Neophyte / Adept (11 page)

“My psychic wereleopard Asher,” said Maria Lenoir. I had a
feeling she had said it directly to me––everyone else was forgotten
about.

“What did I miss?” said someone behind me. I turned around
and Ballard was standing there. He and Asher eyed one another inscrutably.

“You’re that American girl who has been running around all
of Europe––trying to find
Magic
,”
said Maria Lenoir to me, very slowly and deliberately. She said it like it was
the most ridiculous thing ever; the lilt of her tongue included an invitation
for others to join in and mock me. “I’ve heard about
you
.”

“It’s true. I didn’t just land in Italy,” I said. “But once
I got here I wouldn’t live anyplace else.”

I hoped she got the tenor of what I had just said. That if
it was a choice between her and the Lenoir, versus the werewolves, I would
choose sides with the werewolves.

It rolled off her with an infinitesimal blink.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Asher,” I said. “My name
is––”

“I know who you are.” He bowed. “The honor is mine, Halsey
Rookmaaker.”

“Lovely,” said Maria. She looked like my evil doppelgänger.
We could be twins.

“So there’s that,” said Gaven, smiling once more. “We will
see you later,” he said to Maria.

She blinked.

“Shall we?” he said. “Come on, gang.”

Reluctantly, I followed with the rest of them. The
Meadpalace was by now almost entirely empty. When I looked back Maria Lenoir
was staring after me, with Asher, the psychic wereleopard, still at her side.

* * *

Lia effused, extolling Asher’s virtues. “Have you ever seen
so many hot guys? That Asher. Makes me want to die young, live forever.”

That was the second time I had heard that phrase. Marek had
used it once upon a time.

“I heard your ‘friends’––” she put the word in
finger quotes “––saying that to one another. It must be vampire
lingo for
howya doin’
?”

“Dallace and Camille were talking to Maria?” I said. “When?”

“And the other one. She had a little tiff, did Maria,” said
Lia.

“What did she say?” I asked, suddenly interested.

“Oh, something about ailuranthropes or something, and how
she was perfectly within her rights. That’s a cat, remember? Someone who shifts
into one. We’re cyanthropes. Apparently Asher can transform himself into a cat.
Psychic wereleopard; three guesses which.”

I wanted to go back to the psychic part. I looked at the
clock on the wall. Time ceased to matter at the Gathering.

We were in our room. Lia was chatting from her overhead bunk.
Something about if she and Gaven weren’t so close that Asher would have to look
out. “But I don’t think that’s his problem. He couldn’t take his eyes off you.”

I blinked. “What do you mean?” I said.

“Oh, come on! You can’t have failed to notice. He was
practically drooling. And that nice to meet you,
Halsey Rookmaaker
, bit...” She said my name slavishly. “It was like
he was practically proposing.”

Heat rushed up my face.

“I tell you. I’d look out for him,” she said. She got lost
in her own mind for a while.

Was Asher drooling over me? It didn’t make sense. That was
impossible. And that was another thing...

He didn’t know me from Eve. What was going on?

“My brother certainly made an ass of himself,” said Lia. “I
wonder what we’ll do tomorrow? These trials last a few days.”

Trials.
I had been
so busy staring at Maria I hadn’t paid attention. Witch Trials. They used to
burn them, or else drown them, or throw rocks at them. And that was only if
they showed. I wondered what happened to a witch who was supposed to show, but
for whatever reasons couldn’t.

“Do you think you’ll be able to craft?” I asked Lia.

She contemplated it for a while, and it got very quiet.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know.”

I took out my diary and berated it for a while.

Chapter 11
– The Rota

I could hear Lia snoring above me. She didn’t talk in her
sleep, did she? No the voices were real. The only question was who they were
after. There were twelve other Initiates.

Had they also been visited by the disembodied voices, as I
had? Even underground I could feel the dawn arrive.

This was it.

I looked around my surroundings. When I was a girl I used to
have truly nightmarish dreams, of being chased, whathaveyou. As I got older I
learned to control them. But I remembered as a child––so powerful
were they––that sometimes my dreams would
come into reality
; that is, the specters, which used to haunt me,
would seem to come out of the dark, as I opened my eyes and cringed beneath my
covers, and I would peek up, and they would come at me... as ghosts... the
remnants of my dreams, reaching out their dark hands... They would seem to
dissipate, and I would be left shivering at what I had seen.

That was like these voices. They rang in my head just long
enough for me to find the candles, in the candle-niche, at what should’ve been
my headboard. I lit them, so that only I could see, and hurriedly jotted down
the conversation I had just heard.

“It’s just a gathering
to discuss Rome. She isn’t the Chosen One yet.”

“The Lenoir will want
to test her––and so other magicals have come as well. I don’t trust
that Half Lighter. Watch him. Watch them all.”

“Free as yet is her
decision to make. She must choose carefully. They will want to claim her as
their own. The doges have already made that mistake....”

“She must die when we
say she does.”

“She will...”

I wondered if it had happened in ‘real’ time? If... where I
was, and they were... we had linked up?

Somebody was out there––somebody dangerous; and,
either they were at the Gathering, or they wanted in. And if I couldn’t even
keep them out of my own head....

Maybe
I
was the
Protector. Maybe
I
was overhearing
them for a reason. To protect someone...

I hadn’t thought of that.

There were twelve other Initiates at the Gathering besides myself.

Maybe I wasn’t this Chosen One after all. Maybe I was just
me. Halsey. Maybe Lia was the Mythic Chick...

I reread what I had written. What the heck was a Half
Lighter? It was just another question I had for a magical world I knew nothing
about.

People were stirring. Soon it would be time to get up. I
stared at the candle flame the action of which made me think of Lennox.

He was far, far older than I. Perhaps he knew what was going
on. Gaven had recommended circumspection. Waiting and watching. Whoever these
people were, time would reveal them.

In the meantime, I had magical studying to get ready for. I
fetched out the
Magus Codex
and
flipped through it some more. I had been neglecting it for far too long. There
were the strange curling bands I had seen before––drawn on the
figure of a witch or wizard. The marks of the Adept. Perhaps what happened when
you became
fledged
. When you had
reached an elite magical level. They ran up the hand and seemed imbued with
some mysterious significance I was too naïve to know about.

The Spellcaster’s Mark.

Lia shifted––but not really. She turned over. If
she had turned into a dog––
then
we would have had problems. I didn’t want her drooling on me. Or Asher, for
that matter. I was Lennox’s.

Possession for a vampire was like obsession for a mortal.
Try as I might, I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea of living forever, of
being immortal, much less being with the one I loved. Already we had been
separated by circumstances of Fate. I hated using words like that. But that’s
what this felt like. Like someone had chosen to interfere with our Life
together; Lennox’s and mine...

If I had to guess, Maria...

That mocking, better-than-you attitude of hers, really got
under my skin. Hopefully I wouldn’t have to see her again.

But I knew better than to wish for something so impossible.
She was just as interested in the Initiates as the rest of them had been. I
wondered why?

What was so important about the Initiates that everyone was
so crazy about them? Surely there were enough other magical people. I had seen
gobs of them.

“Try not to think about it. We’ll make it through this,”
said Lia.

I couldn’t help myself; I crawled out of bed and peeked up
at her. Yep. Talking in her sleep. Her mouth was hanging open.

“Don’t worry, baby... don’t worry...” she said.

Her long, dark hair hid most of her face. Lia was wrapped in
her sheets, like she had been tossing and turning all night. I decided to go
take a look around. I hurriedly dressed in my Initiate’s robes. I didn’t bother
dragging a brush through my hair. Maybe there was a spell for, like, split ends
and bed head and stuff.

I crept through the sleeping berths, but there was no need.
Wherever the werewolves were, they were no longer here.

I tried Ballard’s, but he was gone. Where could he have gone
to? I wondered. Was it just Lia and I?

I crept into some kind of informal gathering hall. The
tunnels twisted and turned. There were stuccoes on the walls. I didn’t know
what they were.

A glow lamp spluttered and went out. I turned.

Asher was coming from some kind of secret entrance, there in
the wall. I felt for my map, but I had lost it. It was too late. I was caught.

I made a mental note to never ever leave that map in my
room, ever, ever again––

If I even ever made it out of this alive.

I wondered if he would be angry at me, Asher. Angry at me
for wandering around. The maps made it pretty clear that some places were
off-limits. It depended on who you were. And who you were with.

I didn’t know where I was. I was lost. That had to be a good
enough excuse, surely.

He was standing there, halfway on his way to someplace else.
He seemed to know that I had gotten confused.

“You shouldn’t be out of bed,” he said, “much less wandering
around the halls at night. It isn’t safe. You can’t just go anywhere you feel
like, Halsey Rookmaaker.”

“I’m
not
,” I said.

Meanwhile, that looked like
exactly
what he was doing.

“I’m on my way somewhere,” said Asher, as if that explained
what he was doing out of bed.

I bit my lip. I didn’t know him that well; not yet. I didn’t
know if Asher was good or evil. He gave off a Marek vibe. It could go either
way. I certainly had reservations about the company he kept. Hanging out with
the Lenoir. It didn’t make sense. Unless he was lying.

“You’re not a vampire, are you?” I said.

“Certainly
not
,”
he said.

But if he wasn’t, what was he doing with them? Certainly not
a servant. Asher seemed too proud for that. Like he was noble almost. He
apologized for scaring me.

“Not at all,” I said. “I just didn’t know there were secret
passageways and stuff.”

“Has no one told you what this place
is
?” said Asher. He wanted to take me back to my room. “Come...” he
said. “I will make sure nothing happens to you.”

I followed, waiting for him to talk. It turned out to be a
futile effort.

“I give up. What is this place?” I said.

“It’s what it
used
to be,” said Asher. “Not what it is now. You forget the past at your peril.”

“I don’t know my past,” I said.

But he turned and stopped me. “We wear that on our faces,”
he said. “Follow me. I will guide you back to where you belong.”

He moved cautiously, like a cat. And like a cat, he had
vertical pupils.

I followed after him with about a million questions.

“Something is in the ether,” he said. “I feel it. Do not
you?” He stopped and turned to me; I had been admiring his stalking body. His
eyes looked like two moons glowing out at me from the dark. But I felt only
safety. And a desire to know more.

“I know that there is
something
out there, Asher, perhaps waiting for me, perhaps waiting for us all; and that
it is only a matter of time...” I said. “But tell me, now that we are here
together, what are you––for I would know you, but only as friends.”

Now that I was alone with him I had seen what Lia meant; a
prerequisite, therefore, had to be me stating the obvious. That I was seeing
someone else.

Asher seemed devil-may-care––until he leaned
into me.

“The moon does strange things to the earth,” he said. “Its
rhythms affect the other. I am not out-of-body, nor
persona non grata
, Halsey Rookmaaker––”

“Halsey,” I said. “Halsey Rookmaaker makes me sound like
I’m––I don’t know––something I’m not. This Mythic
Chick.”

“I didn’t come here to get a suntan,” said Asher.

We were a hundred feet underground. “Of course not,” I said.

He was really close. I felt my hammering heart like it was
trying to give me away. Asher invaded my personal space with impunity. I
gulped.

“Now what?” I said, half-breathlessly. I was almost in a
swoon.

“I answer your question of course. I am like your friend
Ballard.”

“What does that even mean?” I said.

“I will not give up his secret, as he has not entirely
figured it out for himself,” said Asher. “Suffice it to say, I have my eyes on
you.”

They glowed non-threateningly. “I’m good. You don’t have to
worry about me,” I said. I needed him to turn around so I could catch my
breath. “That still doesn’t answer what you
are
,”
I said.

“That... is complicated,” he said.

“And
what you’re
doing here...”

“Again. Complicated.”

“You can be simple with me,” I said. “Try.”

He chuckled. It sounded like he had a furball.

“I am one of the Celeres––personal guard to the
Magister Equitum, himself,” he said.
“He
sent me here.”

“With
the Lenoir?”
I asked.

“Uh-huh.”

I didn’t even know who that was. Much less what a celery
stick was.

“Celeres,” said Asher, smiling. He had a powerful jaw. It
was good for ripping. I could see his sharp, pointed teeth. “We guard the Wolf
King, the other shapeshifters and I.”

“But I thought Gaven was the Wolf King,” I said.

“He is
Il Gatto
,
the King of Cats,” said Asher.

“But he turns into a werewolf,” I said. “Gaven is a dog, not
an ailuranthrope.”

“Again, you forget the past,” said Asher.

I had a headache. I wanted answers, not cryptic crypticness.

He smiled at me. “Perhaps another time, Halsey
Rookmaa––”

I glared at him.

“When you have been here longer,” said Asher. “Right now I
need to take you back. The first day is about to begin. You don’t want to be
late. This is your
life
we’re talking
about.”

Was he trying to change the subject?

“Because it won’t work,” I said. “I
will
get to the bottom of this, of everything. I’ll go it alone, if
I have to.”

“You’ll go with me, and then, yes, you will get to the
bottom of things. I have no doubt.”

“Answer me one thing,” I said. I could afford to be stubborn
now.

“You have only to name it,” he said.

I studied Asher’s eyes. I could tell he meant it. That he
would answer me
one
question. I
decided to make it a good one.

“If you’re not
with
the Lenoir,” I said, finger quote, stress-stress, “then what are you doing
with
them?”

“Ah, that is an interesting question. And one,
unfortunately, that I cannot answer. I can, however, ask you a question of my
own?”

“Go on,” I said, feeling as though I had already been played
with, but resigned to hear the question anyway.

“If you’re not with the werewolves, Halsey, then what are
you
doing with
them
?”

“It’s complicated,” I said.

“So there’s that,” said Asher.

He took me back, and Lia was there. By the time I got back
into my room, she was wide-eyed and awake.

“Where have you
been
?”
she said. “I thought I had missed it. I woke up and you were nowhere to be
found. You didn’t go to the Gathering without me, did you?”

“I wouldn’t just leave you behind,” I said, my mind still
full of Asher––from his cat paw gracefulness, to his cryptic
warnings and obfuscations. “You should know me better than that.”

There was something that Asher didn’t want me to know. And
what had that been about Ballard? He didn’t know himself?

If he didn’t, who did? Certainly not me.

* * *

The Lenoir Finding Party consisted of Maria Lenoir and the
male vampire she had come to the banquet with. His name was Pier Alexander.

Pier Alexander and Maria Lenoir were waiting for all
thirteen of the Wiccan Initiates when Lia and I arrived. I saw them whispering
behind their hands. Lia and I had our maps out, but there was no need. The
Gathering had been designed so that the central chamber––The Star
Room as I called it––was easily accessed. It was here that we were
to be indoctrinated into the ways of Magic.

I put away my map. I didn’t know what I expected, but not this.
It was a sandpit. Exposed rocks jutted from the earth like teeth. I could
follow the fissures up, into seating areas. I half-expected the werewolves to
be seated up there, or else running around, practicing.

They were not.

Instead the sandpit was filled with the other
Initiates––eleven girls from all over Europe––which
raised even more questions in my mind. Such as, Do I even belong here? I was,
after all, an American girl, from Massachusetts, U.S.A.

Why had I been chosen?