Read Thicker Than Water Online

Authors: Carla Jablonski

Thicker Than Water (7 page)

BOOK: Thicker Than Water
11.55Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
Kia closed her eyes and felt Carol's small cool hand and Aaron's large, warmer one. She tried to do what Aaron said, but her brain just kept spinning.
I can't believe I slipped again,
she thought.
So soon.
“Let all the tensions and worries of the day drain out of you,” Aaron crooned.
Yeah, right,
Kia thought, but she ordered herself to pay attention to Aaron.
“Feel your breath,” Aaron said. “In and out again.”
After a few moments, she realized that she and her friends were all breathing together. It felt cozy, as if they were sharing a soft blanket. They released hands and Aaron used the baton to make a pentagram in the air.
Aaron crossed to the little propeller fan and picked it up. Holding the fan out in front of him, he intoned, “Hail to the element of air. Come join us in our circle tonight, giving us your strength and your protection.”
He flicked the switch on the battery-operated fan and Kia felt its breeze as he held it first in front of himself, then in front of Carol, then in front of Kia. “We are your children, air. We welcome you.”
He turned off the fan and placed it back on the floor. He moved in a circular path to the red candle. He lit it and held it in front of him just as he did with the fan. “Hail to the element of fire. Come join us in our circle tonight, giving us your strength and your protection.” He passed his hand just above the flame, then held it in front of Carol. He nodded at her, and she passed her hand above the flame. Then he did the same with Kia.
Aaron's good at this,
Kia thought as the heat from the flame made her hand glow.
“We are your children, fire,” Aaron said. “We welcome you.” He placed the candle back on the floor.
Now he moved around the circle to the bowl of water. “Hail to the element of water. Come join us in our circle tonight, giving us your strength and your protection.” He stuck a finger into the water and dabbed his forehead with it. Then he had Carol and Kia do the same thing.
Kia found the repetition soothing. She felt herself relaxing.
He had arrived at the saltshaker. “Hail to the element of earth.” He shook some salt into his hand and licked it. Carol and Kia repeated his action, then he returned to his original spot and said, “Our circle is cast.”
Aaron, Kia, and Carol all looked at each other.
Now what?
Kia wondered.
Aaron gestured for them to sit. “There's a list in one of these books about what kind of magic works best on Sundays.”
Carol held up one of Aaron's books. “It says here that Sunday is a good day for spells of protection, strength, and healing.” Carol looked at Kia. “I think we should do a healing spell.”
Kia swallowed hard before she spoke. “I—I don't know....”
“Great idea,” Aaron said, flipping pages. “Okay, this is a general healing spell, and we can just adjust it so that it works for Kia's mom.”
Carol knelt beside Aaron and peered at the book. “Do we have what we need?”
“Let's see. We've got the blue candles. We also need to drink water. I guess we can just drink from the water bowl.”
Carol snorted. “That makes us sound like dogs.”
“Woof,” Aaron said.
Carol handed the book to Kia. “Here, you can say the words,” she offered. Kia's heart thudded and she stared at the page, the words blurry in the flickering candlelight.
“I—I don't think I can,” she finally admitted, letting the book fall shut. She could feel Carol and Aaron look at each other.
“I'll do it if you want,” Carol offered.
“But wouldn't my mother have to be the one to do the spell anyway?” Kia asked. “Since we're supposed to drink in healing powers.”
“I think it can be done for anyone, by anyone,” Aaron said. “Let Carol try.”
Kia shrugged and said, “If you want.”
Carol took the book. “Why don't you light the candle?”
Kia complied, relieved her hand didn't shake as she held out the match.
“Okay. I call upon the powers of the elements to aid me in this healing spell. I am asking for help in healing Kia's mom.”
Kia studied her shoelaces.
“I ask that air blow away her cancer.”
Kia felt her stomach tighten.
“I ask that fire transform sickness into health.”
Kia swallowed.
“I ask that water wash away the bad cells.”
Kia shut her eyes.
“I ask that earth ground me and help to manifest my wishes on this material plane.”
Kia opened her eyes again and stared at the candle flames.
Carol picked up the water bowl. Her brow furrowed. “Should I drink this or should Kia?”
“All three of us,” Aaron said. “That way it's a wish from all of us.”
“We drink in the power of water to heal,” Carol declared. She took a sip and then passed the bowl to Kia. Kia's hands trembled and she sloshed a bit of water out of the bowl. She sipped quickly and handed the bowl to Aaron. Aaron took a drink and placed the bowl back in its place. “Let's say the last words all together,” he said.
“As I will it, so it will be!” Carol, Kia, and Aaron said in unison.
“Now we have to raise energy and send the spell out to the universe,” Aaron said, getting to his feet.
“How?” Kia asked.
“Chanting. Dancing. Like we did in the park.”
“What should we chant?” Carol asked.
Aaron smiled. “How's this? As I will it, so it will be. As I will it, so it will be.”
As Aaron continued to chant, Kia and Carol joined in. Over and over, they repeated the words, adding clapping and stomping. Then Aaron led them in a circle around his tiny room, stepping up onto his bed and coming back down the other side.
Around and around Kia went, clapping, shouting. Stomping her feet hard. jumping down from Aaron's bed. Carol twirled in front of her, and Aaron jumped up and down behind her, and all the time they inscribed a circle on the floor of the room, chanting, “As I will it, so it will be.”
Without even a signal to each other, they each suddenly stopped circling and started dancing in place. Kia grew warm with the movement; the whole room seemed to have risen in temperature.
Shooting their arms straight up into the air, they cried, “As I will it, so it will be!” and abruptly stopped. They stood there, the only sound their labored breathing, mixed with tiny soft laughs.
“Wow,” Aaron said finally.
“I'd say that was some serious energy raising,” Carol said.
Kia nodded. “Definitely electric.” She could feel her heart racing, her body alive and vibrating.
“So are we finished?” Carol asked.
“We have to close the circle,” Aaron said. “Just say thanks to all the elements and blow out the candles.”
Once they had undone the ceremony, Aaron had them all take hands again. “The circle is open but unbroken. We shall all meet again.”
“We do all hang out together all the time,” Kia said.
“But it's nice to acknowledge it formally,” Aaron replied. He flopped onto his bed. “So that was pretty cool.”
“Wouldn't it be great if it could really work?” Carol said. She settled on the floor in front of Aaron's closet.
Kia leaned on the windowsill, tapping a foot. There was still a lot of energy running through her, energy that reminded her of the previous night in her room. “So now what do you guys want to do?”
“It's already after ten. What is there to do?” Aaron asked. “On a Sunday.”
Good point. Then Kia remembered. Sunday. That was the vampire night. The one Hecate had told her about. She rummaged through her backpack and found the crumpled flyer. “We could go to this. It's supposed to be fun.”
Aaron took the postcard from her. “Vampires?”
“It's in Brooklyn,” Carol said, peering over Aaron's shoulder.
“The girl who gave it to me seemed cool,” Kia said. “Hey, we went to your witch thing. Now we should check out a vampire thing.”
“What, some Buffy wannabes?” Carol asked.
“Technically, if they're vampires,” Aaron pointed out, “Buffy is their worst nightmare.”
“Spike is hot. So is Angel,” Kia said, knowing Aaron's weakness.
“You have a point. It could be okay.”
“Tell your mom that you're going to keep me company at my house,” Kia told Carol. “Just say my dad's out of town or something.” She turned to Aaron. “You could leave your parents a note and tell them the same thing.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Aaron said.
FIVE
A
long subway journey later, they were in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. They emerged aboveground on a busy street filled with coffee shops, restaurants, clothing stores, and pedestrians—mostly young and hip. As they followed the directions on the flyer, the heavily trafficked streets gave way to wider, more deserted ones, and the stores vanished, replaced by mysterious industrial buildings with blacked-out windows.
“Are you sure we're going the right way?” Carol asked, stepping over some broken glass.
Kia squinted at the flyer. “According to this, the club should be on the next street.”
“If it's not there,” Aaron said nervously, “we're turning around and going back. This is no-man's-land.”
Kia saw some smokers puffing away in a huddle of leather jackets up the street. A small red light above a doorway indicated an entrance. “I bet that's it,” she said, darting ahead. She wanted to see Hecate again. Wanted to stay out late and not get home till sunrise.
She wanted to keep vampire hours.
A large man wearing a long black cloak over leather pants and a high-collared white shirt with a ruffled front stood at the doorway. That was when Kia remembered—none of them had ID.
She held up the flyer as she approached the door. The door dude glanced at her, at the flyer, and grinned.
Fangs. The guy had fangs! Recovering quickly, Kia grinned back.
“They're with me,” she added, tipping her head toward Aaron and Carol. Aaron was openly staring at the man's mouth, and Carol was looking down at the ground. She looked as if she were trying not to laugh.
The guy narrowed his eyes at Carol and Aaron suspiciously, then at Kia. Kia gave him an imploring look. “Newbies,” she said, hoping that would cover whatever offense Carol and Aaron were committing.
The guy smirked and nodded, as if he and Kia were sharing an inside joke. “Go ahead.” He stood away from the door.
They walked into a party scene in full throttle. The first thing Kia noticed was the bass line and drumbeat thumping into her heart. One of her favorite songs was blasting from the nearby loudspeakers. The room was crowded despite the cavernous proportions of the space. She, Carol, and Aaron were instantly separated by the flow of people making their way on and off the dance floor, to and from the bar, in and out the door. Kia pressed forward.
The enormous room was illuminated by flickering candles in sconces along the walls and hanging overhead in chandeliers. Lights aimed at the walls cast eerie pools of red on the rough surfaces. In the erratic, dim light, and because almost everyone in the room was wearing black, the mass of dancing bodies blurred into each other. Kia stood at the outskirts of the dancing, feeling its pull, wanting to blur into the mass too.
A hand tugged her jacket. “Wait up,” Carol said.
“What do you think they call this look?” Aaron asked. “High dungeon?”
“Faux torture chamber?” Carol suggested. “Yeah, like
that's
appealing.”
Kia suddenly had the uncanny sense that someone was watching her. Slowly she turned and gazed up at the DJ booth above the bar. A pale face framed by pale hair peered down at the crowd between rough iron bars. Peered down at Kia.
Those are intense eyes,
she thought.
Black, almost.
He vanished, and the music changed. The beat revved up again.
“Right, Kia?” Carol was saying.
“What?” Kia asked.
“We should move out of the way,” Carol said. “Out of the path of the door.”
“Oh, right.”
They wove their way through the black-clad throngs. Both men and women smiled at her as she moved around them, often revealing fangs. Kia found herself smiling back.
They all seemed so friendly. Kia felt ...
welcome.
Aaron hustled them into a little alcove, where they piled onto a burgundy velvet love seat. He stretched out his legs and rested his sneakered feet on the small table.
“Did you see those fangs?” Aaron asked, shaking his head and laughing.
“What kind of freak would do that?” Carol said, giggling. “Do you think they're permanent?”
“Check out that dude,” Aaron said, nodding toward the end of the bar. A man wearing a Victorian brocade jacket over a vest and silk pants stood holding a glass of red wine. A woman in a corset and long skirt approached him. They spoke a minute, then he grabbed her long hair, yanked back her head, and bent over her throat.
“Is he biting her?” Carol asked, nearly squeaking.
Aaron snorted. “Man, she's going to have a major hickey in the morning.”
A crowd gathered around the pair at the bar, urging them on, and then another man bit the woman on the other side of her neck. His hands slid down her long skirt, slowly, then up again while the other man rested his hand on the exposed part of her breast above the top of the low-cut corset.
How intense is this going to get?
Kia wondered, her eyes glued on the scene even as she felt a blush tingle her cheeks.
BOOK: Thicker Than Water
11.55Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

The Hidden Harbor Mystery by Franklin W. Dixon
First Family by Joseph J. Ellis
Vendetta by Jennifer Moulton
Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta
Mistress Wilding by Rafael Sabatini
Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh