Thankfully I'm just as curious about things, so I already had the answers for most of his questions.
"Why the ankh on the left?" he asked as we ran hands lightly over the final window.
I frowned at him.
"What do you mean?" I was still concentrating on the deeper parts of the spell. Like picking apart a spiders web without breaking it, you had to be gentle. It took a lot of concentrating.
Since I'd cast these, it was easy for me to break them.
"The marks you've made." He held his hand over them to make them glow visible. Part of the spells had inadvertently given him partial control of them - I worked it out myself after a couple the spells. They reacted to him almost as much as they did to me. "They always have the Ansuz on the right and the Ankh on the left. Why?"
Pulling out of the spell I looked down where the symbols glowed and thought. I wanted to say it was just habit, but there was something behind it. I just couldn't work out what it was. Even Lee had felt there was something behind it. What was it?
My hands hovered over the symbols slowly, remembering casting them.
"It just... feels right this way." I said, raising a shoulder slowly "I mean... look - you go from right to left, like writing arabic, when you cast this one... so you start with Ansuz... because it's like the root of the whole thing..." I didn't know if I was making any sense, but I carried on anyway "And then as you move on, you need to define it... and I find it easy to finish the definition with the Ankh, because it's just... " I looked up to see if he understood.
Tough luck if he didn't though, because I couldn't finish the explanation or repeat it. It was just what made sense to my hands. Simple.
He was slowly passing a hand over the window right to left, frowning. He tilted his head, as if getting a different angle on it.
"Why don't you cast left to right?" he asked. Well, he'd understood some of it at least.
I smiled slightly. It had been my own idea. My spells mirrored themselves in a weird way, and looked like you could start them from either side.
"Some spells... you cast them from the centre outwards, or from the outwards in... but if you know the origin point you can unravel it." I explained, making the sigils glow in patterns to aid my explanation. He nodded, frowning still. His 'thinking' face.
"A basic defence spell you cast downwards." I gestured with my hand and the wall glimmered down the glyphs for me "So if you start at the bottom, you carefully unravel it." My hand passed back up the wall, making the glyphs fade "But if you start at the origin you can sort of obliterate it. Instant wipe out. But you have to be prepared for it if you do that. A quick sort of 'containment' spell."
He nodded again, to show I wasn't talking complete gibberish.
"Thing is, to start either process you pick a glyph and destroy it. You kinda... pinch it out of existence. If you do it here there and everywhere you could detonate the spell - like when you start at the origin - or you could edit the spell. It's difficult to edit one... but apparently it's possible. That's why you have to check them. Not just because they might be broken, but because they might have been re-programmed. Best to check before you leave, you know... just so they don't fry you instead of the badguys."
He nodded again, and I saw him make a mental note to definitely check them before he left every morning. Nothing quite woke you up like being electrocuted by an overzealous protection spell.
"But, if you're taking out a spell quick, and by force, like I say, you go for the origin. If you look closely and feel it you can usually work out which one it is. But for something like this most people would just naturally cast left to right. Your first and last one feel similar anyway - I don't know if you'd noticed they all feel slightly different...?"
He shook his head. Hadn't been looking that closely - that's good to know. I hated it when he was a little too observant. It made me feel inferior and silly.
"Well, have a little feel of them again... you'll probably be able to tell now that you know anyway - it thinks you cast it anyway in some ways..."
His hands moved over the marks once more, slower this time, probing.
"Gently though! Don't break the spell."
He nodded, still concentrating. Lee was a natural student. Quiet when he needed to be, questioning when he needed more. Resourceful too. I could tell from his face that he couldn't tell the difference. So he put one hand over Ansuz and one over the Ankh. Like weighing two things without scales. His left hand moved to the rune next to the Ankh and his eyes lit up. He'd felt the subtle difference.
"But you see how similar the end and beginning are?"
He nodded again, though I knew he had felt it "Well, because we're westerners, people always assume left to right. It's a pretty simple and effective rule of thumb to be fair. So if someones trying to sneak in, they're going to take the slow unwind method and not encase the spell first."
"So when they take out the Ansuz...?" his eyes were dancing
It was my turn to nod.
"Boom."
His face lit up as I said it. Most guys, that sort of excitement would be purely for the thought of blowing up an enemy by tricking them into it. For Lee it was for getting it right, proving he'd understood and had worked it out.
Then clouded slightly.
"But what if they go for the 'big boom' approach?"
I smiled again "Then they'll probably be in too much of a rush to pay enough attention. When you seal it in, the magical explosion is so contained no one notices it. Well - you might notice a little ripple - especially if it were a big enough spell. But you wouldn't check to make sure it was gone. You wouldn't need to. If you were going for the risky approach you'd be in too much of a rush to check anyway."
His eyes lit up, finally understanding the Ankh. It was the only symbol that wasn't a rune or sigil implicit in the spell.
"So they take out the Ankh, think the spell is dissolved, or at least unraveling, but in fact they've just kind of... opened it up?"
Still that little upwards note to the end of his sentence. He was bang on, but still unsure.
"Right." I smiled. Teaching Lee was like putting a drop of ink on paper and watching it spiral off into an intricate picture all on it's own. Easy, simple - beautiful.
"That's really clever." He said, finally retracting his hands from the window and stretching. Nearly two hours we'd been at it. My back ached, but I didn't want to stretch it in case I winced too much and he saw.
I still hadn't shown him the bruises, or the burn. I didn't want Dr. Pain going over it all with that semi-professional air he'd had since he was 13 (when he decided to become a doctor) not until I'd had some lunch at least. The prodding would hold off until then - of that I was determined.
"Tell you what, let's go down and have the last of that bacon."
Ah, bacon - the magic word. All magic was forgotten for a moment.
Three things did that to Lee. Bacon, Tea, and 'Roast Dinner'. If you ever need to change a subject with him offer him one of those three things. It works better than any spell.
Downstairs, the kettle on and bacon sizzling in the grill, he started with the questions again. This time about people.
"So, you said... Dan?... helped you cast the protection spells - right?"
I slid round him and got the milk out of the fridge. He was getting bread and plates out.
Our small kitchen only really allowed for one person to work in it at a time - but we'd never struggled. Some things just come from knowing each other too long. We never got in each others way, and always managed to get a job done together without having to ask who should do what. No wonder people thought we shared a brain.
"Yeah, Daniel Cavendish." I supplied the full name for him, dancing back around him to pour the milk into the cups still stewing with tea.
"Why did you need the help?" I slid the carton of milk back into the fridge door as he stacked bread on each of the plates. He turned round while I moved round him to stir the tea. I always imagined couples working around each other like this, but with their arms constantly going round each other. How on earth they got everything done and didn't end up batting each other off I had no idea.
I disposed of our teabags and handed his milk-cooled tea to him.
Once I had my own tea sipped and my aching back lent against the counter opposite him I answered. I'd needed a moment to work out how to word my reply.
"Well, I've never done them before. It was kind of to make sure I was doing it right - and for him to give me advice as we went. But also, we'd had a bit of a hard day. We were power-sapped. We kinda needed to lend it to each other. A whole house is a lot to cast on. You've seen how many spells we had to lay down."
He nodded, blowing on his tea as if it were still hot.
"Not to mention we were cloaking ourselves the whole time." I added with a shrug. I'd almost forgotten that. The concentration had almost killed me at the time. Pure adrenaline had made it possible.
His eyebrow raised at that. The bacon started to really fizzle, and he bent to take it out of the grill before it was 'cooked'. I'd always liked my bacon underdone, so he was kind enough to take mine out earlier than his own. Just pink was perfect for me. None of this 'brown' rubbish.
He must have been distracted or hungry, because he took his own out at the same time.
"You can cloak yourself?" He asked, burning his fingers slightly as he put the bacon on the bread.
I couldn't help myself. The mug touched the counter silently as I put it down.
Gathering my power to myself I thought of every way to make a persons gaze slide off me. It was more of a "look over there" spell than a "don't look at me" spell. It's easy when you have something for them to look at. I slipped off the counter quietly and moved to the fridge. It was right at his elbow, but the spell got him to look over his other shoulder at my mug.
His jaw had dropped.
Well, when you're expecting someone to be sat there and they aren't... okay, your instant reaction is to think they moved. The last thing you consider is that they've turned invisible.. unless you've just been talking about being invisible. Then it's the first thing you think.
I let the spell pull him forward to inspect the counter top.
He slowly put his hands out to try and touch me. But I wasn't there. His hands landed on the counter top.
Shocked, he turned away from me. Good cloaking spell.
I moved to the sandwiches and he looked past the fridge.
"Lilly??" his voice was somewhere between fear and awe.
I started to eat a sandwich, then tapped him on the shoulder.
He turned and looked at me, then looked away.
He tried to do a double take, but struggled.
"Why is it so hard to look at you?" he asked. I knew that feeling. Like looking at something too bright - it hurts your head and makes you want to not look.
"The trick is to look out of the side of your eye." I explained "Use your periphery vision. The spell works on your direct gaze."
He turned his head and tried looking at me from the corner of his eyes. Silly boy. He'd moved his eyes to be as close to me as possible. It would still hurt.
I laughed.
"No, look at the fridge door. Focus on it."
He did and raised his eyebrows in surprise as the pain faded.
"This is something no one else has noticed yet though." I said, putting down my half eaten sandwich and pushing it behind me and to the side. "Focus on my bacon butty."
He did and winced slightly - but didn't look away.
"It still hurts...?" he frowned
"Ignore me. You're looking at the bacon. Look at the bite mark. Focus on it."
After a second his vision cleared, his forehead going smooth.
"I can see you and it doesn't hurt!"
He was so thrilled he looked up at my face grinning, then swore and looked away with a headache.
I tried not go laugh - I really did. But it was a rookie mistake. I dropped the spell and bit my lip to stop the laughter.
"Here," I giggled, offering him his sandwiches "food helps."
He took it grumpily and moved into the living room, still rubbing his forehead.
I giggled again and picked up both our cups as well as my own plate of bacon butties. Waitress training is useful all your life. Even if it's only to stop you spilling liquids and foods all over the carpet when you keep wanting to laugh.
"Sorry." I said, sitting down cross-legged next to our little coffee table. He was sat in one of the armchairs, one sandwich already invisible. Being lower down than him always eased tension that I'd caused. Like a deference.
"So who else did you mention?" he asked, changing the subject. He didn't like getting things wrong.
"Bree and Kali." I supplied, "They're two of the girls in the coven who are teaching me a lot of the time." I took a giant bite, needing all the extra energy I could get after the spell. I wasn't supposed to cast unnecessarily - especially lately. I was supposed to conserve my strength... but it was just too tempting to show off with Lee.
"What was it you were saying about Kali? See how she got on last night...?"
He'd make a terrible lawyer with all these leading questions. But this wasn't a court room and I wasn't on trial. You can't feel intimidated by a guy who's devouring a pink and white sandwich with that much gusto. He looked too open and innocent.
"Kali was probably going to spend all night healing Bree." I put my sandwich down, feeling guilty. I still hadn't called to find out if she was ok. To see if she was even alive. Part of me was too scared to.
"What happened?" His voice was gentle now.
Normally just that would have brought tears to my eyes. But they stayed dry. Maybe I was getting harder hearted - stronger. Had to think of it as stronger, or I'd end up in tears at night for my lost innocence... which was such a pitiful thing to cry over.
"Bree had taken me to a small circle out in the woods. They're like.... 5 miles out?" I shrugged, knowing it wasn't important how far away the stupid woods were "She wanted to get me to hold a circle with her outdoors. She said it was the best place for it."
Lee was leaning forwards now, intent on my story. Bacon all finished.
Maybe he's just after my bacon... a little voice said in my head, making me nearly smile.
"Everything was going fine... but then we felt this... it was like a pressure - pushing in on us from all around." I shook my head with the memory "Some one was trying to break the circle."
I'd felt it a few times before. Each time the coven had all been present and we'd either fortified the circle or broken it and fought what ever was there. I say we - I'd been shepherded into the center of them and been protected. That's how Lani had died - she was right at the edge of the circle when they broke it one time. The first line of defence. Bree and Kali had worked on her for hours, trying to resuscitate her... but we'd all known... she wouldn't be waking up from those wounds.
"We didn't have time to fortify the circle, and before we could prepare and disband it ourselves, it broke. The power just snapped... and this thing... they told me it was a shape shifter... it was on us."
I suddenly realised that Lee was sat next to me, one hand on my shoulder. He thought I was still in shock.
"Bree shoved this almighty psi-ball into its chest and it flew backwards into the trees!" I said, the awe still present in my voice echoing my memory. I'd never seen Bree fight. She was on the 'last stand' line. A healer mostly - I thought. But that ball of power had been bigger than any other I'd ever seen! One to be truly proud of.
"It was amazing! But there was another one heading towards us - full pelt. I hit it with my own psi ball and it kinda yelped and stopped. No where near as impressive..." I managed to smile at Lee and he smiled back, his hand slowly massaging my back as I talked.
"We thought it was just the two lycans, but then Magdalene stepped out of the trees in all her blazing glory." I shuddered. "Magdalene is circle Half-light's high priestess. She is... scary... to say the least. She almost shimmers with magic..." I shook my head trying not to think about it. Lee just nodded.
"She threw this... fire .. thing... at us. Bree took the brunt of it - it hurt like hell. I think it was pure energy. Our defence spells just weren't strong enough to keep it out. We'd thrown them up as we saw her... I need to learn some better ones. So does Bree, come to think of it."
Suddenly I realised that the last stand line must be comprised of healers and fighters. They weren't there for defence. That's what the first and second defence were for. If they got through those defences, offence was the only thing left. Go down in a blaze of glory. I shivered at the thought, and Lee's hand applied a little more pressure to my spine.
"Anyway, we obviously weren't what she'd been expecting, because when Bree lobbed one of her uber psi-balls back at her, she just kinda disappeared. I'm pretty sure it's quick movement and a cloaking spell that does it... not that it matters.... but either way, the wolf thing that I'd hit had recovered by then and it kinda dove at us. It knocked me onto some rocks and Bree had to drag it off me... Bastard thing bit her though - it got her on the shoulder and damn near ripped it off!"
I'd closed my eyes, remembering it. Laying on the floor, panting from fear and exhaustion after trying to hold the damn thing away from my own throat, I'd watched as it jaw clamped over her. I'd heard her scream out in pain, and felt this shift somewhere deep inside. The pain from my back and chest had disappeared. My arm had stopped throbbing from the burn, and I was just flying at the beast.
"We managed to fry it and I dragged it off her. Then I had to stop the bleeding... Thank the Goddess that Kali had taught me some first-aid magic! I don't know what would have happened otherwise."
Kneeling in that clearing with Bree's heart fluttering unsteadily under my desperate hands, I'd pulled on every ounce of strength the earth could lend me and poured it into the basic healing spell. Her heart seemed to take forever to start beating somewhat steadily again. It was still irregular and too fast, but it was the best I could do. The bleeding had stopped - I needed to get her to a real healer.
"She must have got a message out, because Kali pulled up to the car as I got out of the tree line we had parked near. Bree's quite small, so it wasn't too hard to carry her. Kali started on the healing straight away, and I managed to drive us back to hers. Things were still a bit touch and go when Dan picked me up at theirs to bring me home. He'd been attacked at home, so we decided to up security at Kali's and mine..."
I looked up into Lee's eyes "I really need to call and see how she is."
He took a deep breath and nodded. "Yeah, good idea. Let me have a look at that burn while you do."
I winced. He was already peeling back my sleeve and taking off the gauze. Dan and I weren't healers. It had been a slap dash fix up.
"Be gentle..." I begged as I fished for my mobile in a pocket. Kali smiled up at me from my screen as it dialed.
At first I thought it was going to ring straight through to answer machine, but she picked up. Bree was okay. Kali was whacked. Our priestess Tanya had shown up with Marcus, our High Priest, around half hour after I'd left with Dan and helped work on her. They'd had to carefully draw out all of the shifter's venom. One of the benefits if her heart had stopped beating would have been that the poison would have been easier to extract.
I didn't know Shifters had venom. Live and learn.
By the time I'd hung up, my top was in a heap on the floor and Lee was applying creams to my bruised back and ribs. It hurt to be touched, but he was good at this. He was a natural healer - trained or not. My arm had a clean dressing on it, and whatever he'd done had made it less painful. For that I was grateful.
I'm not keen on being looked after. It makes me feel like a baby, or a doll... or a girl. I hate being made to feel inferior by needing to be looked after. At least with a friend like Lee, who was used to patching up my scrapes from younger, tomboy times, it didn't feel like being patronised. It felt like I was interesting - my bruises were odd, my burn unlike anything he'd seen, it was all very interesting to him.
If he were ugly and like this all the time no one would ever like him.
Thankfully he was normally a little too empathic - not cold and clinical like this. In fact, his good humour, good looks and good energy always ensured he had lots of friends. Lucky sod.
I relayed the information of Bree's imminent recovery to Lee, and was obliged to extend Kali's invitation to him. She'd been dying to meet my 'absent' flat mate for ages. Technically, she was in a relationship with Bree... but Kali isn't a one woman kind of girl. I don't know how Bree puts up with it, but she does.
I'd been putting off introducing Lee to my coven friends for two reasons. Firstly because the boy couldn't hide his powers if he tried, and secondly I think I might hit Kali if she flirted too heavily with him.
Not that I'm the jealous type. Lee isn't my boyfriend - god, that'd be wrong on so many levels; like dating your brother - but at the same time, the thought of Kali flirting with him made me see red... just a little bit. I reckon it's because I think it would hurt Bree's feelings... and I love Bree to bits. She's like a big sister to me.
Still, when I'd gasped on the phone from the gauze coming off and Lee had said "Sorry! Sorry..." the jig was up.
"Is that the infamous Leigh-John Pain?" had been the instant response from Kali... no point lying, so she'd found out he was off work - seeing to my injuries.
"How did you explain the injuries?" she asked. The girl may have had 3 hours sleep and been healing her partner all night, but she was still the sharpest Athame on the rack.
"The truth." I admitted.
A low whistle had told me just what she'd thought of that. Brave. Stupid. Insane.
"How'd he take it?"
"Better than I would have..." a slight lie there. We were too similar if I was honest - Lee and I had almost identical reactions internally, I just let mine out a little more hap-hazardly than he did.
"You mean he's okay with it?" She sounded so excited I wanted to cringe, but knew that Lee would think he'd hurt me - and this time he hadn't. I couldn't feel the bits of skin he was picking out of my arm. Was that a good sign or a bad one?
"Well, sort of... yeah..." I didn't want her getting too excited.
"Awesome! So you can bring him over when you come round later?"
Sometimes I should just keep my big fat mouth firmly closed.
"I'll ask him when he's finished concentrating."
That boy is deaf when he's concentrating. It's the god's honest truth. It's as if he sets up everything for record. You can't get a response till he's finished - but then he can remember everything you've said. He's answered seven questions in the correct order before after concentrating on his work. He hadn't written them down - I checked. Freaky brainy witch.
"Is that what you promised to ask me then?" He asked after I invited him.
I nodded glumly.
"You don't want me to go, do you?"
"Look where this stuff has gotten me..."
He raised an eyebrow.
"You think I want you part of this?" I added.
"You always used to say we'd do everything together." He said, easing back from me to sit on his heals. He was finally finished with my ribs.
"We were kids... you know we can't do everything together..." I tried to edge out of the conversation. The stuff we couldn't do together wasn't the stuff we were talking about, then or now. In fact, this was exactly the kind of thing I'd been talking about all those years ago. We weren't going to face anything alone. That had been the plan. When had that changed?
When I grew up and stopped wanting to drag my best friend into harms way.
"If you don't want me at your side... let me know..."
I sighed, defeated. He knew I'd cave at that. There might be more words, more 'you-aren't-coming's... but he knew, as well as I did, that when 3 o'clock rolled round he'd be at my side on the way to Kali and Bree's house.
Damn.
Three things were for sure:
- He knew me too damn well
- There was no way I could protect him anymore
- I'd never been so relieved and pleased to be foiled than I was right now.
