The Wiccan Diaries: Neophyte Adept Part 65

s.h.i.+fters were eclecticsunless you were a witch- or wizard-s.h.i.+fter, but those were rare, hadn't happened in a century.

"Maybe that's why House Rookmaaker isn't in The Directory," I told Ballard the following morning. "Because it's an eclectic House. Prague wouldn't like that. You saw how Scroop treated you, when she found out you were a cyanthrope. It goes against their worldview. It's prejudice, is what it is. Them versus us. I may not transform, but I am a member of the Pack." Good thing the Sons and Daughters of Romulus placed no such scruple upon House sizes, I thought. This was bound to get ugly.

"If I can't find my House, probably it's because the Rookmaakersmy parentsknew to hide it. I'm on to something, Ballard. I can feel it. I'll let you know how it goes."

I flipped open the Everything book, back at my apartment, thinking about the marker and Selwyn's message: Beware the Dark Path. The marker was a warning to mebut I was all too reckless. I AM MY PARENTS' HOUSE. THEIR ORIFLAMME. The standard for which their House stood. It can only be led by a Level-Three Wiccan. Me. I must become Fledged.

Did I want to just skip Adept? Jump straight to the Super b.i.t.c.h? The all-powerful? The Chosen One?

If I was wiccaned, maybe there wasn't really any choice. Choices are illusions, Halsey... someone sent you down this PathThink! If I had to guess, Lenoir.

Who else could it have been? Maybe Lenoir was the Grey Wolf. Preposterous.

Then who?

In times of old, when magic spread, and wizards, ranked, split off, the following was compiled.

Feverishly, I began flipping through the Everything book; for the first time in a long time my magic flared. But that was just my mark. The last time it acted up, Rayven was close by, but he couldn't be here now, could he? Maybe it was because the book dealt with Grigori magic and Rayven was one of them, that my Mark was flaring. It spiked painfully, glowing blue.

I turned to the table of contents and found what I was looking for.

The Everything book was broken into sections. Section One dealt with Wicca; Two: Other Beings; Three: Dark Magic.

Rayven floating in my memory, I turned to Other Beings.

SHAPEs.h.i.+FTERSGRIGORI, BENANDANTI, THE SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF ROMULUS, THOSE WHO DO BOTH.

I flipped to where it directed, holding the Everything book under the candle flame of the Iron Roses, to THOSE WHO DO BOTH. The Grigori could transform and do spells, yet why could not Wiccans, or the Benandanti, or even The Sons and Daughters of Romulus? Once Lia turned, she could no longer TURN, I wrote in my Diary. It was like a lightbulb went off in my headbefore it exploded. The Grigori had Grigori Magic. Unfortunately, such a revelation could mean only one thing. Our enemies are a lot stronger than we are.

There was even a picture of a Grigori. I looked at the vile form and felt myself s.h.i.+ver. So this was what they looked like: Much fiercer than other werewolves, the Grigori possess an array of feiknstafir, and are handleggers, Those Who Do Both.

Under the safety of my four-poster, they were a lot easier to look at. Did "handlegger" mean what I thought it did? I looked it up in the glossary.

HANDLEGGERthe ability to transform, to conjure magic; to craft, Mark and paw. THOSE WHO DO BOTH.

The Grigori were handleggers, they could do both. s.h.i.+ft and craft. Rayven had a Mark. But if Lia had one also? Could Ballard? How did the Sons and Daughters of Romulus and the Benandanti find their magic?

I looked again at the picture of the Grigori. They looked like monsters. Yet they had none of the cunning of Rayven. He was a Watchtower, after all, before he was bent.

The Grigori can be fought. If Rayven can fall, so can they! I wrote that in my Diary. But could Rayven be defeated?

I didn't like to think what would happen if we fought them all. We could lose, we could definitely lose.

For some reason I expected the Grigori to have a b.a.s.t.a.r.dized form of magic, but they didn't. It was just in Grigori language. In fact, handlegger was actually handleggr. Hard R. A lot of the spells were like that. I memorized the Grigori spellbook as far as I could. It went on for hundreds of pages. There were thousands of spells. Spells for all kinds of things. I whispered one and the candle flame went out. Another, and the French doors slammed shut.

The preface to the Grigori section listed a caveat which held true for all of magic: Nota bene: Magic drains YOU, if you let it. That's what makes dueling so difficult. Therefore, be most a.s.sured of where you stand, or you'll not be the first spellcaster to die where he stood, embattled with an out-of-control hex.

So not only was it difficult to learn magic, but if you messed up, magic could kill you?! I had to look into that.

My head hit pillow and I fell into a troubling dream. Dallace and Camille were screaming. There was a battlefield. The earth cracked, and flames rushed forth. Lennox and Selwyn dueled a contingent of wizards....

Suddenly, I was falling through the air. I landed, flump, in a strange circular room. One of the twins from the Master House was there. But he wasn't a twin. He was making lots of himself. Am I spiritwalking? I thought, looking at the mirrors on the walls. Is that what I'm doing? But that would mean Was I a Lare? Was I dead?

WHERE IS SHE? WHAT IS SHE DOING? We will not be able to control her. RAVENSEAL was ordered to control her. Their failure leaves us no option. THE MASTER HOUSE MUST INTERCEDE.

NO, said the other twin. We will couch it in the covenantsUSE THEM. YesUSE THEM. The Dark Order is in Prague, and they are very worried, very worried, indeed, about Halsey Rookmaaker. Of all the Initiates, she showed the most spirit. Now she may walk the Dark Path and find out the secret they have been waiting centuries to possess... unlessyes, unless...

I don't think she knows how to find it, nor do I believe she has the POWER to open House Rookmaaker, to go her own way.... Will she figure out what she needs to do and follow the signs? Or bend like so many Houses have done before her?

Her parents and that werewolf planned aheadthey hid House Rookmaaker where only someone like her, someone Eclectic, could find it. If she is an Eclectic, then all she has to do is FOLLOW THE CATS. YesFOLLOW THE CATS. They will lead her straight....

I fell awake. Was the grey wolf somehow connected with me? What did that mean, follow the cats? What did I Gatti have to do with anything?

Because Risky was working with the Rookmaakers, to keep House Rookmaaker hidden, I thought. Then, how did Rayven find it? Because he's a shape changer. Maybe only a shape changer can find House Rookmaaker. ECLECTICS...

One of my parents must've been one...

Was I?... AM I...

Am I?

Think what you know, Halsey. You have a Mark. But so does Lia. But she can't transform anymore... Maybe you have to be a Grigori to be a handlegger.

But Lia used to be a Wolf, I said to myself.

DARKPATH... DARKPATH...

What if I was sitting on something so radical, so game changing, the consequences of it being found out were enough to kill to prevent? Again, what if my parents didn't want me finding House Rookmaaker? They'd hidden it on purpose, after all...

Yeahfor me to find it.

FOLLOW THE CATS.

I leapt on my motorcycle, pa.s.sing through the base of the Seven Hills. Eventually I entered the old historic center east of Trastevere at the Lower Tiber Bend. Lennox's place was nearby, but I didn't stop.

At first I thought "follow the cats" meant I Gatti, but it didn't. It was more literal. As in, follow the cats. Literally. Thankfully, I had kept the newspaper article. At last, Skarborough did something right.

STRAY ROMAN TABBIES IN LARGO ARGENTINA.

Calicoes, gingers, smoky graysRoman grimalkins have always had their place in Romeand their supportersuntil now.

Largo Argentina. I needed to go to Largo Argentina. I pulled the map from my wall, scanning the index. Largos were streets. It took me a while to find the one for Largo Argentina, but it was there. A few minutes on my computer gave me the details. It was about a mile away. Julius Caesar had been killed there.

On my bike again, I found the place. But this couldn't be it.

Buses came and went, the whole place had a kind of touring feel. Could my House really be located somewhere soso mundane?

But if it's hiddensaid a voicemaybe your parents intended for your House to be overlooked!

Largo Argentina was very normal, except for all the cats. They were simply everywhere: longhairs, shorthairs, Siamese, Abyssinian, spangled, Burmese, bobtails, manx, munchkins... Napoleon emperor cats, ragam.u.f.fins, ragdolls, Savannah, Siberian, sphynxes. But the most common breed was the housecat.

Buried below street level was a kind of pit. It was to here the cats were traveling. Pillars shot out of the pit, and a full Roman ruin was revealed.

Only here could something be preserved, I thought. Tall, faceless buildings looked down upon us. Pa.s.sengers shuffled busily past. But n.o.body stopped to look where they were going. And n.o.body paid attention to the cats.

They were mewling on the ancient Roman steps, the cats, or else basking in the sun. Others were looking at me.

I parked my motorcycle, taking off my helmet. Something of the lawless legend persisted from the Skarborough articles. Bus pa.s.sengers kept their distances from me. I stepped into the road and crossed hurriedly. The cats were gamboling. I stopped to pet one and then looked into Largo Argentina. Follow the cats...

The twins had been afraid that I would do somethingopen House Rookmaakermaybe train Eclecticsbut they didn't think I had the "power" or guts.

If I hadn't traveled out-of-body, I would never have gotten this lead, I thought. Stillwhat if it were hocus-pocus? What if there was no House Rookmaaker buried in Rome, waiting for me to find it? If House Rookmaaker was hidden, maybe even I couldn't find it.

I thought of Golden Lane, how you could only find Golden Lane if you knew where to look.

Only someone eclectic could find House Rookmaaker. But how?

The area was off-limits. I stood at street level, looking down into Largo Argentina, aware that if I was found out, I would probably be arrested. A mult.i.tude of cats was frisking about; I wasn't sure what I should do. But the twins knew where House Rookmaaker was; they'd been here before, when they okayed my parents' House. It must be here!

That settled it. I walked through the ancient rubble, past the cats, but no inspiration came to me. Several arches were in Largo Argentina. I walked toward them, but as I did so, something caught my eye.

A symbol, engraved in one of the columns, a symbol I had seen before. The Wiccan-slash-benandanti symbol for rebirth...

Asher told me that.

It was an eclectic symbol.

My heart rate accelerated.

The swirl. It was the symbol for rebirth. It meant they came back.

Lares, I thought.

What did it all mean? Feeling I was in the right place, I began walking over to the secret arches. They were hidden below street level. They fell in shadow; I couldn't see what was beneath them.

I thought of my parentsmurderedforgotten. Was it possible? Could it have been them who engraved that symbol on that pillar? What did it say about their House?

Three arches, one higher than the rest, stood in my view.

I could hear shoutingrevelers coming from The Campo, a local hotspot. The oriflammethey must've been eclectic, my parentsCould they come back? But I was elsewhere. The arches also had markings.

Three interlocked rings, which I had seen before, and on the center one, almost like a b.u.t.ton, the symbol for Protection connected and became one.

My Harm None ring flashed. Somehow I knew, instinctively, what to do.

I reached out my index finger with the unique swirl of magic patterned upon it and pressed the center arch with the symbol for the three rings upon it and somethingas they sayhappened.

Writing began to appearwords written in cursive, there on the doorway.

Welcome to House Rookmaaker.

I stepped back from the magical archway, which had begun to shake, the three doorways like the symbol for Protection, becoming one. Stones s.h.i.+fted. No one had been here in eighteen years. Not even Rayven. But, if it was my House, how had he gotten through?

I was suddenly terrified what I might find.

What if, what if whatever I found, didn't look like House Rookmaaker? What if I was digging where I shouldn't be? What if Locke was right and Prague would use this as an excuse to sneak their way into Rome? To oversee us. Would I be beholden to them, after all? What if I couldn't become fledged? I'd never shown any great apt.i.tude. Would we be monitored forever?

It was almost like the symbol for the Wiccan-slash-benandanti sign for rebirth was a symbol for House Rookmaaker. Like House Rookmaaker was being born again. Like I was its mother.

Rome was gone. This hush crept over me, as I left the city, and entered the grounds. Willow trees were everywhere. Lightning flashed across the sky. Vines crept through the iron bars, which had been broken open and were hanging off their hinges. It was darker here, twilit. House Rookmaaker stood in the distancea huge manor surrounded by a high hedge and a thick iron gate, below a tumultuous sky.

Lennox...

If the Grigori had come burning in the night, where were the scorch marks?

House Rookmaaker stood; yet it was my parents who had been eliminated. Not my House. I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the thunderstorm raging through me.

I fought my way through the branches and looked back at the silver s.h.i.+ning archway I had come through. It was engraved with many runes. This placewherever it waswas between two worlds. Like Limbo.

Only those who knew, could come here. House Rookmaaker... Yet a tiny suspicion began to form in the pit of my stomach. What THEM would the twins use? What them was it, in the ardanes, whose responsibility included punis.h.i.+ng rogue Houses? What them had come here to kill my parents and destroy my House?

Had the vampires come to rout out this House?

Such a realization could mean only one thing. It wasn't the Grigori who had done the destroying. Someone else had eliminated Kinsey and Maximilian Rookmaaker. If I had to guess: Vampires...

Chapter 16 The S Bros.

As I thought it, I felt a s.h.i.+ver ripple through me. Lennox was the only vampire in Rome, yet he had never said anything about my House. Ever. What did that say? That he didn't know about it, or he was covering things up?