Ricard Montague was a warlock in every sense of the word. Within the supernatural hierarchy there are a number of different types of magic users. Wizards spent lifetimes studying how to harness the power of magic, pouring through books and leveraging mystical artifacts. Sorcerers generally had magic come a bit more naturally to them, able to conjure spells without outside help or without reciting words from ancient tomes.
Warlocks were another thing entirely. More often than not, they were born from a magic sensitive lineage, as Ricard had been, though the male children of those witch families typically had less sensitivity to mystical forces than their female counterparts. As such, in many cases, the males would need outside assistance to gain the power they sought. That would often come with a sacrifice or a bargain made with an underworld being. A demon or devil who would agree to help the male magic user increase their innate magical abilities, though it always came with a price.
I’d never heard the full story of how Ricard gained his powers, but if the rumors were correct, he’d worked a deal with a shadow demon that had attended one of the ancient witches’ sabbaths. They’d made an agreement that Ricard would draw upon his power and in exchange would arrange some sort of agreement between the Darkheart Coven and the shadow demon’s own legion. But, again, if the rumors were true, Ricard had double crossed the shadow demon and had very nearly sparked a war between its legion and the coven, a conflict that his mother had barely been able to resolve.
Ricard inherited his mother’s silver hair and it fell in a long swath down the length of his curved spine. He wore a dark, layered robe, lined with crimson trim his pale hands clasped before him as he seemed to almost glide across the carpeted floor. His twin sister approached next to him, her hair jet black in stark contrast to the eggshell color of her skin. Gleaming, green eyes were twin jade jewels, catching the sun just right and carrying across the foyer toward us both. Lucinda Montague was never seen very far from her brother, the two of them acting in concert with each other to an almost frightening degree.
While Ricard often leveraged the shadow magic he’d leeched from the demon, Lucinda’s magic was far more light based, an elemental array of vibrant power that had stolen my breath the last time I’d seen it. That was over a century ago, and I could only imagine how much more powerful she’d gotten in the time since. She also wore a robe, though it shimmered with a pale off-yellow hue, blanketing her in a haloed backdrop that I found difficult to stare directly at.
“Loren. You didn’t— tell us you were coming.” Ricard approached his older sister and extended a hand, his long fingers flexing. There was no love in his voice or his face, and his eyes flashed menacingly even as Loren offered her hand and he bent to gently kiss the back of it.
“I wasn’t sure I was,” she replied, “but mother convinced me.”
“It is good to see you after so long.” Lucinda took her sister’s shoulders and drew her close, also giving her a gentle kiss, though on her cheek rather than the back of her hand. I felt gooseflesh erupt along my arms, the underlying sizzle of energy from these two magic users filling the air like static. Existing power— and a deep-rooted lust for more— seemed to radiate from them both and the closer they got the more I could almost feel the energy crackling between them, two halves of a single, sinister whole.
“Why would mother ask you here, I wonder?” Ricard studied Loren with a look that I could only translate as— hunger? “I thought you two had grown apart.”
“Situations like this have a tendency to heal old wounds, Ricard. Best to put the past behind us, yes? For mother’s sake?”
“Hmmm.” Ricard hummed, his thin lips pressed together, his look of hunger shifting to mistrust. “Did she speak to you of— leadership? You realize, of course, the coven is already working on succession planning.”
“I am aware.” Loren expertly avoided a direct answer to his question. I realized at that moment that Lucinda still stared at me, a look of distaste on her face, as if a homeless man had wandered into their living room and decided to sit on their sofa.
“And you, Angus? What brings you here?” Lucinda gestured toward me with a sweep of her luminescent robe.
“I just came for the after party.” I shrugged and could feel Loren bristle beside me.
Lucinda’s lips twitched with annoyance. “You— never change, do you?”
“That’s what they tell me.”
“I’m not sure I approve of your presence in the familial home, Angus,” Ricard replied dourly. “I’m not sure mother would either.”
“Actually, mom seemed okay with it.”
“Mom?”
“Well, I mean— technically Loren and I are still married, so—”
“Gus.” Her word was an axe, chopping my sentence in half before it was complete. “Now is not the time.”
I bowed my head gently and gestured toward her.
“Mother was fine with it,” Loren said, giving me a gleaming side-eye. “I thought it best to put the past behind us and whether you both like it or not, Angus is a part of that past. They have— made amends.”
“Good,” Ricard replied. “Then, with that out of the way— perhaps Angus can slink back to his cave and not darken our doorstep again.”
“You know,” I replied, pinching my chin, “I think I might just hang out here for a while. I mean— there are plenty of bedrooms.”
I could almost hear Ricard’s teeth grinding together beneath his thin lips, his narrow, almost feminine jaw flexing in anger. Loren sighed, exasperated, and I felt just a little bit guilty for pushing her brother’s buttons. Ricard and Lucinda were Loren’s siblings, but they were also very powerful and very, very dangerous. As much as fun as it was to tweak their noses— that sort of thing might have been bad for my health.
“I think it’s about time we adjourned, Gus. We did what we came here to do.” Loren moved toward the foyer entrance, giving me a look that silently communicated her insistence.
“Please, dear sister,” Ricard said insistently, though the word ‘dear’ held none of the emotion the word normally contained. “Don’t depart on our account. I feel like there is so much to catch up on.” Ricard waved a hand and the pair of wooden doors that had stood open moments before banged closed as if a stiff gust of wind had blown through open windows. Loren stood rigid, facing her two siblings, looking not the least bit intimidated.
“Parlor tricks, Ricard? Truly? Is that what we’ve become?”
“How would you know what we’ve become?” Lucinda took a step forward, studying her older sister. “You’ve been— gone. Off, wherever. Backpacking across Europe or whatever bullshit high school desires you’ve been cultivating.”
“Do we need to do this now? Here? Mother is in the next room, Lucinda. Our dying mother, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“I have not forgotten, Loren. I couldn’t forget. After all, we’ve been the ones here, by her side while you were pretending to be human!”
I felt the static charge of Loren’s anger increase, a sudden clawing bristle across my skin, the hairs standing on the back of my hands.
“Don’t think we don’t know why you’re here,” Ricard interjected. “Playing it up for our mother so you can get what you want.” He and Lucinda exchanged a knowing glance, then actually reached out and touched hands together, gesturing almost lovingly before turning their attention back to their sister.
“I’m only here to say good-bye. To try and put our rocky past behind us.”
“We’ve heard the whispers.” Ricard’s voice held a sharpened edge of accusation.
“Oh? And what whispers would those be?”
“This power play. An attempt to wrest coven leadership from us.”
“Coven leadership was never yours in the first place.”
Ricard’s jaw worked, clenched and shifted back and forth. When he’d spoken last, I thought I’d caught the tell-tale sign of sharpened incisors— his normal teeth filed into narrow points. It was something that warlocks did, from time to time, their pacts with demons becoming almost an obsession with their culture. A subliminal desire to shift their form into something more representative of the beast that provided them their powers.
“So you don’t deny it?”
“Deny what?”
“That you’re here to take over the Darkheart Coven.”
“If I really wanted the Coven, dear brother, I would have had it by now.” Loren drew herself upright, looking every inch the elder sibling— the one in charge, who talked down to her youngers.
“Ah, so the truth comes out,” Lucinda sneered, shaking her head, then looked at her brother. “As we always knew it would.”
“The only truth to concern yourselves with is that our mother is dying and we disrespect her memory by having this little spat. We should be setting aside our differences and wishing her well. Not sparring with each other.”
“I can’t speak for you,” Lucinda replied, “but we’ve been here by her side for the last hundred years. It’s not our fault that you feel the need to atone for something.”
Loren’s eyes closed and I could see the gentle flare of her nostrils as she battled herself to remain calm.
“The coven is ours, Loren. As it was always meant to be.” Ricard stepped ever closer, close enough that even I was a little uncomfortable with his proximity. “Do not stand in the way of that, or you will regret it.”
Loren blinked back at him but said nothing. Her fingers twitched, ever so slightly, and the double doors once again creaked open, exposing the outside world.
“Pleasure chatting with you folks as always,” I said, helpfully, and followed her out into daylight. As we descended the broad staircase, the door slammed closed loudly behind us, echoing throughout the hustle and bustle of outside activity. We reached the bottom, where the cobblestone walkway met the stone staircase and I already saw the valet bringing Sammy’s crappy Toyota around.
“That was— pleasant.”
“It was miserable, Gus. Sometimes I wonder how I’m possibly related to those two wretches.”
“Maybe you were adopted?” I meant it with a note of humor, though Loren didn’t laugh.
“Sometimes I wonder. I prefer the company of humans— I don’t feel this desperate need for witch-like community like they do. Hell, I fell in love with you at one point.” She rolled her eyes comically.
“At one point?”
“Don’t make this weird, Gus.”
The Toyota eased to a stop in front of us both and I stepped toward the passenger side as the driver’s side opened and the valet stepped free. Loren shook me off.
“I found a place nearby. A place to stay, I mean. One of my mother’s drivers is going to take me there later.”
“Oh.” I tried not to sound as crestfallen as I felt but judging by the hint of humor in Loren’s face, I’d failed utterly. She stepped toward me and touched my arms with her hands, gently, though the contact still sent a spark through the thick fabric of my coat and into the underlying skin.
“Thank you, Gus. I appreciate you coming. Mom does, too, even if she’d never admit it.”
“Anytime, Loren. Really. For you, I’d—”
She lifted her hand and touched my lips with a finger, shaking her head. “Like I said, don’t make it weird.”
It hadn’t always been weird for us to express our affection for one another, and I tried to consider what had changed to alter that experience. The simple answer was— everything. I stepped away, feeling the residual heat of her finger against my lips, then I was in the car, watching her walk back up the stairs before I hit the gas and left it all behind me.