Hallowed Circle (26 page)

“You couldn’t have done worse than me,” Maria said. “I’m honestly surprised they are letting me go to the next round. I mean, technically, the three of us competed already. Amber wasn’t an actual contestant.”

That’s right. One final round. What if I won this?
Goddess, don’t let me win.

“C’mon,” Hunter goaded me.

Maria glanced over at me and said, “You’ve nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I’m not ashamed.” I sipped my coffee nonchalantly. “I just … I don’t know.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what I think,” Maria said. “I think that after seeing the cut on your knuckle, that swelling bruise on Holly’s cheek makes more sense to me.”

I put the cup down and hid my hand in my lap, not that it did me any good.

Hunter’s brows shot up. “You fought?”

Trying to appear meek and mild to offset feeling like a brute, I asked, “What did you do?”

“I used psychology and talked her down.” She relaxed against the backrest of her folding chair as if she’d just been told something serious. “Never occurred to me to take her on.”

Maria cackled. “You didn’t think of it?
You
jolted everyone who’d shake hands. And
she
was the one to think aggressively.” She pointed at me without lowering her Styrofoam cup.

“As far as judging goes,” I said to Hunter, “I’m sure your actions are perfectly aligned with what they’re look
ing for in a high priestess.” I hoped she’d forgive me for my earlier insults. I faced Maria. “And yours was probably more desirable a solution than mine. They’re probably running a background check right now to see if I have a rap sheet.”

“Do you?” Maria asked seriously.

“No!” I laughed, but the sound of it hung in the air maniacally and I wished I could take it back.

“How’d you decide to fight? ’Cause she’s petite?”

“It just kind of happened.” Great. We’d been having a nice moment, bonding. But even among my sister witches, I was a freak.

“What about the vampires?” Maria asked Hunter.

“They are all damn sexy. Especially Sever.”

“What?” Maria exclaimed.

“Oh, not that I would ever do
that
—I’m not looking to be any fang-boy’s sangria—but being alone in the room with the three of them was as wonderful as it was terrible.” She lifted her cup. “Focus on the positive,” she said, and giggled before sipping.

“I focused on their chests and not to gauge their pectorals,” Maria said. “It was all business in there. I didn’t dare let myself see their faces. Not even enough to see if they were handsome or not.”

“Trust me, they are.”

Silence. Even staring at the table, I felt them turn to me. Before either worked up the nerve to ask, I blurted, “No comment!”

They both cracked up.

Lydia pushed open the door. “Ladies.”

The Covenstead Great Hall interior was now almost dark. It was nearly five in the morning and the tall pil
lar candles had burned down to glowing nubs on the high, flat candelabrum discs. The room felt quieter, and the regality of the dais had faded sleepily like a dream ending.

Lydia led us to the center of the room, gave us back our daggers, and took her position at the left of the dais. I glanced toward each of the other contestants. One of us would be the high priestess of Venefica Covenstead soon. One of us would have to start her time in that role by organizing a grand Witches Ball in a very short amount of time. I hoped it wasn’t me.

The Elders sat like bowed and bent statues upon their thrones, tired old women who’d been up all night, their faces shielded from the meager light under wide brims.

The vampires now sat in stately chairs lined on an elegant area rug placed to the right of the dais. Sever perched on the end of his seat, elbows on knees and hands clasped. It seemed Freudian, as if he were indicating his eagerness to leave. Heldridge appeared uncomfortably rigid like an Egyptian hieroglyph, but seemed utterly bored. Between them, the epitome of relaxed patience, Menessos gazed at me the way full-bellied lions watch antelope:
When my appetite beckons, I will devour that.

“There are three paths in Hecate’s sight: past, present, and future,” the Eldrenne said. Her raven cawed softly. “And now there are three of you.”

She said no more, but tilted her head as if listening to something far away. She stamped her staff gently on the dais and the crystal orb began to glow. The light claimed her face slowly, glowing eerily on the blue film
over her eyes. Her gnarled hand, shaking, lifted, aimed at us. It seemed the blind woman searched for a handhold to grasp . . . she was searching, yes, but not for steadiness to aid her as she left her seat. I felt the cold static of power reach through my clothes to my skin. I was aware of Maria giving in to an involuntary shiver next to me.

Light, if light can be thick and gray, began to form behind the Eldrenne, a mist swirling upward, each molecule glowing within. The light from her staff twinkled here and there on the mist, making it seem as if it were not mist at all, but deepest, blackest velvet rolling in the wind, with diamond dust glittering about the surface.

Suddenly, I could smell raisin and currant cakes.

Menessos sat straighter. His movement caught my attention and I glanced from him to the Eldrenne, then on to the magic behind her. It undulated once, like a dancer had taken position—a dancer hiding under a cloth kissed by ocean breezes.

A sound came to my ears, low and deep like the voice of Time.

The four Elders lowered their heads until all I could see was hat and brim.

The mist moved again, and it seemed a figure walking. Though it moved no closer, each step made the figure’s details become more realized, and it grew in size until twenty feet tall, head topped with a conical hat, the tip of which neared the domed ceiling.

A beautiful, haggard face, kind but resolute, studied us.

“My call has been heard by many,” a voice said. It
was the voice of every Elder, of the Eldrenne, the voice of Time Eternal, the voice of the Depths of Nothing and Everything. It licked my bones and tasted my soul, my essence, and my stain. It swallowed my fear and my hope and left me standing there naked and exposed in its sight, a vessel as open and empty as when I lay sobbing in the row of the cornfield as a child.

“Hecate,” I whispered.

“The path I laid at your feet, you have traveled. And now you gather to Me.” Hecate’s voice reverberated within me.

The velvety mist-figure stretched her arms over our heads. Palms up, mist and power poured from Her hands like the tails of rocketing fireworks, but ever-burning. The sparks showered to the floor before us and rippled like water from an upended bucket. The sparkling lights reached our feet and floated up and over us. It touched my skin as if my clothes weren’t there, sinking in like the faintest pinprick kisses. She restored all She had taken from me and gave me more, filling me up with Her understanding, Her courage, Her approval.

“My blessings on you, witches who hear Me. Witches who hasten to my bidding. Witches mine.”

She flowed through the dais as if it were intangible. As she came toward us she shrank to human size, though one arm stretched to caress Menessos’s cheek. “Be forgiven,” came a whisper as soft as the wind.

Just as She neared, just as I hoped to see details in Her face, Her eyes—the velvet mist became just mist, and it dissipated as if it never were.

The Eldrenne sat straight; the Elders lifted their heads. “And now my test for you—” the Eldrenne said.

Both Hunter and Maria stood just as before. No one displayed—in word, gesture, or attitude—any reaction to Hecate’s presence or disappearance. “Witches who hear me,” She had said. Who had heard? Who had not?

“—my test is to create a protrepticus.”

A pro-trep-what?

She gestured to the cauldron and thick black mist shot from her hand to cover the top. “Select an item. Maria has gone first many times. Let Hunter choose first.”

Hunter went forward in an obedient, if cautious gait. She stared down into the cauldron.

“Fear not, child; nothing inside will sting or bite.”

Hunter reached in and pulled out a round, palm-sized item of silver. With a confused expression, she opened the item. “It’s a purse mirror.”

“Maria.”

Maria pulled a locket from the cauldron.

“Persephone.”

The black mist swirled over the cauldron, effectively blocking the contents from sight. I reached in and came up with … a cell phone.

“The item in your hands will become your protrepticus.”

Beside me Maria said, “Excuse me, Eldrenne. I’m not familiar with that term. Can you explain a pro— pro—?”

“Pro-TREP-ti-cus,” the Eldrenne said slowly. “The protrepticus is a device that houses an aide of sorts. It will be very beneficial to the high priestess.” With one gnarled finger, she gestured over her shoulder. “Behind the dais,
three tables have been set.” As she spoke candles on the darkened far side of the room flickered to life.

“Everything you need is waiting for you. You may begin now.”

Again, Maria spoke up. “Are the spell instructions on the tables, Eldrenne?”

The Eldrenne laughed in a slow, mirthless way. We three caught on: this was the bad part.

“Like any witch worth her salt, I have no doubt that if you are standing before me now, you could pick up a spell you’ve never seen and be as successful as a master chef with a new recipe.”

“Are we to construct our own spell, then?” Hunter asked.

“Again, any of you could achieve that, couldn’t you?”

Uncomfortable, I waited. I wasn’t going to ask anything. She’d tell us what she wanted us to know. Maybe the other two had figured that out as well. The Great Hall was silent for a long minute.

“This test is meant to separate the winner, to lift her up and mark her as the high priestess of a WEC-recognized coven. This test is more than witchcraft, more than social skill, more than shrewdness and resolve. This is a test of raw talent. The kind that reveals whether we are dealing with mere witches, or if a sorceress is among you.”

“Sorcery?” Maria whispered.

“Yes,” the Eldrenne whispered back. “This is the Venefica Coven; after all, ‘Venefica,’ translated, means ‘sorceress,’ so we expect the high priestess to be able to fulfill the role as intended. An
ordovia
awaits you, but it
will take more than your ability to read and follow directions to succeed. Begin now.”

Ordovia
was the old term for spell scroll. Most witches used their Book of Shadows for spell-keeping. Perhaps
ordovia
was more specific to sorcery.

Hunter went to the first table, the one on the left, Maria to the middle one, and I approached the remaining table to its right.

This was it. Last round. My entire goal here was to knock Hunter out of the running and it hadn’t happened. Did I leave this round a loser and let whatever would be, be? Maria was competent. She might make it. But I didn’t honestly believe that. She’d sounded too disconcerted by this test. Hunter would win.

I glanced at her as I stepped up to my table. In the course of these tests, she’d convinced me that she could not only do the job, but
be
a high priestess also.

I’d been wrong about her. I wasn’t too big for my britches to admit it.

So why was I doing this?

To keep from being Bindspoken.

I had to proceed. Or at least act like it.
Just go through the motions enough to convince the Elders.

Before me the table, illuminated by a single taper candle at either end, was set with various unlit candles, bowls of salt and water, incense sticks, and little sprigs of herbs. A scroll, the
ordovia,
lay front and center.

Placing the cell phone on the table, I thumbed the WEC-embossed seal. I remembered explaining sorcery to Johnny before the spell for Theo. I’d compared it to sand on a beach. “The sand touches the sea and the air,” I’d
said, “and stretches along the coast and inland to the soil. Witchcraft is like that: it receives the waves of power—the gods and goddesses of the various pantheons—and touches the energy of nature, influences it, to shape witches’ will through rituals and spells. But sorcery digs through witchcraft, burrowing deep into places you cannot see to find the treasure—the power—below the surface. It consumes that power, directly creating immediate change, not just influencing a future one.”

“Witchcraft is sand,” he’d replied. “Sorcery is buried treasure. Got it.”

Sand on a beach … Johnny.

My chest felt tight at that memory, but I forcibly mastered myself again.

Sorcery, Nana had taught me, was to be used only as a last resort in moments when immediacy absolutely demanded it. The power was overly eager for release and wild when loosed. As if that weren’t enough, its effects could be intoxicating. Many witches tasted it and became addicted, finding more and more excuses to use the immediate and instantly gratifying sorcery, working until it consumed them.