Chapter 23
Chapter
Twenty-Three
“Florence,” Marie says, standing up when she sees me coming closer. We’re at the same cafe I was at the first time I saw her. “It’s nice to see you again. I have to admit that even if I had my doubts I would hear back from you when I texted.”
“Fair. Thank you for meeting me so soon,” I tell her. “And I had doubts as well I admit, but I have a lot of questions and I’m hoping you could answer some of them.”
“I’m hoping I can, too. I meant it when I said witches need a coven. You are welcome to join ours.”
“Won’t they hate that I’m married to a vampire?”
“Oh, they definitely will,” she says a laugh, adding another spoonful of sugar to her tea.
“There will be many elders in the coven who will try to convince you that you’ve made the wrong choice by marrying a vampire,” she admits.
“There will also be plenty of witches who tell you made a mistake by getting married in general.”
I would love to sit here and chitchat, making small talk and getting into Marie and the ins and outs of life as part of a coven. I don’t have that kind of luxury and have no choice but to awkwardly rip the Band-Aid off and cut to the chase. That’s what I’m going to have to do.
“What do you want to know?” she asks.
“Everything,” I rush out and we both laugh. “The Blackwoods. You were right to say I come from that family.”
“I knew it, especially with your name starting with an F. There aren’t a lot of names that start with F, you know.”
“Do all Blackwoods have F-names?”
She shakes her head. Her braids are pulled back in a loose bun today and she’s wearing another flowing dress.
“From what I was able to dig up, the woman who would have been your great grandmother, Felicity, started it. Like I said, I don’t know your family well but they do have quite a reputation for being hunters.
Which makes this whole you were raised by the Order thing all the more curious. ”
“Trust me,” I say. “No one’s more curious about it than me.”
“I have to ask,” she says almost apologetically. “How exactly did you end up in the Order? You said your family was killed by demons and the order took you in?”
“That is what they told me.” I leave it at that, letting her come to her own conclusion. “The Order still believes that we get our powers by making a deal with the devil. They didn’t know I would have magic but when I did, they utilized it. Powers come in handy when you’re hunting demons.”
“They definitely would.” She reaches up and plays with a crystal pendant hanging from her neck. “Once they found out you were a witch they just accepted you?”
“Hah, I wish. A few members who had known me since the beginning saw that power is something they were born with and treated me with as much respect as they treated other hunters. For the most part, we tried to keep the fact that I was a witch a secret. There were times when we were out hunting and I purposely hid my magic. It made things harder than necessary.”
“So you’ve never been taught magic formally, have you?”
“I spent some time when I was a teenager with witches just learning the basics. But that was only a few months and, honestly, I’ve learned more from looking through a Book of Shadows my vampire sister-in-law has given me.”
“How did she get it?” Marie asks quickly.
“She has a friend who made a copy of a copy or something like that,” I say with a shrug, trying to be dismissive. “I don’t think she realized that it was a real spell book that had been passed down from someone in her family.”
Maria nods, thankfully finding that answer to be plausible.
“I would love to have you come to New Orleans and spend the summer with me. Your mind will be blown.” Her brows go up and she smiles.
“In a good way, I promise. I would take you on as a private student myself and then you can sit in on all the classes we offer over the summer. I have a feeling you would catch on pretty fast considering you’ve done well with no formal guidance so far. ”
The thought of sitting in the back of a classroom listening to somebody teach witchcraft excites me in a way I never knew it would.
The possibility of being surrounded by other witches makes me stupidly emotional.
The one thing I’ve wanted more than anything was to belong.
I was never going to belong with the hunters.
And even though Xavier loves me, am I ever going to fully belong with the vampires?
“Sorry,” Marie says and she shakes her head again. “I’m asking the questions instead of you.”
“It’s okay. I have so many questions. I don’t even know where to start.” My mind, which was just firing off thought after thought, blanks. “Ummm…magic school,” I say looking at her like this is just not possible. “You’re serious about that.”
“Yes,” she laughs. “It’s not like you’ve seen in movies.
We offer a very good educational program that teaches much more than magic.
In my opinion our students are much better prepared for the real world than those who attend public school.
You learn the same curriculum as your non magical peers—nons, is what we typically refer to them as, by the way—along with magic.
You’d learn your history. Our history. The Blackwood family was one of the first magical families to settle in the States. ”
“Really?”
“Yes. They’d be happy to reconnect with you, I’m sure.”
Reconnect with my family. My biological family. Holy shit. The waiter comes over and takes our orders. I just order an iced tea and dessert since Antonio and I feasted on the pasta Alan made. “You said the Blackwoods didn’t follow the rules…what exactly do you mean? Are there a lot of rules?”
“No. They’re more like traditions. We do have some pretty big ones, like don’t participate in human sacrifice or cannibalism anymore.”
“That was a thing?”
“Yeah. Some covens still sacrificed a member up until recently. Who knows what goes on behind closed doors, but the Grand Coven doesn’t allow it anymore. It’s just…safer to follow the rules,” she says, studying me for a second as she decides how much to give away.
“Safer from what?”
“Monsters. Demons who want our power. Not all of them can be killed, you know.”
“All monsters can be killed.” I point at myself with both hands. “Monster hunter here. We just talked about it.”
“Monsters,” she presses. “They can be killed, but demons.” She pulls her arms in closer to her body, unsettled by what she’s saying, which sends a chill down my spine. “Not all demons can be destroyed. And that is what the Grand Coven wants to stay away from.”
My pulse picks up. “What would happen if a witch came up against a demon like that?”
“She better hope she can run,” Marie chides. “But if she was lucky enough, she could bind it.”
“Bind it?” I repeat, words coming out a little too sharp and desperate. “How?”
“A ritual. It takes more than one witch.”
“You’d need a coven?”
“A small one, yes. A strong, small one who can focus and fight.” She bites her lip, looking down at the table. “And it never comes without a cost.”
“What kind of cost?” My stomach starts to tighten.
“Lives,” she says, looking back at me again. “Spells like that are dangerous and sometimes, someone has to sacrifice themselves.”
“Whoa, wait, what?” I curl the fingers of my right hand into the center of my palm, pressing against the still-healing puncture wound. It hurts, throbbing with every rapid beat of my heart.
“Binding a demon into a certain place…” She hesitates, looking away from me again. “Your family, the Blackwoods, were involved in several ritual bindings.”
“They really were hunters,” I say, mostly to myself. “What are the odds, right?”
“I’m starting to think it has nothing to do with odds.”
“These rituals…the bindings. What exactly is the purpose?”
“The purpose is to lock up what they couldn’t kill and then make sure it didn’t walk away.” She meets my eyes, looking farther than just at me. She sees me, all of my searching. “They kept many demons contained.”
“Where, though?” I ask. “I’m confused.”
Marie slowly takes in a breath and lets it out. “They’re called pocket dimensions. They don’t exist in this realm.”
“What?” I ask, though I heard her correctly. “I mean, I know what you said, but what?”
“It’s a complicated spell, and that itself isn’t technically against a rule, but it’s not something many are willing to help with. Because when you create a pocket dimension, oftentimes someone has to stay behind and seal it from the inside out.”
My lips part and I don’t realize I’m leaning forward, clinging to her every word.
“Inside that pocket dimension,” she goes on, “is a sealed and isolated place to hold a demon.”
A supernatural prison cell. My chest tightens. “And they can just stay there forever?”
“They’re supposed to.”
I shift my weight, straightening my shoulders. “What happens if they try to escape?”
Her eyes narrow ever so slightly. “Why do you ask?”
I shrug, trying to look casual, but it’s too late for that. “Curiosity. It’s not every day you hear about demons being locked up.”
“Curiosity is rarely simple,” she says and I think she’s talking to herself. “But if they try to escape, they won’t be able to. Not on their own.”
The little pin prick on the center of my palm burns. I force myself to take a slow breath in through my nose and out through my mouth.
“But theoretically, they could have someone bust them out, right?”
“Yeah. Theoretically. I’ve heard of demons being able to open a window or crack a door, so to speak. It’s not enough for them to escape but it is enough for…” She looks down, eyes lingering this time.
“Enough for what?” I ask, forcing my voice to be steady.
“Enough for power to slip through or for someone on the other side to tap in.”
My stomach twists. Everything she says tracks with what we’re seeing with Vaelric.
“So if someone knows there’s a demon trapped in a pocket dimension, they could use it?”
“In a sense. You don’t control the demon, like you can’t have it go out and do your bidding. But yeah, they could use the power for, well, terrible things.”
“The Order,” I whisper, shaking my head. “They’d love to get their hands on something like this.”
Marie lifts her chin, brown eyes locking with mine. She told me that her coven has a particularly jaded past with the Order, letting me know she’s not their biggest fan. But to accuse them of using a demon for personal gain…it’s a big accusation.
The a/c in the cafe kicks on, blowing cold air right at me.
It’s hot enough outside for this to feel good, but it just makes goosebumps break out along my skin.
I cross my arms over my chest and ask another question before she has time to switch the subject.
“What keeps the door from opening all the way?”
“Every dimension has a key.”
“A key?” I echo, so freaking grateful she can’t hear my heart beating right now.
“Yes. It would be marked by the demon’s sigil and enchanted, of course. As long as the key exists, the demon won’t get out.”
“Can a key be destroyed?”
Her gaze sharpens. “It depends on who is trying to destroy it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, anything can be broken, but it would be pretty damn hard to break something that was forged with blood magic.”
“That’s reassuring at least.”
“Yes.” She takes a sip of her tea. “Unless you got a witch from the same bloodline to break it.”
Her words hit like a punch to the gut. The same bloodline. I don’t want to believe it, but the truth is there, burning in the back of my mind. Everything was orchestrated from the very start.
I have more questions but I don’t want to ask and hear my words spoken out loud. Because if I do, then I can’t deny it and I don’t want to have to face the truth.
“You hit on something when you said the Order would love to get their hands on something like this. It’s another reason the Grand Coven frowns upon this kind of magic. In the wrong hands, a demon in a cage could be devastating. They couldn’t free it, but they would definitely use it.”
“They would have to have access to it somehow?” I need to just stop talking because everything she says just confirms what I don’t want to know.
Her eyes widen. “Knowing a demon’s name usually is enough access. And then if they can figure out how to crack the door…it would be very bad.”
The waiter brings me the iced tea I ordered and I tear open a sugar packet, mixing it in. “Yeah, sounds like it would be terrible.”
“You’re asking some very specific questions.” She holds her hand over her tea, stirring it without touching the spoon. “There’s a specific demon you’re worried about. And it has something to do with the Order.” She leans forward, reading my energy. “They’re up to something?”
“They always are,” I say ruefully, tearing open another sugar packet to buy myself a little more time.“And…” I say each word slowly with careful consideration. “I’ve heard mention of a demon.” I pause, just long enough to make it seem deliberate. “Vaelric.”
Marie looks up, brown eyes cloudy as she thinks. “Vaelric,” she repeats. “That’s not a name you hear often.”
“You’ve heard of it?”
“Mh-mh.” She slowly bobs her head up and down, something clicking in her memory. “Very powerful demon. It was a difficult binding. Not any coven could have taken him on.” She shifts her gaze back to me. “It was Blackwood work.”
My stomach drops and if I weren’t sitting, I would lose my balance. In my head, the world spins around me and it takes everything I have to stay grounded. I stare back at Marie and the silence that stretches between us is suffocating. Marie leans back, watching me with a newfound curiosity.
“So,” she says, picking up her tea. “Why are you so interested in the demon your family trapped?”