Neophyte / Adept (9 page)

 
“A fourth one. He has no name.”

 
“A coven of vampires. Four.”

 
“And that one?” said Ballard.

“It’s the symbol for war,” I said. “All told they tell the
story of a Wiccan deity, with unspecified powers.”

Could that be true?
As I said it, I knew that it was.

“These are just the broad strokes,” I said, “it’s a little
more...”

“Oh,” said Ballard.

It happened. One second, I was in my room on Via dei
Condotti, the next, it was like I was being transported someplace else. I could
hear voices speaking, see strange shapes––but they were all
obscured; they could not see me. Fog swirled like a vortex around us.
“She will not undergo the trials. I will not
let her be fledged.”

“And the other one?”

“Guided by passions.
It is too soon to tell.”

“Let neither of them
survive. Use
THEM
if you have to!”

The fog began to swirl. I felt myself falling from a great
height. The next second, I was opening my eyes, and Ballard was standing over
me.

* * *

Ballard and I spent the day together. I didn’t know how much
time we could expect to see one another, with tomorrow happening, and all of
that. He got this really weird vibe, like it had been coming on all day,
whatever was bothering him––jumping at strange noises and all that.
I had never seen him so spooked. When I asked him what was wrong, all he said
was, “It’s Gaven’s orders.”

I told him about my lapse-journey-thing and not to worry
about it, that I could take care of myself. He didn’t believe me.

“What if something attacked you?” he said.

“Nothing’s going to attack me, Ballard. And if it did, so
what? I don’t know if you’re aware, but there’s going to be a bunch of magical
people there––not to mention werewolves, and I’m sure not all the
vampires are evil bloodsuckers of the night. They’re getting together for a
purpose
, whatever that is.”

“I still don’t feel safe leaving you alone tonight,” he
said. It was super sweet. “Maybe I could, I don’t know, curl down at your feet
or something.”

The werewolf puns were going to be an ongoing treat with us,
I could tell.

He looked out the windows, like something was going to
attack us, and then stood out on the balcony––and he would do that,
like, every five minutes.

“Will you sit down,” I said.

He obeyed me like a good boy.

“So, what else did you learn? Did you and Gaven get a chance
to talk last night?” I asked Ballard.

“I did learn one thing. You remember that seven-sided star
that was engraved over the entrance to La Luna Blu?”

La Luna Blu was this bar they all hung out at. It was in
Trastevere.

“Well, supposedly, it’s etched over the doorways of every
werewolf-friendly tavern in town. Can you believe it? I was, like, the last to
know.”

Ballard was starting to interject everything he said with
like, like me.

“Did that restaurant you took me to?” I asked.

“It had it,” he said.

So that at least explained one thing. Their secret went
beyond the bounds of I Gatti itself; I found this troubling on a couple of
levels, and I also remembered the Vampire Killers, the Hunters in Prague who
made it their business to eliminate Immortals. In a way, it was like there were
three levels, just as there were three levels to Magical apotheosis.

There were those who
were
.
I.e., the Supernaturals.

There were those who
knew
.
These hunters, and certain tavern keepers, it sounded like.

And there were those who had no idea what was happening, and
that there was an entire netherworld, they had never heard about before.

I had to add a new group of individuals to the second
level––the ones who knew, but who were not magical whatsoever.
Because there had to be people who were trained in magic but didn’t
Graduate
? Was that the right word?

I realized that that was me.

I had been trained in Wicca. St. Martley’s had trained me.
But I had never crafted. I had never graduated, either.

They had taught me abstinence, to be patient. Why? What was
it about witchcraft and wizardry that was not for the underage sorceress and
sorcerer?

Some secret I had no idea about. That was the only thing I
could think. It was the only thing that made sense. Of course, not even being a
Neophyte, I had no idea.

Tomorrow... It would all come out tomorrow...

Ballard was making another round, checking outside my
windows. What did he think, somebody was going to fly up here and kill me? They
were all so afraid of the Lenoir. But vampires needed an invite, didn’t they?
Otherwise they couldn’t come in here to get me. As if they would even want to.
Lennox was a million miles away. Who knew where Marek was now?

Something bothered me. The place we were going to (and
Ballard wouldn’t even say; “I am as curious about it as you are,” he said)
sounded like a piazza buried deep underground. The città salotto, as in Venice;
the city as a gathering place, open, inviting.

Something about this openness, made me believe the vampires
wouldn’t have a problem sneaking into my bedroom, if I even had one.

Maybe that was what this gathering was all about.
Being open.

From what I had heard, about the wars and everything,
vampires did not like Wicca, did not like werewolves, and vice-versa, ad
infinitum, and so on, and so forth.

That was all well and good, but what happened if you put us
all together?

“I can answer that,” said Ballard. “What happened when you
and what’s-his-face and I and everyone else all got together?”

“We averted the Apocalypse,” I said.

“So we’ll do something similar,” he said. “Perhaps develop
some new unity. I don’t know. That’s all Lia’s business. She’s always walking
around, making speeches. Like she’s some kind of politician or something. All I
know is, I got something for them, if they step out of line.”

He made a fist and punched his hand with it.

“Ballard, just how strong are you anyway?” I said.

He shrugged. “That’s the purpose of these tests, isn’t it?”
he said. “To find out.”

I gulped. I had forgotten about that. The Wiccans were going
to be testing Lia and I, and Ballard, it sounded like, was going to be
undergoing his own trials and tribulations, not to mention Lennox was out
there––

If I could hear the whisperings of others, whoever they
were, was it not so impossible to think I might somehow overhear Lennox
himself?

Where was he, and what was he doing? Ballard stood all
nonchalant at the balcony, a soft breeze playing with his hair. He looked like
a younger version of Gaven himself. Incidentally, one of the most gorgeous men
I had ever laid eyes upon. I had trouble breathing around Gaven. I didn’t know
how Lia managed it. But maybe that was the whole point.

When I lit the iron roses, it was like staring into the
flickering madness of Lennoxlove Lenoir’s lavender lovely light-filled eyes.

I had to stop doing this. I had to stop punishing myself.
Wherever he was, he was going to be okay. He had to be. Otherwise, I didn’t
know what I would do. Kill myself, probably. I just wished this could be over
with already. I was tired of waiting and having to do all these things. I
wanted a resolution. A sunset to all my problems. But they just kept stacking
up.

Now Ballard was in on it––a
Supernatural––and I would have to worry about him, too. But he had
just the opposite in mind.

“I will protect you, Halsey Rookmaaker,” he said.

“I know, Ballard,” I said.

* * *

We were ringed around
a romantic moonlit table, the four of us. Dallace, Camille, Lennoxlove and
myself. Candlelight flickered. Lennoxlove was holding on to my fingertips.
“Humans are sometimes, I don’t know, mates of vampires,” he said. “That vampire
has rights to them.”

“She’s going to need
to be trained,” said Dallace. He raised his empty wineglass to mine. Awesome
fish dishes were laid before us––silver spoons with Venetian lion
finials. “The family crest on the silverware we don’t use,” he said. His smile
faded.

Waterfowl in the
lagoon made their curious honking expressions.

I splashed my
wineglass onto the table. The stem of wine ran like mercury, staining the
tablecloth silver.

“I don’t feel so
well,” I said.

“There, there,” said
Camille. “Not to worry about it.” She dabbed at the blood that ran from my
wineglass. “It’s the moon that does it. Makes it appear that way,” she said.
She threw a napkin over it. “It takes some getting used to.”

I nodded, and the
place changed. They were standing over me. I was unconscious, in my bed. We
were at their home. We had left Rat Rock.

“It’s like he’s
changed. He acknowledges it.”

I twisted in my
sheets, listening to their conversation. What was Dallace talking about?

“The proper word is
‘affair’,” said Camille. She sounded upset.

“But I’m free,” said
Lennoxlove.

“What about it,” said
Dallace. “What do you think?” he asked his wife.

“The magic in her
blood pulled him to her. There can be no doubt of that. It’s obvious.”

“I won’t let anyone
hurt her. That includes all of you. I’m serious.”

“What do you take us
for? Monsters.”

They all laughed.

“Anytime he brings her
around other vampires, they’re going to want to drink her.”

“Perhaps we should
turn her––if she really is this once-in-a-generation thing...”

“Out of the question.”

“What is it they’re
afraid of she can do?” said Dallace.

I
turned––and the scene changed. Ballard was issuing orders in front
of an army of werewolves. Something had happened, and it had all gone so wrong.
He was different. It looked like a battlefield of some sort. He was scarred.

“She’s waking up.
We’ll watch over her. Lennoxlove, you have our words.”

* * *

I yanked myself out of bed. Ballard slept soundlessly at my
feet. One was running wild. The other I had never met before. One I could not
see. And...

I took out my diary, and journeyed to a spot on the balcony.
The words flowed.

Chapter 9
– Campagna

Mist unfurled, and crawled through the corridors, keeping
pace with my Gambalunga, as I steered it from Rome––from her
sprawling vistas of obelisks and domes, to the millennias-old
monuments––hunching over the handlebars, with Ballard at my heels.

Everything appeared supernatural and surreal, colored by a
lack of objectivity, which had nothing to do with where I was going, but only
how I would get there––to the sub rosa goings-on I would soon be
taking part in––and the people I would meet. Everything to do with
where I was headed was shrouded in mystery, even how to get there. I had to
swear, over and over, to Ballard, that yes, I would not tell a living soul.

“That includes your diary,” he said. He seemed to regard my
keeping one as a risky business, fraught with peril.

A light pitter-patter drizzled intermittently, pelting off
my helmet top. Ballard popped a wheelie. Water sluiced from his front wheel as
he dropped the nose, the picture of self-control. We pulled to a stop sign in
the shape of a theta and he smiled at me.

Nervousness par excellence played at the corners of his
mouth––somehow a beautiful excitement––together with a
light in his eyes I could only assume was acceptance of some inner, hidden
challenge, I wasn’t to know about.

We were in a decrepit and beat up part of Rome, full of
ruined old buildings, with graffiti and flyers adding to the mise en scène.
Ballard’s family would be meeting us in Trastevere. Because when you went to a
secret meeting the best way to go was as a pack!

I noticed for the umpteenth time the freedom-like bliss the
Gambalunga gave to me. Any motorcycle for that matter. Even my old Vespa had
done the trick. I didn’t care that I wasn’t going alone. I
could’ve
gone alone! That was the whole point! It was some weird
mix of being an antisocial control freak, but with good intentions. I could go
anywhere anytime. It didn’t matter. Nothing could stop me.

We peeled out and raced to Trastevere. Ballard did some
trick, but I was right on his taillamp. We pulled into Trastevere Motor
Club––and a mound of racing bikes greeted us.

Lia was on her Ducati next to Gaven, who, I noticed, was
eating a grattachecca, the Ballard family specialty––blue ice as
cool as he was. He smiled at me––one of those fabulous grins some
guys have––and I returned the gesture with one of my own.

“About time, brother,” said Lia. She spoke into a
walkie-talkie. “Tell Volt and Pouch to lock it up as soon as they get here. And
follow after us. Yeah. You’ll be able to smell our exhaust.”

She was looking at me again––just blank staring.
She put the walkie-talkie away. Next thing I knew her helmet was on and her
fire-red racing bike spit and started.

Gaven hurriedly finished his grattachecca. The other riders
were waiting for his command.

Being among them was like crawling through a stand of
densely-packed fir trees––pun intended; they were all exceedingly
tall. And Ballard was getting that way. Had he had a growth spurt? Already I
had begun to look up to him. He had said the werewolves had vast sexual
cravings. Maybe his hormones were catching up to him.
What an animal
, I thought.

Lia revved her engine impatiently––her thighs
looked sleek in their bright leather pants––and Gaven, said, “Okay,
let’s go, side by side, in pairs, if you would. Don’t break formation! This
isn’t a race!” He flicked down his visor and I watched, in amazement, as even
more riders appeared from Ballard’s motorcycle shop––they poured
out of the garage, two by two, as Lia and Gaven accelerated down the minuscule
alley, at the front end of a queue as long as the eye could see. They were
around the bend, with still more bikes in front of us, before it was even our
turn.

“Are you ready for this?” said Ballard.

I nodded, dumbly, and then got this huge grin. We were going
to the Gathering! “Who are Volt and Pouch?” I asked, as I checked the switches
on my Gambalunga, and prepared to depart. Still more riders poured in from
behind us. Far more than were at the Wolves’ Council two nights before. Where
were they coming from?

“I Gatti. They’ll stay behind and monitor the city, helping
make sure nobody gets up to any shenanigans. While we’re at the Gathering,”
said Ballard, “Rome is exposed. Gaven’s orders.”

“Volt and Pouch must be two badass werewolves,” I said. He
laughed. “We aren’t taking any chances,” he said, starting his Ducati. It was
midnight blue. I would recognize it anywhere. Ballard had paid somebody to
detail the monocoque with a steel-blue moon rising from storm clouds. He
flicked it to life.

We pulled out and followed the queue.

I noticed, as we wound through Trastevere, everyone stop
what they were doing, and watch, as rider after rider, passed them by. Never
had I thought that I would be in such a group. Some of the onlookers had small
children, whom they held by the hand, pointing and whispering secret things to.
I wondered what they said. That there went the werewolves, the protectors of
Rome. It was an honor and privilege to be in such a group.

I also felt like I didn’t belong.

As I passed a young girl bold enough to stand on her own,
she smiled at me, and her small hand rose into a wave. I gave her a salute and
allowed my Gambalunga to snort some; she giggled.

We were headed into the unknown––or at least I
was.

I looked overhead and saw the clouds depart; the leaden sky
turned cobalt blue, and the sun, in its last show of strength, beat upon our
hot chrome. We left Trastevere, and headed south, away from the friendly
confines of the Aurelian Wall, which formerly protected Ballard’s werewolf
tribe, following the line of the Tiber river, as it wound itself away, into
campagna––the site of the Gathering.

The long procession of motorcycles and their Riders
interlaced like the strands of an intricate Celtic knot, whose Wiccan symbolism
was not lost on me; it made me think of druids and the time of Samhain and on
and on, as we proceeded into dry hills, that ran over and under, following a
trail only the Head Riders knew about. I wondered how long Lia and Gaven had
been in charge of the Pack, and if it were really true, if Gaven
was
getting too old.
Gaven’s orders
was a phrase I was
starting to get used to. I wondered if he would ever step down, if he even had
a choice in the matter. From what Ballard had said, the ability to transform
went away. Just poof. I didn’t want Gaven to just poof. It made me sad.

Nerves, and a slow pace, were making the Riders swerve back
and forth, in a little game they liked to play in the middle of the pack.
Wiccan knots within Wiccan knots. I and Ballard did it for a while. Listening
to the whines of the engines was like being in a kennel full of dogs. I had to
remind myself that these were weredogs. Sirius business. Not to be trifled
with.

But why was Lia so gape-faced like she was staring at me all
of the time?

If I swerved just right, I could make her out, in the curve
of the hill up ahead. She and Gaven were cruising along like they didn’t have a
care in the world.

One second I was feeling the enviousness I always felt when
I stared at her for too long, the next, she had disappeared. It was like Lia
was totally gone. I swerved with Ballard, and checked it from the other side.
So was Gaven. They were all disappearing, two by two.

We looked like some kind of ouroboros, eating itself, we had
become so twisted in the hills. Ballard just shrugged. He didn’t know what was
going on either.

As we moved closer and closer to the thing which was eating
up the Riders, the dragon’s tail naturally accelerated; I had quite the
opposite reaction. I wanted to slow down. But it was too late. The Riders
before us were disappearing, and pretty soon it was our turn. I looked up at
the sky, not knowing what to expect, and if I would ever see it again, and then
I looked down.

It was like going through an archway. One second we were in
campagna, the next...

Rainbows and glitter, twenty percent off sales, caffeine,
unicorns, holding hands, claddagh rings, staying up late, your nails done
great, snakebites and flowers, butterfly tattoos, candy-flavored bubblegum,
hallowed trees, musical CDs, popcorn at the theater, candyfloss, doing each
other’s hair, scrapbooking, nail polish, grunge, being late, OCD, OMG, shopping
spree, black lace lingerie, gift cards and get-well cards, Valentine’s cards,
and credit cards, I love you grams and teddy bears and fluffy little bunnies.
That was what this was like. And oh everything that my seventeen-year-old heart
could wish for. I had arrived. I was there.

The mist felt like vaporous tentacles swallowing me whole
and playing tickle with my skin that was covered in goosebumps. Some kind of
barrier separated the outside world from knowing about this place. I could only
assume it was the work of the warlocks Ballard had said helped I Gatti shield
campagna and the Gathering from unwanted non-magical attention. For everything
that could transform, or else conjure, or otherwise bend reality––such
as vampires and their ability to live forever––demanded from me a
respect and acknowledgement that they too must be magical.

We were in an underground facility, like a loading dock
almost, except it went on forever. I Gatti’s motorcycles formed a huge double
line. The Riders putting down their stands, and stepping off them. I followed
those in front of me, and removed my helmet. My long black hair cascaded down
my back. The rest continued to pour in. Underground the engines sounded five
times fiercer. Ballard was looking ahead to his sister. I could see her and
Gaven talking to someone in long, dark robes.

Around us, hewn from rock, was a kind of cathedral-sized
debarkation zone. The sunlight pierced the mist from the gigantic opening. The
last of I Gatti arrived and the engines cut out. Ventilation swept the fumes
away. I looked one last time at the meandering Italian hillsides, and in the
distance, Rome, like a citadel, standing sparkling, in the afternoon sun.
Suddenly the voices ahead were amplified. Ballard tapped my shoulder. “They’re
calling for you,” he said. I looked ahead and saw what he meant. Lia was waving
frantically. “Halsey!” she said. She hardly ever spoke to me. It
must
be important.

“Go on,” said Ballard, “I’ll catch up.”

But I didn’t want to. Leaving him wasn’t an option. Whoever
the figure in robes was, she looked at me like I was a bug. It was Ballard who
got me to go, giving me a shove. I reached back and grabbed him. “You’re coming
with me,” I said. He sighed, and said, “All right.” So together we walked past
the others, up to Gaven and Lia, and this new person. Lia was looking at
Ballard with the same look as the other lady had for me. “Did I say
Ballard
, Ballard?” she said.

“Shut up, Lia.”

“Ballard has a point, we came in pairs,” said Gaven, “we
should stay that way.” Lia glared at him. “That means you and Halsey... and
Ballard and me. It’s check-in time.” He patted Ballard on the back.

I finally stood next to them. Lia glowered at Ballard, who
returned the look. But she said “Hi,” to me.

I could suddenly see her overwhelming absolute sheer joy and
euphoria for where we were. This rush of unspoken shared affection. It was
almost like she said “Can you believe it?”, and yes I could, and no I could
not.

Yes I could believe that at this point she and I were
potentials, if not shoo-ins for magic, no I could not believe that she looked
at me with affection and warmth. We had a past, after all. A past that could
freeze unfreez-y things. Here she was, Lia, like it was all forgotten. And I
could swear, seeing her there, that it was. That was magic all in itself. Lia
said, “This is her, this is Halsey–– She has a thing for you to
sign,” she said to me.

The witch read down her clipboard. “Rookmaaker, Halsey. Sign
here, please.” She eyed me beadily. I could see where Lia had signed in big,
loopy lettering. There weren’t that many of us Wiccan potentials yet.

“Where are the others?” I asked.

Lia had done hers with a flourish. I mimicked it and signed
my Rookmaaker in style. For some kinds of signatures demand as much. That you
are here. That you are present. And that you have a fire. An
élan
. Lia looked on with approval.

“Represent,” she said, proving once more that we seemed to
have some kind of mind link, a shared exultation for the things to come.

“This is it,” said the stern-faced witch. “At least for
Wicca. You will soon understand why.”

I looked at Lia.

“As for the others,” went on the witch. “Vampires, et al...
they came in the night. I would not presume to monitor the Sons and Daughters of
Romulus.”

“That’s us,” said Gaven, cheerily. We thanked her and went
on. Large doorways led off in all directions.

“Stay together,” said Lia. The rest of the werewolves filed
in, past what’s-her-face, who seemed to have channeled my landlady. Ballard held
my palm. His paw was firm and sweaty. I cared not.

Lia somehow pulled a switcheroo and started walking with me.
It was a vast subterranean complex. Gaven knew where he was going. He walked at
the snake’s head of our human daisy chain side by side with Ballard who had
reluctantly surrendered my hand. Every now and then he would look back at Lia
and I, would Ballard, amazed that we were not fighting. Overhead the rock
tunnels had been dug out by hand. Magic had made this place. Torchlight
followed us wherever we went, but there were still dark corners, and secret
places, where those of us could whisper, who were so inclined. No doubt a
requirement with so many magical delegations pouring in from all over Europe
and the beyond. Was the United States like this? St. Martley’s was so
self-sufficient, a world unto itself. It was hard to imagine the Sisters having
to bow to any outside influences. There must be South American vampires,
mustn’t there, and Wiccans there, and Asiatic enclaves of shape changers––not
to mention everywhere else. I carried three things with me. The first was my
diary. The second, my parents’ hand-me-down copy of the
Magus Codex
, a kind of beginner’s spell book for Neophytes, I had
dug into the previous summer with mixed results. And the last was my laptop.