The Witch Collector Part I (16 page)

“Let's go back and find the others. They might have some ideas.” I briskly gathered our things. “Can we check out
The Mysteries of the Unmarked
?” I asked, pointedly ignoring the Crowley Book.

Miro exhaled. “Would you let me explain?”

“I'd like to hear the story from your father first,” I said, keeping my voice neutral. “I want to know everything he can tell me about Black Magic.”

“It's not what you think,” Miro said. “
He's
not what you think.”

“I don't know what to think,” I said, and opened the door, walking purposefully into the greater library.

This time, Miro followed me.

As we approached the Dabrowski apartment, I noticed a figure in the front window, still and watchful, blurred by the rain sluicing down the glass. Dobra. He was waiting for us.

“I need to speak with Breeda,” he said as soon as we walked in the door. “In my study. Now.” He turned abruptly and strode down the hallway, expecting me to follow.

The adrenaline that pushed through my veins since I'd left the library slowed to a crawl. I'd tried to cultivate it, to hold on to the energy of my body rewiring itself, and use its strength for what I felt might be a confrontation. Dobra's request put me on the defensive and gave him the upper hand. Shelley had warned me that Dobra's pride might make it difficult to get him to talk. Still, she felt I should try.

She and I had hung back on our walk home. The rain slowed to a mist, blanketing the streets in a soft fog. Miro pushed ahead, walking briskly with Vadim at his side, Ion following at their heels like a scrappy puppy.

I told her what happened at Evie's and what I discovered at the Witch Library, choosing my words carefully when I reached the part about Dobra and Black Magic. She was a member of his coven, and I had to respect that. She paled when I mentioned the Crowley Book. “Don't judge him too harshly,” she said when I finished. “And please, don't condemn any of us until you know the full story.”

Walking into Dobra's musty office, I fully intended to get just that. I wasn't certain knowing his coven's story would help solve any of my problems, but I had so many blanks to fill. I hoped that some of them might overlap and provide clues to another question I had.

Dobra took a seat behind his expansive desk. “Sit down,” he commanded, adding
please
as an afterthought.

I sat in a high-backed leather chair.

“I've heard from my contacts in the greater Portland area,” he began.

My heart stilled in my chest. “And?”

“There are rumors circulating that the rural coven governed by Gavin Doheny is grieving the death of one of its young female members.”

“Greta,” I said quietly. “Her name was Greta.”

“I'm sorry for your loss,” he said. There was a note of gentleness in his tone that made me fear what he was going to say next. “Your coven leader, Gavin, has since disappeared. The dead witch—”

I shot him a pointed look.

“
Greta
was dropped in a burial clearing outside the city, and has since been returned to the earth. A number of Portland witches have heard rumors her talisman had been removed prior to her funeral, and had been destroyed. It had blackened.”

“Blackened?”

“A sign of Black Magic. If this is true, this was not a natural death.”

Suddenly afraid for Sonya, I instinctively reached for my phone, desperate to make contact. I sent a quick text, glancing up when Dobra cleared his throat. My eye caught some of the intricacies of his talisman that I hadn't noticed the night before. The jade's green was threaded with ribbons of onyx. Was it a trick of the light? The blood rushed from my face. Who was Dobra?

“Are you feeling all right?” he asked. “Should I call Shelley in?”

I tried to brush my fear away with a shake of my head. I needed information. “Do you have anything more specific you can tell me about Greta's death?”

He sighed. “Nothing else. Not yet. I'll let you know if I learn more. In the meantime, you should be extremely careful. Black Magic is not something to take lightly.”

I leaned toward him, tipping the chair. “Tell me what you know about it. Tell me what it can do.”

Dobra froze. He didn't say anything for a long moment, then said quietly, “So Miro told you.”

“I saw the Crowley Book.”

His mouth curled into a sneer. “Oh yes, the grand record of nefarious deeds.”

I ignored his sarcasm. “I suspect that my coven leader's name should be in the Crowley Book. And now you're telling me Greta's death wasn't natural. I need to know what Gavin's capable of so I can defend myself and my parents.”

Dobra stood and came around the desk, shortening the long space between us. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back. “Miro obviously trusts you with our family's secrets. Did he tell you how he killed his brother?”

Shock stole the words from my tongue. I could barely shake my head.

Dobra smiled wryly. “I think you are learning that we really don't know what another's heart holds,” he said. “I'm going to tell you our story, not because it could help you—which it may—but because my son wants you to know. I owe him that much, I suppose.

“A little over two years ago, Magda, my wife, collapsed while she was gardening in our backyard. We brought in a healer, who told us her heart was damaged. Death would come in a matter of months.

“The boys, only a year apart, were approaching their transitions. They needed her. I needed her. And I couldn't bear it.”

“Did you take her to a hospital?” My voice sounded dry and hoarse.

“For what? So they could kill her? Regular humans don't understand us. Our bodies' chemistry is quite different, and prompts the medical world to ask too many questions. And their technologies don't do as much, if anything, for us,” he continued, glancing disdainfully at the phone in my hand. “Your generation is the first to make use of them, and as far as I can see they do nothing but weaken us. Hospitals were out of the question for my wife. She would likely die there. I turned to Black Magic to help her. I'm not proud of this, but it worked for a short while. At least until Miro's older brother, Piotr, began transitioning.”

Piotr.
Oh, Shelley
, I thought. My hand went to the talisman she'd given me.

Dobra paused, thoughtful for a moment. “Practicing Black Magic means fighting nature,” he said. “And nature always fights back.”

“By taking one of your sons,” I whispered.

Dobra nodded, eyes shining. “Yes. And nearly destroying the other. One day, while I was with Magda, Piotr climbed to the roof to practice his gift, which, as with many in our line, was levitation. Miro joined him, to watch. Piotr and Miro had always gotten along so well, but I was naive as to how Black Magic in our house could poison our bonds. Piotr began teasing and taunting Miro because his transition had not begun yet. He became physical, jabbing at Miro, slapping and punching him. Suddenly, Miro's magic arrived, and he was unable to control it. He levitated Piotr, sending him high into the air. Piotr screamed to be released, and because Miro had no talisman, and no concept of how to control his magic, he dropped his brother four stories to his death.” Dobra hung his head. “I stopped practicing Black Magic that day, but it was too late. Piotr was gone, and my wife passed to the other world not much later.”

My heart contracted with pity—for a desperate man and his dying wife, for a confused, frightened boy who killed his only brother. For the terror that brother must have felt as he fell to his death. For Shelley, who'd lost her friend.

Dobra cleared his throat, composing himself. “Black Magic can force a transition. It disrupts the natural order of things. It can kill and destroy and steal. Witches who encounter it are considered contaminated, as if it were a deadly virus.”

“Your talisman,” I said, gesturing toward the darkened stone.

He flinched, his composure breaking. “It tells the world what I've done much more quickly than the Crowley Book can.”

“Did Miro really report you?”

“I asked him to, to shield him from suspicion. I took full blame for what happened to Piotr.”

As well you should
, I thought.

“My coven requested I break the oath and disappear with Miro into the mundane life of regular workaday slobs.” He paused, his mouth hardening. “I couldn't do that, so we negotiated another penance. I did break with my coven, the oldest in Chicago, but I was allowed to start a new coven—as long as every witch I took in was an outcast, covenless and desperate, and needed a place to go.” He frowned. “I left one of the oldest covens in the city to run a crisis center for wayward witches.”

Vadim. Shelley. Her mother, Donna. There must've been others, too, who I didn't know. What had happened to them to make them outcasts? The question must have shown on my face because Dobra said, “I won't tell you their stories. They're not mine to tell.”

I understood. I also knew I couldn't afford to focus on the past when I should be putting all my energy into figuring out the mystery of my present.

“Last night, you said my parents would have a strong connection to me during my transition. Could Gavin somehow access my powers through them during my transition?”

Dobra thought for a minute. “I've never heard of that. It's not impossible, but it's not likely. He needs
you
if he wants to use your abilities. That I have heard of.”

“But why hasn't he tried to contact me, then?”

“Gavin Doheny was always a mystery,” Dobra said.

“You knew him?”

“Not well. He was ambitious then, in a way one fears instead of admires. If he's practicing Black Magic, it's impossible to predict what all he might do.”

“Did you know my parents, Lupe and Ryan Fergus?” I asked. I wanted him to say yes, to tell me they were well liked or charming, or any of the good things I knew about them to be true.

“No,” he said. “I don't think I ever met your parents. Chicago is a big city, Breeda. There are many covens.”

Dobra paused for a moment, then said, “I am sorry for you. I really am. But just having you in my house is placing my son and the other witches in this building in danger. Unless . . . has your family broken the oath with Gavin?”

“No,” I said quietly. “My father said there wasn't time.”

Dobra nodded. “Then I can't induct you as a member of this coven. I won't kick you out onto the streets, but I would ask that you give great thought to the burden you are placing upon us.”

I rose, eager to be alone, to have a moment to sort everything out. “Thank you for being honest with me.”

Dobra managed to smile. His gaze moved to a small table in the corner of his study, painted in feminine colors by a careful hand, a calligraphy
M
stenciled onto the drawer. “Honesty costs me nothing,” he said. “But regret. Now that is another beast altogether. It will hound me, nipping at my heels until I return to the darkness.”

I
found Miro sitting alone in the kitchen, hunched over a mug of tea, inhaling the steam.

“Hey,” I said.

His eyes flashed open, their color rich and varied. They brightened for only a second; then a coldness swept over the irises.

One look at me told him I knew his family's story, and his role in it. “I'm sorry,” I said. I didn't know what else to say.

Miro stood abruptly and turned his back to me. He lifted the teakettle. “Would you like some?” he asked. “It's bee balm.”

I took a small step closer to him. “Pick the leaves and hold the flower—”

“—Bee balm cures the stomach sour,” he finished automatically.

“See? I know some things,” I said.

Miro poured the tea and passed the mug to me. He was close, too close. My eyes left his face and trailed down to the talisman nestled in the pit of his throat. A stone so necessary, yet the source of so much damage.

“Do you want to ask me something?” His words were laced with anger.

I stared into my mug, watching the bright green leaves stain the water. “Yeah. I'd like to wash my things. Where is the laundry?”

“In the basement,” Miro said. “Take the back stairwell.”

I lingered in the kitchen, the silence between us the kind that stretches and pulls and tugs until someone gives up. I gave in first. “I appreciate all you've done for me, Miro. But your father put some things into perspective, and I think it's best I go. I'll stay at Evie's apartment.”

Miro shrugged. “Your choice.”

“There are too many of those lately,” I said, and forced myself to leave the room.

Dampness clung to the walls of the stairwell leading to the basement, but the laundry room itself was small and cozy with the comforting scents of lavender, gardenias, and vanilla. I peeled Shelley's clothing off and tossed it with mine into the washer. I grabbed a soft blanket hanging on a drying rack and wrapped it around my shivering body like a cocoon. A sorting table lined the opposite wall. I pushed myself onto the edge of it and pulled
The Mysteries of the Unmarked
from my backpack.

I opened the book, scanning the pages hungrily. The book's format had small, text-filled boxes and cartoonish renderings of unmarked witches skulking around, stealing powers from practicing witches. Disappointed, I started to close the book and shove it back in my bag before I noticed a section labeled “Family.”

I still felt that connection. It pulsed through my veins, thrumming softly, but steady, unceasing, and true. My mom and dad were alive, and probably in this city, close. I knew it all the way to the marrow of my bones.