The Calling (8 page)

“Hey, my mom is a Realtor,” I reminded him. “I probably know more about leases than the rental agent.”

Still, I could feel my heart race as I rang the super's bell. I was about to see my birth parents' apartment! What would it be like? Would I be able to find the watch?

“Who is it?” asked a woman's voice over a crackly intercom.

“It's Morgan and Robbie Rowlands,” I called back. “I spoke to the management company yesterday about the apartment for rent. They said you would show it to me today at noon.”

Robbie tapped his watch. We were on time.

“All right,” she said after a hesitation. “I'll be right there.”

We waited another five minutes before the steel gate was opened to reveal a short, heavyset woman in her late sixties. I could see the pink of her scalp through gray pin curls.

She looked at me and Robbie, and I saw the suspicion in her eyes.

“The apartment's this way,” she grumbled.

We followed her up a flight of stairs and down a narrow hallway. The paint was peeling, and the place reeked of urine. I hoped it hadn't been this bad when Maeve and Angus lived here. I couldn't bear the thought of my mother, who'd had such a profound love of the earth, walking into this ugliness every day.

The woman took a ring of keys from the pocket of her housedress and opened a door with the number two on it. “The rent's six-seventy-five a month,” she told us. “You don't find prices like that in Manhattan anymore. Better grab it fast.”

“Actually, we came to see apartment three,” I said. “The management company said it was available.”

She gave me a look that reminded me of the look I'd gotten from the clerk in the records office. “They were wrong. I got someone living in apartment three,” she said. “It's not for rent. This one is. Do you want to see it or not?”

Robbie and I exchanged glances. I was fighting intense disappointment. All this for nothing. We weren't going to get into Maeve's apartment. I wasn't going to find the watch after all.

“We'll look at it,” Robbie said. As the woman lumbered toward the stairs, he nudged me and whispered, “I didn't want this woman realizing we were poseurs and calling the police or something.”

She let us into a dark, railroad-flat apartment, not much wider than the narrow hallway. “This is your living room,” she said as we entered a small front room. She tapped the steel bars that covered the window. “Security,” she told us proudly.

The kitchen had a claw-foot bathtub, a small refrigerator desperately in need of cleaning, and a family of large, healthy cockroaches living in the sink. “Just put down some boric acid,” the woman said casually.

Then she took us into the last room, a tiny decrepit bedroom with a window the size of a phone directory.

“You two got jobs?”

“I work in…with computers,” Robbie said.

“I waitress,” I said. That had been Maeve's first job in America.

“Well, you'll have to put all that in the application,” the woman said. “Come down to my apartment and you can fill one out.”

I was wondering how we were going to get out of the application process when I felt something in the tiny bedroom calling me. I studied the stained ceiling.

“There used to be a leak,” the woman admitted, her gaze following mine. “But we fixed it.”

But that wasn't what had caught my attention. I had felt a magickal pull from the corner of the ceiling. Looking more closely, I saw that one of the panels of the dropped ceiling was slightly askew. Whatever I was sensing was behind that panel. The watch? Could it possibly be, after all these years? I had to find out.

“I told you, we fixed the leak,” the woman said loudly.

I bit back an irritated reply. I needed a moment of privacy. How was I going to get rid of this woman?

Frustrated, I raised my eyebrows at Robbie and nodded toward the living room. Robbie shot me a “Who, me?” look.

I nodded again, more emphatically.

“Um—could I ask you a question about the living room?” Robbie said hesitantly. “It's about the woodwork.”

“What woodwork?” the woman demanded, but she followed him, anyway.

As soon as they had left the room, I shut the door and quickly turned the lock. I had to reach that ceiling panel. There was only one way. I climbed up on the narrow window ledge and balanced precariously.

Thank the Goddess for low ceilings! I thought as I found I could just reach the panel. With my fingertips I pushed up against it. The panel moved a fraction of an inch. I stretched and pressed harder. The magickal pull was getting stronger. I felt a faint warm current against my hand. I stretched, groaned softly, and gave another hard push.

The panel lifted up and I fell off the ledge onto the floor with a thud.

“Ow,” I mumbled. Quickly I climbed back up onto the ledge. I heard the superintendent's footsteps hurrying across the apartment. Then she was twisting the doorknob, trying to open the door.

“Hey, what's going on in there?” she yelled, pounding on the door. “What are you doing? Are you okay?”

“I'm sure she's fine,” Robbie said quickly.

“Then come out of there!” the woman shouted, pounding harder.

Just ignore her, I told myself, heart racing. I stuck my fingers through the open panel. Empty space and a wooden beam. Then my fingers closed on smooth fabric encasing something hard and round.

“You come out right now or I'm calling the police!” the woman shouted.

I didn't hesitate. This was absolutely necessary magick. If he ever found out, Hunter would understand.

“You will forget,” I whispered. “You never saw us. This did not happen. You will forget.”

It was as simple as that. One moment the woman was screaming and threatening, the next I heard her ask Robbie, “So you want to see the apartment? You know, you're the first one I've shown it to.”

I put the panel back in place, then jumped down from the ledge, clutching the watch. Apartment three must be directly upstairs, I realized. Maeve must have hidden the watch beneath her floorboards. I unfolded the green silk and felt a protective spell whispering from the material. The watch case was gold, engraved with a Celtic knot pattern. A white face, gold hands. A tiny cabochon ruby on the end of the winding stem. I stared at it, and tears rose in my eyes. It represented so many things to me, things both wonderful and horrible.

But there was no time to think about that now. I tucked the watch into my pocket and unlocked the door. Then I went out to get Robbie.

“You're not going to believe what I found in there!” I said when we were about a block away from the apartment. “You've got to see this watch.” I started to take it from my pocket.

Robbie was walking fast, his eyes on the sidewalk. “Just put it away,” he said.

“What?” I was startled at his angry tone.

“I don't want to see it,” he snapped.

I stared at him. “What's wrong?” I asked. “Is this about Bree?”

Robbie turned on me, his eyes blazing. “No, Morgan. This is about you. What the hell happened back there? One minute that old lady was calling for you to get out of the bedroom. The next minute she couldn't remember ever having seen us before.”

“I did a little spell,” I said. “I made her forget.”

“You did what?”

“Robbie, it's okay,” I said. “It was temporary. It's already worn off.”

“How do you know that?” he demanded. “How do you know that spell didn't rewire her brain? How do you know she won't think she's going senile when she suddenly remembers the two people she blanked on? Elderly people find that kind of thing a little upsetting.”

“I know because I made the spell,” I said, keeping my voice calm. “What are you so freaked about, anyway?”

Robbie looked enraged. “You don't get it, do you? You messed with someone's mind! You've lucked into these amazing powers, and you're abusing them. How do I know you won't do something like that to me?”

I felt like he'd knocked the wind out of me. When I found my voice, it sounded high and tinny. “Because I gave you my word that I wouldn't. Come on, Robbie, we've been friends since second grade. You know I'm not like that. This was a special circumstance.”

He looked at me like I was a stranger, a stranger who frightened him. “The Morgan I know wouldn't screw around with some poor old lady. You played her like she was a puppet. And I feel like a jerk for having been part of that whole charade. I feel dirty.”

I tried to calm the butterflies in my stomach. This was serious. “Robbie, I'm sorry,” I said. “I had no right to make you part of that. But this watch belonged to Maeve. I had to get it. Did you really think I could leave it there? It was my mother's. That makes it my birthright.”

“Like your power?” he asked, his voice shaking.

“Yes. Exactly like my power.” Every so often words come out of your mouth with a cool, resonant certainty and you know you've hit a bone-deep truth. There's no taking it back or denying it. That's how it felt then, and Robbie and I both stood there, suspended for a moment in the awful implications of what I'd just said.

Maeve had given up her magick, but there was nothing on this earth that would make me give up mine.

“So this birthright of yours.” I could see him fighting for control, trying to keep his voice steady. “It gives you the right to manipulate some woman you don't even know?”

“I didn't say that!”

“No, it's just what you
did
. You were flexing your power. Well, I'm starting to think maybe your power isn't such a great thing.”

“Robbie, that's not true! I—”

“Forget it,” he said. “I'm going to see if I can get in on another chess game. If I'm going to be totally overwhelmed, at least it's going to be by something I understand.”

He stalked off down Ninth Avenue, leaving me with Maeve's watch and a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I was grateful no one else was in the apartment when I got back. I was still trying to pull myself together after Robbie's accusations. After the shock had come anger. How could he have thought I'd hurt that old woman? How could he accuse me of such awful things? I'd assumed Robbie was strong enough not to be freaked by things he didn't understand. Instead, he'd gotten totally hysterical. He hadn't even listened when I'd tried to explain.

Yet I couldn't help feeling a twinge—more than a twinge—of guilt. There'd been some truth in what Robbie had said. Plus I'd broken my promise to Hunter to keep a low profile.

I drew out the watch that Ciaran had given to Maeve. The gold case gleamed softly in the light coming through the living room windows. I pulled out the ruby-tipped winding stem and wound it to the right, deasil, feeling the resistance of the spring inside. Would it work after all these years? Yes, there was a soft, even ticking.

Had it been worth my trouble? I wondered, thinking about the argument with Robbie. Yes. I could no more have left the watch in that awful apartment than I could have left Maeve's Book of Shadows in Selene's house.

Sitting cross-legged on Bree's father's couch, I tried to find a way through the murk. I wasn't going to lose Robbie, I told myself. Especially now that I'd sort of lost Bree. We both needed to calm down, and we probably both needed to apologize. And Robbie needed to realize that I was still the same Morgan he knew and trusted.

But you're not, a voice inside me said. You're a blood witch, and no one but another blood witch will ever understand.

Again I thought about why I'd wanted the watch so badly. Was it simply because it had been loved by Maeve? Or was I fascinated by the fact that it had been given to her by Ciaran, her
mùirn beatha dàn
, the man who eventually became her murderer? I felt my jaw tensing with anger as I thought of him, and I had to will myself to relax.

Then my senses tingled. Hunter was approaching. I took a few deep breaths to calm my conflicted heart. I wasn't ready to discuss this with Hunter, both because I was certain he'd side with Robbie and because I knew he wouldn't approve of my having anything connected to Ciaran.

I tucked the watch away in my pocket and went to the door.

“Hey,” I said as he came in. “How was the rest of your day?”

Hunter pulled me to him. “Spectacularly lousy. How was yours?”

“So-so. You didn't find that building?”

“Not yet, no. I'm going to keep looking. I just wanted to stop in and tell you I wouldn't be here for tonight's circle.” Hunter arched one blond eyebrow. “Anyone else here?”

“Nope. Just you and me.”

“Thank the Goddess for that,” he said. He held me tight, and I felt that familiar shift as our energies aligned in perfect synchronicity. “Mmm,” I said. “This is nice. I think I've had enough of the group experience.”

Hunter laughed. “You didn't expect we'd get on each other's nerves living in such close quarters? Try growing up in a coven where everyone's been able to read your emotions from the day you were born. There's a reason New York is teeming with witches run away from home.”

He took off his jacket, and we went into the kitchen. I got myself a Diet Coke from the fridge.

Hunter wrinkled his nose. “How can you drink that vile stuff?”

“It's delicious. And nutritious.”

“You would think so,” he said darkly. He sighed. “I'm up against a brick wall, Morgan. Killian was here, and now he's gone. I've been—what do they say? Not beating the bushes.”

“Pounding the pavement?” I suggested helpfully.

“Whatever. Not a trace of him anywhere. It's almost as if he never existed.” Hunter ran himself a glass of water from the tap. “I didn't imagine him, did I?”

“If you did, then we shared the same arrogant hallucination.”

A corner of Hunter's mouth lifted. “You didn't find him—attractive?”

“No,” I said, realizing with some surprise that I was being totally honest, not trying to save Hunter's feelings. “I liked him. I thought he was fun. But he also seemed kind of stuck on himself.”

“Personally, I think he's a pain, but that doesn't mean he isn't worth saving.”

“That's big of you,” I teased, but the worried look in Hunter's eyes scared me. “You think Amyranth has him already, don't you?”

He didn't reply, but his lips thinned.

“Look, why don't we just put off the circle for a night?” I suggested. “We could all help you search for him.”

Hunter's answer was swift and firm. “No. Especially now that we know Ciaran's involved. I don't want you anywhere near this.”

“Do you think he already knows about me? I mean, that Maeve and Angus had a daughter.”

Hunter looked absolutely miserable. “God, I hope not.”

I took some deep breaths and tried to fight off the feeling of dread.

I felt Hunter's hand close around my wrist. “I'm going to leave soon. But first…come with me. Let's just…be with each other for a little while.”

I nodded. We went into the guest bedroom and lay down on my narrow mattress. I let Hunter hold me loosely in his arms. I wanted to clasp him to me, to stave off all the desperation and fear charging through me. I wanted never to let him go.

“We can't hold on to each other forever, you know,” he said, echoing my thoughts.

“Why not?” I asked. “Why can't we just stay here and keep each other safe?”

He kissed the tip of my nose. “For one thing, I'm a Seeker. For another, none of us can guarantee another's safety, much as we'd love to.” He kissed me again, this time on the mouth. I could feel his heart beating against mine. Someday, I thought, when all this is over, we'll be able to be like this all the time. Warm, close together.

Someday.

By the time I'd changed, set out candles and salt, and purified the living room with the smoke of cedar and sage, Hunter was gone and everyone else had returned to the apartment.

Though Bree and Robbie seemed to be keeping their distance, Sky and Raven had come in together. Packages were put away. Plans for later that evening were discussed. When everyone had finally settled in, we gathered in the living room for our circle. It felt odd to be there without Jenna, Matt, Ethan, Sharon, and the other members of Kithic. I wondered briefly what they were doing back in Widow's Vale.

Since Sky was the only initiated witch among us, she would lead the circle. But first, at Hunter's request, I filled everyone in on the Killian situation.

“Let's work a spell to lift obstacles and send power to Hunter,” Sky suggested.

We pushed the few pieces of furniture against the walls and rolled up the rug. Sky traced a wide circle with chalk on the wood floor. On each of the four compass points she placed one of the four elements: a small dish of water for water, a stick of incense for air, a crystal for earth, and a candle for fire. One by one, we entered the circle. Sky closed it behind us.

“We come together to honor the Goddess and the God,” she began. “We ask their help and guidance. May our magick be pure and strong, and may we use it to help those in need.”

We joined hands, each of us focusing on our breathing. Bree stood on one side of me, Robbie on the other. I opened my senses. I could feel the familiar presences of the others, feel their heartbeats. They were all precious to me, I realized. Even Raven. The circle bound us as allies in the fight against darkness.

Slowly we began to move deasil. I felt power moving through me. I drew energy up from the earth and down from the sky.

Sky had us visualize the rune Thorn, for overcoming adversity. Then she led us in a chant for lifting obstacles. The circle began to move faster. I could feel the energy humming, rising, flowing among us, getting stronger. Sky's pale face was alight with the purity of the power she was channeling. She traced a sigil in the air, and I felt the power lift and rise above the circle.

“To Hunter,” she said.

Abruptly the air changed. The thrum of power was gone. Suddenly we seemed like a bunch of teenagers, standing around a New York City living room instead of the beings of power we'd been just moments before.

“Good work,” Sky said, sounding pleased. “Everyone, sit down for a moment. Ground yourselves.”

We all sat down on the floor.

“Something real happened there,” Robbie said.

Bree looked worried. “How do we know that energy went to Hunter and didn't get picked up by the Woodbanes?”

“I bound it with a sigil of protection before I sent it out,” Sky answered.

“So now he should be able to find Killian?” Raven asked.

Sky shrugged her slender shoulders. “There are no guarantees, of course. Killian seems to have a gift for making himself scarce. But hopefully what we just did will make it a little easier for Hunter.” She glanced around at the circle. “We'd better clean up.”

For the next twenty minutes we cleaned up and debated what everyone was going to do with the rest of the evening. Raven wanted to go to another club—a normal, nonwitch one, this time—while Robbie wanted to hear some obscure band that was playing in Tribeca, and Bree wanted to go to a trendy pool hall down near Battery Park. I, of course, was wondering if Hunter was going to show up, but it seemed wimpy to say that aloud. And I was tired. Maybe it was the fight with Robbie or the circle, but I felt drained.

We were still trying to make a plan when the apartment door opened and Hunter walked in, one hand gripping Killian's elbow. Killian looked sullen, and Hunter looked irritated. It was clear that Killian had not come of his own free will.

We must all have been staring openmouthed because Killian's sullen expression turned to one of delight. He grinned and said, “I am pretty amazing, aren't I?”

“Are you all right?” I asked, unable to reconcile his cheerful presence with the Killian of my vision.

“Tip-top,” Killian replied. “How about you, love?” He flicked his thumb at Hunter. “Must be rough, hanging out with Mr. Doom-and-Gloom here. Sucks the joy right out of life.”

“Shut up and sit down,” Hunter snapped.

Killian first helped himself to a soda from the fridge and then flopped onto the couch.

“He was in Chelsea,” Hunter said, “hiding out in an abandoned apartment building.”

“Who said anything about hiding?” Killian protested. “I just wanted some time by myself. No one asked you to come barging in, Seeker.”