The Angel Stone: A Novel (12 page)

“That I’d gone off on a bender?” Phoenix asked, smoothing back her abundant crinkly hair. She’d let it go completely gray—a pale platinum silver that somehow suited her. In fact, she looked remarkably well, especially in comparison with Adelaide and Jen—who, I noticed now, was leaning heavily on Phoenix’s arm. “Well, I did,” she said, answering her own question. “I was holed up in a hotel room in Hoboken until Jen found me and took me to this marvelous Grove retreat in—” At a glance from Jen, she closed her mouth, but only for half a second. “That’s right, I’m not supposed to say. It’s kind of a spa for witches who have gone through traumatic events. Jen got me in even though I’m not a witch. Your friends were right about that, by the way. I didn’t have an ounce of magic in me—at least not then—but that turned out to be a good thing when those monsters attacked.”

“The nephilim attacked a Grove retreat?” I asked. “But why? I thought you were all in cahoots.”

Jen laughed at the phrase, but the laugh turned into a hacking cough. “We’ll tell you all about it, but your grandmother’s right, you know?”

I looked at her blankly.

“You really ought to offer her—and all of us—some tea
and”—she looked past me toward the counter—“some of those scrumptious-looking pumpkin muffins. I’m famished … and it’s a long story.”

Phoenix insisted we all have a hot beverage before she began the story. She asked for a soy chai latte for Jen, and Earl Grey with milk and sugar for Adelaide. She had Frank move Adelaide’s chair three times to make sure she wasn’t seated in a draft, then settled a fluffy mohair shawl around my grandmother’s shoulders. Then Phoenix asked Leon if he could make her a hazelnut half-decaf latte with half skim, half whole milk and just a smidgen of whipped cream on top.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, winking at me. “That sounds like the order of a manic-depressive, doesn’t it?”

“Well …” I hemmed and hawed. I was still too shocked at watching Phoenix tend to my imperious grandmother as if she were her own beloved granny—and at my grandmother for tolerating the treatment—to be thinking anything at all about Phoenix’s coffee order. But now that she mentioned it …

She laughed. “I know! But, honestly, it was being bipolar that saved my life.”

“And mine,” Jen said, laying a gaunt hand on Phoenix’s. “If you hadn’t been there when the nephilim attacked, I would have been killed.”

“What happened?” Moondance asked.

Phoenix opened her mouth to begin, but Adelaide laid a hand over hers and she instantly stopped. I’d never seen Phoenix so easily silenced.

“I think I should tell it,” Adelaide said, in a heavy, throaty voice I’d never heard from her before. As she began, I realized that the unfamiliar tone was regret.

“After we left Fairwick this summer, we repaired to the retreat. Closing the door was a monumental effort for us.” She glanced at me and blanched. “You underestimate your own strength, Callie. We had to fight your will to work the closing spell.”

“I thought it was the nephilim who closed the door,” I said, blinking away a tear at the memory of Bill’s blood pouring through my fingers, his mortality evidence of my love for him, which had come too late to save him.

“The nephilim have no control over the door,” Adelaide replied. “That is their one weakness. When they were banished from Faerie, their fey magic was destroyed—except the Aelvesgold in their wings. The fey took pity on them and left them that, although some say it wasn’t pity but cruel irony that they would leave the nephilim with Aelvesgold but without the ability to use it. If they’d known how the nephilim would use their Aelvesgold, the fey would have done it differently. Since the time of the witch hunts, the nephilim have bribed witches to do their bidding with the promise of Aelvesgold. I’m afraid that we were foolish enough to succumb to their bribery.”

“And what’s different now?” Moondance asked.

“They betrayed us,” Adelaide answered. “When we left here, we went to a sanctuary to recoup our powers. The nephilim knew we were at our weakest. They attacked our compound and spread their narcotic incense throughout, rendering all our number unconscious. And then they began to devour us.”

“Devour?” I heard Leon and Moondance repeat the word at the same time I did.

“I don’t know what else to call it,” Adelaide said, her face white. “They spread their wings over their victims first. They have barbs beneath their feathers, thousands of tiny needle-like
barbs …” Adelaide shuddered, and Phoenix took up the story.

“I saw the whole thing. I was in my six
A.M.
yoga class when everybody just keeled over in the middle of a sun salutation. For some reason, I was immune.”

“We think perhaps because of her particular brain wiring,” Jen said.

“Who’d have thunk it? My screwy wiring came in handy for something. Anyway, when I saw everyone hit their sticky mats, I ran out into the courtyard for help and saw those monsters—one had just landed on a sweet little witch from South Carolina. He got his hooks in her and she screamed. I tried to get him off, but when I did she started cracking. It was as if he had drained her of all the vital juices in her body. Then I heard Jen screaming and saw one of the nephilim on top of her, with its wings wrapped around her.”

“They start with your memories,” Jen said softly. “They dig into your oldest and dearest moments and suck them out of you. It’s as if they want to rob you of everything that makes you human before they kill you. I could feel my memories going … If Phoenix hadn’t gotten that monster off me, I would have lost my mind first and then my life. As it is, I lost whole chunks of my childhood.”

She broke off, trembling. Much to my amazement, Adelaide patted her shoulder and made a comforting noise. Phoenix continued Jen’s story.

“When I grabbed the nephilim attacking her, I felt Jen’s memories being sucked out of her. Then the monster turned on me, but when he sank his claws into me, he recoiled.” Phoenix grinned. “Apparently nephilim can’t absorb the energy of someone with my unusual brain wiring. As soon as I got rid of Jen’s attacker, I went after the one attacking Adelaide.”

“The nephilim had its barbs in me for only a few minutes before Phoenix rescued me,” Adelaide said, looking at me. “But in that short time I lost your mother’s face. It wasn’t until I felt it going that I realized how much I had lost by shutting her out—and how little I wanted to lose you, as well.”

Her lips were nearly white with the effort it had cost her to make this admission. I knew I should say something but was far too stunned to reply. In all the years I had lived with my grandmother, she was cool and distant, bothering to talk to me only when she had something to criticize. She’d spoken about my mother only to complain that I was like her and that surely I was headed in the same direction—a foolish marriage and an early death caused by recklessness. This summer she’d stood by while Duncan Laird tried to slash my throat. How could I trust her now?

“I don’t expect you to believe me, but I’ve come to make amends.”

“If what you say is true, you’ve come because you have no place else to go,” Frank said coldly. “Or you could be here as the nephilim’s spies.”

“I can’t blame you for doubting us,” Adelaide answered. “We are willing to bind ourselves to prove our intentions.”

“Bind yourselves?” I asked, looking around the group. “What does that mean?”

“A witches’ circle can perform a binding spell that holds each member to the good of the group and compels them to truthfulness with one another,” Moondance answered. She narrowed her eyes at Adelaide. “Would you be willing for me to say the binding spell?”

“Certainly,” she answered without hesitation. “We will submit to whatever binding you deem appropriate. As Mr. Delmarco here so delicately pointed out, we have no place else to go—and we are committed to vanquishing the nephilim.”

Moondance looked from Adelaide to me. “What do you think, Callie? She’s your grandmother. Do you want to be bound to her after what she did to you—to all of us?”

I looked at my grandmother. I had spent the last ten years trying to free myself of her judgments and criticisms, and yet, in my worst moments, I still heard her censorious voice in my head. Contemplating her now, I saw a tired old woman, and I wondered how I had ever let her have so much power over me. But, I realized, sending her away wouldn’t break her hold on me. Maybe having her as bound to me as I was to her would.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s do it.”

Leon put out a
CLOSED
sign and reinforced the home-burner spell. He probably didn’t need to bother. Main Street, usually bustling on a Saturday late afternoon, was deserted. Fairwick residents were hurrying home as if afraid of being caught out after dark. Glancing at the lengthening shadows as I closed the blinds, I couldn’t blame them. When I turned away from the windows and saw the six people arranged in a circle of chairs around a single lit candle, which barely kept at bay the shadows in the corners of the room, I couldn’t help wondering if we would be able to stem that outer darkness.

Frank met my worried look and patted the chair next to him. “A bound circle exerts a powerful force, McFay,” he said with a level look. “Don’t underestimate it.”

“Why didn’t you bind your circle before?” I asked Moondance as I sat down between Frank and Jen. “Wouldn’t that have kept Ann Chase from betraying you?”

“A binding is not to be entered into lightly,” Moondance said. “Once we are connected to one another, anything that happens to any one of us will rebound on the others threefold.
Ann always said she was reluctant to bind herself to us because we’d all suffer from her arthritis, but now I wonder if it wasn’t an excuse to betray us.” I heard the hurt in Moondance’s voice and remembered how she had watched out for Ann. The betrayal must have hit her especially hard.

“Do you really want to include me?” Phoenix asked. “When I absorbed Jen’s memories I also absorbed her witch’s power, but I’m still bipolar—or maybe even tripolar now.”

“I think Phoenix will prove to be an asset to us,” Adelaide said. “Her brain chemistry allows her to absorb the power of others remarkably well. And as for her mental instability—”

Jen cleared her throat to interrupt. “Who of us doesn’t have a little imbalance here or there?” she said, staring down Adelaide. “Anyway, the binding only lasts for one lunar cycle.”

“Just long enough to take us through Hallowmas,” Adelaide said, returning Jen’s stare with a conciliatory smile that surprised me more than anything else so far. “Are we ready?” Adelaide asked, looking around the circle. We each nodded. When her gaze fell on me, her eyes seemed to shine unnaturally bright. It was only when she looked away that I realized her eyes were filled with tears. Was she trying to find my mother’s face in mine? Was she sorry she had never performed this rite with her?

Feeling my own eyes fill with tears, I took Frank’s hand, which felt warm and strong, and then Jen’s. I was instantly struck by the difference in the energy Jen emitted. I’d shaken hands with her before and noticed she had a grip like a mula bandha lock, but now her touch was tentative, her energy wavering. The nephilim attack had depleted her life force dramatically. For a moment I felt my own life force weaken, but when Frank took Phoenix’s hand, completing the circle, I felt
a satisfying click and a pleasant fizzing sensation, as if I’d just had a glass of champagne.

“That’s me,” Phoenix said. “I’ve been riding pretty high since the nephilim attack. To tell you the truth, I’ve never felt so useful in my entire life. You should also get the benefit of my immunity to nephilim incense. On the negative side, I’m probably due for a mood swing in a couple of days. They’re not as bad as they used to be, but I can still get a little cranky around that time of month.”

“Good to know,” Frank growled.

“I can’t say anything positive about my mood,” Moondance grumped.

“Someone’s been imbibing quite a bit of caffeine,” Adelaide remarked.

“Guilty,” Leon said cheerfully. “Perks of the job. I pretty much inhale the stuff, morning, noon, and night.”

“Great,” Frank said. “So we can look forward to sleep deprivation as well as PMS.”

I was beginning to see why witches were reluctant to bind themselves to a circle. I already felt as if I had six warring personalities besides my own inside my head. Talk about being bipolar; this felt like being sept-polar. I wondered suddenly what effect
my
energy had on the group.

“Ooh,” Jen cooed. “So
that’s
what an incubus does for you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I objected, blood rising to my face. “I haven’t seen Bill or Liam in months.”

“Yes, but you’ve been dreaming of him, haven’t you?” Phoenix said. “I can feel—”

“Are we going to do this thing or not?” Frank snapped.

“My sentiments exactly,” Adelaide said. “Let’s get on with it. Moondance, would you do the honors?”

Moondance straightened up in her chair, closed her eyes, and began to chant.

A pulse of energy surged around the circle. I felt it throbbing through my hands and saw a bright gold filament enclosing the group. All the individual sensations we’d been experiencing—fatigue, anger, lust, sorrow, hope—all merged into one steady
thrum
, containing all the disparate emotions and then overwhelming them into one single connection. We were not alone. The golden thread flared brighter, warring against the darkness rising outside the circle. For a moment, I saw the shadows in the corners of the room writhing away from that light, their shapes distorted into hideous monsters, and then the gold light sank into us and the shadows drained away.

Afterward, we laid our plans. We needed the village to celebrate Halloween. Moondance and Leon would rally the townspeople to resist the anti-Halloween fervor, while Frank, Soheila, and I would covertly urge on the students. Adelaide said that she, Jen, and Phoenix would perform a needfire rite—whatever that was. Everyone else seemed to know, and I was getting tired of being the one to ask all the questions. We would enlist the Stewarts and the vampires to patrol the woods on Halloween night to keep the nephilim from breaching our circle, which would form around the old door. I would be at the center of all those circles.