The Wiccan Diaries: Neophyte Adept Part 57

With that thought, I would meet it, and if my feet just happened to carry me to Prague, so be it.

It was a wrench leaving the Gambalunga behind. My personal property would be safe, including my Diary, which I left strapped under the seat, in preparation for a quick getaway. The benandanti wouldn't like it if they knew I was leaving themheading to Prague on my own.

It was just me and my hoodie, gone to find the lake. The snow had melted away and it was raining. A light drizzle pitter-pattered solemnly on the ground.

If Grigori had magic, then did vampires? Does Lennox? Does he have a Mark like mine? Camille did, I thought.

Thinking about Rome, I got an uneasy feelinglike we had been gone too long. Now, it was only a matter of finding the grey wolf. Then Prague, and Selwyn if I could.

I doubled back, fetched my backpack, and quickly scribbled two notes.

To Asher, Laurinaitis and Manon: I came here for a purposeand until I finish it... I can't discuss any plans for the future without first seeing Prague for myself Tell Ballard I'm sorry. Please watch over my Gambalunga.

Halsey P.S. Don't worry. I'm supposed to be meeting someone.

Next I wrote a letter to Lia. I made sure everything was in orderthat I had all my stuffand then I wentheadlong, into the treeschasing after it.

Part of me knew I was being really stupid. After all, if the grey wolf was after me, so was Rayven, but I didn't care. I had to figure certain things out for myself, regardless of what happened to me, even if that meant getting myself killed, or, or injured, or something.

A recklessness had come over melike there were lots of mes and current-Halsey, what I might call this-me, couldn't be on her duff for very long.

BE RECKLESS. OkayI would be.

Genevieve was my G.o.dmother. She had my back. But she also had been preparing St. Martley's for war. Why?

Combat and fight mechanics.

That was code for The Atlantic may protect us from European witchcraft and wizardry, but guess what? Oceans can be traversed! And forests! Wizards and witches can fly!

The Stromovka was a stopgap, a band-aid, nothing more. Things were being drawn to the oldest of magic citiesincluding me. My boots were already caked in mud before I hit upon the path which led to the lake.

I figured I'd start there. See if I could catch sight of the grey wolf. Maybe it was trying to get me on my own. There was n.o.body else around. Come on, come out.

My pack felt light. I only had my personal effects. The letter to Lia would be dispatched once I got to Prague. I didn't even have Ballard's map with me. I knew Prague was yonder. Perhaps the area around Prague was like a siphon. It could sift lost souls.

What if you were marked for something? I told myself. Something no one else could do. But you had to change who you were, to do it? Could you go through with it? Or would the transformation be even more than you could bear? If it changed you enough, would you cease to be you?

I was thinking about the Super b.i.t.c.h, this so-called lupa mannara, my quintessence. This animism, like a solar eclipse, or the ring of fire. When the sun was occulted by the moon, it created this fringe, the ring of fire, which blotted the other out, like the ring on my finger, except inflamed. Harm None.

I stepped into the clearing and Lennox was standing there.

"What kept you?" he said.

The "Leh" part of the sentence got stuck on the way out. Was this what my Power of Sight was? Things being taken for granted and just happening?

I was sure he wasn't an hallucination.

Stepping closer into the clearing, he echoed my footsteps.

"I haven't seen you in six months," I said. "And you think you can just stand there, looking all cool like that?"

"Pretty much. Yeah," said Lennox.

He ran his hands through his hair, the act a kind of nonchalance.

"Besides, you need my help," he said.

I pushed past him.

"I'm going to Prague. You know, that place filled with vampire hunters? I can only a.s.sume your parents meant the Grigori," I said, referring to Dallace and Camille.

He tried lifting branches out of my wayviburnums and so forth.

"We need to talk," he said. He wasn't trying to stop me.

His violet-colored eyes looked like flames in a lamp.

"And the Understatement Award goes to."

"I'm serious," he said.

"So am I."

Privately, I thought: I'm a Neophyte now. Out of my way, buster.

"Stop doing that," I said.

"I was just trying to help," he said. He let the clump of witchhazel go, and it slapped me in the face.

The words intrigued me. "It's a deal," I said. "You help me in Prague. Then we'll talk."

"Deal," he said.

I held out my hand for him to shake. The contact caused an electrical reaction, such as a storm within my brain. No fair, I thought. He put his hood up and I followed suit.

The sun was setting by the time we stepped from the trees. Finally, after what felt like months, I was free of Stromovka. The Vltava was glittering with the lights of the city. Prague was in the distance. The Districts of Magic. I had made it.

Chapter 11 Voettfangs.

Lennox lost no time in warning me against the places we were headed. He didn't seem to need to be filled in, either, which meant either he didn't care or he already knew what our mission was; in which case had he been stalking me? I knew that was in his nature, but still "Beware eye contactand guard your mind. We need a procurerI know the perfect place," he saidall paranoid and shizz.

I wanted to see all the magic spilling from the streets.

Lennox, however, warned me against such overt interest in the goings-on within the Districts of Magic.

"Wait until we get there," he said. "You'll see."

We were crossing the Charles Bridge, to a place called Golden Lane, where Cubist houses twisted in the night sky. The Velvet Revolution had changed Prague. Now Art Nouveau blended with more modern styles.

Everywhere were shops and cafes. Gargoyles and gutter spouts, bell towers cupped with bronze tops, Gothic rib vaulting, scraffito; not to mention the foraging monks and the Sisters from other conventsI almost wrote covenants. When they crossed paths with Lennox and I, they crossed themselves. It made me feel unnatural.

"Just wait," Lennox kept saying. "Just wait."

He tried to engage me in conversation, but I said, "Later. Just wait. And stop cheating."

He did apologize for missing my birthday. I noticed him look through the shop windows. Lennox strolled, as if he didn't have a care in the world; I was more hunched. There were a lot of people around, shopping and so forth. I kept expecting someone to jump out, or I dunno, attack me or something, forgetting I had a vampire with me: he could move ultra-fast, and rip, tear, gnash, and who knew what else? One of the things I needed to ask him about was the Agonies. Then I remembered our deal, and thought, c.r.a.p. No talking.

I was over the whole angry-with-him thingbut he wasn't to know about that. For all he knew I had given up on him completely. I was seeing someone elsethat's itI had a new boyfriendBallard.

Old Town. Surely the entrance to the Districts was here somewhere.

Golden Lane was awash with brightly-colored housesall kinds of shops Book dealers had their wares stacked neatly outside.

I made a list of everything I would needthinking about the fortune that had been left to me. Books, alembics, chalices, athames, crystals, candles, fiery wands There was a whole world of Wicca to tap in to!

A world of cauldrons and broomsticksfamiliars and unfamiliars: swords and potions and so-forths.

I realized that that was what the soul spirits werethe things that were in Ballard and me, and within Lia and Gaven, and all the Romuluses and Remusesnot to mention the benandantiwitches and wizards traditionally kept dogs and cats as familiars. What if they were born with them? Had I had this little soul parasite in me forever? What was it?

Asher had once told me that true Eclecticsthose disparaged wanderers without any Housewere often the result of wizards or witches who'd mated with shape shifters in an effort to produce Wizard Shifters, what I was trying to become.

Had either my mother or father been an Eclectic? And was that why Rayven had been sent? To squash out my animal?

Dark-eyed beautiful men and women pa.s.sed me in the street. "Hold on," said Lennox. He went up to a newspaper vendor and took out what looked like several silver coins. "Just as I thought. Attacks have been happening two-a-day in Letna Park," he said, reading the newspaper. He pointed. "You see it, over there?"

I looked. A plateau of trees high above the city, looked down on us. "Joggers, people out walking their dogs...." said Lennox. "When you get back home, take out a subscription to several of the dailies; I do."

"Have attacks been happening a lot lately?" I asked, thinking about Rayven, and if whether or not Lennox was up to speed. Of course he was! The benandanti watched and waited, but so did vampiresthat was almost their only job description! Watching... seeing everything around you die...

"You have to read between the lines to see the supernatural at work," said Lennox. "...but yes, Halsey! Come on."

We started heading into the darker parts, when he warned me, "It is imperative you do what I sayno don't argue! You'll see."

I took his word for it.

Just thena shoutsomeone screamed! Three kids my age came running past. They had blue eyes, like headlamps in old automobiles, literally glowing in the dark. Lennox pressed me to the wall. "Aetherheads," he whispered to me, nuzzling my jaw. We disappeared into the shadows.

From under his arm, I saw an enraged witch pull back her sleeve and shout: freki, ulfr, valdyr!

Three gigantic wolfhounds erupted from her fingertips; they were like smoke.

"Menskr malaferi; I'm getting too old for this," she said, before disappearing down the lane after them.

"What language is that?" I asked. "I've heard it before."

"It's Grigori. Come on," said Lennox. "We're nearly there."

I followed him down the alleyway, listening as the witch chased after the aetherheads. Apparently, they'd stolen her purse. Several bangs issued from the direction they'd come, a cobblestone path which seemed to twist out of sightnot a place sane people would go, I thought.

It was a reaffirmation of the knowledge that magic could be invoked in a variety of languages; I wished to learn them all.

"Andcanyou knowvampires do magic?" I asked.

Lennox laughed; it was like old times. "I thought we weren't talking anymore," he said.

"We're notbut if we were" I said. "Can they?"

"Vampires are powerful creatures; we rely more on instincts, but yes, we have magica little."

"Cool."

It seemed obvious. After all, they could live forever. My perceptions of magic were changing. Now I was a Wiccan, and I knew what that meant. Not a vampire. Or a werewolf.

It was halfway to the question I really wanted to have answeredthat of Marek and the Watchtowers and the fact of his having been one. Surely, Lennox knew about Marek and his past? He was Lennox's mentor, after all.

"It was you in the woods," I said. "The other scent Laurinaitis spoke of!" My time in the Stromovka seemed like a distant memory.

"If I could've come sooner, I would have. But they make that difficult," said Lennox.

"And the aetherheads?" I asked.

The alley we were in was lit by moonlight. Obviously, if the aetherheads had come from it, we must be close to the Districts of Magic. Where were they?

Lennox paused.

"Power can be bottled and sold, the same as any drug," he said. "Their eyes were glowing because they've lost their souls. Aetherheads are worse than zombies! Addicted to the aether, they'll do anything to acquire it. We're here..."

I had been so busy talking, I hadn't noticed how twisted up we'd become. And Mistress Veruschka wanted me to come live here?! There was no way! A wrought-iron gate stood before us, I was sure hadn't been there a moment before. Instead of the Golden Portal, which led in to Prague, or Golden Lane, down which we'd come, I was standing at a Gatethe Gate, in point of fact. Because the moment my eyes adjusted, I saw a new, secret lanethe entrance to the Other Prague, as I had called it in my imaginationThe Districts of Magic. I wondered how the witches and wizards had managed it.

If magic had split, I imagined the explosion to have leveled Prague. Only, it had happened in secret. As had the First War. No one knew about it! It wasn't in any history book I'd ever read! Was there an alternate magical history that I would have to become attuned to?

The non-magic world disappeared on the spot. So did the safety blanket of my old world, the place I had come from, and back to which I could never go; not after seeing all this! It was unlike any place I'd ever been. All-magic.... I saw what that meant, suddenly!

"We don't have any of this in Rome," I said to Lennox. Then, I thought: Do we?

As for St. Martley's, Mistress Genevieve would've whisked us out of a place like this so fast our heads would've spun! There was an endless variety of shops and cafes; if anybody but a witch or wizard saw them, they would need to be silenced, the shops were so obviously magical.

Only a witch or wizard could see them, I recognized. That must be it. But what about a vampire? How did Lennox know of the Districts of Magic? And was there more than one? And if I was just seeing this nowwhat else had I missed?