Neophyte / Adept (16 page)

Status.

They were here by invitation of the Lenoir. I had the sense
that they could blink away a quarter century no problem.

As for the ailuranthropes, though lacking in refinements,
they had cultivated a presence nonetheless that was all their own. Hirsute or
not, they were formidable-looking. The only question was why they hadn’t sent delegates
to the Gathering themselves.

Asher was with the Lenoir, or so he’d said. His real
objective was something else––I was sure of it. Lia had said that
the other delegates had been upset with Maria Lenoir when she brought him
along. What was it about ailuranthropes––Cat
Shifters––that was so repulsive to them? There were so many dos and
don’ts, to Magic. It was like Magic was Magic, and I was trying to keep up.

As for the Wiccans, it sent chills down my spine seeing them
all here.

I heard voices behind me suddenly; one in particular I knew.

“She’s all right, if you’re
in
to that sort of thing.”

I looked back. Vittoria was staring after me with her
heavily-lidded eyes, on the arm of Paolo, one of the Werewolf Team Leaders. He
wasn’t divulging Pack secrets, was he? Then I thought: Is it even my business?

If I’m going to be a
werewolf
, I told myself...
Then, yes,
it is....

I cocked my head at her. She made a W and shot it at me,
then smirked and walked past me, into the Star Room.

It opened before us like a million galaxies. Immediately
couples began to make their way onto the dance floor for the opening dance.

Chapter 16
– Hiving

This was the part I had been really afraid of. I can’t
dance. It’s one of my major life failings. Lux and I revolved slowly on the
dance floor. I frequently stepped on his toes. Every once in a while he would
be hailed by someone presumably that he knew from across the dance
floor––but he stayed with me.

He’s with Ravenseal,
Halsey, relax
... I told myself,
of
course he knows people!

Then a strenuous number. Lia and Gaven were throwing their
bodies around wildly. You had to give it to the Wolves. There was something
wild and free about the way they danced. Unselfconscious. As though they were
at one with themselves. It was a moment before I remembered that Lia was
split––she was either a werewolf or a Wiccan now, but she couldn’t
be both; her Mark had still not filled in. No one’s had.

The other
weres
, I
noticed, were a secretive lot. Particularly the cats, who kept mostly to
themselves, although one werecheetah actually bent and kissed my hand, when
Gaven introduced us. An electric current passed between the werecheetah and I,
which meant that we had sexual chemistry. I could almost see him blush through
the whiskers on his fine face.

Lux removed himself to go get us some drinks. I was left
staring at the sandpit. Except it wasn’t the sandpit any longer. Magic had
transformed it until it was a kind of Roman Forum (as if, in celebration of the
fact that we were in Rome), with various statues of particularly impressive
cyanthropes––that’s Dog Shifters––in full
change––something I had never seen before––and wizards
and witches who looked like they were in the throes of some particularly
complex conjurations. A tall obelisk stood in the center of the room. It
usually stood there, but seeing it tonight, it was somehow strange and ominous.
And full of Magic. Ornate figures were carved around it so that it looked like
an impenetrable iron fresco or a shadow caster. Instead of projecting the
light, it drew you to it. The ground had been covered over with a parquet floor
temporarily and the obelisk jutted out of it like a metallic tooth.

The vampires, meanwhile, didn’t need statues. Tall and
imperious-looking, there were a hundred of them situated throughout. They
looked to be carved out of stone. Quite a few of them were in conversation. I
made my way over to a pair who were talking to some of the warlocks I had never
met before. Their drinks were red, with sparkles in them. Magic Fruit Punch.

“I think we must create New Magic––embrace
werewolf, witch
and
vampire-kind.”

I paused, listening in to what they had to say.

“It’s a pity some of the others couldn’t make it. Although
if you ask me a lot of them are without any civility whatsoever.”

“If you ask me this
sieving
process has to stop. Isn’t the purpose of our gifts in their mastery? How can
you master anything if you don’t even know what it is you can do?”

“I just wonder about our
guests
,”
said one wizard––an older gentleman who looked as though he
could’ve been an Oxford Don; “as well as the Initiates’ Marks.”

“What do you think they will select?” asked his friend, a
vampire.

“Well, we’ve given them someone who will help them, I
daresay. An expert in Wiccan Marks, is old Lux.”

“Can you explain that?” said the vampire, before sticking
his fangs into his drink.

“The Mark is you––or your essence. I really
don’t understand it. What it will be is anyone’s guess. Only the Initiates
really know. But don’t tell
them
that.”

“Why not?” asked one of the vampires.

“Well, it has something to do with going against the
Initiates’ natures. Malleability, you know, isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Just as Virtuosity––well...”

“Isn’t that Lux’s...?”

“I wonder how he got those scars?”

“Dueling, most like.”

“So they’re not his Mark.”

“Good heavens, no. Lux has always been reckless. Short fuse.
You see it with Marks like that. A Mark, mind you, that has grown deeper. Which
is why Lux’s name is so funny. It means Light, you see. I don’t know if he’s
turned from it––or is trying to find his way back. But I’ll tell
you this... Aether does funny things when you play with it. I wouldn’t be
surprised if he tried to bend Magic and got a very nasty shock indeed. You see
those rings he wears. You know how he got them? Lux, old boy––!”

I turned around. Lux was standing right there with our
drinks. Huge paper umbrellas stuck out of them with swizzle sticks.

“And who is this young lady? Not breaking the rules, are
you,
Professor
?”

It happened. One minute, Lux was preparing to engage the
wizards and vampires in conversation, the next––my eye caught sight
of somebody else.

He wore a pair of dark wizard dress pants and I couldn’t be
sure but a black, spotted with darker black, silk dress shirt that changed as
he turned, and the light hit him from different angles; it was almost
holographic. His long mane of black hair fell to his shoulders. The
serious-minded Wiccan I had seen before. His eyes were penetrating into my own,
like chips of blue ice. He was just about to ask me something, when somebody
else
fell upon me.

“Julius Pendderwenn! There you are! Very glad to meet you!
Wanted to introduce myself for ages! But then you already know me! It’s
you
I’m interested in!”

He held out his hand to mine and shook it furiously with two
of his own. It was a moment before I could look and see who I was talking to. I
looked for the other Wiccan but he had gone.

“Good to meet you!” he said. He continued to try to rip my
hand off. “Halsey Rookmaaker–– I was in your parents’ House, don’t
you know? Their
Wiccan
House.”

It was the smiley wizard I had seen before at the Welcoming
Ceremony. And elsewhere... He had also been following us up in the stands when
the Initiates and I had been training. One of the few to have done so.

“I’m sorry. Can I help you?” I said. Still full of the
wizard I had just seen, it was a moment before I realized what Julius
Pendderwenn had said...

“I knew your parents! Seventeen years ago! It was horrible
when we lost them.... Who do you think took over when they
were––well, anyway. But now
you’re
here. Pendderwenn House has been waiting a long time to be complete. With you,
I think we can be. Circles within circles. What goes around
comes
around, eh?”

“W-w-what?”

“Halsey... ––Pendderwenn House is here
in Rome
,” said Pendderwenn. “Just think
about it. Think about us. All right. I’m going. I’m going.”

“We are not to the selection process yet,” said Lux, who had
finally reappeared and was now pushing Julius Pendderwenn away. Veruschka
Ravenseal and the other coven leaders popped up, along with Maria Lenoir.

“Not breaking the rules, are we?” said Maria, whose
marigold-colored eyes blackened infinitesimally, before lighting on me.
Pendderwenn gulped.

“I want to see!” said Vittoria, pushing her way through.

Maria stood, waiting for an answer.

“It’s nothing. Just a lapse in protocol,” said Lux. I
noticed as he spoke Lux dig in his pants-pocket and remove his Wiccan rings. He
slipped them on.

“There are a lot of things that you don’t know about yet,
Julius,” Maria Lenoir said to Mr. Pendderwenn, who shook from head to foot.

I turned my head away, letting my hair fall between us. She
had looked at me.

“Who are House Pendderwenn?” I asked Lux, feeling like he
had been keeping things from me, “and what are they doing in Rome? Is it really
true my parents used to be one of them?”

It was hard to keep the bitterness out of my voice. Had
there really been a House in Rome all this time, and I had not found it?

The party hiccoughed. Vittoria looked around waiting for
something else to happen. Veruschka Ravenseal looked daggers at Mr. Pendderwenn
who apologized profusely. “It can wait. It can wait,” he said. “Just a little
overanxious is all. Twenty-five years... it’s a long time to wait. Won’t happen
again. Promise, promise.”

“It better not,” said Veruschka.

Apparently that was the end of it. The werewolves went back
to their dancing––and Vittoria, with one last look, disappeared
with Paolo. Maria Lenoir continued to hover, however, like an overeager
evil-eyed specter. “You know the rules, Lux,” she said to him.

She left; I was left staring at Professor Lux with about a
million questions. I think he could see it because he formed his Wiccan W and
stirred his magic drink. It was a mark of the severity of the situation that he
used his magic for something so mundane. He swizzled it and took the umbrella
out, which folded up all by itself. What did Maria mean by that, and why was
Lux looking the way he did, like he was nervous––or worse...
scared? I wondered.

“You’ve been
marked
,”
he said. “It was foolish of me to take you here tonight. I’ve put a bull’s-eye
on your back.”

I grabbed Lux and dragged him over to an alcove where we
could talk alone.

No more half measures. I wanted the truth.

He paced back and forth, and I saw him, absentmindedly,
massaging where his tridents were. He didn’t expect a fight, did he? “The other
Houses will try and recruit you,” he said to me. “That’s what Pendderwenn was
doing. He thought I was giving Ravenseal an unfair advantage. This Gathering is
about more than indoctrinating new Wiccan Initiates––it’s about
staking your claims to them––the other Houses, I mean.

“Pendderwenn had no right to engage you like that,” he went
on, “but he thought I was making a move on behalf of Ravenseal
before
the Wiccaning.
So...”

“Not so fast,” I said. “What’s a Wiccaning?”

He took a sip of his raspberry-mint cocktail.

“It happens in two-days’ time,” he said. “There will be a
reading of sorts––kind of like when we all held our
lights––except this time it’s for real––at which point
you and the other Initiates will have to
choose
.”

“Our Marks, you mean?”

He nodded.

“With this type of choice there is no second choice,” he
said. “It is a chance for the other Houses to look at you as well. We have an
unusually high number of Initiates this year, and not enough
spots
.”

“They keep threatening me with that. Vittoria said there
weren’t enough openings––and as she’s easily the most powerful new
witch–– I mean to say, there’s no way Ravenseal can afford to take
all of us, can they? Maybe Pendderwenn’s my best shot, maybe...” I said.

“Magic split, Halsey. I’ve been meaning to speak with you
about this––with all of the Initiates, as a matter of fact.”

“We’re Neophytes now,” I said. I couldn’t help it. I smiled.

“You see this W,” he said. “Like it’s being pulled apart.
Like there are three of them. They represent the Three Houses. Harcort, Coven,
and Ravenseal.” He waggled his three fingers. “But there are more Houses than
just we Three. Magic continues to split. Pendderwenn House is a satellite. It
is a lesser coven. I will explain...”

I watched him compose himself, wondering if it were really
true. Like everything involving Magic, there seemed to be layers upon
layers––each one hidden under the next.

“A Wiccan coven is comprised of twelve
members––just twelve members. Thirteen, and it can no longer
function,” said Lux.

“There must not be that much Magic in the world,” I said.

“On the contrary,” he said. “Unlike vampires, who keep their
numbers hidden, Wiccans have to be very open about just how many of us there
are. The reason is because of the Last War, in which a lot of the Supernaturals
were killed. It happened over a century ago. In the time of Charles Dickens and
cobblestone streets.

“I won’t bore you with the details,” said Lux. “Suffice it
to say, that a treaty was brokered, in which certain covenants were agreed
upon, among them that Wiccan covens must Hive––break away, and form
autonomous covens.”

“It was the vampires who made us agree to that,” said Lux.
“But we got something in return. Vampires could no longer employ Half
Lighters––magically-empowered beings with unique gifts, such as the
ability to see the future, to scry, as it’s called; some can travel with their
minds. Asher is one. He has the leave of the Houses, and that of his own tribe,
to attend this Gathering with the Lenoir, who just want to keep an eye on
things, they say. But hiving... Hiving is important....

“It was Erasmus of Ravenseal who proposed the idea... an
idea supported by Maria Lenoir. She was there, you see. The Lenoir had a
foothold. Their power was great. This was 1887. Maria was second-in-command at
that point. How she gained further power I do not know.

“But it was her pleasure to state the following: that either
Wiccans should
purge
their
numbers––reduce their sizes––to twelve a
House––or the Lenoir would systematically destroy all of them.
There wasn’t a question that they could do it. Their numbers were enormous. It
was an ultimatum Erasmus, as wartime Head, was unwilling to test. His Mistress,
Vanity Ravenseal, had already been killed, you see? One of the vampire hunters
who had been turned had caught up with her, on Maria’s orders, no doubt. Erasmus
agreed that from thenceforward all Wiccan covens must Hive.”

“But what
is
Hiving?”

“Hiving,” said Lux, “is what happens to over-numbered covens
when they get too big––thirteen Wiccans or greater. They must split
off––
hive
. One House
becoming two. Parted. Forever.”

He seemed to consider that important.

“So whereas Ravenseal is at eleven, presently, if it takes
on more than one Initiate at this Gathering––becomes thirteen
members or greater––it must fracture. Thirteen people is too many.