tommy who often slipped her secret treats, saying, “Oh, you poor, poor girl.” He either thought she was too thin or knew about her parents’ deaths. Thea never questioned it.
In addition to the abundance of food, Mother Folsom would make sure the best wine was provided. For that, Thea could compliment her. Thea’s mouth watered, and her stomach grumbled at the thought of all the tasty things awaiting inside. She knew she should be looking forward to the celebration, not dreading what might come out of it.
Her coven had always conducted rituals on each solar holiday, but the winter solstice was considered the most spiritual since the “powers that be” were strongest and closest to humans at this time of year. Or so Thea had been told. She’d read much about it in books Mia had loaned her.
Hedge witches, surprisingly, were better connected with the history of magic and covens than actual covens. These “powers that be” included mages and witches who had died on the estate, and their ghosts had stayed to either bless, curse, or simply haunt the witches who remained long after. Thea hoped she would have more eggnog and fewer ghosts this year.
Wrapped around the railings of the house’s porch were branches of oak adorned with holly. This signified that the story they would have artful performances of this year, followed by ritual meditations and feasting, was the tale of the Holly King and the Oak King. Thea had heard the tale plenty of times from her parents growing up and enjoyed the performances the coven put on.
Today was December 21, the winter solstice, and Thea sensed a stronger presence of magic in the air. She might have written it off as simple Christmas cheer if she had not known better. The ley line running beneath the coven estate was stronger tonight than it would be any other night out of the year. The same was true of the ley line at the Blackwood estate, but Thea didn’t want to think about that.
Her phone buzzed with several messages at once. Encouraging texts filled her group chat with Jax, Mia, Brandon, Kira, and Claire.
Mia: Kick ass tonight. Not literally. Please don’t actually kick anyone’s ass. Unless you have to. Love you!!
Claire: Emphasis on not kicking asses, Thea. You’ve got this.
Kira sent a GIF of a cat dancing on a table, which would leave everyone unsure of the implications.
Thea was fairly certain the text from Jax was a quote from one of the Stoics. Its cryptic nature was almost akin to Kira’s message, but Thea took both as encouraging. She stared at her screen, waiting for a message from Brandon to pop up. Nothing, so she typed in:
Thanks, guys!!!
Thea exited her car, shutting the door harder than she intended. She tried to ignore the slight pang in her chest at not receiving an encouraging note from Brandon, too. Coupled with it was the strong determination to keep her friends and job. She was more afraid than ever of losing them.
She pulled her jacket closer around her. Though she had worn a warm maroon sweater paired with her favorite black jeans and leather boots, the night chill found its way in. The wine would do well at warming her up.
This motivated Thea to head toward the house. That and Mother Folsom’s curt message about not being late. Though she was half inclined to show up fashionably late, she didn’t want to draw more attention to herself than necessary.
Thea rarely came here and had no doubts about Mother Folsom wanting to end her time with the coven. Strange, she thought, that she had once been so eager to break free from the thirteen altogether. Yet tonight, she came to beg to be kept. Well, maybe she wouldn’t go as far as begging. The thought made her squirm. The truth was, she cared about remaining in the coven not because of the coven itself but because of its relationship with AID.
Jax, Claire, and Brandon, despite his and Thea’s slight falling-out, had become like family to her. Maybe a little more than family for Brandon if they had bothered to confess how they felt and explored things. Brandon’s sudden coldness toward her that began several weeks ago, combined with all the plates both were spinning, had put a hard stop to that.
If Thea was removed from her position, she had no idea what would happen to her. I know it won’t be good, though, she thought as she mounted the porch steps.
She stood peering through the windows. Several of the witches gathered in the dining room. The senior coven witches stood in one corner with glasses of wine, solemn expressions on their faces, their voices held low. The hedge witches sat at the table, smiling and laughing.
For an extra bit of courage, she dug around in her pocket for the remaining half of a chocolate and mint bar she’d bought earlier that day.
Brandon, Jax, and Claire wouldn’t drop her as a friend if she left, but their jobs could be all-consuming, taking up time and space as well as one’s schedule and mental capacity. It would be difficult for them to make time for her and relate to someone who wasn’t in the thick of their missions.
Thea could stay in touch, try to keep things alive, but if she was removed, they would have to find a new liaison. The thought of Brandon, Jax, and Claire working with a witch who was not her filled her with a sharp sensation of jealousy unlike any she’d felt before.
The thought of Brandon training a new witch in combat, of being that close to her both in the gym and in the field…
Thea angrily stuffed her chocolate bar wrapper into her pocket and headed through the front doors.
Inside the main hall, she was a lot warmer. The doors to the dining room were closed. Behind them, Thea heard the lively chatter of the gathered witches. A record player piped Frank Sinatra Christmas classics. No other room nearby seemed occupied. One of the coven estate servants, a butler, greeted her with a smile. “Welcome, Miss Blackwood.” He made to open the door. “You may enter to present yourself to the coven.”
His first words warmed her. She assumed it was the nicest greeting she would receive all night. Perhaps the only greeting. The second part made her pause. Present myself? What the hell does that mean?
Thea steadied her nerves with a long inhale to center herself and pushed her shoulders back, preparing to move through the doors and find her fellow coven members waiting. As the butler opened the doors to the dining room, a shriek followed by a crash sounded from somewhere in the estate.
Thea paused, instinct telling her something serious was happening. However, her mind told her it was probably only a maid scared by a mouse, and she had knocked a display or vase over.
She forced herself to step closer to the half-opened dining room doors, but other sounds followed. Screaming, more frantic this time, that echoed and rebounded through the halls. Another shout arose, followed by more crashing. The butler’s eyes widened, his hand straying away from the door.
Thea, who had lived here for a few months after her parents’ deaths, knew of the typical austere stillness maintained in the house. The situation had to be dire for things to grow so rowdy. The instant she thought this, more shouts, cries, and the sounds of violent impact resounded through the halls. She could have sworn she saw framed paintings on a far wall shake.
She couldn’t ignore it any longer.
Other faces appeared in the hall, more servants and a few coven members drawn by the sounds.
Normally, Thea would have bolted through the house already, found the source of the commotion, and sorted it out. What paralyzed her was the thought of interfering and being considered uncooperative. She had come here to state her case before the coven, not involve herself in a squabble, as Claire said she shouldn’t. However, this was no mere squabble, if the woman’s faraway scream told her anything.
“What on earth is going on?” one of the senior coven members demanded, but Thea was already hurrying through the many long, twisting hallways in search of the commotion’s source. An instinct to help whoever was being harmed overcame her, and she didn’t care what anyone thought of the white magic crackling around her fingertips or the shield forming around her body.
Thea snarled a curse and turned. No one had followed her. Did anyone care?
Thanks to her familiarity with the estate house, it did not take her long to figure out where the disturbance was coming from. She found a sitting room with overturned furniture and bookcases, items of various importance spilled on the floor. Two doors leading into a back garden were broken, glass shattered all over the room.
Thea stepped past it and drank in the sight of what lay beyond. She couldn’t believe her eyes.
One of the estate maids screamed in terror, suspended in the coils of a massive snake. The snake was larger than any earthly creature Thea had ever seen. Its scales were bronze, dark blue, and glittering green. Its underbelly was yellow.
It coiled tighter around the maid, eyes blazing and forked tongue flicking out. The snake was the reason everything inside the room was a mess and the doors were broken. In the garden itself, several branches from nearby trees had snapped, crushed under its enormous body.
Thea spotted another staff member, a man, on the ground not far from where the snake held the maid. He spasmed and frothed. Poisoned, Thea guessed, judging by the large puncture wounds in his shoulder and the dark, milky fluid dripping from the snake’s bared fangs. If the maid wasn’t crushed, she would be poisoned, too, unless Thea acted fast.
Another two staffers, horrified yet showing great courage, lunged at the snake, attempting to fend it off with a chair and broom handle. The snake ignored them, focused wholly on its prey. Thea had expected conflict when she came to the coven estate tonight, but not a fight with a giant snake.
Cursing under her breath, she lunged toward the creature, an orb of her blazing magic already soaring through the air.
A mountain of paperwork sat on Brandon’s desk, and his eyes hurt from staring at a computer screen for hours. He used to resent constantly being in the field, but sitting behind a desk all day, every day, was a hundred times worse. He couldn’t be like Claire, with outside duties and meetings with higher-ups happening all the time, or Thea, who could get away with one morning press conference and not have to work for the rest of the day.
The New Orleans Arcane Investigation Division Headquarters’ office was quiet and mostly empty. Brandon kept his office door open as he did most days so he could be available for anyone who needed his help. Distantly, he heard the janitor running a vacuum. He checked his watch, then glanced out the window. The sun had been down for an hour or so, and he hadn’t noticed. I need to get home, he thought. But this damn paperwork…
The truth was that Brandon had volunteered to do the day’s leftover paperwork on Claire’s behalf so she could attend a Christmas party at the deputy chief’s home. Since Brandon had no parties to attend, he volunteered for the task. He was regretting that now.
Brandon was never more relieved to see Ajax Maddison walk into his office than he was at that moment. Jax eyed the paperwork and realized he was saving Brandon by interjecting. “How did the press conference go?” Brandon asked, motioning for Jax to sit. Simply talking to someone else was a big relief.
The big man leaned against the door frame and folded his massive arms over his corded chest instead, the first sign that he’d come here to make a point. “You know, you could ask Thea yourself.”
“You’re the one who’s here, not Thea,” Brandon replied more brusquely than he intended. He didn’t bother to add that Thea had not walked into his office for weeks, and it might have been his fault. Even saying “not Thea” was acknowledging a weird strain between them he couldn’t explain. Or maybe he simply didn’t want to.
Jax told Brandon about the message Thea received from Michelle Folsom while in the car. “Does it make you nervous that she needs to have that meeting tonight?” Jax asked.
Of course it did. Brandon knew it would be coming. It made his palms clammy, and his heart beat faster, thinking about Thea leaving AID, but not in a good way. He skirted around any mention of his personal feelings and instead pointed out that having a new witch liaison who wasn’t Thea would be weird. “Our team simply wouldn’t be the same.”
A new witch liaison would not know her teammates’ strengths and weaknesses as Thea did. She would not know their inside jokes. The only good thing Brandon could think of about having a new liaison was that he might not have a crush on someone he was the boss of.
Jax cocked his head. “Has it been the same recently? The three of us haven’t done a single thing together in weeks, not even watch a football game. I know there isn’t a problem between myself and Thea or between you and me. That is unless there’s something you’re keeping from me.”
“Nothing’s wrong on my end with you, Jax.”
“That must mean the problem is between you and Thea. Whatever it is, our team isn’t gelling like it used to. What happens when we’re in combat, and you two are still acting weird around each other?”
Jax had a point. He turned to leave but added, “Figure it out, Cole. Whatever you have to apologize for, do it already.”
Brandon would have called, “How do you know it’s me who needs to apologize?” but Jax was already gone. Brandon sank back in his chair, rubbing his tired eyes. Jax was right. He needed to fix things with Thea.
It was as though Jax had cast a spell because, at that moment, Brandon’s phone rang with a call from Thea.
CHAPTER THREE
“Ash on an old man's sleeve
Is all the ash the burnt roses leave.
Dust in the air suspended
Marks the place where a story ended.
Dust inbreathed was a house-
The walls, the wainscot and the mouse,
The death of hope and despair,
This is the death of air.
There are flood and drouth
Over the eyes and in the mouth,
Dead water and dead sand
Contending for the upper hand.
The parched eviscerate soil
Gapes at the vanity of toil,
Laughs without mirth.
This is the death of earth.”
—T.S. Elliot, Little Gidding
As soon as Thea’s first blast of magic hit the snake, it turned, dropping the woman.
Thea did not have time to see if the woman was alive. The snake’s eyes narrowed, and it lunged. Thea’s shield turned out to be a lifesaver. The huge fangs swept past, then the snake’s coiling body. Her shield buckled, but she managed to keep it intact.
She kept flinging her magic, first as explosive orbs, then as sleek shards of sharp light that penetrated the snake’s thick skin, causing it to rear and reel, shrieking and hissing. The sound was otherworldly, or maybe it only seemed that way because Thea had never heard normal snake sounds coming from a creature so large. With each crash of the snake’s body, the ground shuddered. It took a good deal of effort for Thea to stay on her feet.
