Romancing The Dead (3 page)

I had the urge to interrupt Sebastian and Blythe’s nostalgia fest to point out that
I
harbored the dark Goddess Lilith in my body and so could crush any newcomers like a bug, but, well, that would just be petty.

Lilith clenched my stomach again as if to say: petty, yes, but satisfying.

I didn’t like to think of myself as jealous, but being engaged to a vampire would make the most laissez -faire person a bit twitchy. The problem was blood, of course. Sebastian needed a lot of it, more than one person could physically provide. There
have
to be others.

Add to this the fact that while I found the whole biting thing to be an absolute rush, I hesitated to become my boyfriend ’s main supply. Sexual politics were complicated enough without adding one’s place in the food chain into the mix. I wanted Sebastian to desire me for me, not for my fabulously salty and iron-rich O-positiveness.

Which was why my nerves prickled around Blythe— who knew what interest Sebastian was showing? In a weird way, I’d be happier if he was just into her. However, as a potential meal, things got complicated fast. If she was a rival girlfriend, I had legs to stand on when I told him I’d rather he stayed focused on me especially given the ring on my hand. But a ghoulfriend? What could I say? Pick something else off the menu, I don’t like who you’re having for lunch?

Lilith rattled uneasily against my ribs.

That’s when I realized the room had hushed, as if everyone were suddenly holding their breath. People were staring. At me. Or rather, they were gaping in wonderment and horror at the fraction of Lilith that had slipped up into me. Even Sebastian stopped talking, and he and Blythe turned slowly in my direction as if expecting to see a monster lying in wait for them. Which, I suppose I was, except the slow burn I’d had on evaporated under the intense scrutiny of a room full of Witches. I decided to use this opportunity to turn the situation around. I cleared my throat. “Uh, we should probably get this meeting started, eh, Sebastian?”

“Ah, right,” he said, though I knew he could sense that something ugly had nearly erupted a moment ago. He and I shared custody of Lilith, kind of. Thanks to a spell that had involved comingling of our blood, Sebastian was sensitive to Lilith’s moods. At least, he used to be. Over time, I’d noticed that our connection had been fading. Because Sebastian had regular blood transfusions, our empathetic bond grew weaker with each new ghoul.

Humph. Another reason to hate them.

Blythe gave Sebastian a possessive glance, and put a hand in the pocket of her loose -fitting cotton capris. She looked great, standing there. Her hips were full, her stomach, which I could see plainly thanks to the tan belly shirt, was flat and toned like a rock star’s.

“So, uh,” I said, feeling suddenly kind of foolish to be caught with Lilith hanging out. “I guess everyone noticed the Goddess, eh?”

There were nods around the room.

“Is that what that was? A Goddess? It felt more malevolent to me,” said a character I’d mentally dubbed “broody warlock guy” in my head. His T-shirt glorified some death-metal band and silver skulls on his knuckles advertised his general badass-itude. He had long, blond Viking hair and wore a Thor’s hammer necklace.

“Well, yeah,” I admitted. I looked over at Sebastian for support. Taking my hand, he smiled and nodded encouragingly. I squared my shoulders. I knew this part was going to be tough. I had a hard time talking about Lilith, especially with new people. Worse, fellow Witches might take umbrage with the fact that I had pulled down such an awesome power and unleashed it on anyone, even if they
had
just murdered my coven. I’d used magic to kill. No matter how you sliced it, that was black magic.

“That’s the first order of business,” I said. “I kind of harbor the dark Goddess Lilith.”

“Kinda? Isn’t that like saying you’re sort of pregnant?” a woman who’d introduced herself to me as Xylia said. Xylia perched on the windowsill, gnawing on a carrot (the only thing I’d provided that a strict vegan could eat). Rail-thin with a super-butch buzz cut and a muscle shirt from the Michigan Womyn’s Festival, she stood up now and narrowed her eyes at me.

“Okay,” I confessed. “Lilith
is
a part of me, and I’m not just talking about when I call down the Goddess as part of a ritual. I mean, all the time.” I surprised myself by bringing up the central aspect of seasonal gatherings —the moment when the High Priestess symbolically becomes the Goddess. I hadn’t really celebrated the usual Wiccan holidays since merging with Lilith, partly because I didn’t know how to deal with the fact that I now was a Goddess full time, and partly, I realized for the first time, because I missed having a group.

“Lilith?” Marge said in a small voice, as though she had just now absorbed the information I ’d laid out earlier. She stood in the archway between my living room and dining room, gripping a sweating glass of lemonade with whitening knuckles. “You mean, like

the
Lilith.”

I nodded.

“Isn’t Lilith primarily a Christian goddess?” Blythe asked no one in particular.

“Judeo-Christian,” Marge added. “She’s a succubus and baby killer in Jewish folklore.”

“Excuse me! Baby killer . . . ?” I sputtered in protest, “Now wait just a minute—” But the conversation continued right over me.

“Like with a lot of the vilified ‘demons’ of the Judeo-Christian myths, I believe there’s a root Goddess much older—Assyrian, maybe?” William added.

“She’s associated with screech owls, I think,” someone I hadn’t been introduced to yet added. I was pretty sure he’d come with Marge. He was short and doughy in a pleasant I-love-cooking sort of way. I thought maybe his name was Max, but I couldn’t remember. He had long, straight, brown hair that he wore pinned back from his face. Large, thick glasses balanced on a pug nose.

“Lilith kicks ass.” Broody Warlock nodded his approval.

And so the debate began. Well, as far as reactions to my admission of harboring a Goddess known as the Mother of Demons went, it wasn’t necessarily a bad one. At least no one had run screaming for the door. Of course, we still hadn’t gotten around to mentioning Sebastian was one of the living dead, as it were.

One major hurdle at a time.

I gave Sebastian a return squeeze to let him know I was okay and let go of his hand. Since everyone was talking around me, anyway, I moved over a step in order to slump down into an empty spot on my bright orange couch. Sebastian perched on the arm, which creaked dangerously under his weight.

The breeze coming in from the windows behind us finally brought a little relief. As darkness deepened, the buzzsaw hiss of cicadas gave way to the soft chirp of crickets.

Barney, my cat, sneezed delicately from somewhere under the couch. She’d been hiding out since the first potential coven member arrived. Usually she was fond of company because it meant more attention for her, but she was allergic to magic—or, at least, she wanted me to believe she was.

“How’d it happen?” Trust Broody Warlock to turn the conversation back to me. “Isn’t trapping a demon major dark-arts type stuff?”

“Not demon, Griffin,” William said to broody warlock guy, having apparently learned his name at some point. “Goddess.”

“Whatever,” Griffin said dismissively. “The point is you don’t control something that powerful by accident, do you?”

Griffin’s question bothered me because I didn’t have a good answer for him. I shifted my seat, feeling the rough upholstery stick to my exposed, sweaty skin. Shrugging, I said, “I didn’t trap Lilith.”

He squinted at me like he didn’t quite buy it. “Yeah, sure,” he said. “But why? What makes you so special?”

There was the million-dollar question. Thing is, I never did know exactly why Lilith didn’t just return to the ether afterward. Why was she trapped with me? Or was it that she chose to say? I mean, I’d known other Witches who’d summoned the strength of Gods and Goddesses during times of crisis. None of them ever reported having gotten “stuck” with one on a permanent basis. Perhaps, part of the problem was that I didn’t just call on the strength of a Goddess, but on the Goddess herself. Actually, when I admitted it to myself, what I ’d asked the universe for that night was much more visceral than just naming some Goddess for protection. I’d wanted vengeance. I didn’t care who or what aided me as long as they served up an eye for an eye. Uh. That was so not cool. I tried not to think about that or about the fact that Lilith might have been attracted to just that kind of thinking.

“Back off, dude,” William said in my defense. “Garnet didn’t ask Lilith to stay, okay. It just happened.”

“Yes,” Sebastian said, his voice smooth with just a hint of threat. “You sound jealous, boy.”

Griffin took a step forward at Sebastian’s words, and I thought there might be a fight, so I stood up. “Look,” I said, “I really don’t know why Lilith stays with me,” I admitted. “It’s something I’d love to know the answer to. Maybe that’s something we could find out as a group.”

I saw a few wan smiles that were beginning to warm to me.

Griffin and Sebastian still eyed each other threateningly, so I thought maybe this was a good time to nudge Sebastian about item number two on our agenda. “So, Sebastian,” I said. “Should I tell them or do you want to?”

“I will,” he said, with a particularly hostile look at Griffin. Then, he let his steely gaze sweep the room. “The other thing you should know is that I’m a vampire.”

Nobody said anything for several minutes.

The problem was Hollywood. Everyone in the room was scrutinizing Sebastian trying to decide if he fit their image of a vampire. Other than the long black hair and sharp, handsome features, he probably didn’t. He did have a penchant for wearing black, but not exclusively. Tonight, in deference to the heat, he wore a UW-Madison T-shirt. He had faded, scuffed jeans he usually wore to work in his garden and tennis shoes. If I didn’t know him, I might guess he was some kind of hippie, the kind to grow his own herb, if you know what I mean.

No leather coats, no slow-mo high-kickin’ ninja moves. I’d been telling him for months that he should invest in a lot more leather or at least some cool, blue-tinted sunglasses or something. The more people looked at him, the more incredulous they seemed. My eyes strayed to the spider plant hanging on the remaining bit of longbow arrow shaft still stuck in my wall. The Vatican witch hunters had transfixed Sebastian to the wall there. They’d “staked” him through the heart, but to everyone’s surprise—other than Sebastian’s, of course—it hadn’t killed him. That’s when I realized that everything I thought I knew about vampires from the movies was suspect.

“So you’re like a psychic vampire or something?” Max asked, clearly voicing the question on everyone’s mind. Sebastian glanced at me because he’d just lost our bet. Now he owed me a dinner out at Portabello’s. I’d told him that the group would much more easily swallow my Goddess than his vampirism.

He sighed. “No,” he said.

“So . . . you’re a bloodsucker?”

William cringed about the same time I did.

Having been on the receiving end of the glare that pinioned poor Max right now, I pitied him. “That’s not the word I’d use,”

Sebastian said.

“Okay. You’re a blood drinker,” said Blythe. “That’s cool. I mean, it’s your thing, but what does it have to do with the coven?”

It took me a few seconds to figure out what Blythe was talking about. Then I suddenly remembered that there were regular humans who called themselves vampires who got turned on by cutting or biting people and drinking their blood.

“He’s a
real
vampire,” William said. “Not just someone into blood.”

“Vampire,” Xylia said. “You seriously expect us to believe the whole coffin, risen-dead thing?”

Sebastian opened his mouth to reply when Marge said, “To rise from the dead, you’d have to be really old, like from before the Civil War.”

Everyone looked to Marge askance.

She blinked a little under the scrutiny, but continued. “Embalming,” she said. “It’s not required here in Wisconsin, but it’s really unusual for someone not to be unless they’re Amish. Although embalming is kind of a stupid practice. Doesn’t really preserve the body, not long-term anyway, and then you have all the pollutants that leach into the ground water. But, the thing is, even if you managed to not be embalmed, you’d still have to bust through the coffin, plus the sheer amount of concrete you ’d have to break through in the vault.” She counted each point off on her fingers. “Nope. You get buried, you’re staying put, I say. Plus, most people are cremated these days, anyway. It’s a real problem for monument manufacturers. Although cemeteries prefer it. Saves space, you know.”

Some people were looking a little green in the gills. William asked, “And why do you know all this?”

“Oh,” she said, her hand fluttering to that pendant of hers. “I’m the secretary at Sunset Memory Gardens.”

“You work at a cemetery?” I couldn’t tell who’d said that, but they sounded pretty ooged out by the idea.

“I answer phones,” she said a bit defensively.

“Well, okay then,” I said, steering the conversation back on track as best I could. “I know this is a lot for everyone to take in. I also figure you have some decisions to make now that you know our secrets. Some of you may choose not to come back. That’s cool. I only ask that you respect our need to keep secret what you’ve learned here.”

“Like anyone’d believe me, anyway,” someone muttered.

“Someone would,” I said sharply. “The Order of Eustace has come here once before. If they caught wind of us . . .” The Order considered themselves a modern offshoot of the Inquisition, and they used any means necessary to destroy practitioners of true magic. For them to find us? It didn’t bear thinking of. I didn’t want to go through all that again. My voice broke a little, despite myself. “I’m just asking you to be careful.”

“We’re meeting at my place next time,” William said. “Interested parties can talk to me about getting directions and stuff before you leave.”

“That’s great, William,” I said with a smile. “So, everyone should feel free to ‘eat, drink, and be merry.’ ” I said, quoting a bit of the Charge of the Goddess.