Chapter 17
CHAPTER 17
Y ou'd think after zipping around in my own private jet, I'd be feeling pretty damn good. But let me tell you when you're knocked up with triplets and your life's turned into a cosmic shit show, even leather seats and champagne (which I couldn't drink anyway) lose their charm. Nana, Stella, and I stumbled through the front door like a bunch of drunken penguins while Aidon and Melino? strode gracefully inside. Instead of being hammered we were exhausted and stressed. In my case, uncomfortable thanks to a uterus that felt like it was hosting a rave.
I made it approximately two steps before my stomach decided to stage the revolt it’d been considering for hours. "Incoming!" I yelled before making a mad dash to the bathroom. Nothing says 'welcome home' like hugging a toilet bowl, right?
Aidon was at my side in an instant. "Need anything, love?" His tone of voice conveyed his concern and love. It also held a hefty dose of guilt because I hadn’t signed up for this. His mother had foisted the pregnancy upon us with her enchanted pomegranate seeds. I'd reassure him I was overwhelmed with joy about the babies as soon as I could talk again.
I spat into the toilet and gave him my best attempt at a smile. "Just the usual," I said, answering his question. “A time machine, a gallon of pickles, and maybe the power to smite our enemies with morning sickness. You know, the basics."
He helped me into the kitchen, where we were greeted by the most bizarre welcome wagon this side of the Twilight Zone. Mom was there, looking like Martha Stewart's magically-inclined, vampire-shifter cousin. She was wearing a flour-dusted apron and pulling a tray of croissants from the oven that made my stomach growl. Nina was bouncing between 'worried sick' and 'dying to hear all the gory details’. And Selene was helping Layla carry what looked like a broken book shelf. Looked like Hattie’s reign of terror continued. In other words, it was a normal scene for our house.
I pressed a kiss to Mom's cheek and snagged a piping hot croissant from the sheet as Tarja and Binx joined us. Tarja's emerald eyes locked onto mine. There was a mix of concern and relief evident in her feline gaze.
" Welcome home ," Tarja's voice echoed softly in our heads. " I trust your journey was eventful?"
I snorted and then took a bite of the croissant. I took a moment to savor the buttery goodness before responding. "Oh, Tarja, you have no idea. 'Eventful' doesn't even begin to cover it. Let's just say Prague will never be the same."
Melino? rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. “I got us out of there, didn’t I? Besides, memories have already been wiped, and Dad sent in a crew to make repairs.” Before I could stop her, she’d given drops from the River Lethe to several mundies. Thankfully, it wasn’t a full dose. However, they’d never be the same.
Tarja's whiskers twitched in what I'd come to recognize as her version of a sympathetic smile. "And you’ve learned more about using restraint while here," my familiar told Aidon’s sister. I loved Melino?, but as a goddess of the Underworld, she operated by a different set of morals. Aidon was worse when we met. He’d changed and evolved. “ Perhaps you guys can share more details over lunch. And perhaps a cup of calming tea for you, Phoebe? Your mother created just the blend to settle both nerves and stomachs.”
The croissant had abated the nausea for a moment, but it was threatening to return. The amount of morning sickness I had this time around made me think of the women Fiona used to treat with hyperemesis gravidarum. Many didn’t realize the condition was persistent and could last throughout the pregnancy. "You know what? That actually sounds perfect."
“I’ve already started the kettle,” Mom replied.
Stella was still buzzing like she'd mainlined a case of Red Bull. She grabbed a croissant, sat beside Nana, and went into full planning mode. "Okay, team!" she chirped, spreading out our intel like she was about to give a TED talk on the apocalypse. She’d made copious notes during the flight home. "Let's break this down!"
I lowered myself onto a chair, feeling about as graceful as a walrus on roller skates. "You know," I mused, "being pregnant, I thought there'd be more 'aww, you're glowing' and less 'quick, save the universe before your water breaks’.”
"Speaking of glowing," Mom interjected with a mischievous glint in her eye, "I've got a potion brewing that might help with those magical fluctuations. It's an old Silva family recipe. With a few... Dieudonne tweaks."
I smiled at her. "That will come in handy as I get further along.” Mom had embraced being a kitchen witch and potion master with gusto and loved experimenting and creating new shit. She was a natural and picked up information from studying magical ingredients and their properties that I did not. I’d blow up the Sanctum if I tried half of what she did with ease.
“Can we get back to recapping our current predicament?” Stella asked. We all nodded and she continued, “We've got an ancient cult with delusions of cosmic grandeur and a witch with an unhealthy fixation on Phoebe.”
“Don’t forget we have enough magical firepower to make Merlin look like a birthday party magician," I interjected. “And no idea how to use it all to find and eradicate Lyra.”
Stella chuckled and shook her head. "We might find the answer to that as we go through the information. According to the texts we... liberated from Prague's most inhospitable catacombs. The Covenant of Eternal Night requires the Heart of the Abyss as a focal point for their reality-merging extravaganza. And Lyra created it to take over the world. They’re working together for now.”
Nana held up a finger. “But we can play them against one another. Neither will like being used by the other.”
“However,” Stella continued as if Nana hadn’t said anything, “they can't control it directly. They need..."
"A conduit," I finished as my hand instinctively cradled my swollen belly. "Let me guess, something akin to, oh, I don't know, a set of magically supercharged triplets gestating in the womb of a witch who can't seem to stay out of trouble? Honestly, at this point, I'm half expecting to find out I'm also the long-lost heir to some interdimensional throne. It would really round out my resume of 'most inconvenient magical destinies’."
The silence that followed was so thick you could have cut it with an athame and served it with a side of demonic horror. Tarja's tail twitched in what I'd come to recognize as her 'prepare for an exposition dump' tell. " The Covenant of Eternal Night isn't your garden-variety cult of megalomaniacs. They've been pulling strings behind the scenes of history for millennia. Think less 'weekend hobby for bored suburbanites' and more 'shadow government with a fetish for cosmic reorganization’. "
"Fantastic," I muttered, reaching for a pickle with more aggression than the situation strictly called for. "What this predicament really needed is an ancient, all-powerful secret society. Why don't we throw in some lizard people and flat earth theorists while we're at it? It’d really round out the conspiracy theory bingo card.”
Nana snorted and set her tea down. “Do you think if you collect them all you win a tinfoil hat and a lifetime supply of paranoia?”
Mom suddenly perked up. "You know, all this talk has given me an idea. I think I could whip up a potion that could help us. Something to, shall we say, lubricate the wheels of fate?"
I squinted at Mom, my stomach doing somersaults. That mischievous twinkle in her eye spelled trouble with a capital T. Last time I'd seen it, she was just starting to dabble in kitchen magic. Let's just say her attempt at enchanting cookie dough went sideways faster than you could say "bippity boppity boo."
"Mom, as much as I appreciate your culinary creativity,” I began, “perhaps we should focus on plans that don't involve potentially volatile magical concoctions? I'd rather not add 'accidental reality implosion' to our list of home renovation projects. We’ve had enough over the past couple of days."
But Mom was already bustling around the kitchen and pulling out ingredients. The island looked like a witch's apothecary in no time flat. "Nonsense, dear. A little magical mixology is exactly what we need. Stella, would you read out the key components of that Heart of the Abyss?"
Stella looked both intrigued and mildly terrified. Lifting a shoulder, she began rattling off a list of ingredients and the ritual that went along with it. It sounded like a shopping list for a universe-building kit. Mom tossed various herbs, powders, and what I strongly suspected was a chunk of meteorite into her cauldron as she listened.
A glow emitted from the pot that would put most EDM festivals to shame when the potion began to bubble. While Mom worked, Aidon outlined our plan to infiltrate the Covenant's stronghold. It was a strategy that could generously be described as ‘equal parts brilliant and suicidal’, involving disguises, diversions, and an amount of magical explosives that made me seriously consider investing in interdimensional insurance.
I was eyeing Mom's bubbling cauldron with the kind of suspicion usually reserved for IRS auditors and door-to-door salesmen when all hell broke loose. And I mean that literally. The temperature in the room dropped faster than my ex’s standards after a few tequila shots. The lights flickered like a low-budget horror flick. It was accompanied by a wind that had no business being indoors. It whipped through the room and gave us all hairstyles that would make an eighties rock band jealous.
"Oh, for the love of all that's magical," I groaned. One of my hands went to my swollen belly. "I swear, if this is another one of Lyra's attacks, I'm going to lose my?—"
My words were cut off by a shriek that could've shattered glass and probably did somewhere in the multiverse. Hattie materialized—or rather, exploded—into the room. But this wasn't our snarky, lovable Hattie. This was a roiling mass of spectral fury that looked like it had gone ten rounds with a cosmic blender and lost.
"Well, shit," I eloquently summarized.
Mom didn't miss a beat. "Language, dear," she chided as if I were back in high school instead of being in the middle of a supernatural shitstorm. "Now, who wants to try my new potion? I call it 'Exorcism in a Cup'!"
Before anyone could point out the many, many ways that could go wrong and how it hadn’t worked last time, Poltergeist Hattie turned her attention to the kitchen island. Carefully prepared snacks went airborne, creating a food-based reenactment of the Big Bang. "Not the canapés!" Mom wailed, watching her culinary creations become collateral damage. "I spent hours on those!"
That seemed to be the last straw for her. With a battle cry that would've made Xena Warrior Princess proud, Mom hefted her ladle like Excalibur. "Nobody messes with my hors d'oeuvres!"
In a move that would've made any Major League pitcher weep with envy, Mom scooped up a hefty dose of her potion and hurled it at Hattie's spectral form. Time seemed to slow as we all watched the glowing, viscous liquid arc through the air. SPLAT! The moment the potion made contact, Hattie's form convulsed like she was doing the electric slide in a pool of Jell-O.
A scream tore through the room, a sound caught between rage, pain, and possibly indigestion. "Mom!" I yelled over the din as I jumped off the stool. I had to immediately duck a possessed cheese platter as it whizzed over my head. "What in the name of Betty Crocker's spatula did you put in that potion?"
"Oh, you know," she shouted back, dodging a kamikaze bowl of guacamole, "eye of newt, toe of frog, wool of bat, tongue of dog." Her snark caught me off guard. She wasn’t usually the sassy one. That was reserved for Nana.
Recovering, I asked, "You're kidding, right? Please tell me you're kidding."
"Of course I am, dear," she rolled her eyes. "It's twenty-twenty-five. I use vegan substitutes now."
Before I could unpack that particular gem, Nana's voice cut through the madness. It dripped with more sass than a drag queen convention. "Now's not the time for a cooking show. Hattie needs you, Phoebe. Cast a damn spell! Mollie’s potion needs a bit of help if it’s going to work."
I blinked, momentarily stunned. "What spell? I don't?—"
"Sweet baby Merlin," Nana muttered. "And here I thought pregnancy brain was just a myth."
" Focus, Phoebe ," Tarja's calm voice sliced through my confusion like a hot knife through butter. " The potion has weakened Lyra's hold. Now we need your power, your connection to Hattie, to break it completely. "
"Right," I nodded, trying to look like I had any clue what I was doing. "Just one tiny question – how exactly do I do that?" I could figure it out, but focus was key, and I needed to get serene in less than a second. My only hope was with Tarja’s guidance.
I swear I saw Tarja’s eye twitch. " Close your eyes. Feel the energy around you, feel your link to Hattie. "
I did as instructed, trying to ignore the sound of shattering plates and Mom's colorful cursing. Reaching out with my senses, I felt the swirling vortex of magic around us. The tendrils of Lyra's influence were slimy and cold. Beneath it all was the warm, familiar presence that was purely Hattie.
" Now, " Tarja continued. " Channel your intent into freedom, release, and reclamation. Let the words come to you. " Her voice took on a hypnotic quality.
I took a deep breath, reaching deep into the well of power within me. The spell formed in my mind. It was a jumble of words in Latin and English, but my intention was pure. As I began to chant, I felt the magic building, starting as a warm glow in my chest and spreading outward like the world's most aggressive case of heartburn.
The air around us began to shimmer. Reality rippled like we were all trapped in a giant lava lamp. Strands of golden light erupted from my fingertips and wove through the air to wrap around Hattie's thrashing form. They pulsed with each word of the spell, growing brighter and brighter until the entire room was bathed in a glow that would've put Times Square to shame.
With a final, thunderous word that I'm pretty sure translated to something like, ‘Lyra, get your mitts off of my friend, you evil bitch,’ the spell reached its crescendo. The golden strands tightened, then shattered with a sound like a thousand wind chimes in a tornado. For a moment, silence reigned.
Then gravity remembered it had a job to do. Everything that had been airborne came crashing down. We all stood there, covered in various foods and looking like we'd just gone through the world's messiest pillow fight. My jaw dropped open when Hattie straightened up and brushed off her spectral form. She didn’t act as if she'd just been through a particularly rough spin cycle. "Well," she said as she looked around, "that was certainly an experience I'd rather not repeat. I didn’t think I’d ever be free."
Her expression darkened as it landed on the destruction of what was once her home. "Now, when do we go after that cut-rate Maleficent wannabe to make her pay for this indignity? I've got a score to settle, and it's not going to involve food fights and impromptu exorcisms."
I couldn't help but grin, despite the chaos around us. "Soon, Hattie. Very soon. But first..." I looked down at my food-splattered clothes and sighed. "I think we all need a shower. And possibly a hazmat team."
As everyone began to pick themselves up and assess the damage, I caught Aidon's eye across the room. He was covered in what looked like the unholy offspring of guacamole and Mom's mystery potion. Yet, he was smiling at me with a look of pride and love that made my heart do a little jig.
"That's my girl," he mouthed, giving me a thumbs up.
I smiled back, feeling a surge of confidence. Lyra might have amassed enough power to fuel a small city and an army of otherworldly beings at her disposal. But she didn't have this. She didn't have a family of lovable lunatics who could come out of an exorcism that doubled as a food fight, swinging.
Watch out, Lyra. The Dieudonne clan is coming for you, and we're bringing the mother of all teams. And possibly some canapés. Because saving the universe is hungry work, and nobody messes with Mom's hors d'oeuvres.