“You know I can’t do that!
“No, I really don’t.Your reasoning is…”
“My reasoning is sound,” I hissed both aloud and mentally, a sure sign I was about to lose my mind and most assuredly whatever religion I had left.“Aunt Ginnie sits on the Royal Necromancy Council, which is part of the true Council, and…”
“Yeah, I know.Duh.”
Refusing to acknowledge that she’d spoken, I powered on, “…if I told her what I knew, she would have to launch a formal investigation.Then Fogarty would…”
“…find out from one of his many spies, rally the Supernatural Stewards, and find a way to cover everything up,”Lydia repeated.“So you’ve said.”
“Right,” I huffed.“Since we’ve had this conversation twenty-seven times, why are we doing it…?”
“Because it’s not too late to turn around and go home.”
“That’s where you’re wrong!”I was whisper-yelling, in the dark, with a whole town of Supernaturals who were said to be Monsters, who therefore, were most likely hearing everything I said– and in that moment, I didn’t care.“It isway pasttoo late.The time to do all this was the day my mother went missing, but I,we, didn’t know about it.The bastard hid it.He made sure the trail was cold and all evidence was wiped away.”I was seething.“He is so pompous, arrogant, and narcissistic that he believed he was smarter and more powerful than anyone and everyone, especially me.But that shit comes to an end right here and right now.”
Ignoring Lydia’s objections, I reached up, grabbed hold of the golden chain with both hands, and whispered, “Show me.”
A blur of glowing gold and green dropped from overhead.Stopping when it was level with the Rainbow Moonstone I tucked inside my bralette over my heart, it flashed and moved back and forth in time with my heartbeat.
To say I was confused was an understatement.Where was this restraint when I was being bashed and beaten by every Texas Ebony tree in Arrhythmia?Was I being punked?Wouldn’t that just figure, I make my grand stand with my inner Necromancer and…
“Look closer, Bernie,”Lydia ordered.“It’s literally…”
“…pointing to the Nexus of the Ley Lines,” I breathed.“Holy schnickeys!It’s the Gateway to the Hellmouth.”Switching to telepathy, I whispered,“It’s real.”Hands still gripping the golden chain, I took a step forward.“It’s really real.”
And it was really real.
A glowing white light, like a laser pointer, blasted from Great-Grandma Cleo’s pendant.Directing me to a fluorescent, orangey-yellow circle that grew larger and brighter, it pulsed, and the chain in my hands vibrated.Every step I took increased the intensity of the Magic, the light, the… everything.
“Maybe you should…”
But that was as far as I let Lydia get before I threw caution to the wind and took two giant steps forward.It was as if the pendant and the circle in the sand knew what I was going to do before I did it.Were we really connected?I knew Great-Grandma Cleo had left the pendant to me in her will, and the note that came with it said,It chose you.Love, Memaw,but did that mean…
Plummeting from its place in front of me, the emerald swung backward and bounced off my stomach.No longer glowing, no longer vibrating, no longer doing anything, it just hung there.
“What the hell do I… Whoa!No!Heeeeeyyyyyy!”
Dropping to the ground of their own volition, my knees hit the sand with a resounding thud.A blast of light– like a kaleidoscope without its case- burst from my chest as the Moonstone I’d tucked into my bralette shimmied and shook and started to heat up.
Getting the gem away from my skin as quickly as I could, I just barely got my open all the way before hundreds of beams of beautiful iridescent light radiated in every direction from my Moonstone.Some moved in circles, others went back and forth, but the one in the middle, the first one, went from pointing toward the center of the bright full moon overhead to moving downward in a slow, determined arc.
“Do you have any clue what in all that’s holy is…?”
And just like the massive beam of light nosedived toward the center of the humongous pool of orangey-yellow light.For five long, very tense seconds, nothing happened.I wasn’t moving, and I damned sure wasn’t breathing.I was so focused on what wasn’t happening in front of me that I squealed, “What the fuuuuuu….?”When Lydia telepathically whispered,“Do you…?”
Sadly, neither one of us got to finish our question, let alone get answers, because in the next beat of heart, the cool, night desert was gone.
Not heated– erased.
The air thickened.It grew fingers that reached into my chest and pressed on my lungs.The Magic running through my veins was instantly viscous.The desert and everything around it had suddenly grown heavier.The sand froze mid-shift.The grains hovered, trembling, caught between falling and rising.
Something pulled.
Not downward.Inward.
The bright rays of the full moon dimmed.The color of the huge crater before me drained to a bruised gold as a thrumming vibration rolled through the ground.It was too deep for even my Supernatural hearing.Instead, I felt it in the marrow of my bones and every drop of my blood.My Magic screamed, warning me that something was coming.The instincts honed over all my years shrieked, but I couldn’t tell if it was celebratory or cautionary.
