Dire Blood (#5) (The Descent Series) (2 page)

The ritual was not a true initiation—they couldn’t join until they were at least sixteen. But it was an open invitation to apply once they came of age.

If they survived that long.

“Do you swear to honor the Mother Goddess and Horned God, and to be ever mindful of the Rule of Three?” Landon asked Hannah, his hand resting atop hers. She was awfully beautiful with a crown of flowers perched atop her ears.

“I do.”

“And harm you none, do what you will.” He brushed a line of oil across her forehead. A blossom fluttering from the tree above caught in her hair. “So mote it be. Walk with grace, adept.”

She stepped back to join the circle. Christine took her place. Instead of wearing flowers, she had woven her headband out of supple twigs. Landon repeated the same words and gestures with her.

James wasn’t listening. He was distracted by two men entering the forest clearing. They hung back from the circle to watch the ceremony. One of them was Metaraon—who James had not seen in months—and the other was a young man with red hair, broad shoulders, and an angry scowl. Neither of them wore the robes of witches.

“Walk with grace, adept,” Landon told Christine, and she joined the circle.

Ariane was the last of them. She wore no crown.

The high priest handed an athame to her, but he did not speak. She made no oath. He only gazed at her for a long, grave moment, let out a sigh, and drew the line of oil across her forehead.

“Walk with grace, Ariane Garin,” Landon whispered.

A few minutes later, they broke the circle. The coven lounged throughout the field, grounding their energies and drinking wine to celebrate. Pamela even let Christine have a sip of her wine.

Sidling up to his sister, James asked, “Who is that with Metaraon?”

“Mind your business and don’t ask so many questions, twerp.” She left to talk with Ariane.

James sat alone on the stump of a fallen tree. He plucked bits of grass from the earth, one by one, and watched the magic fade from the blades.

He was surprised to hear someone speak behind him.

“His name is Isaac,” Hannah said, sitting next to him. “He’s Ariane’s boyfriend.”

“Ariane has a boyfriend?” James found it hard to believe that she could have gotten into a relationship while living with Pamela. None of them were ever allowed out for fun.

“That’s what she said—not that she’d tell me anything other than that. I’m still not cool enough to hang out with Ariane and Christine. But I heard them talking.” Hannah lowered her voice. “Ariane is even having sex.”

As a sheltered ten-year-old who knew much more about magic than the female species, James still wasn’t certain how the mechanics of sex worked, or why anyone would want to do it. But he didn’t want to seem uneducated on the subject, so James only remarked, “Isaac is kind of old.”

“Eighteen. And he’s a kopis, too, which means he kills things for fun. Pretty bad, huh?” She wrinkled her delicate nose. “Don’t ask me what he’s doing with that other guy. Metaraon creeps me out, so I’m staying away.
Far
away.”

“Do you think they’re going to bind?” James asked. Pamela had refused to teach him how to perform the ritual that bound a witch to a kopis, but he had sneaked into her office to read the book on it once or twice, just for fun.

Hannah dropped her voice to a whisper. “They already have. Don’t tell anyone.”

Ariane left with Isaac and Metaraon that day.

She didn’t show up at the next esbat. Or the next one, either, even though Hannah and Christine were there. And when James finally worked up the courage to ask Pamela what had happened, all his aunt would say was, “Mind your business.”

It was two years before Ariane came back.

J
ames and Hannah
returned to Boulder a few weeks after graduation, leaving Christine behind to enjoy Pamela’s loving care.

Hannah was two years older than him and he was homeschooled, so he only ever got to see her on the occasional sabbat and esbat. That meant a glimpse of the beautiful blond girl once every month or so—if he was lucky.

One day, driving home from the grocery store with his father, he glimpsed Hannah on the sidewalk outside a dance studio. She was wearing a unitard and leggings. Her hair was pulled back into an elegant knot, and she was laughing at something her parents had said. Pointe shoes dangled from one hand.

She glanced at the passing Faulkner car, and James noticed that she had very perfect teeth.

“I want to take ballet classes,” he told his parents that night.

His mother dried her hands on a dishtowel. “Is that so? Why would you want to do that?”

“I like music.” That wasn’t a lie. James had been taking piano lessons ever since he could be trusted not to break the baby grand in the foyer, and he always received standing ovations when he performed.

“I think you already have enough activities to fill your day,” said his father. “Ballet. I mean,
really
.”

His mother sighed. “Richard. Please.”

He held up his hands defensively. “Think about it, James. You spend your mornings in music lessons. Your afternoons are general education, and you spend every evening studying magic until you pass out from exhaustion. I just can’t see how you would have time for something else. I have no problem with ballet as a concept.” And if he did, he was smart enough not to say it in hearing range of his wife.

James folded his arms, ducked his head, and gave his mother The Look. “I want to take ballet.”

So he took ballet.

Unfortunately, it turned out that Hannah had already been dancing for several years, and she was in a much more advanced class than he was. But James was a fast learner when he wanted to be. Magic fell by the wayside as he spent more and more time practicing dance.

The coven noticed.

“Would you like to test for initiation into the coven early?” Landon asked James at the next esbat.

James had been hoping for exactly that outcome since his year studying with Pamela, but the idea suddenly didn’t sound quite as appealing.

“I guess,” he said.

Landon had a very long talk with James’s parents after that. Accusations like “lack of enthusiasm” and “distraction” were bandied around.

“I think it’s love,” his mother whispered.

Soon enough, James found himself placed in Hannah’s ballet class. He was very tall and strong for his age, and the instructor wanted him to practice lifts so that he could join their holiday performance.

“You’re a good dancer,” Hannah said after their first class together. It didn’t sound like a compliment.

James felt hot all over. “Thanks.”

“You’re amazing at witchcraft and pretty much a genius at everything else you try. Did you have to take over dance, too? Can’t you suck at
something
?”

Hannah whirled and marched out of the room, leaving James alone in the dance studio as he struggled to understand what he had done wrong.

DECEMBER 1980

C
hristine came home
for the holidays, and she was nothing like the sister James had left behind at Pamela’s house. She had to stop to catch her breath every time she walked somewhere, even if it was just across the room.

“What’s wrong with you?” James asked when she took a break in the middle of decorating the house for Christmas. He was balanced precariously atop a chair so that he could hang garland over the kitchen doorway.

“You’re what’s wrong with me, twerp,” she snapped, and then she stretched out on the couch to rest for a few more minutes.

James’s mother entered the living room and snapped the back of his legs with a dishtowel. “Get down from there! You know that belonged to Mama Gray!”

“Then how am I supposed to get up there to string lights?” he asked.

“Get creative. Down. Now.” He grudgingly dropped to the floor and threw the rest of the decorations into the box. Seemingly satisfied that Mama Gray’s legacy was safe once again, their mother put her hand on Christine’s forehead. “You’re looking sick, dear. What’s wrong?”

“I’m just sleepy,” Christine said.

Before she could interrogate her daughter further, the timer in the kitchen started beeping. “Don’t let your brother break priceless antiques.”

James’s mother returned to the cookies.

“I wasn’t going to break anything,” he said, pulling a notebook out of his back pocket and flipping through the pages.

Christine sagged on the couch, apparently too exhausted to argue with him. That worried James more than her lack of color. She had never had problems finding a reason to argue with her little brother.

He tore a piece of paper out of the notebook and blew on it.

Sparkling lights erupted throughout the room and settled like glistening diamonds on the garland he had already hung. James turned the chandelier off, and the living room remained bright enough from his magic to see perfectly.

The twinkling lights reflected in his sister’s hungry eyes. “What is that?” Christine asked.

“It’s a spell I was playing with,” James said, crumpling the scorched page and tossing it in the trash. “It’s just for looks. It’s stupid.”

“No. What’s
that
?” She pointed at his notebook.

He shrugged as he stuffed it into his pocket again. “Aunt Pamela’s been teaching me about paper magic over the phone and stuff. She wanted my help developing it.”

Christine sat up and reached for him. “Let me see.”

“I’m not supposed to let other witches play with my notebook.”

“Give it here, James,” she insisted, getting to her feet and bracing a hand against the wall. “I’m not just some witch. I’m your sister.”

It was easy to dodge her swiping hands. Christine was awfully slow.

“Pamela told me specifically not to give it to you.”

That stopped her cold. “Pamela told you that?”

“Yeah,” James said. Emboldened by her reaction, he added, “She said that she doesn’t trust you.”

Christine’s face crumpled. “But I’m getting better,” she whispered.

“You’re just not as good as me.”

Her chin trembled, her eyes glistened, and her entire face turned red.

She fled from the living room and slammed her bedroom door.

C
hristine didn’t show
up for the performance of The Nutcracker on Christmas Eve. “Where is she?” James asked his parents backstage after the show, drenched in sweat and abuzz with adrenaline. He was only in the chorus, but he had done well, and he knew it; James felt the same way he always felt after unleashing a successful spell.

“She’s sick,” said his dad as his mother hugged him tightly. “She stayed home to sleep.”

He thought back on telling Christine that she wasn’t as good as he was, and felt guilty. Just a little. Despite their constant conflict, that had seemed to cross some unspoken line that siblings shouldn’t cross. But he was much too excited by his fantastic performance to worry about it for long, and Hannah was meeting her parents a few feet away, too.

She had done even better than James. He had a hard time focusing when he was watching her dance, and he wanted to tell her just that.

He pushed his mom off of him. “Wait a minute.”

Hannah stepped away from her parents so that they could speak. “What do you want, James?”

He wanted to tell her that she was incredible. Perfect. But all that came out was a few incoherent stutters, and, “Amazing.”

“Amazing?” She folded her arms. “What’s amazing?”

You are, Hannah
.

“The show,” he said weakly.

She tilted her chin down and arched an eyebrow, which James would later think of as “the Hannah glare.” It would always have the ability to wither him on the spot. “I heard that Landon has invited you to initiate early.”

He was surprised and pleased that she had been paying attention. “Yeah, he did.”

“Tell him no,” Hannah said. “Don’t do it.”

“Why?”

She glanced around, as if to see if anyone were listening. Her parents were talking to his parents now, and she pushed him into the shadow behind a curtain. She was a full inch taller than him. Her lips were shiny with pink gloss. “When you initiate, you’re still not a real member of the coven. Not until you’re an adult, and you get a private meeting with Landon. Then he tells you things. Coven secrets.”

“I probably already know all those secrets. I’m the high priestess’s nephew,” he said.

She shook her head. “Not this. And you don’t
want
to know.” Hannah peered at their parents around the curtain before going on. “You can’t leave the coven once they make you a full member. You’re stuck for the rest of your life. They made Ariane a full member last year, even though she’s still too young, and you know what she did? She ran away.”

“What are you getting at?”

“Don’t initiate into the coven,” Hannah said. “That’s all.”

“But aren’t you going to do it?” he asked.

She didn’t get a chance to respond. Their parents had realized that they were missing and had located them behind the curtain.

“What’s with the frown?” asked James’s mother, squeezing his shoulders as she led him to the car. She was crying again. She
always
cried at his performances. “You should be happy! You did so well, sweetie!”

“Can we just go home?” James asked, wriggling out of her grip. He wanted to forget what Hannah had told him. But it wasn’t the last time he heard about problems with the coven.

JUNE 1982

I
t was summer
again, and that meant that it was time for James to study magic at Pamela’s house for three more months. When he arrived, Christine met him at the front door to watch him move his bags into the spare bedroom.

“Ariane’s going to join us soon,” she told James as he set his suitcase on the bed.

“Really?” He could barely summon Ariane’s face from his memory. Even though they had spent an entire year studying together, he had done a lot since that time. He had successfully put the Metaraon thing, as well as all of the unsettling feelings that came with it, out of his mind. “Does that mean Hannah might visit for the summer, too?”