After my excruciatingly lengthy transition at the tavern ended, I spent the rest of the night holed up in my house, staring for more news broadcasts and waiting for my regional magical cottage to open its doors the next morning.
They officially unlocked at nine, but sometime around seven, I became eager.
Morning traffic earned a fifteen-minute drive doubled as long and drained my already frazzled nerves.
I positioned my gunmetal grey Jetta close to a storehouse two blocks away from the cottage in the neighbourhood named Wildewood Park, a various neighbourhood composed of evacuated manufacturers and a combination of low- to middle-income plantation cabins built in the 1960s.
Though I felt pretty convinced about the insurance of my recent identity and did not acknowledge I was in unexpected danger of being hunted by the Oaks, stepping into the regional cottage in full daylight made me a little paranoid.
For all I realized, people could be risking it out. I muttered a short spell and authorized one of the sigils on my arm to further obscure my personality, just to be cautious.
I pulled my handbag higher up on my shoulder after nausea dwindled, then slunk down the broken sidewalk.
Eligos Erhius, or E∴E∴ as it is recognized in the magical society, is an occult declaration established in the late twelfth century in France, which renders it the longest-running supernatural society in the world.
Like every other declaration, it is a nonprofit, tax-exempt foundation, and commemorated the "Study, Wisdom, and Advancement of the Arcane Arts." Kinda like Hog-warts, only with limited wands and more nakedness.
The declaration pushed its operational headquarters from Europe to the States in the first twentieth century, along with two other occult declarations. There were a tandem thousand E∴E∴ partners scattered around a modicum of U.S. hotels.
The main hotel in Florida, where I grew up, was outstanding; the regional hotel here in Ceura is not. Irregular than a hundred partners followed traditional ritual ceremonies and lessons here.
The dayspring sun was dazzling as I strolled out of early-autumn shades and made my way to the barricaded door of the cottage. Two scraggly, underwatered palm trees flanked the corridor.
I chimed the doorbell and saw a couple of rental vehicles in the back parking lot. This earned me a little uncomfortable, but before I could assume about it too much, a thick man with skinned blond hair unlocked the door: the Grandmaster's subordinate.
He offered me an unpleasant short smile as he welcomed me by my original name.
"Sister Gwen, my … heart broadens in your presence."
I swivelled my eyes and begrudged a legal announcement. "Frater Kantor."
"You appear as if you did not get much sleep either previous night, Sister. Too awful we could not have stayed up together."
His stares wavered over my breasts.
"That will never, ever transpire, Frater."
"An embarrassment. With my brains and your lineage …"
Ah, yes. My freaking lineage. My decree named me a Moonchild. Proclaimed as a sort of saint, I originated during a complicated procession of classified magical sex ceremonies between my parents.
At best, the anticipated outcome of these rites was to produce an exotic godlike being, something between Jesus and Rosemary's Baby.
At worst, it was just demanding supernatural breeding between two powerful and once-prominent magicians.
Apart from my preternatural conception, the small silver ring that nobody but me and Earth-bounds could see—and an innate mastery for igniting Heka, I was pretty convinced the remains of it was a crock of shit.
Still, before the Black Lodge massacres transformed everything, the occult society was humming about my capability. I was eighteen and just coming into my potential.
It was a big bargain. Now only a few of the trusted species in my association recognized my presence; how the mighty have strumbled.
"Speaking of my lineage, Frater Kantor, if you proceed to oppress me every time I arrive at the Ceura Hotel, I am going to pick rank and get you banished from the damn declaration."
"My apologies, Sister." He could not have signified it less.
"Probably you will be pleased to understand that Ralph Superior from the Florida hotel is inside waiting for you."
The rental vehicles outside … this was urgent. I had not discerned Ralph Superior in person since I had gone into concealment.
We had only discussed by phone and email, sometimes through our protectors.
I shoved Frater Kantor aside and stepped into the hotel, the heels of my boots clicking on the tiled ground in the darkened, poise corridor.
Frater Kantor closed the outside door, then scrambled to get in front of me as I made it to the posterior offices. Before he could disclose me, the provincial Grandmaster stood up.
But I could not have minded less about her; it was the man behind her I needed to see.
"Gwen, my sweetheart," he said.
"It is so nice to see you again."
A surge of excitement hooked me by surprise at the scenery of him. It took me a minute to decipher. "Godfather."
He held up his arms to me. I walked forth into his embrace and authorized him to kiss me, once on each cheek. He scented friendly and earthy. Protected.
Ralph Superior was in his earlier seventies. His onetime lengthy, white hair was now small and thinning.
Apart from donning a large gold ring carrying an engraved unicursal hexagram, you would not indicate that he was the commander of one of the most influential magical foundations in the Western world. In his luxurious suite, he looked more like an ex-lawyer or someone's wealthy grandfather—both of which he was.
He had seven offspring by four different women, and a few grandchildren, all of whom could assert a lineage extending back to onsets of the declaration. One of them would take over as commander when he deceased.
"Sister Bella," I mumbled, nodding my head toward the Grandmaster.
She shook back and gestured for me to take a chair in a broken leather armchair that was categorized with numerous others in front of a murky fireplace.
A portrait of a Sumerian war goddess is attached above the mantel between a William Blake photograph and an engraving of John Dee and Edward Kelley arousing a spirit.
Ralph Superior settled down second to me while the Grandmaster shooed away her wormy deputy.
"I can not believe how much you have improved," Ralph Superior let out.
"To behold you in person instead of pictures … ah, my goddaughter came to be a woman." His eyes beamed over with excitement as he attained to stroke my face.
"You shave your hair." I grinned at him while brushing away a slight tear before it could recede.
"You grew yours out. It is lovely."
The previous time I had seen him, my hair was trimmed short. Now it fell to the centre of my back. Generally a dark brunette, I began whitening the underside white-blond; Lee Chan explained it made me look like Pepé Le Pew's girlfriend.
"Contacts?" he inquired of.
"Yes." Blues were presently brown.
He moaned and removed his hand.