Deals with the Devil (The Devil's Due Series Book 1), page 21
I looked at her blankly. “What does that mean?”
She sat back. “I can’t say more. But remember this: you come from a long line of very powerful witches.”
“I know,” I said a little sullenly. “Five generations of witches, five generations of UConn professors.”
Gram smiled. “Oh, no, gariníon. Not five. We go back much further than that. Put your eyes back in your head, dear. The school is only a hundred and forty years old or so. But our family magic is, oh, what would you say, Nathan? Almost three thousand years ago now?”
“Two thousand and seven hundred years ago the promise was made, Nora,” he told her gravely. “But the family goes back further.” He looked at me significantly.
I picked my chin up off the floor. What the hells were they talking about? And how come Nathan was the family historian here? I glanced from him to Gram and back again.
“I told you the beginning was too far away to start with,” Gram reminded me.
I propped my forehead in my hands, feeling the familiar dull ache start. Several minutes ticked by while I tried to form words. Eventually I found two brain cells that still worked and asked the only thing I could. “Can I have some more tea, please?”
I walked Nathan outside.
“So, you’re an angel,” I said cleverly.
He smiled. I blinked from the force of it. He flexed his wings slightly. I watched, fascinated, as the late afternoon sunlight danced over the gold filaments.
“They’re so beautiful,” I breathed. “Can I –”
“Touching an angel’s wings is a deeply intimate act,” he said, glancing away. “It’s a sign of trust. I haven’t earned your trust back yet, Lu.” He shifted uncomfortably and stared out at the front yard. “About that –”
“Please don’t tell me you’re sorry you can’t tell me. I get it, I really do.” I really didn’t. “But I can’t keep hearing it.” I hated how small my voice sounded.
His golden eyes met mine. Now that I could see him clearly, I could see his eyes weren’t topaz. They were gold. He was so beautiful he looked completely alien. How could I have ever thought he was human?
“I am sorry,” he insisted quietly. “I am filled with sorrow at what you’ve endured, and I will never forgive myself for letting you endure it without me. You have been generous beyond measure.” He knelt on the porch in front of me, his white wings settling behind him on the worn wooden planks. He bent his head, his springy locs draping over his broad shoulders.
Then he looked up at me, his face open and guileless.
“I failed you once, a long time ago when the stars were still young,” he said, his voice strong in the heavy silence, as if he had waited years, eons, to say the words. “I will never fail you again.”
My root chakra shifted and settled softly at his words. I felt as if a piece had been missing and he had fit it into place, as if I’d been longing for something that had just returned to me. Tears pricked behind my eyes and I felt one roll slowly down my cheek.
“I don’t understand any of that.” My voice wobbled and I sniffed, trying to keep more tears from falling.
He laughed and it sounded like music. Like bells ringing, or...angels singing. I grinned at the sound of it. “I know. But you will.” He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender before I could hit him. “Soon, I think.”
“So, you’re like, what, my guardian angel?”
“Something like that.” He stood. I could sense him weighing his words, but I clamped down on my impatience. “I was sent to keep an eye on you while things…change. I’m not exactly a neutral party in this. I represent some pretty important interests. The Council –” he made a frustrated noise. “There are no neutral parties in this, Lu. But I will keep you safe.”
I gazed at him in wonder. I had my very own guardian angel, and I didn’t understand a single thing he’d just told me. But I was starting to trust that I would at some point. “Hey – did you send me a text last week? About my meeting with Mira?”
He nodded.
That was convenient. “And there were these twins following me, but then they disappeared. You have anything to do with that?” He nodded again. “The locusts!”
He grinned. “You took care of that yourself. I just got you home.”
“I did?”He nodded. “I wonder how I did that…What happened up there on the hill?” He shook his head mutely and I clamped down on my frustration. Again.
“You fell off a horse when you were nine,” he offered.
“I remember that! You let me fall off a horse?” That had hurt. I’d broken my wrist in two places.
“I kept the horse from trampling you.”
Oh. “What about that time –”
He nodded again.
Huh.
“Scott Davis!” I’d gone on one date with Scott in high school. He hadn’t understood the word “no.” But when he had me pinned against his car door he pulled his groin muscle. It was so bad I had to drive myself home in his car (I made him get out first and told him I’d send help. Which I didn’t do). That groin pull took a mysteriously long time to heal. Cost him the entire baseball season.
“No one’s allowed to touch you without your permission, Lu.” Nathan said grimly.
I grinned. “That was awesome.” He shrugged modestly. “Um. Thanks. Now what?”
“Now you remember. And then you make some decisions.” He stepped off the porch. “I’ll be here if you need me, Luna. I’m always here if you need me.”
A gust of wind blew my hair back and he was gone. But his words echoed back at me, sounding curiously like Marlowe’s.
I’m here. I’m always here.
31
Tea and Secrets
Aunt Katie and I were cautious with each other, but Uncle Sean wrapped me in a tight hug. I squeezed him back, even though I still felt slightly betrayed by him. He knew, all this time, that I had magic. They all knew. But Uncle Sean was the first to try to tell me. It earned him a few points.
We were on our second cup of tea before I spoke. “’Tis going to be a while before I can fully understand why you did what you did,” I said slowly, turning my teacup around and around on its saucer. “And perhaps a while longer before I can fully forgive it. You lied to me all these years, all three of you.” My throat tightened and I looked up at them. “My family lied to me.”
Gram’s and Aunt Katie’s eyes teared, and I swallowed thickly. Whatever their reasons, I knew it couldn’t have been easy to lie to me. I knew they loved me and that what they had done, they did out of that love. But still, they had taken some things from me. They took away my grief at the loss of my mother. They took me from me. For the past fifteen years I thought I was someone else. I thought I was something different than I was.
All those years, I didn’t know I had magic. What else didn’t I know?
“Why can’t you just fix it? Give me back my memories?”
“It doesn’t work that way, sweetie,” Gram said. “The spell we used had to be very, very powerful to hide you. Think of the spell as a house. We had to build a strong foundation and strong walls and doors and – oh, I don’t know, all the things that go into a house.” She waved vaguely around our kitchen. “Different rooms and floors and hallways to make it harder for anyone who meant you harm to find you. It took a very long time to build it, almost a full year. We left a…a back door unlocked so you can still get into those memories and find them. But we had to hide even that under layers of forgetting. All of that magic can’t be undone, not really, and if we try we might do more harm than good.”
“We could cause the whole house to collapse,” Aunt Kate added grimly.
That didn’t sound good.
I took a deep breath. “Well, whatever you were hiding me from is here, I think, or coming, and I don’t know what to do about it, because you spelled me. Isn’t there any way at all to help me?”
They glanced at each other.
“The spell included a geis,” Uncle Sean explained, using the Irish word for an unbreakable prohibition. “So that no one could accidentally tear the, uh, the house down. Or be forced to.” He looked at me sheepishly. “The geis is actually attached to you, as part of the spell.” So not only was I spelled to forget, I was also spelled to prevent anyone from spilling the beans around me. Was this the third spell, or the fourth? I was losing count.
But that did explain Marlowe’s frustration at not being able to tell me anything. Nathan’s horror when he thought he had revealed something to me. Even Naasira’s caginess.
“You need to find the memories yourself, or…” Uncle Sean rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “We can follow your lead and help you that way, but we can’t directly tell ye anyt’ing, darlin’.”
Gram and Aunt Kate nodded. I turned to Gram. “Okay, the first thing I need is your Book of Agues.”
Her brow wrinkled. “Book of Agues?”
“Yes, your Book of Agues – you told me on the phone to find your Book of Agues,” I reminded her.
Gram peered at me with a puzzled expression. “There’s no such thing as a Book of Agues, dear.”
“I told her that,” Aunt Katie said.
“Then what –”
“Oh! Book of Plagues, dear! Book of Plagues!” She laughed and Aunt Katie snickered.
Gram must have caught my frown, because she and Aunt Katie scurried upstairs, presumably to find the Book of Plagues. I could hear them giggling on the stairwell.
I turned my frowny-face to Uncle Sean, who immediately wiped the grin off his face.
“You wouldn’t think it was so funny if you were dealing with all the fights on campus,” I told him sourly.
He looked thoughtful. “Fights, is it?” I nodded and reminded him about Jane Wilson. He crossed himself. “Poor soul. What else?”
So much else. “It’s your usual college campus, I guess, but amped up. Parties, sex, fights –” I sat back in my chair. “Sexual immorality, witchcraft, fighting...” I looked at Uncle Sean in horror.
He cocked an eyebrow at me. For Goddess’ sake, could everyone in the world do that except me? “That’s quite a list.”
“That’s what this man said, on campus. I thought he was one of those preachers who show up sometimes to hand out bibles, but Uncle Sean – he was prophesying.” I told him about the green-haired prophet, too.
“What exactly is it you’re thinking?” Uncle Sean asked leadingly.
“I’m thinking this is all my fault, aren’t I!” The food riots, the missed classes, the fights, the orgies– magic was running amok, but I had caused all of this somehow. The preacher and the prophet both tried to tell me, but I didn’t want to listen. Right now, I wanted to run to campus and start distributing condoms and dental dams. “I’m thinking people could get hurt because I came back here unprepared for this mess! Jane Wilson was killed because of me!”
He scratched his chin thoughtfully, but he wasn’t going to take my bait and let me get distracted.
Distracted!“Uncle Sean, there’s a chance I’ve been spelled with a Distraction spell. Do you know anything about that?”
He threw his hands up placatingly. “’T’wasn’t us. We need you to remember.” He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “A Distraction spell’s an easy fix, though – why haven’t you taken care of it?”
I glared at him. “You mean, besides because I just found out I have magic? Because I’ve been distracted!”
He nodded quickly. “O’ course. All you need to un-do a spell like that – now that you know it’s there – is a focus object. Preferably a live one.”
“Like black magic? Do I have to kill something? Because I’d rather just be distracted –”
“No, no, nothing like that! Heavens, girl, this isn’t the Dark Ages. You know better than that.”
I shrugged. I really didn’t.
“A wee small creature is all, and no harm’ll be done to it,” Uncle Sean went on. “You simply pass the spell onto it.”
That didn’t seem very fair, but magic, once given a purpose, can’t be undone. It can be moved, or shifted, or worked around, but not undone. That was the problem with the whole “house” of memory loss they’d built around me. That was why they’d left a back door open, so I could find my own way in. Clever.
“How does it work, exactly?” I leaned forward eagerly. Despite my misgivings, the thought of learning the craft filled me with anticipation. I loved learning. I was good at it. “Would a bug do? Or does it have to be larger? Could it be a plant?” Could plants be distracted?
Uncle Sean started to answer me, then stopped. “Luna,” he said thoughtfully, “we were discussing the goings-on on your campus.”
Gods damn it! I got distracted again!
I took a deep breath and blew it out. “Right. So, there’s this weird stuff happening on campus. It’s clearly magical. And it wasn’t happening before I got here, was it?” He shook his head. “So, all of this started with me setting foot on that damned campus.” He leaned forward. I leaned forward also. “That damned campus,” I repeated, testing him. He leaned forward further.
“Soooo…there’s a damned campus.” He waited expectantly. “Holy shite, Uncle Sean!” I leaped up. “UConn is cursed!”
Uncle Sean didn’t move a muscle, which told me volumes more than if he had jumped up with me. He regarded me calmly from his chair, waiting for my next conclusion.
Which was what, exactly?
“If UConn is cursed…” I started pacing around the kitchen, rubbing absently at the headache that was building. “And my family has always been here, or maybe not always, but for at least for five generations, that means…” I whirled back to Uncle Sean. “That my family is part of the curse!” He looked comically doubtful. “Or maybe not part of the curse. Maybe…protectors against the curse?” He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Yeah. I bet we’re protectors of some sort.” That was much better than being part of a curse.I paused for his non-reaction to confirm before I went on. “So, UConn is cursed, and my family arrived here five generations ago to guard it. Against what?”
I felt certain I knew this story but couldn’t remember it. I paced the kitchen, thinking out loud. “Why would UConn be cursed? It’s just a plain old public university. Who would want to curse it?”
Uncle Sean stroked his chin. “Does seem hard to believe anyone would want to curse such a nice university.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Right. So…what, then?” He shrugged. I fell back into my chair, feeling deflated.
“Maybe UConn’s not cursed.”
“Maybe it’s not UConn,” he agreed.
“Maybe it’s not,” I echoed morosely. “Wait. Maybe it’s not UConn. So, if it’s not UConn, it could be… the land around UConn?” He raised his eyebrows. “The woods?” He lowered his eyebrows. This was getting frustrating.
“You know, back in the day, your Gram used to Gather the coven right here in your own backyard quite often.”
“I know, Uncle, we talked about that a couple days ago,” I said impatiently.
“But sometimes,” he went on as if I hadn’t spoken, “if the ritual was really big, we would meet up on the hill.”
That fucking hill.
Where I’d taken Marlowe, and he asked me, “Why here, Luna?”
Because he knew something. And then I’d had those visions – or were they memories? That sneaky man had been trying to tell me without telling me, just like my family.
I had a feeling that lots of people had been trying to tell me something. But I still had no idea what. Argh!
Uncle Sean was still talking thoughtfully, as if he was working through this for the first time, which I knew damn well he wasn’t. “I can’t imagine that hill is cursed. Too many rituals, too many prayers. It’s a powerful place, though. A place where magic happens.” He looked away from me and added casually, “Do you remember how doorways are in between the here and there, like promises are both now and always, and binding all the same?”
I nodded. It was an old lesson, one I’d heard all my life.
Doorways. What was it the green-haired prophet said? “Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut.”
Had someone opened the unlocked back door in my brain? Gah, what did that even mean?
I opened my mouth to ask Uncle Sean to explain himself, but Cat meowed at the back door as Gram and Aunt Katie returned to the kitchen, carrying a large book. I let Cat in and automatically went to the pantry to get his tuna. I’d been well trained.
“Stephen! How nice to see you!” Gram exclaimed. Did everyone know Cat’s name but me?
Cat Stephen wound around Gram’s legs with a purr, even though I was the one who’d been feeding him for the last few weeks. “Ooh, tuna! Who’s a lucky boy?” She crooned. He purred louder and settled in to eat with nary a glance at me. Ingrate.
“What did you find?” I asked, peering at the Book of Plagues, not Agues. It was hand-written in calligraphy with lots of swirls, and the margins of the page it was open to were covered in faded ink drawings. They looked like images of people in various sexual positions. Was the Book of Plagues about venereal disease? I tilted my head slightly, trying to discern if that was a leg or…nope. I pulled away from the book. Not a leg.
“Nothing specific, I’m afraid,” Aunt Katie told me. “But I’m not sure we’re looking for a plague.” She glanced at Uncle Sean, who nodded almost imperceptibly. “Tell us again exactly what it is you’ve been seeing on campus.”
I ran down the litany a second time.
“How very carnal,” Aunt Kate said drily. She exchanged a worried look with Gram.
“And there were locusts!” I told them about the locusts, skipping over the part where I waved my hands like an angsty teenager and the locusts attacked the roses and strawberries...there was just too much to tell them, and a small part of me still felt hurt by their lies. Instead, I told them about Nathan bringing me home.
“He’s such a nice boy,” Gram beamed.
“So handsome, too,” Aunt Katie eyed me meaningfully.
