Chapter 118 Nico #2
She raised an eyebrow. “I smell a plan. What are you guys getting at?”
Maddy chuckled. “She’s too smart for you, Nico. Tell her.”
My shoulders sagged. I really hoped she wouldn’t take this the wrong way. The last thing I wanted was for her to think we were taking advantage of her.
“So, you saw the reports of what happened in Virginia, right?”
A darkness clouded her eyes. “Assholes. Baby killers. I saw it, all right.”
“I’ve been sitting in my office, thinking about how blessed we are.” I pointed at her. “Blessed to have you. You’re keeping my pack safe. You’ve stepped in and done things we never dreamed of. The training sessions for us? The ones for the other packs? It’s amazing.”
She smirked. “Thanks. I appreciate that. I will tell you, the magical-enemy thing for the other packs is exhausting. I’m sleeping like twelve hours a day now, doing that. I’m not sure how long I can keep it up.”
“That’s part of what I wanted to ask you. I don’t want you to have to do that anymore. What if we brought our other ally packs here instead? With your help?”
Her eyes widened. She stared into my face, and I knew her well enough to know she was going over a dozen different ideas in her head. I didn’t know what kind of algebra or alchemy witches used, but she was scrolling through a thousand pages of knowledge in a few seconds.
“You want me to teleport that many people here? How many is that?”
“Well, my pack is one of the biggest in the country, so not nearly as big as this. I’m thinking maybe five hundred? Seven hundred at the most.”
“Fuck me,” Sinthy gasped.
I was quick to shake my head. “If it’s too much, say it. We only wanted to ask. Maddy and I are afraid for our friends. We don’t want what happened in Virginia to happen to them.”
Sinthy shoved the glass jar into some hidden pocket of her robes and turned away from me. Crossing her arms behind her back, she started strolling down the edge of my yard and the forest. She didn’t say a word, almost like Maddy and I had vanished.
Maddy tugged on my shirt sleeve. “Is this, like, a negative answer? Is she saying no?”
Shaking my head, I said, “I have no clue. Let’s see what happens.”
Maddy and I sat down right where we were and watched Sinthy.
At one point, she snapped a small branch off a tree and started drawing something on the ground.
After nearly ten minutes, she shrugged, then scratched it out with her foot.
This went on for almost two hours. Eventually, I had to step into the trees to relieve myself.
Finally, she walked back to us, a confused frown etched on her brow. “You guys have been sitting there the whole time?”
I looked at Maddy, feeling embarrassed for some reason. Were we not supposed to? It had seemed like the obvious thing to do while she thought about it.
“I… uh… yeah?” I said dumbly.
Sinthy let out a laugh. “Anyway, I think I have a plan that will work.”
I jumped to my feet. “You do? Can you help?”
She nodded, giving me a pious look. “I think so. It won’t be easy, and I’ll be out of commission for at least three or four days afterward. You guys are gonna owe me big time.”
“Anything,” I said, the words bursting out of me. “Whatever you need.”
“A lobster dinner, twenty-ounce wagyu ribeye, baked potato with a lot of bacon and sour cream… oh, and cheesecake. That will be a start.”
“Are you serious?” I wasn’t sure whether she was joking. Sometimes she was hard to read.
“I most certainly am. As I said, that’s only a start.”
A massive grin spread across my face. “Sounds great. Hell, once this is all over, I’ll fly to Maine to get the damned lobster.”
Maddy patted my chest. “Sinthy, are you sure this is possible? What about the wards?”
Sinthy bobbed her eyebrows up once. “That is a conundrum. But there is a way to keep them in place. The longer I’m gone, however, the less powerful they’ll be.
There’s a sort of kinetic spell I can cast. It’s very powerful, and it can be used to continually feed energy into another spell, even when the witch is gone.
The problem is that it is very difficult to get right.
I’m not worried about that. The issue will be getting the wards back to their full strength once the other packs are here.
“It will have to be done quickly. I’ll be weak when it’s all over, and the wards will be susceptible to tampering.
Don’t forget. We saw Viola had some kind of magic at her facility.
They have a magical being on their side, most likely being forced to help them, but either way, if the royals get any inkling that the wards around your pack have weakened even a bit, they could come.
I have confidence in my ability to fight another witch, but that will take my attention away from protecting everyone here. Do you see what I’m saying?”
I did. We could bring our friends here, but it had to be done fast—and preferably under the cover of darkness. If any royal spies outside the gates saw a huge mass of shifters appear out of thin air, Viola would be informed. She’d pounce. I could save my friends, but it would be dangerous.
Nodding solemnly, I said, “I understand. I’m okay with the risks if you are.”
Sinthy put one hand on my shoulder and her other on Maddy’s. “I’m your witch. This is my pack, my family. I’ll do whatever I can to help. I don’t think I could stomach another massacre.” She lifted one hand and punched me playfully in the chest. “You better not forget my lobster, though.”
Maddy and I laughed in unison. Rubbing at the spot she’d punched, I said, “When can we start?”
“Now, actually,” Sinthy said. “I need to grab a few things. I’ll be right back.”
The witch ran inside, leaving me with Maddy. The day looked even brighter than it had before.
“I’ll go with her,” I said. “Will you go find the guys and tell them the plan? My dad and my brothers, too?”
Maddy nodded. “I will. You know, we really don’t deserve her,” she said, nodding toward the door through which Sinthy had vanished.
“You’re telling me. But at least she’s on our side.”
Maddy went inside, and Sinthy reappeared not long after. She held what looked like a pewter or silver tub with a small lid. She pocketed the cap and walked toward me.
I peeked into the tub. It held some kind of wax or grease. It was a pale yellow and looked thick. Sinthy held it with reverence.
“What’s that?” I gestured to the container.
“This is one of the most precious things in all of Wiccan culture. It was legendary even a thousand years ago. Isme was considered the greatest witch ever to live, and part of that reputation stems from her having this.”
I stared at her for a few seconds, then said, “You, uh, still haven’t told me what that is.”
Sinthy blinked and shook her head. “Shit, sorry. I was being too mysterious. It’s a reliquary embrocation.
Created and strengthened over hundreds of centuries.
This”—she held the jar up toward my face— “is basically the emulsification of dozens of legendary magical figures throughout history. The blood of Odin, a snippet of the hair of Samson, a piece of the mummified remains of the sun god Ra— ”
“Hang on,” I interrupted. “Odin? Ra? Those… they were real?”
She arched an eyebrow. “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
The implications were astounding and made me dizzy. I stared down at the strange yellowish gel. “What about… you know?”
“Oh, Mr. Christmas-time himself? There’s a bit of the cross that bore him in this as well. Like I said, very powerful.”
“Holy shit,” I murmured in awe.
“Literally,” Sinthy said with a grin. “Shall we begin?”
I spent the next two hours with her walking around the boundaries of the wards she’d created.
Every ten or twenty feet, she stopped, dabbed an almost minuscule amount of the substance on a finger, and touched it to a tree.
As she muttered an incantation under her breath, I could actually sense the change to the wards—like a weird pulse that rattled my eardrums.
“I can feel it,” I said after an hour.
Sinthy looked at me and grinned. “These are your lands. Your soul and the soul of your pack are imprinted upon them. I’m surprised this is the first time you’ve had a physical sensation to my magic. You need to connect with nature more often.”
I laughed at that and nodded. “I don’t get out as much as I did when I was younger. Too much to worry about and work on most days. Do you think that would really help?”
With a knowing look in her eyes, she said, “It would. The more connected you are to the earth itself, the more you’ll notice not only my magic but the magic that binds the world together.
If you can connect to that, then you can pull power from it.
Where do you think I get the power I use to implement my spells and potions?
” She touched a tree, pressing her hand against the bark, and frowned.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Witches have walked here before. There are still remnants of their power. It’s very old magic.
But this place was blessed once before. A strong witch, and if I’m not mistaken, it was blessed for an ancient alpha and his pack.
Long gone, but the magic is still here. Wisps and shadows, but still there.
” She cast her eyes over to me. “Connect with your home, and you’ll see.
Get down deep with nature, and you’ll be surprised by what you find. ”
“Huh,” I said, at a loss for words.
Later that night, after finishing with Sinthy and eating dinner, I called Tiago. It took a while, but I explained what we had planned and that his pack would be the first we were bringing in.
Tiago let out a shudder of relief, and it was the first time I understood how scared my friend was.