Chapter 14

 

I've been reading the parts of the Ayers grimoire that I can translate. A good deal of it is in Latin, which I'm actually pretty good at reading. The Ayers are powerful witches. In our line, the females hold the most power. This isn't always the case. There are plenty of powerful natural born male witches, but it's the female line in the Ayers family that seems more predisposed to magic. According to the text, most of us survived the witch craze in Medieval Europe, and we traveled to the new world looking for religious freedom. We migrated toward the South, to the land of magnolias and swamps. There is something mysterious about the South. It has hidden us well, cloaked us. I haven't found anything that would connect me to Demons, but there's one part of the book I still can't read. I've tried, but the tingling in my body gets so bad, I have to stop. Only Demons make me hurt like that. Why would the grimoire?

 

~Monroe's Totally Wicked Book of Shadows~

 

 

 

In the blackness, I dreamed.

Light surrounded me, gentle sunlight burning through an early morning haze. A rolling green field with low stone walls spread out in front of me with a small stone cottage sitting crookedly on the meadow's edge. White, puffy clouds floated above the house, and smoke lifted from a narrow chimney.

I walked toward the home, breathing in the scent of early morning. It was cold, but not as cold as the lake and forest. It was the kind of cold that would heat with the rising sun. Damp grass clung to my boots.

Someone yelled, and I froze.

"Mac! Mac!" a girl screamed.

From the edge of the field, a blonde-haired girl ran down a hill, her hair flying behind her. I knew this girl, and my eyes narrowed. Eta. This girl was Eta. She was an older Eta than the one I'd seen at the lake in my vision, the one who'd watched her father killed by Hunters.

The door to the cottage slammed open, and a broad-shouldered young man stepped out into the sun. His brown breeches and knee-length black boots clung to him. A loose white tunic hung open, his bronze chest bare to the elements. He didn't seem to notice or care, his hand coming up to shield his eyes.

"Eta!" he called out.

The girl flew into Mac's arms, and his shirt tightened over his back as his arms enfolded her, one large hand coming up to the back of her head.

"Shhh ..." he soothed. "What's happened, Lass?"

Eta pulled back, her startling red-rimmed blue eyes going up to Mac's face. Eta was beautiful, her skin ethereal, her features soft and doll-like. I found myself wondering briefly if I looked like that. I certainly didn't see myself that way.

I edged closer to them, my experience with the Hunter in the vision I'd had at Belle's making me cautious. I didn't know if I was dreaming the scene, envisioning it, or participating in it.

Eta's hand came up to Mac's longish, chestnut hair. There were red highlights in his thick mane, and the sun made them glint as Eta ran her fingers through it. The move was familiar, intimate, and it made my chest tighten. What would it feel like to trust someone that deeply?

"It's the Coven, Mac," Eta said after a moment. "They want me to take over for my father."

Mac smiled, his handsome, rugged face transforming. "That's good, is it not?"

Eta didn't share his enthusiasm. "Mac, if I choose to lead them, I'll have to leave. The Hunters have been breathing down our necks now for a while. First, they killed my father and now they have infiltrated the nobility. The witch craze begins. Our Coven ... we will need to leave to escape it."

Mac had grown still, his shoulders tensing. His hand went to Eta's stomach. For the first time, I noticed it was rounded, soft. Eta was pregnant.

"You canna go," Mac said fiercely. "Not now."

Eta's hand moved to Mac's face, to the new growth of whiskers along his chin. I could almost feel its roughness against my own palm, and I clenched my fist, my heart pounding. My hand went to my stomach, my eyes welling up with tears. Somehow, some way, I was inside Eta's head. Her love for Mac was my love, and my heart was breaking.

"The Coven ... most of them are my family. Cousins, aunts, uncles, children ... I cannot let them die."

Mac's hand came up to cover Eta's on his face. "Someone else can lead. I can protect you here. I protected you before."

Eta's hand tightened on Mac's jaw, her eyes searching his. Desperation ran rampant through her blood, my blood. "Come with me, Mac," she begged. "For me. For the baby."

Mac's eyes darkened. "This is my land, Eta. My birthright. My family fought for generations for this land, bled for it, and you are asking me to leave it?"

"Aye," Eta whispered. "I am. The witch craze, it won't just kill witches. You must know that. They will accuse anyone associated with us. They will torture you."

Mac stepped away from Eta, and her hands fell to her sides.

"I canna go, Eta. I canna. These men and women are my neighbors. We have shed blood together. We have sweated together. They willna accuse me or you," Mac stated firmly.

Eta stepped toward him. "It willna matter. Magic scares people. They think witches are evil, that we ally ourselves with the devil. Your bond with them willna matter. Please understand—"

"Understand what, Eta? That you want me to leave my land, my family to follow you? You are asking me to do the same thing you refuse to do for me. I stood up for you once, protected you when your father died, and you now refuse to stay here with me."

Eta hugged herself, her arms going around her middle. I could feel the baby in her belly moving, like butterfly wings, and I hugged my own middle, the wonder of it completely overwhelming me.

"Please, Mac! Don't make me choose between you and our baby," Eta whispered.

Mac's jaw dropped. "Choose! You think I am asking you to choose?"

Eta nodded. "If I stay, I risk being killed. I risk the baby being killed. Do you not see that?"

"They wouldna do that," Mac argued. "You are safe here. Our baby is safe here."

Eta's eyes were sad when she looked at Mac. "I have visions, Mac. You know that. It willna be okay."

Mac went down on his knees, his hands clutching Eta's homespun white dress, the brown cloak she wore over it falling down her shoulders as Mac's head went to Eta's stomach.

"Don't," he said. "Don't."

I'm not sure even he knew what he was begging for. A tear slid down Eta's cheek, and I knew when the sharp pain blossomed behind my chest what decision she'd made. Her hands went to Mac's hair, and she clutched it.

"Let's go inside," she said, her voice calm. The baby within her moved again, sealing her decision, her fate.

Mac stood, his face hopeful as she led him inside. The door shut.

 

The dream changed.

 

It was suddenly dark outside, the bright moon above not quite full but close. An owl hooted as the dark cottage door opened. I caught a glimpse of a low burning fire within as Eta stepped outside, silently shutting the door behind her. Her eyes went to the moon, and her hand went to her belly.

"You know not what I sacrifice for you," she whispered to her child as she scurried away from the cottage.

With each step, her heart tore, bleeding into her chest until I thought we would both die from internal bleeding. But she didn't. I didn't, and I followed her, my booted feet running on slippery grass.

I fell to my knees, my eyes going to Eta's back as she met up with a group of cloaked figures on the hill above the cottage. The Coven.

"You willna be followed?" an older woman asked, her white hair thin where it lay against her brown cloak.

Eta looked back down the hill. "I am a good witch, Maren. He will sleep peacefully tonight."

Maren nodded, her eyes sad. "I am sorry, Eta. You made the right choice."

Eta frowned, anger moving through her veins. "I didna choose the Coven, Maren. Remember that. I do this now for my child."

The woman didn't answer, and the group of cloaked figures moved away again, disappearing into a thick forest at the edge of the field. Eta didn't look back.

 

Once more, the dream changed.

 

It was still night, but there was no doubt time had passed. There was thick snow on the ground. Trees were bare. The wind was sharp. I shivered, but I didn't move. I was near the cottage again, but now there was yelling in the distance and torches bobbing in the blackness beyond.

"Witch lover!" someone screamed.

My heart sunk when the mob appeared on the hill.

The cottage door opened, and a much thinner, broken Mac exited. His skin was bare from the waist up, and his young face was covered with a brown beard, his eyes empty. The red in his hair glistened as torchlight covered his figure.

"Take him!" a man yelled.

Hands were suddenly gripping Mac's arms—hard hands, large hands, frightened hands. Mac went down on his knees as a rope was wrapped around his wrists and then his body.

A big burly man tied Mac's hands to the back of a wagon that materialized from the edge of the group. Horses with fur covered feet were harnessed to the front of it, stamping impatiently, their breaths misting on the black air.

"John," Mac said weakly. "Why?"

"Because you dallied with a witch, brother," the big man said. "You are as evil now as they are. Your seed has been passed to the devil."

Mac's head hung, but his biceps tightened where his fists clenched inside the ropes. "I am all the better for it," Mac said. "She was right, and I was a fool."

I fell in love with this man then, this broken man who, even in this moment, didn't turn his back on Eta. It would be his death.

"Are you better for it?" John sneered.

Mac looked up, his cold, grey eyes hard."I am much better for it. You can kill me, brother, but you canna destroy my spirit."

John spat in Mac's face. "Now!" John ordered angrily.

The driver of the wagon snapped the horses' reins. I looked away as Mac's body was dragged behind the conveyance. I never heard him scream.

The wagon stopped, and another wagon came up behind it, facing in the opposite direction. My hand came up to cover my mouth as Mac's feet were tied to the new vehicle. They were going to tear Mac's body apart!

"Any last words, brother?" John asked.

Mac couldn't lift his head, but his voice was clear when he said, "If I am a sinner, then so be it. A plague on you all!"

The reins on both carts snapped.

 

I sat up, my scream loud.

A hand went over my mouth. "Shhhh ... wake up, Monroe," Luther's voice said in my ear.

My eyes went wide. The room we were in was dark, but it wasn't the cabin in the Scottish forest anymore. It was a bedroom, a nice one with modern furniture, a roll top desk in the corner, and a large fire in a gas fireplace in front of the bed.

"We traveled while you slept."

Luther answered my unspoken question, his hand still against my lips.

"We are in Salem, in the home of a seer. Belle is downstairs with Lucas. Bernice is asleep in the room next to yours."

Luther's explanation did nothing to calm me. The dream was still too raw, a vivid memory now etched into my brain. I tried backing up and froze when my arm hit my backpack.

My eyes traveled to the bed as Luther's hand slipped away from my face. The blankets over my legs were thick and warm and smelled faintly of Gain laundry detergent, but the pillows were gone, replaced by my backpack, the same backpack that held the grimoire. I didn't look back up at Luther.

"You put the grimoire under my head?"

My words were more an accusation than a question. I was a visionary. I knew now why I'd had the newest vision, knew now it was because Luther had let me sleep on the book.

"Getting inside your family's head is the best way to figure out where they went wrong, and you are the key to that. The Demonic portion of the book is opening to you," Luther said.

I still didn't look at him, a tear working its way from the corner of my eye to my chin. It hung there.

"You suspect the Ayers summoned a Shadow, don't you?" I asked. "You think that's why we are connected to Demons. That we summoned one the same way you were summoned."

The conversation and kiss I'd shared with Luther at the lake was as fresh as the vision I'd just had. Things Luther had said to Hannah ... it all made sense.

Luther shifted. "It's one of the more obvious reasons for your family's connection to Demons."

My hand lifted, and I placed it against the backpack, on the figures standing arm in arm across the front. The tin man, the cowardly lion, the scarecrow. One looking for a heart, another a brain, and the last for courage. The book lay beneath. My heart bled. Mac.

"It doesn't explain Bernice," I said.

Luther didn't answer me. He knew I was right. My hand tightened against the backpack.

"Eta took over the Coven after her father's death. She was pregnant. She was in love. And Mac ... " my voiced cracked. "Mac died for her."

"I know," Luther said, and I looked up at him, at his strong face where the firelight played across his features.

"Why?" I asked. "Why do I need to relive it all?"

Luther's head lowered. "Because your powers are tied to theirs, Monroe. Because the visionaries before you suffered, because they saw things that led to this moment, to whatever it is that cursed your family."

I knew Luther had been in my head. Not only did he have to posses me for my supposed own good, but I knew he'd want to see what I saw, that he had seen what I had seen. It was in his eyes.

"Do you feel nothing?" I asked him. "My heart ... it hurts."

Luther's jaw tightened. "It'll heal," he said.

It seemed so wrong that I was so attracted to this man, this Demon whose hard eyes had probably seen so much more than I had seen in visions, who saw being bad as something good, who seemed untouched by simple moments. But I was attracted to him. There was no way I could deny that, not sitting this close to him.

"I'm not sure I want to see more," I whispered.

Luther's hand went to the back of my head. He seemed to have no trouble touching me. I'm not sure he had trouble touching anyone. Luther lived life the way he wanted to live it. No rules. No thought to what was right.

"All of that pain in one witch," he said. I knew he meant me by the way his red-tinged eyes met mine. "It all leads to you. Even Bernice. I don't know how yet, Monroe, but it does."

The interest in his gaze was new. My eyes narrowed. The look didn't mean he was interested in me. Oh, I had no doubt he was attracted to me, but I'd also seen lust in his eyes with Belle. Hadn't I? No, this was something different.

"I'm not a favor you're doing for your brother any more, am I?" I asked.

A smile tugged at Luther lips. "Call it curiosity," Luther said. "Let's just say your family has intrigued me."

And with that, Luther leaned forward, his lips brushing my forehead. It wasn't a sweet kiss. It wasn't even romantic.

"Your blood," he said, "is tempting."

I pulled away. "I won't share it."

Luther laughed. "Doesn't mean I wouldn't love a taste, Witch. You look like an angel, but you smell like trouble. It's damned intoxicating."

I pushed the covers away and stepped over the side of the bed. I was tired of the clothes I was in, and I picked up the backpack. Luther was by the door when I turned, his speed both intimidating and a relief.

"There is a bathroom in the hall. Come downstairs when you are done," he ordered.

I nodded as he moved from the bedroom, the door shutting behind him, leaving me in a room touched by firelight, by images of Mac. My hand went to my flat stomach. Nothing moved within my womb as it had Eta's. I looked up.

"You are the father of one of my ancestors, Mac," I said. "And I am proud to know your blood runs within my veins."

An image of a smiling Mac played behind my eyes as I re-opened the bedroom door and peered out into the hallway before stepping out onto a beautiful wine-colored runner covering deep, mahogany wooden floors. A deep breath, and I closed the bedroom door. Mac's face disappeared.