Family Magic (22 page)

“Sass,” I whispered. “What is it?”

He turned to face me. His yellow eyes glowed
with demon fire.

“I don’t know,” he snarled, “but something
isn’t right, Syd. Something isn’t right at all.”

I climbed out of bed and eased to my bedroom
door. I opened it a crack and peered out. The hallway was dark and
quiet. Nothing stirred in the house. I jumped a little as Sassy’s
fat cat body brushed over my leg, his tail hitting me once on his
way out. He vanished down the stairs so fast I almost missed the
blur of him as he bounded into the darkness.

“Sass!” I hissed. “Where are you?” I went to
the top of the stairs. The house was no longer pitch black. It was
very close to dawn. The coming sun began to thin the night.

I eased down the steps after Sassafras,
listening for him. But the house was quiet. I briefly debated two
things, both of which made total sense under the circumstances:
wake my mother so she could check it out or go back to bed and hide
under the covers. Instead, I kept going into the growing light and
followed the hallway to the kitchen.

Sassy was nowhere to be found. I walked past
the kitchen to the back door and glanced out.

The black dog stood on the other side of the
screen. This time he snarled at me, his huge eyes burning red.

My demon tore through my surprise and took
total control. Before I knew it, we hurtled after him. We flew out
the back door as he turned tail and ran across the grass, huge feet
silent, disappearing around the side of the house. We made it to
the corner but he vanished.

Dog gone, my demon went with him, her power
draining away as she backed off and returned to hover in my mind,
grumbling to herself. The whole thing left me shaking and nauseated
and more than a little afraid to be standing out there in the
semi-dawn alone with who-knew-what waiting in the shadows. This
time, though, I listened to what my demon tried to tell me all
along. This was no ordinary dog. Time to tell my mother about it,
kicking myself that I’d failed to understand the dog was important
enough to bring up in our conversation last night. Frustrated, I
stomped my bare foot in the dew dampened grass. I felt something
soft under my toes. I glanced down and my heart dropped in
fear.

A familiar shape lay crumpled and broken on
the wet grass. I collapsed to my knees, terrified. Sassafras! I
reached to lift the limp form of my friend, fingers brushing the
long, soft hair, tears welling in my eyes at the coldness, the
empty feeling of it.

I had to get Mom. She would know what to do.
Sass couldn’t be dead, he just couldn’t!

But as I tried to lift Sass’s lifeless body
into my arms, the solid form dissolved into a loose pile of fur. I
sifted through it, blinking back my tears, confused. There was no
Sassafras, no poor dead cat body, only a large pile of silver
fur.

I stood up, hands full of damp cat hair,
confused and scared. I brushed the clinging stuff from my fingers,
wiping them on my pajama pants as I turned and ran back to the
house. I went inside, aware only then somehow the door was
unlocked.

As I passed through the back entry, I fought
a brief dizzy spell. I heard the distant roar of my demon for a
heartbeat, like a warning or a challenge while a familiar thread of
power tinted green slid into my mind, the feeling so much a part of
me I allowed it to spread itself thin before it faded away. My
demon suddenly fell silent. I had a shifting feeling, like déjà vu
only a lot more intense. I froze on the threshold, shaking my head.
Why was I downstairs? I came back to myself when the back door,
spring loaded, bumped my back as it eased closed.

The door was unlocked! My heart leapt to my
throat. I ran to Gram’s room, relieved the wards were all firmly in
place. I felt around and touched the sleeping minds of my mother
and sister. They were safe, too. Whatever happened, they were fine.
But when I tried to find Sassafras, there was nothing there.

My friend was gone and I had no idea
where.

Again, why was I downstairs? And why had I
gone outside?

I considered going out there alone to check
it out but something held me back. Instead, I headed for the stairs
and my mother in the growing light of morning, hoping she would be
able to help me locate Sass and find out what happened. As I passed
the living room, something made me turn and look into the clear
dawn of the gently rising sun.

Uncle Frank lay on the carpet below the
picture window.

It took me a few seconds to process what I
saw. I ran top speed toward him, watching in horror as his body
began to smoke. I grabbed his arms and tried to pull him, but his
literal dead weight was too heavy for me. I reached out in
desperation and found my mother.

Mom, Uncle Frank!
I threw an image of
what was going on at her as I felt her wake. I went back to pulling
on him for all I was worth. I reached for my demon and felt her
envelop me as I heard Mom throwing herself down the stairs.

“Mom,” I panted, “use your magic!”

She shook her head, also breathless. “Doesn’t
work on vampires,” she grated as she set herself and pulled.

Between the two of us, we managed to haul his
body through the living room door and down the hallway to the
kitchen. By that point, Uncle Frank’s body was smoking heavily. I
knew the only thing keeping him from immediately combusting in a
ball of fire was the fact he was clothed. Despite my opening fully
to my demon, I felt a blocking, a barrier between us making it
harder to help Uncle Frank rather than easier. I released her,
disgusted, and kept pulling.

Mom stood and wrenched open the basement
door. I heaved with one massive jerk and forced him past the
threshold and partway over the first step.

In that heartbeat, the sun cleared the
horizon. Uncle Frank burst into flames.

Mom threw herself on top of him and pushed so
hard the three of us slid and bumped all the way down the stairs,
collapsing in a heap on the cold concrete. I was pinned under Uncle
Frank, head pounding from a blow I took on the way and unable to
offer any help to my mother who beat out the flames rising on his
body.

The last of the fire extinguished, Mom
collapsed next to me. We shared a moment over the body of Uncle
Frank.

“Mom,” I whispered. “Will he be okay?”

“I think so,” she said. “Thanks to you. Why
were you up?”

Panic resurfaced. I managed to get myself
free of the heavy vampire body holding me down. “Sassy!” I said,
louder.

Mom frowned. “What about him?”

“I don’t know, Mom!” I gripped her hand. “I
woke up downstairs. The back door was unlocked and Sass… I was
worried about Gram, but I don’t know why. I felt around for
everyone, but Sassy isn’t here.” I started to cry from the tension
of the last five minutes, the fear of losing not only Sass but my
Uncle Frank as well.

Mom squeezed my hand, bringing my attention
back. Her strength calmed me.

“Tell me everything,” she said.

I told her about the dream, about waking up
at the back door, although I had never been known to sleepwalk.
About the weird feeling of fear and anxiety about Sassy. About
finding Uncle Frank and calling her. She listened in silence until
I finished.

“Did you unlock the back door?” She
asked.

I frowned as I thought about it. Maybe I had?
But why would I?

“I don’t know,” I said, feeling like I missed
something, something really important. “Maybe Sassy’s outside? Did
he want out?"

" No,” I shook my head, confused now and a
little distracted even as I felt her power stretch out across our
property in search of the Persian. “That’s not it. I don’t know,
Mom.”

She reached out with her fingertips and
brushed my face. I felt her magic slide over and into me. I tried
not to fight her. The pounding headache eased. She healed me while
she searched. She sat still and silent for a long time. When she
dropped her hand at last, the power leaked out of me as she let me
go.

“There’s nothing there, Syd,” she said.

“So I must have been sleepwalking after all,”
I said even though a part of me shrieked it wasn’t right.

Her blue eyes were serious.

“No, honey,” she said, very quiet, very
still. “There is
nothing there
. No memory, no whisper of
why. The only thing I can see is you holding silver fur.”

“That’s not good,” I swallowed hard, tears
rising at the thought.

“No,” she said. “It isn’t. Someone, probably
the same someone who left Frank to burn to death, has taken your
memory of the event.”

“So we
are
being attacked,” I
said.

“Our family is under threat,” she agreed.
“And Syd, if it hadn’t been for you, we would most likely all be
dead right now.”

“Sorry?” I said.

Mom smoothed her hand over Uncle Frank’s
chest, gazing at him with sisterly concern.

“If Frank was left in the sun,” she
whispered, “he would have burned this house to the ground.”

It was I all could do not to shudder.

***

Neither Mom nor I went back to bed. We
examined Uncle Frank’s body and discovered most of the damage was
to his clothing. We managed to manhandle him back into his cupboard
to heal what burns he acquired in his sleep. A quick check of
Sunny’s cupboard found her safe and soundly sleeping away the day.
Since vampires grew weaker and lost consciousness right around the
time the sun came up, we could only assume whoever exposed him knew
he would be most vulnerable and unable to fight back in the five or
so minutes just before dawn.

We took the better part of an hour between
the two of us searching for Sassafras, both with our power and
physically examining the property. I scoured the back yard but
found only a few stray silver hairs by the side of the house he
could have left there at any time. Mom called a halt to the search.
Her eyes told me what she wouldn’t say. Neither of us could feel
him anywhere. The only way that would be possible was if either he
was too far away, or… I didn’t want to think about the ‘or’. It was
way too final.

I ran up to my room to change, remembering
with a start it was Halloween. My family, like most witches,
observed Halloween as the rest of the country, as a safe, fun,
costumed opportunity to get free stuff from the neighbors. The real
holiday, Samhain, was a fire festival, a time of power when we said
goodbye to summer. It wasn’t for a couple more nights, so it didn’t
matter to us one way or another what the normals did for kicks.
Still, the superstitious kid in me who used to watch horror movies
and be afraid of monsters in the closet made the spooky connection,
the implications giving me shivers, considering. I let it go as I
slipped into a hoody and jeans and hit the bathroom to brush my
teeth.

I tried not to stare at my gaunt reflection
or the black circles under my eyes. I felt really tired,
emotionally and physically, and sat on the edge of the tub for a
minute to get my bearings.

I forced myself to go over the night before
again, just in case something surfaced I missed in the heat of the
moment. I knew a chunk of my memory had gone missing but couldn’t
get to it. The harder I tried, the madder I became. I finally cut
loose my demon and let her have a go, teeth clenched against the
roll in my stomach.

I stood on the cliff path. She faced me. She
pushed me and I started to fall…

I jerked myself back, shaking my head, face
bathed in a cold sweat. No help there. As if I should have been
expecting any. No wonder my demon was mad at me. I had suppressed
her my whole life.

I went back to brushing when I had my balance
back, listening to the distant sound of Mom on the phone
downstairs. When I made it back to the kitchen, she was finishing
her call, all the while examining a piece of black and orange
paper. I groaned inside as I recognized it.

“Thank you, yes,” she said into the phone as
she held the invitation up to show me, questions in her eyes. “I’ll
be by as soon as I can, if you could have it ready? I’ll see you
then.” She hung up the phone and offered me the offending slip of
gaudy paper.

“Can I ask why I found this in the
trash?”

“Because it’s garbage,” I said, taking it
from her. I walked to the closet and tossed it in the can.

“Honey,” she said. “You were invited to a
party. You’re not going to go?”

“You seriously expect me to go to some stupid
costume party after everything that’s happened?” I shook my head.
“Mom, get real. There are way more important things to think about
right now, don’t you think?”

Mom took my hand and pulled me to her. She
hugged me so hard I almost said something but she let me go.

“I want you to go to the party,” she
whispered.

“Why?” Someone tried to destroy the coven,
kill Uncle Frank and us and now Sass was… missing. Why would I want
to go to the party?

“Because,” she said.

Yeah, great answer.

“I don’t have a costume,” I muttered under my
breath. I was going to lose this argument that wasn’t an argument
because I was considering doing what she wanted if only to make her
feel better.

“I’m sure we can come up with something,” she
smiled. Her eyes sparkled. “Syd, you’ve been wanting to fit in for
so long. And you have so few chances left to be young and have fun.
I’m taking care of things. Don’t let this stop you, please.
Please.”

“Except I hate costume parties,” I
grumbled.

She laughed. “You are the most contrary
child,” she said.

I guess I was going.

That was how I found myself spending the day
with Mom and Meira, wandering from family house to family house in
tow behind my mother, gathering up items for my costume. No store
bought Halloween for the Hayles, oh no. A shawl here and a sparkly
scarf there, we made the rounds to every single coven member in a
couple of hours. Everyone seemed charmed by the idea of my sister
and I participating in such a mainstream version of a very serious
holiday and most made some kind of contribution. Meira bounced from
place to place, winning hugs and kisses from everyone, her
excitement so clean and lovely even I was feeling a bit of a lift
from it.