"No, just part of the same strange mixture of legend and lies," said Ballard.
Ballard"s moon-blue motorbike started and we raced into countryside. I felt alive again.
Volt and Pouch were two scrawny-looking fourteen-year-old boys, when we finally got therethey jangled when they walked, weighted down with binoculars and other gear. Both were in makeshift fatigues. They looked ridiculous.
When Ballard appeared, they said, "It"s Ballard", "It"s Ballard", in hushed, awestruck voices. As a sixteen-year-old, he was far, far older and far superior than they were.
They were camped out in a little hideaway in Rome. Trastevere, to be precise.
"If there was a district of Magic in Rome it would be here. In Trastevere," said Ballard.
Either Volt or Pouchthey were honestly interchangeabletook off their binoculars and handed them to Ballard.
We were in a quaint little corner of Trastevere, hiding behind a pillar at a four-way intersection; the street was made of cobblestones.
Volt and Pouch were using a newspaper stand to hide behind. People came and went, on foot, buying The Daily Telegraph, and somesuch, ignoring the boys. Ballard, however, seemed serious. The newspaper vendor pretended like we weren"t there. I looked at my Gambalunga, just wishing we could leave. It was parked beside a huge stack of newspapers that had been cut open. There were riots in the streets in other parts of Rome; it had yet to spill into Ballard"s neighborhood. I commented upon it.
"How many times do I have to say? We keep the peace. The other mortals are completely oblivious to what is going on here. They"re free to do what they want," said Ballard.
"But what is going on?" I said.
"In a word?" said Ballard. "...Change." He peeked through the binoculars at the doorway across the street. It looked like a tavern of some sort. A moon and star were engraved above the doorway. It looked like a cyclops with a happy face.
Ballard frowned.
I made a noise.
"Ahem," I said. "Can I see you over here?" I pulled Ballard away. Volt and Pouch continued to stare at the strange tavern; one of them undid his canteen and took a long draught.
"What are we doing here?" I said.
"It"s a stakeout mission," said Ballard.
I mimed staking a vampire.
"It"s not that," he said.
"So are Volt and Pouch on the Wolves" Council? I mean are theywerewolves?" I practically had to whisper.
"Of course not," said Ballard. "They"re way too young."
"How old do you have to be, anyway?" I said.
He ignored this.
"Look. It"s okay if you don"t want to tell me," I said. "But I do want to know what we"re doing here. I could be getting ready. Or something."
"What, you mean for those Wiccans? You can"t honestly believe you want to be a part of them? I"ve heard things," said Ballard.
"Be that as it may..." I said.
He held up his hand. Ballard was really becoming annoying. Either Volt or Pouch made some hand sign. Ballard returned it, but more intricately.
"I just told them to hold their positions for another forty-eight hours," he said.
"Don"t they have school?"
"This is more important. Anyway, where were we? Oh yeah. You were nervous about something."
"I just wondered what we were doing here, is all," I said, slightly hurt.
"I told you, we"re staking the place out. There are... things inside."
"What kinds of things?"
"Honestly it"s more up your ally than mine," he said.
"Is that why I"m here, you need me for something?" I said.
"No."
I snapped my fingers in front of his face, bringing him back. "h.e.l.lo? Ballard, you there?"
"Right. You wanted to know," he said. "It"s like this."
I waited for him to speak, but it was like he was thinking about something. Finally he opened his mouth.
"We are called. It is our birthright. You understand?"
"Not really," I said unhelpfully.
"It"s like in magic. Lia says that when one is "particularly well-lineaged,"" he said, putting the words in quotes, "they are said to have status. Something to do with which parents you had or something."
"Go on," I said.
"Well, Lia and I come from a well-lineaged werewolf bloodline..."
"You mean Risky?" I said.
He nodded. "My parents don"t know. They think we just run the shop, so I guess it may have skipped them."
"But what does that have to do...?"
"I"m getting there. That symbol over the door... means it"s a werewolf-friendly tavern. Like that restaurant I took you to," said Ballard. "There is something in there that should not be. That is why we are watching."
I looked again. Ballard made it sound like whatever was inside there was really dangerous.
Then he said, "Wiccans. But not Wiccans. They are inside."
"Did you get a look at their faces?" I asked.
He shook his head.
"As far as werewolves go," he said, "we are called hamrammr, and we are called, to serve seven years. But for some of us, for some of us it lasts longer than that."
"Gaven..." I said.
"His time is running out. He"s already stretched it to as far as it will go. The Gift, as he calls it, could leave him at any time. And we are under tremendous duress. He thinks the vampires may be angling to stake Rome for themselves."
He mimed putting a stake through Rome"s heart.
"But its history... Romulus and Remus... Rome is the seat of the Werewolves..." I said.
"Then these black-magic, dark, Wiccan weirdos show upit"s weird." He motioned to the tavern. I wanted to know more.
"Gaven is nervous. If he loses the ability to transform... You see we have to use Volt and Pouch... we"re spread thin," said Ballard. "I won"t let us fail. That"s why we"re here. Oh and Lia wants to take you shopping. So I thought I"d get you away from her for a while."
"Are Volt and Pouch going to be okay?" I asked, disregarding this last bit.
"Oh yeah. They"re just observing. We have a few others we kept back," said Ballard. "Transformers. You may have noticed we were gone yesterday. We were having a meeting. Don"t tell Lia."
"But you shouldn"t even be telling me," I said.
"Nonsense. You"re family. Anyway... There is a legend, in Trastevere, about Defenders. Many was the time my mother tucked me in and told me about how they protect Rome. I just didn"t know I would be one someday."
"And the symbols on the doorways?"
"Like I said, it only lasts for seven years. There have to be Defenders out there, don"t there, whose time came and went. Yet they remember what it was like to be a Wolf."
He hopped on his Ducati. Volt and Pouch gave him a thumbs-up. And a salute.
I didn"t say itjust thought it. For Gaven and the rest of the werewolves, they were twentysomethings. Ballard was showing and he was only sixteen. Why?
He kicked his Ducati into life. We drove past the "werewolf-friendly tavern". It looked like one of those places which has suffered urban decay.
I drove up to Ballard. "It isn"t a tavern at allit"s a movie theater," I said.
He looked back at the round marquee, with the falling letters. The box office out front had been papered over with advertis.e.m.e.nts. The gla.s.s was all dark. Old newspapers drifted down the street, tossed by the people who read the bits they wanted, and discarded the rest....
"Lia. Lia!"
"Oh hi Halsey."
"You"re drooling on your spell book," I said.
"Mmm."
I got into my pajamas. Dear Diary, I wrote.
Gaven is almost a tricenarianit means he"s really old. Lia seems interested in the Craft, but she"s twenty-four. Next summer is probably her twenty-fifth, which means, from a Wiccan point of view, she just made it. I"m concerned about her werewolf point of view. And her Midnight mumblings...
Maybe, whatever Ballard took me to today, it has something in common with her dream talking. She"s worried about something but she won"t tell me what. Shopping should be the furthest thing from her mind. A mind dangerously close to being set in its ways. Can a person really be more than one thing? In school, they wanted to teach us to be well-rounded. But I don"t think that"s how it is. I think you find one thing. And then you do the you-know-what out of it. Right?
Asher was creeping around on his padded feet and I have still not seen a transformation. Although... Veruschka Ravenseal did make lights fly out of her hand. If one is real, the other probably is as well. I can"t help thinking Ballard is going to say, "Surprise! Fooled ya! I"m not really a werewolf, after all!"
I miss my room. I miss Via dei Condotti. If I had a home, I would say I wanted to go there. But I don"t.
Do you just stop being an orphan when you turn eighteen? Does it just turn off, in the same way it sounds like Gaven will turn off, when he becomes a tricenarian?
Despite what she may say, or however much she may want to be a Wiccan, I know Lia will go with Gaven, when he decides to leave. I don"t see him drifting through Rome saying Remember When?
Question: if I had to give it up, to stop being a witch, would I? For Lennox?
I put my pen down and thought about it. The candle guttered, then came back.
I guess what I"m saying is, it"s between love and something else. And I am at a crossroads. As is Lia. We didn"t see it coming. But it"s here. It"s here.
Chapter 13 The Styles Master.
Lia bolted down her breakfast, a chocolatey cappuccino, and two pieces of bruschetta, a lovely Italian word, meaning toast.
We were late for practice, and I had not eaten anything. "You can"t conjure on an empty stomach," Lia chastised me.
"Honestly, I"m more worried about throwing up when they realize I can"t do Magic," I said, as we hurried along.
The tunnels went all over the place. I frequently had to check my map. Finally, we got there.
The central chamber was even more ominous than I rememberedperhaps my last visit, and Maria"s snickering, had made it that way for me. The sandpit looked gladiatorial. One wizard was standing there. Unlike the previous time, n.o.body else was up in the stands, laughing behind their hands, and whispering secret nothings about me.
Was I being paranoid?
Anyway.
As was our wont, Lia and I showed up late. We stood in a line next to the other Initiates, whom I could swear, said, "About time." The wizard looked at us sternly.
He wasawesome-looking; there was no other way to describe it. One of those people beyond description.