Authors: T.D. McMichael
Neophyte / Adept (61 page)
What did it all mean? Feeling I was in the right place, I
began walking over to the secret arches. They were hidden below street level.
They fell in shadow; I couldn’t see what was beneath them.
I thought of my
parents––murdered––forgotten. Was it
possible––? Could it have been them who engraved that symbol on
that pillar? What did it say about their House?
Three arches, one higher than the rest, stood in my view.
I could hear shouting––revelers coming from The
Campo, a local hotspot.
The
oriflamme––they must’ve been eclectic, my
parents––Could they come back?
But I was elsewhere. The arches
also had markings.
Three interlocked rings, which I had seen before, and on the
center one, almost like a button, the symbol for Protection
connected
and became one.
My Harm None ring flashed. Somehow I knew, instinctively,
what to do.
I reached out my index finger with the unique swirl of magic
patterned upon it and pressed the center arch with the symbol for the three
rings upon it and something––as they say––happened.
Writing began to appear––words written in
cursive, there on the doorway.
Welcome to
House Rookmaaker.
I stepped back from the magical archway, which had begun to
shake, the three doorways like the symbol for Protection, becoming one. Stones
shifted. No one had been here in eighteen years. Not even Rayven.
But, if it was my House, how had he gotten
through?
I was suddenly terrified what I might find.
What if, what if whatever I found, didn’t look like House
Rookmaaker? What if I was digging where I shouldn’t be? What if Locke was right
and Prague would use this as an excuse to sneak their way into Rome? To oversee
us. Would I be beholden to them, after all? What if I couldn’t become fledged?
I’d never shown any great aptitude. Would we be monitored forever?
It was almost like the symbol for the
Wiccan-slash-benandanti sign for rebirth was a symbol for House Rookmaaker.
Like
House Rookmaaker was being born again. Like I was its mother.
Rome was gone. This
hush
crept over me, as I left the city, and entered the grounds. Willow trees were
everywhere. Lightning flashed across the sky. Vines crept through the iron
bars, which had been broken open and were hanging off their hinges. It was
darker
here, twilit. House Rookmaaker
stood in the distance––a huge manor surrounded by a high hedge and
a thick iron gate, below a tumultuous sky.
Lennox...
If the Grigori had
come burning in the night, where were the scorch marks?
House Rookmaaker stood; yet it was my parents who had been
eliminated.
Not my House.
I felt a
chill that had nothing to do with the thunderstorm raging through me.
I fought my way through the branches and looked back at the
silver shining archway I had come through. It was engraved with many runes.
This place––wherever it was––was between two worlds.
Like Limbo.
Only those who knew, could come here.
House Rookmaaker...
Yet a tiny suspicion began to form in the pit
of my stomach. What
THEM
would the
twins use? What
them
was it, in the
ardanes, whose responsibility included punishing rogue Houses? What
them
had come here to kill my parents
and destroy my House?
Had the vampires come to
rout
out this House
?
Such a realization could mean only one thing. It wasn’t the
Grigori who had done the destroying. Someone else had eliminated Kinsey and
Maximilian Rookmaaker. If I had to guess:
Vampires...
As I thought it, I felt a shiver ripple through me. Lennox
was the only vampire in Rome, yet he had never said anything about my House.
Ever.
What did that say? That he didn’t
know about it, or he was covering things up?
I decided not to condemn him just yet.
Let Lennox talk about House Rookmaaker––then we’ll see
,
I told myself.
As
for
the
House...
Did all Wiccan Houses have such spells put upon them? They
must, if they were to hide, to be hidden. Yet the Grigori could crack that
magic, or else they knew where each House was located.
The Directory
I was sure said nothing about any of the special
things you would need to do to find Wiccan Houses.
The sky overhead interested me, particularly because it was
so storm-filled. The Dark Order was out there––even the Council of
Magic had refused to take action.
Houses
are left on their own, Halsey.
Well, not mine...
I would contact Prague immediately. Now that House
Rookmaaker had passed to me, a number three would need to be found, into whose
hands it could safely pass, until I became Fledged. Was this my inheritance, to
have my Wiccan House held in interreges?
I felt exposed. Great roots of willow trees fed at a stream
that passed through the hidden grounds, their towering branches drooping over
the place. Some searching and I found the sign Rayven had dropped. Years of
muck covered it until it was unrecognizable. Eighteen years ago he had come
here. Why?
Had I thought I could move right in, I was mistaken. The
inspector would need to be sent from Prague. Accordingly, I wrote to the
Council of Magic straightaway.
Mr. Artemidorus Blackstock
The Council of Magic
Golden Lane, Prague
It’s me, Halsey.
I’ve found my place.
It’s in Largo
Argentina, Rome, Italy.
Do please hurry.
The unwelcome visitor
,
as I called the inspector, would be sure to remove the running of House
Rookmaaker from my control. Ardane Number Six was explicit: If I could not find
a number three, one would be appointed for me. I needed to hurry, unless I
wanted the Council of Magic spying upon House Rookmaaker forever.
Gaven was the first person I thought of, but he couldn’t
lead a Wiccan coven. My dream choice, Mistress Genevieve, already had one; if I
chose her Prague would definitely see this as us building up our power. Which
meant I was down to one. One person who could get the job done.
“Sure, I’ll do it,” said Manon.
“You are fledged?” I said, still on my motorcycle, outside
Coven City. She nodded, fervently.
“I can’t deny that it’ll be nice to have indoor plumbing
again,” she said.
My landlady was AWOL when I got home. I sipped an aperitif
and studied some magic but understanding the Grigori was secondary to what I
was going to say to Lennox when he arrived. The only plus side was that now I’d
found my House, Selwyn could stay there. I imagined him roaming the grounds,
scaring the other Housemates. Who knew having a House could be so difficult,
though? Manon was a dynamo, simply everywhere. When I’d envisioned opening
House Rookmaaker, it hadn’t been with a bunch of strangers. House numbers was
the bane of my existence. To become Adept should be my first priority, not
having a good time. If only my friends were in House Rookmaaker, it would go
against the oriflamme, my parents’ wish House Rookmaaker be open to all.
Invitations were sent out and Initiates invited, but I was
removed from the process.
One good thing: you didn’t have to
be
a Rookmaaker to be in House Rookmaaker; a love of the Goddess
seemed to be the only prerequisite. We got around the House numbers by not
having instructors, many of whom were eclectics, be in House Rookmaaker. But
the Initiates had to be. There were many
blessed
bes
. Unfortunately, that left no room for Ballard, or even Lia, who, as a
werewolf, could train in secret, anyway. When the inspector arrived he went
over the rules with us, including several do’s and don’ts. “If you observe the
ardanes,” he said, “there will be no problems.”
And if we didn’t?
I thought. He and Manon disappeared to talk about
“number three stuff,” and I was left alone outside the archway. It had been a
year since I had been in Rome; a
y’r’n’a’d’y
,
as the saying went. I threw my leg over my Gambalunga and went to find the S
Bros; the sun crept over the sky like a red flame.
Their shop was busier than Ballard’s––and that
was saying something.
Tourists were buying amphorae, ancient Roman jars, useful
for candle making. But I wished to discuss something a little more pertinent to
modern times.
Sándor and Septimus welcomed me inside. It was nearly
closing time, when I arrived, and they had a large order of
pessoi
they wished to tinker with. I
heard the cash register ring up a bunch of items. Finally, I was the last customer
in the shop. I wondered if they would kick me out. Sándor cleared his throat.
And the Dithering Award goes to...
I felt like a bad customer.
“Don’t freak,” I said. “But I have something I need to talk
to you guys about.” I had my backpack on, which I put on the counter. Out came
Selwyn’s red marker.
Beware the Dark
Path....
They read the message, while I conveyed to them how it had
come into my possession.
Sándor made way for Septimus, who shuffled through the
stacks.
“Hammersmith or Aeschylus?” he shouted.
“Hammersmith!” shouted Sándor.
Septimus returned, carrying a heavy book. He flipped through
it. “There!” he said, turning it, so I could see.
“But that’s a symbol!” I said.
And so it was. The Wiccan symbol for
protection
.
Septimus flipped the page and showed me the three rings
becoming one––
just like my
House
, I thought.
“This,” he said, “is the symbol for the Dark Path. The
so-called Path of Enlightenment. It’s kind’ve difficult to explain. Magic
split, remember, Halsey?”
You to your corner, we
to ours
, I thought, nodding, while he tugged at his soul patch.
“But how is that the symbol for the Dark Path?” I said,
stunned that it had been engraved on the archway to my House.
“According to this book, the purpose of the Chosen One is to
reunite Magic,” said Septimus. “Three becoming one. Like so:”
The Protection symbol collapsed upon itself.
Three
interlocked rings becoming whole again.
But
if that was engraved upon the doorway to my parents’ house....
“It’s all there in the symbols––” said Septimus.
He flipped through the book to a symbol I had seen before.
The Triple Goddess.
A moon and two halves, itself like the symbol
for protection.
“Even
in the steps to
Becoming
––Neophyte,
Adept, and Fledged––there are three steps,” he said. “The triskele,
or
three
symbol,
is
the Dark Path.
Unite the magic that split.
Turn
it into one. That is the secret purpose of the Chosen One and why everyone
wishes to find her. Because anyone who controls her would be unstoppable.”