At this, my phone begins to ring in my pocket. I pull it out to see it’s Finn who’s calling me. I turn away from Emilia and answer it. “What’s up?”
“I have Pamphrock here,” says Finn. “He wants to speak to you.”
“Okay, put him on.”
A second later Pamphrock comes on the line. “Tegan, you are aware of the trip I made last night?”
“Yeah, Finn explained.”
“Well, I now possess a vial of Felicity’s blood for the spell. I would like to move forward with this as soon as possible. Have you figured out the other components yet?”
I scratch nervously at my neck. “Um, not quite.”
“Not quite?” he clips out. Shit, he sounds pissed.
“Not quite, b-but soon,” I stammer, lying through my false teeth.
“How soon? How many more days do you need?”
“Um, a couple.”
“You have three days. I expect results by then,” he tells me, before hanging up.
Huh, rude.
“What spell are you planning?” asks Emilia, as I shove my phone back in my pocket.
“What the hell, were you eavesdropping on my conversation or something?”
“I’ve always had very good hearing,” she replies. “The man you spoke with wants you to do a spell for him, but you’re not yet sure if you can achieve it. I could help you.”
I cock an eyebrow. “I’m sure you could. The question is, what would I have to give you in return?”
“All I ask is that you allow me a chance to get to know you. I am an old woman who had her daughter taken from her, only now I discover that this daughter wasn’t taken but ran away. Not only that, but she had a daughter herself. I have a granddaughter and I want to get to know her.”
I gaze at her, considering it.
“I don’t trust you,” I tell her honestly.
“And I would never expect you to. But please, allow me the opportunity to gain your trust.”
I don’t answer her right away, because I need to think for a minute. My mother performed the same spell on me that I need to perform on Rebecca. If my mother learned magic from her own mother, then perhaps Emilia is exactly the person I need right now. Without even looking at Emilia, I turn to face Ira.
Taking his large hand into mine, I ask, “If I agree to what she’s asking she’s going to be hanging around here for a while. She might be my grandmother, but it’s your life she messed up. If you don’t want her here then just say the word and I’ll tell her to leave.”
Ira looks over my shoulder at Emilia. “Did you really come to apologise?”
“I did,” she answers immediately. “I meant what I said about not being the woman I was back then. I can see now the error of my ways. You don’t know how sorry I am for my actions.”
His eyes return to me, but he doesn’t speak yet. I wonder if forgiving people for their sins is a part of Buddhism like it’s a part of Christianity. “You think she can help with your spell for Rebecca?” he asks.
“There’s a good chance she can,” I reply truthfully.
“Then you should agree to work with her. Protecting the little girl is what matters.”
I squeeze his hand, before letting go and addressing Emilia. “You say you’ve changed, but I’ll believe that when I see it. I’ll let you work with me on the spell, but if you try to do anything to Ira again I’ll find you and kill you myself.”
My oh my, how mercenary I’ve become. I guess circumstances have moulded me so.
“You would kill your own grandmother?” she questions.
“If she turned out to be an evil, backstabbing bi – I mean, witch,” I say, my slip up intentional. “Then yes I would, without hesitation.”
She studies me. “You have Darya’s eyes, but it seems that is where the similarity ends. Darya was a gentle creature. You are tough, like old boots.”
“Old boots are survivors. I’ll take that as a compliment,” I quip.
Before she can reply, a man dressed in a chauffeur getup walks into the driveway and whispers in Emilia’s ear. It’s only after seeing him that I notice the fancy black Mercedes Benz sitting out on the road.
She nods to the chauffeur and he returns to the car. “I have an engagement I am late for. I will come see you at lunch time tomorrow, if that suits, and you can tell me all about this spell you endeavour to cast.”
“Yeah, okay,” I answer, still wary.
She glances at Ira. “It is good to see you whole again, Mr Wolf. My word, you really haven’t aged a day. It’s a marvel.”
“I’m afraid I can’t say the same for you,” Ira replies. His tone is so casual that it takes me a second to recognise the insult. I feel like giving him a high five for that one. What a weird girl I am, taking pleasure in someone slagging off my own granny.
Emilia’s face hardens slightly, but she seems to accept that she deserves far worse treatment from Ira after what she did. She inclines her head, turns on her pointed boots and walks to the Mercedes, sliding gracefully in the back.
“There’s never a dull day around here,” I say, standing on the doorstep.
“It’s this city. There are too many supernaturals here. It’s a big place, but not big enough to contain them all,” says Ira.
“Makes a person feel like moving to a remote cabin in the woods.”
“True,” he smiles. “So now you know where your magic comes from.”
“Yeah,” I sigh. “I kind of wish I didn’t.”
Chapter Eleven
Oh The Shark Has Pretty Teeth, Dear
Throughout the rest of the day I find myself slipping my hand inside my pocket to fiddle with Edwards’ coin. I get paranoid that he won’t be able to locate me unless I’m touching it. God, I’m going to drive myself insane with all this fretting.
Ethan doesn’t come to the house once it gets dark, which is a relief. We all enjoy a nice dinner together without the presence of the vampires. Delilah does stop by though, and I notice her cheeks colouring a little after Ira answers the door to her. I hadn’t realised it before, but she seems to watch him a lot. I just can’t tell whether it’s in fear or infatuation. They’d certainly make an odd looking couple, with her so fair and diminutive and him so large and dark.
As per usual, I find myself reciting my recent discoveries to everyone. This time I tell them about Emilia’s visit.
“Emilia Petrovsky came here?” Noreen asks in awe.
“Yeah, she wanted to apologise to Ira. When I used my magic to block her from entering the house she recognised my sparks as a skill that only the women in her family possess. She called it electrical fire. That’s how I ended up figuring out she was my grandmother.”
Noreen wears a thoughtful expression. “If she’s returning tomorrow you need to watch her. She might claim to have turned over a new leaf, but you have to know that you’re dealing with a witch renowned throughout the city for her underhandedness and cruelty. There’s a rumour that she once had a servant killed simply for stealing a few pieces of jewellery.”
I rub at my forehead and sigh. “I don’t know whether to be more disgusted by the fact that she had a servant killed or that she actually keeps servants to begin with.”
“I know,” Alvie agrees, tutting humorously. “In this day and age.”
“The magical families are very old fashioned,” says Gabriel. “Some of them like to think of themselves as superior beings, sort of like royalty.”
“They’re deluded,” Rita comments, biting at her nails. It’s a bad habit of hers. Sometimes I feel like buying her that varnish that helps you give up nail biting because it tastes so awful.
“The main thing to keep in mind is to be wary of her,” says Gabriel. “If she really does just want to get to know her granddaughter then that’s great. It could be useful to have her as an ally. However, if she’s not all that she seems the consequences could be dire. You’ve seen how she cursed Ira with barely a second thought. People who don’t have a conscie
nce like that are nasty work. They don’t care who they hurt.”
For the rest of the night, Gabriel’s warning rings in my ears. If it’s not one thing I’m worrying about, it’s another. I’m going to end up giving myself a nervous breakdown. Before getting into bed I place Edwards’ coin on my night-stand, in the hopes that I’ll wake up tomorrow morning and my dad will be returned to me.
I open my eyes at the light streaming in my window, but Edwards’ coin remains on my night-stand, unmoved. Disappointment takes hold and I begin to wonder if he really will return come hell or high water like he said he would. What if he loses track of time over there and ends up being gone for years and years?
Pulling myself away from such morose thoughts, I shower and get dressed, finding that Finn and Ira have already gone out for the day. When lunch time comes around, I make sure that Rita is in the house with me. I don’t want to face Emilia’s visit alone, and I’m thinking Rita will be able to tell me if she’s trying to pull the wool over my eyes, pretending to want to help when she really has other reasons for being here.
I hate having to be so suspicious of each new person I meet, but living in the world I’ve found myself in, I don’t really have any other choice. At this point, suspicion is probably one of the few things keeping my head above water.
Rita has brought in a few basic spell ingredients for us to work with. “If we need anything else I can go back out to the RV and get it,” she says. “After our trip to the magic market the other day our cupboards are stocked to the gills.”
I ignore the urge to go out and have a root through said cupboards. Rita certainly keeps some crazy stuff in there.
At exactly one o’clock a knock sounds at the door. It sets my nerves on edge. I try to calm down, telling myself that even though Emilia is powerful, Rita and I should be able to take her on if worse comes to worse.
Rita motions for me to go let her in, while she takes a seat at the head of the kitchen table and clasps her palms together. She’s wearing even more black eye-liner than usual, and her lacy black dress makes her look like a Goth nightmare come true. Or dream come true, if that’s what floats your biscuit.
I’m wearing my uniform of a wrinkled white t-shirt, black jeans and boots, which might be a subconscious effort to piss Emilia off. I can tell she’s one of those old ladies who think women should dress all classy and sophisticated. If Dita Von Teese were someone’s granny, she’d probably look exactly like Emilia.
She comes sauntering into the house in a fitted dark blue pencil skirt and a silky blazer with fur trim. Her half black, half grey hair is up in an immaculate fresh twist. Just as I’d expected, she immediately gives my outfit the once over, her lips tightening with disapproval. It brings me a little rush of victory.
“Who’s this?” she asks, eyeing Rita apprehensively, her lips tightening even further.
“Rita’s helping me with the spell the same as you. She’s a witch too,” I explain.
Emilia scowls. “I have met every witch in this city, and she most certainly isn’t one of them.”
“Well you must not have met them all, because I most certainly am a witch.”
“If that’s the case then which family do you belong to?” Emilia questions.
“Uh…the Girards, technically. I’m not an official member. My daddy liked to mess around with the human ladies, if you catch my drift.”
“Hmph,” Emilia scowls with distaste. “I was never fond of the Girards, now I know the reason why.”
“Yeah well, I’m not so fond of them myself.” Rita’s dejected tone surprises me. She doesn’t usually let her sadness show to anyone other than me, Alvie and her mum.
Emilia seems surprised, too. She loses some of her frosty demeanour, before primly sitting herself down in a seat across from Rita. I follow suit.
After a few moments of silence, Emilia speaks up, addressing Rita, “I suppose I’m hardly entitled to judge. I’m guilty of my own fair share of sins.”
I know what she’s referring to now; the fact that she had numerous affairs behind her husband’s back.
“Oh, what sins were those?” Rita asks, sounding intrigued.
“I was an adulterer in my younger years,” Emilia puts it to her plainly. “I spent my nights in the company of men who were not my husband, and in the process I neglected my only child. Before I knew it, she was gone. I thought that perhaps a higher power was trying to punish me for my ways by taking her from me.”
Rita, seeming a little uncomfortable with Emilia’s unexpected confession, says, “Yeah well, we’ve all done things we regret.”
Emilia looks to me now. “My regrets are more numerous than most.”
I feel like I should say something to console her, but I can’t seem to muster up any sympathy. This is probably because deep down I know that she deserved her punishment.
“Did my grandfather, Filipp, ever find out about your affairs?” I ask instead.
Emilia sighs. “I think he always knew. He never said anything though. Perhaps that’s what spurred me to keep doing it. I was angry because it seemed like he just didn’t care.” She glances at me. “But Filipp is not your grandfather. He was not your mother’s biological father, and that was one thing that he didn’t know and I’ve never had the heart to tell him.”
“What?!” I exclaim. “If Filipp’s not my grandfather, then who is?” God, this woman’s secrets are even more plentiful than I thought.
“Your grandfather, he was unlike any man I had ever met before. He was more powerful than a warlock, a shapeshifter or a vampire. He was a sorcerer.”
Unearthly silence fills the room, as Rita’s eyes shoot wide open and lock onto mine. For that one brief moment we’re both thinking the exact same thing. Is Theodore not just Rita’s father, but my grandfather too?”
“The sorcerer, what was his name?” The words rush from my lips.
“His name was Roman,” she answers, and both Rita and I exhale loudly in relief. Emilia doesn’t seem to have noticed our momentary tension. “He had almost the exact same colouring as Filipp, but he was so much more handsome. That’s why when Darya was born Filipp never questioned her paternity. Her blue eyes and dark hair were Petrovsky through and through.”
For a moment I ponder the fact that there’s more than one sorcerer out there. Not only that, but one of them is my grandfather.
“I knew there had to be something to explain how gifted you are,” says Rita, looking to me. “I was beginning to get a little paranoid.”
“Gifted?” Emilia asks curiously
“I keep discovering more and more new magical things I can do,” I explain.
“Things like what?”
“Uh, maybe I’ll tell you another time, when I feel like I can trust you better.”
This seems to ruffle her feathers a little, but she brushes it off. “I suppose that’s only fair. So, are you going to explain about the spell you want me to help you with?”
I nod and dive straight in, giving her the basic facts, but leaving out who Rebecca is and who her father is. Pamphrock clearly wouldn’t want it getting out that his daughter has the Ultimate Power blood. Emilia understands my need to leave out some details, especially since she had a daughter with the very same blood herself.
“The poor child,” she exclaims. “My little Darya was closed off from the world too. We could never allow her a normal life because this city contains vampires at every turn.”
“Yeah but, do you notice anything different about me?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’m living a fairly free life despite the fact that I have this same blood myself.”
Emilia narrows her eyes. “Yes. Now that you mention that, it is a tad strange. How do you manage to move about freely without being sensed by vampires?”
“When I was a baby, your daughter Darya created a spell that would hide my blood from vampires and anyone else who might be able to sense it. This is the spell that I want you to he
lp me recreate.”
She seems momentarily taken aback. “Have you searched in any magical texts for it?”
“High and low,” says Rita. “For all intents and purposes, such a spell doesn’t exist.”
“So that means my Darya designed it herself. If that’s the case then it is very near impossible to recreate. She might have even tailored it in such a fashion so that only she could be the one to perform it. You are trying to achieve the impossible. You might be Darya’s child, but she was the direct offspring of a sorcerer. And a very old and powerful sorcerer at that.”
I don’t mention the fact that the direct offspring of another sorcerer is sitting right across the table from her.
“No, you will need to go another route. There are ways around these things. If you cannot reconstruct Darya’s spell, then why not concoct your own? All you really need to do is use a concealment spell and modify it a little.”
Rita face-palms – hard. “Goddess yes! It’s been staring us in the face all this time. We’ve just been too distracted by other matters to see it.” She looks at me excitedly. “Tegan, I know we can pull this off if we put our minds together.”
“Have you any magical texts here in the house?” Emilia asks.
“No, but I have a ton of them out in the RV. I’ll go and get them.” Rita jumps up and hurries from the room.
At the mention of the RV, I notice Emilia’s face screw up with distaste. I had to hold in my laughter when I answered the door to her earlier and found her staring at it as though it was the world’s greatest eyesore.
I take the opportunity to question her some more while Rita’s gone. “How long were you with the sorcerer? Roman, I mean.”
Emilia folds her hands in her lap. “Not long. We spent a few weeks as lovers and then parted ways.”
My granny had a lover. Lovers, in fact. That’s kind of disturbing. Though in all honesty, Emilia is quite the GILF. Despite her age, it’s clear to see that she’s a beautiful woman.
“Did he ever find out you were pregnant?”