Neophyte / Adept (60 page)

“If I can’t find my House, probably it’s because the
Rookmaakers––my parents––knew to hide it. I’m on to
something, Ballard. I can feel it. I’ll let you know how it goes.”

* * *

I flipped open the Everything book, back at my apartment,
thinking about the marker and Selwyn’s message:
Beware the Dark Path
. The marker was a warning to
me––but I was all too reckless.
I
AM MY PARENTS’ HOUSE. THEIR ORIFLAMME. The standard for which their House
stood. It can only be led by a Level-Three Wiccan. Me. I must become Fledged.

Did I want to just skip Adept? Jump straight to the Super
Bitch? The all-powerful? The Chosen One?

If I was wiccaned, maybe there wasn’t really any choice.
Choices are illusions, Halsey... someone
sent you down this Path––Think! If I had to guess, Lenoir.

Who else could it have been? Maybe Lenoir was the Grey Wolf.
Preposterous.

Then who?

In times of old, when magic spread,

and wizards, ranked, split off,

the following was compilèd.

Feverishly, I began flipping through the Everything book;
for the first time in a long time my magic flared. But that was just my mark.
The last time it acted up, Rayven was close by, but he couldn’t be here now,
could he? Maybe it was because the book dealt with Grigori magic and Rayven was
one of them, that my Mark was flaring. It spiked painfully, glowing blue.

I turned to the table of contents and found what I was
looking for.

The Everything book was broken into sections. Section One
dealt with Wicca; Two: Other Beings; Three: Dark Magic.

Rayven floating in my memory, I turned to Other Beings.

SHAPESHIFTERS––GRIGORI, BENANDANTI, THE SONS AND
DAUGHTERS OF ROMULUS,
THOSE WHO DO BOTH
.

I flipped to where it directed, holding the Everything book
under the candle flame of the Iron Roses, to
THOSE WHO DO BOTH
. The Grigori could transform and do spells, yet
why could not Wiccans, or the Benandanti, or even The Sons and Daughters of
Romulus?
Once Lia turned, she could no
longer TURN
, I wrote in my Diary. It was like a lightbulb went off in my
head––before it exploded. The Grigori had
Grigori
Magic. Unfortunately, such a revelation could mean only one
thing.
Our enemies are a lot stronger
than we are.

There was even a picture of a Grigori. I looked at the vile
form and felt myself shiver. So
this
was what they looked like:

Much fiercer than other werewolves, the Grigori possess an
array of feiknstafir, and are
handleggers
,
Those Who Do
Both
.

Under the safety of my four-poster, they were a lot easier
to look at. Did “handlegger” mean what I thought it did? I looked it up in the
glossary.

HANDLEGGER––the ability to transform, to conjure
magic; to craft, Mark and paw. THOSE WHO DO BOTH.

The Grigori were handleggers, they could do both. Shift
and
craft. Rayven had a Mark. But if Lia
had one also––? Could Ballard? How did the Sons and Daughters of
Romulus and the Benandanti find their magic?

I looked again at the picture of the Grigori. They looked
like monsters. Yet they had none of the cunning of Rayven.
He was a Watchtower, after all, before he was bent.

The Grigori can be
fought. If Rayven can fall, so can they!
I wrote that in my Diary. But
could Rayven be defeated?

I didn’t like to think what would happen if we fought them
all.
We could lose, we could definitely
lose.

* * *

For some reason I expected the Grigori to have a bastardized
form of magic, but they didn’t. It was just in Grigori language. In fact,
handlegger was actually handleggr. Hard R. A lot of the spells were like that.
I memorized the Grigori spellbook as far as I could. It went on for hundreds of
pages. There were thousands of spells. Spells for all kinds of things. I
whispered one and the candle flame went out. Another, and the French doors
slammed shut.

The preface to the Grigori section listed a caveat which
held true for all of magic:

Nota bene:
Magic drains
––

YOU, if you let it. That’s what makes dueling so difficult.
Therefore, be most assured of where you stand, or you’ll not be the first
spellcaster to die where he stood, embattled with an out-of-control hex.

So not only was it difficult to learn magic, but if you messed
up, magic could kill you?! I had to look into that.

* * *

My head hit pillow and I fell into a troubling dream.
Dallace and Camille were screaming. There was a battlefield. The earth cracked,
and flames rushed forth. Lennox and Selwyn dueled a contingent of wizards....

Suddenly, I was falling through the air. I landed,
flump
, in a strange circular room. One
of the twins from the Master House was there. But he wasn’t a twin. He was
making lots of himself.
Am I
spiritwalking?
I thought, looking at the mirrors on the walls.
Is that what I’m doing? But that would
mean–– Was I a Lare? Was I dead?

WHERE IS SHE? WHAT IS
SHE DOING? We will not be able to control her. RAVENSEAL was ordered to control
her. Their failure leaves us no option. THE MASTER HOUSE MUST INTERCEDE.

NO
, said the other
twin.
We will couch it in the
covenants––USE THEM. Yes––USE THEM. The Dark Order is
in Prague, and they are very worried, very worried, indeed, about Halsey
Rookmaaker. Of all the Initiates, she showed the most spirit. Now she may walk
the Dark Path and find out the secret they have been waiting centuries to
possess... unless––yes, unless...

I don’t think she
knows how to find it, nor do I believe she has the POWER to open House
Rookmaaker, to go her own way.... Will she figure out what she needs to do and
follow the signs? Or bend like so many Houses have done before her?

Her parents and that
werewolf planned ahead––they hid House Rookmaaker where only
someone like her, someone Eclectic, could find it. If she is an Eclectic, then
all she has to do is FOLLOW THE CATS. Yes––FOLLOW THE CATS. They
will lead her straight....

* * *

I fell awake. Was the grey wolf somehow connected with me?
What did that mean, follow the cats? What did I Gatti have to do with anything?

Because Risky was
working with the Rookmaakers, to keep House Rookmaaker hidden
, I thought.
Then, how did Rayven find it? Because he’s a
shape changer. Maybe only a shape changer can find House Rookmaaker.
ECLECTICS...

One of my parents
must’ve been one...

Was I?... AM I...

Am I?

* * *

Think what you know,
Halsey. You have a Mark. But so does Lia. But she can’t transform anymore...
Maybe you have to be a Grigori to be a handlegger.

But Lia used to be a
Wolf
, I said to myself.

DARKPATH...
DARKPATH...

What if I was sitting on something so radical, so game
changing, the consequences of it being found out were enough to kill to
prevent? Again, what if my parents didn’t want me finding House Rookmaaker?
They’d hidden it on purpose, after all...

Yeah––for
me to find it.

FOLLOW THE CATS.

* * *

I leapt on my motorcycle, passing through the base of the
Seven Hills. Eventually I entered the old historic center east of Trastevere at
the Lower Tiber Bend. Lennox’s place was nearby, but I didn’t stop.

At first I thought “follow the cats” meant I Gatti, but it
didn’t. It was more literal. As in,
follow
the cats
. Literally. Thankfully, I had kept the newspaper article.
At last, Skarborough did something right.

STRAY ROMAN TABBIES IN LARGO ARGENTINA

Calicoes, gingers, smoky grays––Roman grimalkins
have always had their place in Rome––and their
supporters––until now.

Largo Argentina.
I
needed to go to Largo Argentina. I pulled the map from my wall, scanning the
index. Largos were streets. It took me a while to find the one for Largo Argentina,
but it was there. A few minutes on my computer gave me the details. It was
about a mile away. Julius Caesar had been killed there.

On my bike again, I found the place. But this couldn’t be
it.

Buses came and went, the whole place had a kind of touring
feel. Could my House really be located somewhere so––so mundane?

But if it’s
hidden––
said a voice––
maybe your parents
intended
for
your House to be overlooked!

Largo Argentina was very normal, except for all the cats.
They were simply everywhere: longhairs, shorthairs, Siamese, Abyssinian,
spangled, Burmese, bobtails, manx, munchkins... Napoleon emperor cats,
ragamuffins, ragdolls, Savannah, Siberian, sphynxes. But the most common breed
was the housecat.

Buried below street level was a kind of pit. It was to here
the cats were traveling. Pillars shot out of the pit, and a full Roman ruin was
revealed.

Only
here
could
something be preserved, I thought. Tall, faceless buildings looked down upon
us. Passengers shuffled busily past. But nobody stopped to look where they were
going. And nobody paid attention to the cats.

They were mewling on the ancient Roman steps, the cats, or
else basking in the sun. Others were looking at me.

I parked my motorcycle, taking off my helmet. Something of
the lawless legend persisted from the Skarborough articles. Bus passengers kept
their distances from me. I stepped into the road and crossed hurriedly. The
cats were gamboling. I stopped to pet one and then looked into Largo Argentina.
Follow the cats...

The twins had been afraid that I would do
something––
open House
Rookmaaker––maybe train Eclectics––
but they didn’t
think I had the “power” or guts.

If I hadn’t traveled out-of-body, I would never have gotten
this lead, I thought. Still––what if it
were
hocus-pocus? What if there was no House Rookmaaker buried in
Rome, waiting for me to find it? If House Rookmaaker was hidden, maybe even
I
couldn’t find it.

I thought of Golden Lane, how you could only find Golden
Lane if you knew where to look.

Only someone eclectic could find House Rookmaaker. But how?

The area was off-limits. I stood at street level, looking
down into Largo Argentina, aware that if I was found out, I would probably be
arrested. A multitude of cats was frisking about; I wasn’t sure what I should
do.
But the twins knew where House
Rookmaaker was; they’d been here before, when they okayed my parents’ House. It
must be here!

That settled it. I walked through the ancient rubble, past
the cats, but no inspiration came to me. Several arches were in Largo
Argentina. I walked toward them, but as I did so, something caught my eye.

A symbol, engraved in one of the columns, a symbol I had
seen before.
The Wiccan-slash-benandanti
symbol for rebirth...

Asher told me that.

It was an eclectic symbol.

My heart rate accelerated.

The swirl. It was the symbol for rebirth. It meant they came
back.

Lares
, I thought.