Joy of Witchcraft Read online

  Jane.

  Clara never called me Jane, not without a dozen exasperated reminders that I’d long ago set aside my birth name, that I’d built a life on my own, that I didn’t need her, didn’t want her interference. If she called me Jane, she wanted me to listen.

  But hellmouths were only myths, stories invented in the Middle Ages to keep wayward children in line. There was no such thing as a gaping hole to a different dimension. No one had ever seen a passage between planes of being, a maw that released ill-formed ravening fiends into the world around us.

  Nevertheless, my students reacted to Clara’s pronouncement by stepping toward their warders. They settled anxious hands on their familiars, looking around our magical clearing as if they expected demons to spring from the sodden ground.

  If a hellmouth actually existed, I surely would have felt it as I’d prepared our circle.

  Wouldn’t I?

  Of course I would.

  Clara was merely being her usual dramatic, disruptive self. I nodded tersely to David and said, “Proceed.”

  “Jane!” Clara cried.

  To David’s credit, he merely shifted his grip on the quillons of his sword, resuming his stance to carve out the next protective quarter of our circle. I met his eyes and said, “There is no hellmouth here.” To all who listened, my voice was as hard as marble. No one would ever know how much comfort I took from his tight nod of agreement.

  Lightning flashed in the distance, illuminating the heavy clouds that once again covered the sky. Automatically, I started to count: one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four. Thunder growled, low and urgent.

  I knew a cue when I heard one. Ignoring Clara’s whimpering, I rushed through casting the rest of the circle. I set a candle at the southern edge and called on the Guardians of Water. I lit the last wick on the western point and drew in the Guardians of Earth. David traced the outline with a matching urgency, pouring his warder’s energy into a steely arc.

  He was three strides away from closing the circle. Two. One. And then I heard my name again, shouted across the field, from the direction of the house. “Jane! Jane Madison!”

  Even as I gritted my teeth against the new interruption, I recognized the voice. Teresa Alison Sidney.

  Teresa was the Coven Mother for nearby Washington DC, a woman widely regarded as the most powerful witch in the Eastern Empire—at least until I’d come into my own. I’d first met her three and a half years before, when my greatest magical dream had been to join her prestigious coven. When I’d watched her lead a ritual in her classic black cocktail sheath, with her perfect strand of pearls across the pulse points in her throat, I’d felt as if I were watching the ghost of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis or Grace Kelley, as if Kate Middleton herself shared a bit of magic she’d never quite admitted to the British royal family.

  Teresa Alison Sidney’s veil of sophistication was so strong that virtually everyone called her by all three names, the way people referred to certain movie stars. Or serial killers. But always contrary where authority was concerned, I’d made myself the exception to that rule.

  She’d never forgiven me for walking away from her coven. And she’d never stopped lusting after the Osgood collection, the arcane library I hoarded in the farmhouse. Only two months ago, I’d discovered her magical powers bound up in a document meant to destroy me.

  She was my enemy, and now she stood on my lawn, accompanied by her warder and her familiar.

  Clara might have interrupted our working out of a misguided fear of a hellmouth. But Teresa certainly had a more selfish motive. All she had to do was distract me for a few minutes, a quarter of an hour at most, and the rapidly returning thunderstorm would do the rest. My untried students could never complete a ritual in the midst of a downpour like the one we’d already seen that evening. Without a proper opening to our academic year, my magicarium would stand in violation of its charter, and my magical belongings would be fair game for any witch daring enough to pluck them from my grasp.

  Teresa would finally get the magical goods she’d craved from the moment we first met.

  I nodded tersely to David. He slashed with his sword, closing the circle before the Washington Coven Mother could make herself heard. Through the shimmering cordon of warder’s magic, I could see the rigid lines of David’s back. If I squinted, I could just make out other figures beyond the curtain of power—four robed and hooded forms on the very edge of darkness.

  Hecate’s Court, then. As expected, they’d arrived to witness my working, to verify the operational status of the Jane Madison Academy. The Court had jurisdiction over all witches in good standing. But I didn’t have to like being put under their microscope.

  Gritting my teeth, I turned to face my students. “Sisters,” I said. “We are gathered beneath the sky, above the earth, between the fire and the rain. Be welcome and at peace.”

  Right. Like any of them would relax during a ritual that began like this one had. Clara fretted beside me, working her hands inside the sleeves of her caftan as if she were auditioning for the role of Lady Macbeth. Emma, the calmer of my first-term students, looked wary but determined. Raven, a firebrand who could give lightning bolts a run for their money, seemed invigorated by the opportunity for something to go awry.

  At least Raven had chosen to wear a black robe for our working, forgoing her usual preference for working skyclad, naked to the elements. I was strangely heartened by the violet sash that closed her midnight garment. Its vibrant purple matched the stripe in her hair, underscoring all the ways she and I were different. We disagreed on almost everything, but we’d found a way to work together.

  And I would find a way to work with all my new students, to build the bonds of a healthy magicarium. I was their mentor, their magistrix. I could do this.

  With Neko at my back, I extended my arms to either side. Emma understood immediately. She stepped forward and placed her fingers against mine, automatically reaching for her sister. Raven followed suit, bringing one of the new students into the chain. One by one, they all matched hands, until Clara closed the circuit to my left.

  “Jane,” she whispered, her voice low and demanding.

  I merely shook my head. I was committed to this path, and Clara’s imagined hellmouth wasn’t going to stop me. Not when Teresa paced outside, waiting for me to fail. Not when new rain had set up a steady beat against the steely dome above us. The wind had picked up as well; gusts buffeted the sloping sides of our shielding cordon.

  We were running out of time.

  “Well met, sisters,” I said, faking a confident tone. “Here at the Jane Madison Academy, you’ll be asked to set aside much of what you think you know about magic. You’ll view the world through new lenses, from angles that will make your old practice seem limiting and strange. For tonight, though, all I ask is that you join with me to complete a simple, familiar spell.”

  Moving slowly enough that each of my students could follow suit, I touched my fingertips to my forehead, offering up the power of my pure thoughts. I touched my throat, adding the power of pure speech. I brushed my fingers against my chest, giving my pure belief. Raising my voice to counter the steady hiss of rain against the cordon, I chanted, “Join me, sisters, near the loom.”

  It was the first line of an old spell, an easy one. While mundane little girls were making their first elastic potholders on a plastic frame, young witches learned to weave their fledgling powers into a similar magic fabric. At this launch of the school year, my students and I would weave our powers in and out, creating a cloth unique to the Jane Madison Academy. Down the road, when I taught everyone how to create a true merged power, we’d laugh at the simplicity of this working.

  As I spoke the first words, I lobbed a golden globe of power into the center of our circle. I nudged the physical manifestation of my astral abilities until a rectangular shape shimmered in the night-time air. When it was stable, I sent a mental invitation to the witches I knew best—to Emma and Raven to add th
eir energy to the uprights of the loom, to Clara to feed her power to the horizontal struts. Purple, silver, and emerald light wrapped around my golden glow, each strand pulsing with unique power.

  When I was certain the astral loom’s structure was stable, I drew a deep breath and recited the second line of the spell. “Set the warp threads, leaving room.”

  I nudged Neko along our arcane bond, urging him to send a message to my new students’ familiars. Cassandra Finch responded first. Cassie, I reminded myself. She’d made it clear she preferred the nickname. Her magic was pale green, the soft shade of new leaves unfolding beneath a spring sky. It made me think of young things, fragile things, like the spray of freckles that spotted her cheeks, like her twin braids of unruly blond hair. She bit her lip and fluttered her hand against the shoulder of her familiar, Tupa. I was no expert on the animal roots of familiars, but I was willing to bet the curly-haired, obliviously awkward young man had begun life as a lamb. In fact, Cassie herself had a somewhat disturbing resemblance to Little Bo Peep.

  Reaching out to her familiar, Cassie gathered the grounding she needed. Tupa leaned in, actually butting his head against her arm, and the tendril of green strengthened, winding its way toward the centerstone and the waiting frame. Green light wrapped our structure from top to bottom, again and again, until a dozen strands formed a warp suitable for weaving.

  “Lift the shuttle, feel its weight,” I continued, my voice warming with approval. Neko did his part again, thinking an invitation to another familiar, and a sturdy russet strand of energy flowed from the next student, Bree Carter. Working quickly to increase our momentum, I chanted the next line: “Wrap the new thread, figure eight.” Neko pulled another student into the working, Alex Warner, who offered up a skein of indigo energy. “Now the shed stick, straight and true,” I intoned, raising my voice to do battle against the storm outside our protective arch. Skyler Winthrop and her cobalt blue magic came into our circle.

  All that was left was bringing our concentration together, gathering the energy of all eight witches. Working together, we could create a fabric of light, passing Bree’s thread-filled shuttle along the straight line created by Skyler’s shed stick, tamping down Alex’s first thread in our weaving and preparing the warp for another pass at the loom.

  Even though we remained separate, each strand of magic apart from every other, we were working toward a common goal. This wasn’t the true power I would ultimately offer my students, the true melding I knew we could achieve. But it was a start. I took a deep breath and cried, “All our powers, cloth imbue!”

  There was the expected flash of darkness, the moment when the physical world shifted out of existence, overwhelmed by magic’s force. For one timeless instant, my heart ceased to beat, my lungs stopped breathing. I couldn’t worry about my students, couldn’t fear the consequences when David sliced open the cordon, when my magicarium emerged to face Hecate’s Court and Teresa Alison Sidney and the increasing rage of the storm.

  As quickly as the world disappeared, it returned. Every witch’s eye was trained on the altar. We all waited to see the cloth we had crafted with our effort.

  But there was no cloth.

  Instead, there was a shadow, darker than the stormy night outside our shield. The absence swirled above the altar, seething, reaching out with clinging tentacles.

  “The hellmouth!” Clara shouted, and adrenaline fired through my body.

  Somehow, the shadow deepened, becoming a darker shade of black. It contracted, sucking in its outer edges, swirling tighter and tighter, like a tornado determined to bore its way through the centerstone. A blast of rain battered the steely shield above us, a sudden downdraft strong enough to dent the protective dome. At the same time, lightning forked directly overhead, shattering across the cordon as if it sought the heart of the altar.

  The warders’ arch vanished beneath the direct hit.

  Before I could blink, my burgundy gown was drenched. The thunder was literally deafening. The silver lightning afterglow bleached my vision.

  But none of that mattered, because the shadow had disappeared above the altar. And in its place, very real and very mad, was a full-grown satyr, tossing his head and looking like he was ready to murder every single witch who had called him into existence.

  CHAPTER 2

  You probably know your mythology: satyrs have the top half of a man and the bottom half of a goat, with the goat’s horns firmly placed on the human head, just for good measure. If you grew up reading children’s books like The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, you might be thinking of a faun—a sweet, somewhat absent-minded creature with the same man/goat blend.

  Satyrs aren’t fauns. There’s nothing sweet about a satyr. Nothing absent-minded, either. Satyrs have one thing on their mind, and because they don’t wear pants, that thing is pretty obvious.

  Our magical visitor was no exception. Engorged, erect, he scraped his hooves against the altar as he hunched his shoulders, snorting and tossing his head like a bull maddened by a red cape. But there was no red cape in our Samhain circle, only innocent women. The satyr cackled as he searched for his victim, and the crazed sound made the hair rise on the back of my neck.

  He chose Cassie.

  Maybe she made some noise, a shout or a whimper, something the rest of us couldn’t make out above the chaos of the storm. She might have been the first to move, to recover from the paralyzing effect of the warders’ broken shield. Perhaps the beast was drawn to her child-like innocence, her wide eyes, her fresh, freckled face.

  Whatever the creature’s reasoning, he lost no time in his pursuit. He leaped from the altar and landed on the drenched grass with the legendary sure-footedness of his hircine half. The downpour did nothing to slake his lust; he fell on Cassie with a craven howl.

  Cassie’s protector, Zach Spencer, lunged for the creature’s shoulders, tugging at the human torso in an effort to free his witch. I leaped forward, determined to help my student, but my progress was checked by a strong arm across my belly. Caleb was there, Emma’s stalwart warder. I’d known him four months; I’d already trusted him to protect me in dozens of other workings. Now, I wanted him out of my way.

  But before I could snap a command, I realized the warders had formed a wall with their bodies. All of us witches and our familiars—everyone but Cassie—were safe behind the bulk of their bodies, protected by their brawn and bared swords. At least three of the men faced out, in case the satyr wasn’t the only magical manifestation attacking this night.

  Caleb had me, because David had joined forces with Cassie’s warder. The two men were struggling to get a grip on the satyr in the rain. The space was too tight for swordplay; they were forced to grapple with their bare hands, lest they harm Cassie in their effort to free her.

  The satyr was not so far gone in lust that he forgot to butt at them with his sharp-pointed horns. He forced both men back whenever they seemed close to dragging him to the ground. His hooves landed half a dozen blows as well; I heard David’s curses above the roar of the storm as he took a direct kick to his ribs.

  Raven’s warder, Tony, launched into the fray, using his sword where Zach and David had hesitated. He timed his thrust perfectly, employing a two-handed grip to slam the edge of his blade against the satyr’s spine. Bronze sparks flew as if the sword were being held to a grindstone, but the blade made no meaningful impact. The satyr snarled and kicked back with another fierce hoof, but was otherwise unaffected.

  Cassie put up her own fight, shoving the heel of her hand into the beast’s face. She smashed his nose with enough power that he was forced to back off. As he shook his stunned head, she tried to follow up with a knee to his groin, but she slipped on the grass, falling beneath the ravenous creature again.

  Her hands pushed at his chest, but she couldn’t get the leverage she needed. Her fingers wove a pattern in the air before the satyr closed once more, a spell I did not recognize. Whatever it was, it required strength and concentration. She might have b
een able to gain both from her familiar, but the satyr’s sharp hooves kept Tupa from getting anywhere near his mistress.

  Cassie could not work her spell. But I could try my own.

  I raked my hand through my hair, sluicing rainwater off my face as I planted my feet in the slick grass. I didn’t have time to bring my students into the working, couldn’t worry about demonstrating my novel approach to spellcraft. Instead, I shot out my hand and gripped Neko’s forearm, pulling him out of the scrum of desperate, shouting witches and familiars.

  He lapsed into his role immediately, bracing his own feet for a better purchase and stiffening his arm to give me a stronger base for working. I tugged on the astral bond between us, and he was ready, waiting, a reflecting well of power for me to use however I needed.

  My eyes closed, and I pictured one of the most obscure books in my collection. It was bound in forest-green Moroccan leather, and the cover was set with a trio of cabochon-cut emeralds. The title was picked out on the spine in gold leaf: On the Bynding and Banishment of Magickal Creatures.

  It contained spells to counter wayward familiars and ravenous bookworms, rebellious cockatrices and invading dragons. And somewhere toward the end, between rocs and trolls, there was a spell to banish a satyr. I took a deep breath, trying to summon an image of the ancient writing. I exhaled slowly, using the motion to center myself as I once again offered up pure thought, pure speech, and pure belief. I sent tendrils deep into Neko’s reserve and drew on his reflective power to bolster my own as I chanted:

  “Half man, half beast, figure of a goat,

  Sharp of hoof, hard of horn, sleek and shiny coat.”

  I was only two lines into the spell, but I knew I didn’t have enough power to make it work. Not with this monstrous creature that was shielded against traditional warders’ weapons. Not with a beast I’d never seen before, had never completely believed in before. I couldn’t master the spell with the battle raging in front of me, with Cassie’s warder knocked onto his back, his arm canted at an angle that even in my panic I could diagnose as a fracture.