Joy of Witchcraft (8 page)

Hecate must have had a soft spot for me. That’s the only way I could explain how I drove from Bethesda to the farmhouse in under an hour without getting a traffic ticket.

Gravel flew as I braked to a stop in the driveway. Clambering out of the car, I was struck by how deceptive sights could be. The garage dormitory looked absolutely peaceful, its cheery curtains safe and secure behind double-paned glass. I could barely make out the roofline of the barn over the hill. I could imagine the warders and familiars just starting to stir on a lazy Sunday morning.

But signs of danger were clear, because I knew where to look. Spot stood on the top step of the porch, a low whine rising in his throat. The newspaper leaned against the door where I’d placed it when I left for brunch. Inside, the kitchen was a mess; our dinner dishes from the previous night were still stacked in the sink.

David always washed up, first thing in the morning, as his coffee brewed. He settled at the center island to read the paper, cover to cover. He never failed to let Spot out, waiting for the Lab to do his business, then welcoming the lumbering animal back to the kitchen with a teeth-cleaning bone.

Neko flung open the basement door as I tallied up the evidence. “Hurry,” he said.

A corner of my mind screamed that I’d been here before. This wasn’t the vague disconnect of déjà vu. It was the bellowing the brute force of learned terror that told me I needed to turn on my heel, get out of the house, leave the farm forever and head back to my safe and quiet life as a librarian. I’d be safe in a world without Neko and witchcraft and warders.

Because I
had
done this before. I’d flipped on the basement lights. I’d walked down the stairs, stepping wide on the fourth one to avoid its groaning creak. I’d opened the door to David’s basement office, and I’d seen insanity, the physical manifestation of pure obsession as my warder fought to control a bureaucracy bigger and stronger and more determined than even he could be.

Only a few months ago, I thought I’d lost him—as my warder and as the man I loved.

We’d made it through that. We’d survived. But I was terrified I didn’t have the strength to face David’s compulsions again. Not to face them and win.

I startled when I felt smooth velvet beneath my palm. Spot had followed me into the house. Now, he leaned his head against my thigh, and he
woofed
a breath of canine concern. I glanced back at Neko, only to catch the same look of worry on his face.

Spot and Neko. David. They needed me. I licked my lips and went downstairs.

Empty shelves gaped on the basement walls, stretches of polished wood that had been filled with orderly volumes only two nights before. A quick survey showed that many of my artifacts were missing as well—a case of crystals here, a stash of wands there. All the runes were gone.

Furtive noises came from David’s former office, from the vault. Sweat slicked my palms, but I forced myself to cross to the doorway.

I barely recognized the room. We’d wanted to maximize the storage space, so we’d abandoned classifying the books by subject matter. Instead, they were organized by height, miniatures grouped together, duodecimos on shelves below, giant elephant folios protected on the lowest ranks. We’d talked about adding double-sided bookshelves in the center of the room, but that would have created a challenge in navigating the small space.

Navigation wasn’t a concern now. It was downright impossible.

David had stacked boxes against the shelves, filling every cubic inch of space. Some of the containers were small—bankers boxes with neat labels, the ones that had held his warder’s papers in his office. Others, though, were cavernous, left over from the appliances we’d recently purchased to outfit the garage apartment and the kitchenette in the barn. The vault looked like a playroom for children with very indulgent parents, children who reveled in a make-believe fort made entirely of cardboard.

David was leaning over a box that had formerly held an oven, lining up the twenty-three volumes of Hoskin’s
Crystals, Stones, and Lapidary Magic Around the World
.

“Hey,” I said softly. “I thought you’d agreed to take it easy until your ribs heal.”

I braced for his response. I told myself I could stand anything—madness, obsession, rage at being interrupted. But I still wasn’t prepared for what I saw on his face. I hadn’t expected to see
shame
.

Shame, or remorse, or abject apology—the specifics were lost in the hollows beneath his eyes, in the resigned twist of his lips.

“What?” I asked, moving into the room. Spot shifted with me, and Neko too, but I cast a look at my familiar, a quick shake of my head. He clicked his tongue to get the dog’s attention, and they both retreated to the main basement room. “What are you doing here, David?”

He braced his arms on the edge of the box. “I need to protect these things,” he said. “The books, the crystals, the runes, all of it.”

“They’re safe,” I said. “The whole house is safe.”

He shook his head. “I failed you on Samhain. I couldn’t stop the satyr, couldn’t keep Teresa Alison Sidney from claiming her benefaction. I didn’t keep you safe.”

“
No one
could have kept me safe. You saw the other warders. They did their best, too. Some things are stronger than we are.”

He shook his head. “That’s not good enough. That’s not who I am.”

“It’s
exactly
who you are! You’re not a god, David Montrose. You don’t get to change natural law, to upend the supernatural, just because you want to.”

“You could have been killed!”

I started to interrupt him, but I bit back my protest. This all made sense, in some crazy way. This vault was something he had built, something he had mastered. He could control it, control its contents. And Teresa hadn’t discovered it. She hadn’t plundered our treasures. Now David was intent on making everything a treasure. He’d gather together my entire collection; he’d watch over it in the only way he could.

I wanted to make him stop. He couldn’t swaddle me or my possessions in cotton. He couldn’t keep the world from reaching me, keep me from reaching the world.

But I held my tongue. Because part of being a witch was knowing what my warder needed. And part of being a woman was knowing what my man needed, my partner, the one I was going to live my life with forever. So, instead of protesting that he was locking the proverbial barn after the horse had fled, I took another tack.

“All right,” I said.

“All right?” He didn’t understand. He didn’t have faith in my acceptance.

“We’ll move the collection. As much of it as we can fit in here. It would be better if we had time for custom-built shelves, but we can make do with the boxes for now. Maybe we should bring down the coffee table from the living room. We can stack books under it and on top. The end tables from the living room, too.”

David straightened. “There’s a ‘but’ there. What aren’t you telling me?”

He knew me too well. “But
you
aren’t doing any more of the work.” I glanced over my shoulder. “Neko? Head over to the barn, please. Tell Caleb and Tony we need their help.”

“I don’t want strangers doing this,” David said.

“They’re not strangers. They stood by us at the Mabon working. And we can trust them now.”

It was hard for him to give in.

But this time I knew I was right. I said, “I’m not asking you to trust strangers. I understand that you don’t know the new students, you don’t trust their warders. But Caleb and Tony are safe.” I looked back at my hesitating familiar. “Neko,” I said, and I bolstered my command with a nudge along the magical bond between us. He nodded at last and headed for the stairs, snapping his fingers for Spot to come along.

I took advantage of the privacy to skirt the giant cardboard box. Settling my hand on David’s chest, I spread my fingers to feel the steady beat of his heart. “Thank you,” I said.

He looked away, but I pressed my free palm against the hard line of his jaw, forcing his gaze back to me. “I mean it,” I said. “Thank you for protecting me. Thank you for keeping me safe.”

“I didn’t—”

“You did, though. I’m here, aren’t I? We’re here together.”

It took a long moment, but he finally shifted his stance, edging away from the box. As his frantic energy waned, the jangle of madness easing away, and I slipped my arms down his torso. I took care to skim over the bruises I knew had to be throbbing. I nestled my head against his chest, and I sighed when I felt his fingers slip through my hair. We stood there until Neko returned with the warders.

~~~

By the time Monday morning rolled around, it actually felt like a
relief
to face the first day of class with my new students. There was nothing like concrete magical workings to force away all my lingering concerns—about Pitt somehow bringing a magical beast into the center of our opening ritual, about Teresa trying to cut me off before I even got started, about David’s mania to secure every last remnant of the Osgood collection in the basement vault.

I woke about an hour before sunrise. After showering and dressing, I met David in the kitchen and fortified myself with a simple breakfast of steel-cut oatmeal and hot tea. I swallowed the last of my pear oolong and reached out to straighten his tie. “You know I’d go to the inquest if I could.”

“You’d just waste your day sitting on a bench in the hallway.”

I growled and was rewarded with Spot raising his head from his bed in the corner. As David told the dog to lie back down, I said, “Confidential proceedings. I get it.” And I quoted, “The Court shall preserve the privacy of the accused by conducting all inquiries in a secured facility, closed to all but testifying witnesses.”

David nodded. His fingers closed around my waist. “I’m the one who shouldn’t be leaving you.”

“I have six warders at my beck and call.”

“But—”

I shook my head. “And every one of them is armed with a sword. I’m not postponing class. You saw the parchment from Hecate’s Court. We have to stay in session continuously, or we’ll break our charter.” I settled my palm over his heart. “We’ll be fine. Just tell me there’s no way Pitt is getting off.”

Alas, it wasn’t that simple. Pitt stood accused of using his position in the Court for personal profit. He’d skimmed funds from hundreds of witches, taken bribes and sold favors. And now he faced legal sanctions because David and I had turned him in.

But years earlier, David had tried to take matters into his own hands. He’d falsified documents and forged papers, all in the interest of bringing Pitt’s violations to light. David might be called as a witness in this proceeding, but his testimony was suspect for bias. And he could very well be investigated as a criminal himself.

“We’ll be fine,” I repeated when David didn’t tell a lie to reassure me. “It’s you I’m worried about.”

“Then I’m not doing my job right. You should never worry about me.”

I set my left hand on his chest, letting my engagement ring catch the light. “That ship sailed the day you proposed.”

For answer, he leaned forward for a kiss. I broke it off first and retreated to the safety of my chair, where neither of us could be further distracted from our busy days. I said, “Let’s have dinner in the city tonight.”

“There’s no reason for you to come all the way down there.”

“I’m already driving down. Remember? I’m getting together with Melissa after class. I still need to officially con her into being my matron of honor.”

“Sorry, I forgot. Sure. Let’s grab dinner. I’ll meet you at the bakery.”

“Perfect.”

But it wasn’t perfect. David never forgot my schedule. He never forgot anything. He was more worried about the inquest than he’d ever admit.

But so-called
perfect
was better than panic. I wished him luck and hurried out of the kitchen, determined not to add to his concerns.

I used the walk through the woods to center myself. The driving storm of Samhain had been caused by a strong cold front. In its wake, the sky shone with the sharp blue of lapis. Only the heartiest of leaves still clung to the trees, their bright autumn shades faded to brown. I was grateful for my heavy wool coat.

As always, my spirits were revived by the time I found myself on the crescent beach by the lake. My students waited with their warders and familiars, feet planted on the sand.

Automatically, I looked across the water to a shattered oak and the massive osprey nest that filled its jagged branches. Some time in the past week, the raptors had migrated south for the winter. I found myself missing their sharp cries, waiting for the shadow of their wings as they headed out to snatch fish from the center of the lake.

A distant rumble came from the far edge of the water. I fought a frown; I’d hoped not to hear the commotion. Trees were being cut down on the southern point of David’s property, old growth pine that he’d sold for a small fortune. The clearing was the first stage; next would be development of the property into high-end condos and trendy retail establishments.

Compromise. That’s what made the world go round. The Jane Madison Academy required money to operate, and David had generated that money by selling timber and land. I’d hated letting him make the sale, but I hadn’t been able to figure out an alternative.

So it was up to me to make sure the sacrifice paid off.

“Good morning,” I said to my assembled students, taking a moment to look at each of them.

Automatically, I sought out the women I knew best. Raven matched my greeting, raking a hand through her violet-striped hair and knocking a hip out at an enticing angle. A couple of months ago, I would have been angered by the gesture, resenting the way the warders eyed her, furious with her for upsetting the balance of our distaff group.

Now, though, I was accustomed to her harmless habits. I nodded easily, just like I smiled when Emma piped up with her fake British accent: “It’s right parky today, isn’t it?”

Looking at the others, I was concerned about Cassie. Her face was drawn. The ghost of a bruise stood out on her cheekbone. But her feet were planted firmly, and her hands were shoved deep into her pockets, giving her a look of stoic defiance.