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Chapter Two
Innocent Seduction
Heather attended an international school not far from the middle of Paris and was away from home for the first time. Her father sent her here because he was spending this year in London consolidating his publishing empire. Her mother was still at their home in New York. Her mother and father agreed that some time on the continent would be a good thing for her, even though she was just finishing seventh grade. The school they picked was quite reputable, and her parents trusted her to be well behaved as always. It was just for the 1987-1988 semester and things in France seemed safe enough that they had no worries.
She liked being in France. As an only-child, she had been privileged in many ways including over-indulgence, but she realized that part of her father’s ready compliance came neither from convenience of the situation nor from his tendency to spoil her, but from the negative influence and bad reputation of their Long Island neighbor’s daughter who was Heather’s best friend. That—and foreign travel would nicely pad Heather’s Harvard application.
Well, now that she was safely an ocean away from mischief—at least in her parent’s opinion—she set out to entertain herself, as any only-child knows how to do, by delving into the mysteries of Paris, at least those a bus ride from the school. She had an hour and a half off for lunch, and three hours in the evening. The school had an open campus policy.
She started frequenting a quaint bookshop in the oldest part of the city. It was a musty shop lined wall to wall and floor to ceiling with every manner of written material.
While most people considered Heather to be extremely rational, she had a yen for the supernatural, the irrational, and the supposedly unexplainable. She secretly cherished Sword and Sorcery books and read them in private the way some adults secretly indulged in trashy romance. Unbelievably, she enjoyed those as well.
Every time she went there she found something new, or rather something old, that leaped out at her and begged her to buy it. She never got up the nerve to actually make a purchase. She felt she would be criticized for dragging such foolishness back to the school, and in her room, which she shared with many other girls, there was no place to hide such things. So, despite the unpleasant gaze of the proprietor, she sat on the hardwood floor among the stacks reading book after book.
On one visit, during a particularly cold day in January, she found she wasn’t the only browser in the narrow shop. A lady in a white mini-skirt, yellow blouse, and black waist jacket stood toward the back perusing some of the oldest texts in the shop. She looked to be in her early thirties with an aura of vigor and energy about her. Her dark black hair was long, but pulled back with a bone comb. She touched the leather and vellum volume of Petrarch’s sonnets like it was an old and dear friend.
“Men are Pigs.” the woman said to the wall.
“Hmmm? Were you speaking to me, Madame?” Heather had seated herself out of the way on the floor intent to finish The Origin of Spells and Ritual Magic in Primitive Cultures from 1963 without bothering customer or owner.
The woman ran her finger down the stack of Renaissance volumes with a sad smile on her face. She caught her shiny red fingernail on a tattered edge of one of the bindings tearing the brittle material free in a chunk. The owner gasped loudly, but averted his eyes when the woman shot him a deadly glance. “We sold you most of these. Want more, Jacques?”
“You are selling your library?” Heather gave the woman a sad look.
“Oui. Our lifestyle requires appropriate funds for upkeep. We are hosting another party...Ah, I see you like the magick?”
“Y-yes, Madame.” Heather could see a fiery spark in the woman’s eyes. They seemed to be cerulean orbs that were preternaturally large when she looked into them.
“How old are you, girl?”
“Fourteen…well, in May,” she admitted.
“Ah, so young, I mistook you for someone older. Hmmm. Perhaps you might have some talent in you.” The woman gracefully moved over to Heather. Heather felt for a second like the woman’s intense gaze was going to swallow her and everything around her.
“I see you might have. I am Monet D’Médecins”
Heather looked up at the woman and brushed aside a strand of her honey gold hair. “My name is Heather Stevens.”
The woman glanced further at the books Heather had pulled from the stacks and gave her head a sad shake. “Well, all that is trash. I have some real books you should see.”
“Real…” Heather’s eyes lit up.
Heather felt herself flush as she looked into the woman’s eyes. They held danger and a forbidden attraction. “Jacques, provide her with my address. I have business to attend too.”
The manager waited until Monet had left the shop before sneering. “Ah, well, Mademoiselle, now you have sense enough not to go to her, don’t you?”
“Actually, she interests me...”
The man frowned and mumbled. “That woman lives outside of Paris, to the west. She lives in a manor house in the countryside. I hear it is a lovely chalet, but I’d never go there myself. Here is her address. My advice: do not write her even a letter.”
Heather didn’t care for the bookshop owner’s hostility to this wonderful woman, but remained silent as she took the slip of paper from him.
When Heather went to the address this was no mere country cottage but an old château that had seen better days. The grapes had grown untended in the vineyard; their bare vines twisted haphazardly among sagging supports so that the one now supported the other.
Because of the cold, she wore a long, thick winter coat over her school uniform and thermal leggings. The light grey coat had a fur trimmed hood. She liked the coat because it complimented her eyes.
She entered through the wrought iron gate set in the thick stone fence made of multi-colored rocks the size of human heads. Each rock was a hue of brown, tan, or grey, and arranged pleasingly in the seven foot barrier.
The flagstone path wove its way to the front door among the remains of informal gardens whose flowers had gone dormant; their stalks protruded from under a light snow fall.
Monet opened the door as Heather arrived as if she knew she would come. Monet wore a long red silk robe of oriental design whose V-neck plunged to her navel showing her pale cleavage and slight curves of her adequate breasts. Heather greeted Monet politely and followed her into the large villa where many rooms seemed empty or disused. Heather was surprised at the disarray. The place seemed even larger for the emptiness as their footfalls echoed in the dimness. The few pieces of furniture were covered with dusty sheets.
The outside had been the winter’s cold. The inside was like a sauna. Heather could almost image steam rising in the air from the heat. She quickly handed her coat to Monet.
The dining room held a surprise— a chandelier made entirely of bones.
“What is that?” asked Heather in shock. The skulls on the ends of the arms seemed to be grimacing at her.
“The monks at an ossuary near Prague made decorations of the bones of plague victims in the catacombs. We found this one particularly interesting; it uses every bone in the body multiple times. The monks said it reminded them of their mortality. We liked the idea....so we copied it.”
“And...you?...in the dining room?” Heather was a bit perplexed
“Well, some people need more reminding of their mortality than others.”
There were places set for eight. Apparently, Heather was not the only guest for dinner—Monet had mentioned a party now that she thought about it.
A man came into the room. He had short black hair and the same intense eyes as Monet, only his didn’t shine. Monet introduced him as her brother, Lorenzo. He whispered something in Monet’s ear.
She looked at Heather. “Please, have a seat here. The other guests will arrive shortly. I will show you those books after dinner. Please make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right back.” Monet glided away as effortlessly as a cat.
When Monet returned, she escorted in five garishly dressed people; to Heather, each appeared stranger than the next. No introductions were offered and none given. One man was dressed in a blue satin tux cut in a mandarin style. The Silver dragons embroidered on his sleeves matched his necklace. Another oddball was a pale man dressed all in black whose pallor extended to his personality; Heather felt he could be mistaken for a corpse. Twin girls, maybe in their late teens, dressed in sequined sheath gowns of red and of gold sat across from Heather and remained quiet most of the night; however Heather’s nerves were set on edge when one or the other of the interchangeable pair would giggle at odd moments. Finally, there was a twenty-something lady in a green ball gown; Heather found her unremarkable except for the fact that she seemed to become glued to Lorenzo about halfway through dinner. The guests seem to be as wary about Heather as she was about them.
Heather felt underdressed for the party in her white top and blue tartan skirt. She was the only one not made up for the strange, but elegant party.
The evening wore on to night. “Monet, I really should be going. The school will be expecting me back.”
“Do not fret ma chere we have notified the school you will be late. Stay the night and you can go back in the morning.”
Monet showed Heather to a room on the far side of the villa. In it she had placed several tomes she called books of real magick.
“Forgive me; I haven’t used these in a while, so they are in quite a state.”
Heather instantly fixated on the first book and let her mind devour it. She leafed from page to yellowed page and volume to musty volume. She studied late into the night long after she figured the party had died.
While stretching her legs in the long hall, she caught sight of Monet and Lorenzo with their arms around the inebriated girl from the party. The three were kissing and fondling one another like lustful teenagers. The girl giggled and moaned at the caresses. They were headed down the opposite hall toward the master suite and didn’t seem to notice Heather.
Heather shook her head. Lorenzo was Monet’s brother, but it was obvious he was her lover. Heather was a little taken aback, but she lived in New York. She was used to the idea of alternative lifestyles. But, the one thing she couldn’t understand is why she felt a bit jealous.
She found all manner of incantations contained within the tomes as well as odd theories on the nature of the universe. Some material seemed like magickal busy work and she handled them easily. Occasionally, she worked up the courage to try her hand at a spell. Just as she thought she had one down— where she could almost feel it— she lost her nerve and the feeling left her as the spell failed. Heather felt disappointment growing inside her.
Sometime before one a.m., Heather drifted off to sleep only to be roused by the roar of a wild beast echoing through the night. Heather felt as if it might have come from inside the house, but she wasn’t about to wander around to find out. She took solace in the heavy oak door of her room and buried herself deep in the comforter on the bed. Still, she didn’t sleep well after hearing such a noise; however, she drifted off again toward dawn.
Monet came into her room, without knocking, early that morning. She was dressed in the same robe, but Heather noticed a cuff had been torn. The robe fell open to reveal her alabaster right breast and the edge of her dark nipple, but she seemed unaware. Heather found herself staring at the woman’s graceful curves and felt uncomfortable.
Monet sat on the bed and talked with Heather at length.
When prompted, Heather told the woman with the sparkling eyes everything that had happened in her short thirteen years of life. She talked of her unquenchable thirst for knowledge and her feeling of emptiness. Heather declared that she always knew there was more to life and these books had proven it to her. She was excited, ecstatic. Her eyes shone with a passion and hers arms made wide gestures as she spoke of these things. At times, she was shaking the bed with her bouncy motions.
Monet merely smiled at the young girl’s jubilation. It was a tightlipped smile though that showed very few of Monet’s pointed teeth. But her high cheek boned face was friendly enough in its angular way. During their chat, she produced a candle from somewhere and set it on a small round table beside the bed.
“I am so glad you found those books interesting, but they are not for everyone. Those books, they were written for a different time when things were much easier for sorcerers. Today, one needs to be blessed with talent at the very least. But, you girl, might have a bit of the old talent left! I can feel it in you here.” Monet laid her hand over Heather’s heart. Heather could feel the warmth of the hand through her thin bra. The touch was gentle too. It made her heart flutter and quicken its rate. She could feel a blush flooding her body. Something in Heather wanted that contact and wished it to continue, but Monet withdrew her hand.
“No, I couldn’t have such talent. It’s just not possible.” Heather found the bed sheets incredibly interesting for a moment.
“No, no, child. You mustn’t doubt yourself before you’ve even tried! Here, let me show you something. Watch the candle not me.” Monet focused somewhere beyond the candle for an instant. “Accende!” She spoke as she breathed on the wick, and her voice was a low command, full of confidence and conveying a sense of power. An ember formed on the tip of the candle a wisp of smoke curled up from it dancing on the gentle currents of air. Immediately, the ember burst into a flame. “See. It’s easy.”
“How?”
“Now, wait. I’m not through.” Monet held Heather’s hand by the candle, and the flame jumped into the palm of Heather’s hand where it continued to flicker. As Heather watched, the flame formed itself into the image of a stalking tiger before it vanished altogether.
“Ha! That one is my favorite.” Monet smiled her sharp-toothed smile.
“William Blake?”
“What does Blake know of tigers? They frame themselves.... Anyway, it’s an easy trick, but you’ll have to use a bit of the magick we all store in ourselves if you want to perform it. Succeed, and I’ll show you how to gather the mana for yourself.”
“Mana?”
“Yes, it is the mystical force we bend to our will—the source of magic. There is less of it free now, so we sometimes store it in ourselves or in gemstones. Anyway, I’ll teach you how to see the forces at work later. Just relax, light the candle, and, if you can do that, move the flame.”
“Okay. Like this?” Heather blew on the candle and it lit. She moved the flame to her hand and caused it to flair brightly, and then she shaped it into a great peacock-like bird the size of a softball. She found it easy after watching Monet.
“Mon dieu! I took you for a novice. I had no idea you had formal training.” Monet seemed preoccupied and very worried.
“No, I just read those books last night. I practiced some things in my head too. Was that good?”
“Impossi...Aaaaaahhhh, yes, that was good...wait...Very good,” Monet seemed to be considering something, “I knew you had the talent! I think you’ll be able to learn even more. I’ll teach you. You learn very quickly for one so young. Become my apprentice. In return maybe you can help us with something later.”
Heather’s heart swelled at the compliment, but then her sense of duty caught her up to reality, “What about my school?”
“Come over three evenings a week. We’ll help arrange tutoring sessions through your school. We just won’t tell them all we cover.”
“Okay, I guess that’s fair.” Heather’s eye’s lit up at the prospect of learning more about Monet’s magick. The early volumes had been child’s play for Heather, but the later ones had been beyond her which was something she didn’t like to admit. She had to know more. The feeling was gnawing at her.
She leaned forward and kissed Monet on the cheek. “Thank you, Monet you are so beautiful and wonderful. I want to be like you.”
“Of course, my girl.” Monet smiled her pointy-tooth smile and embraced Heather and kissed her on the mouth. Heather struggled briefly. What was going on? Monet was kissing her and she liked it. Monet’s embrace was inviting and her lips were soft. Heather felt the blood rush to her head and felt giddy. Heather wasn’t used to this type of affection, even from boys. Her passions stirred and she returned the kiss with all she had. Monet’s tongue was soon caressing hers. Heather was swept away in Love’s endless moment.
The moment ended. Lorenzo, the sharp featured, olive skinned brother poked his hawkish face into the room causing Heather to squeak and cover her undergarments with a blanket; she wore no pajamas. Monet was one thing, but her brother was something else. His eyes seem to see through things and right now he was staring at Heather.
Heather remained on the bed flushed with love and growing embarrassment. She had never been interested in boys, but girls? She didn’t think she was like that. There was something wrong with it. She felt weird, but she wanted to feel this exileration all the time. There couldn’t be anything wrong with that.
Monet got up and gave her brother an angry stare. “What do you think you are doing? Get out of here.” She strode over to him and forced him out of the room.
“And this one?” Lorenzo inquired.
“She is perfect! A natural.” Monet beamed.
“Pity, we could have had fun with her…” Lorenzo sulked.
Ah, my brother, I will have more than that.” Monet’s voice had dropped to a whisper. “We will get what we want from her.”
In the weeks that followed, Heather ate, slept, and breathed spells and incantations. She learned about mana, and the secrets only the magicians and alchemists understood. Monet taught her basic spells at first then quickly followed them with more advanced ones: the ones that were made from the base spells like building blocks and those ones that were produced on the spot.
She took it all into herself with a voracity that only the woman with the shining hungry eyes could possibly appreciate. Heather was a pit that could not be filled. Heather’s love and admiration for Monet grew each time she came over. Monet seemed to know everything about everything. History, Art, Poetry, and Literature predating the Renaissance were at the beck and call of the twenty-seven year old Monet. Heather devoured that information as well; learning had become a labor of love. Monet was also poised and sophisticated in a cosmopolitan way, not to mention beautiful. She was a traveler, and Heather desperately wanted to be out on her own to see the world. So, why shouldn’t she appreciate Monet as much as Monet appreciated her gift with magick? Monet never failed to praise her progress or spoil her with affection.
Heather became distracted in school. It made her blush the way Monet crept into her thoughts. And, if Heather wasn’t thinking of the beauty with the sharp mind and lovely alabaster body, she was dreaming of the power of magick.
One day, the three of them took a long drive in the country. The brother said they were heading to Monaco, the tiny kingdom at the southern tip of France. But, Heather knew that was a lie. The car was headed northward, and Heather could tell Lorenzo’s little Italian racer was following a growing disturbance in a line of mana that coursed through the ground. Near the coast, several of these faint mana rivers, Heather had heard them termed leylines, collected around a point in the nearby hills. Before the sun set, they came upon a semicircle of stones which stood in front of a rough hillside where the lines seem to merge.
“What is it?” asked Heather
“This is an ancient node that was sealed off long ago; we call it the Dragon’s Gate. Often wizards would seal each other’s power sources, and they used powerful spells to lock the mana away. Once these leylines ran with far more power,” said Monet.
“Oh.”
“Now, mana is scarce and we sorcerers are limited in power. Lorenzo and I learned of this spot long ago, but we could never unseal it, so we buried it and warded it against others. Now, with your help, we hope to open it.”
Monet waved her arms, and the side of the hill opened. A staircase led down to a blank wall of dirt. Only to them, the wall was not blank. There was a large seal—a circle of glyphs around the outline of a dragon.
“What do you need me to do?”
“Look, girl, where the glyphs are. The leylines come through the seal and meet in the center. Place your hand there,” said Monet.
“On the dragon? Like this.” Heather stretched out her hand and placed it on the place where the lines came together. She could feel the power running through the seal. She could feel a bulge at that point. “It feels almost as if there is a knot here.”
“Yes, ma chere , that’s it. Feel the knot with both hands. Pull on it.”
Heather pulled on the knot for several minutes. “It’s too tight. It won’t budge.”
“Keep trying girl.” Monet waved her arms again and the seal glowed with eldritch light. “See if you can pull it free.”
Heather pulled with all her might, but the strands were tight in her grasp. She fiddled with the thing for half an hour
Lorenzo became impatient during the wait. “Use your mind’s eye, fool. See yourself untying the knot. Put some magick into it,” growled Lorenzo. He waved his arms and the tension on the strands seemed to go slack. “There that should give you something to work with.”
Heather turned her thoughts inward to the place where she stored her mana. She pictured the stands sliding over one another as she pulled and poured her energy into the knot. In her hands the knot began to unravel. The kinked lines straightened and relaxed. “It’s coming loose.” It took another half-hour of struggling before the lines grew brighter and the seal began to fade.
The sun was sinking below the line of the hill. Heather now stood in the shadow. A chill wind blew through her hair. She was holding onto the strands of sixteen leylines, eight in each hand. She stood between the two sets and felt the power pulsing through her. “Now what do I do?”
“Touch the ends together so they form a continuous line.” Monet’s voice was beginning to waver as she spoke. “Do it quickly.”
With all her might and magick, she tried to pull her hands together so the ends of each of the strands touched, but she could only bend her arms halfway against the pull of the magickal lines. “I can’t.”
“You must.”
An inspiration came upon her. She let the strands energy course through her body to a point deep inside her. She felt like a key in a lock or the missing piece of a puzzle. The lines came together and joined within her. As she took a step backwards the lines remained joined in place. There was a sharp cracking noise as the last of the seal faded away.
The sun had set by the time she was finished, but Heather had broken the seal with help from the other two. She had acted as the key and channeled the eldritch power.
And, when the seal cracked, the power of the leylines surged forth glowing brightly to all who were sensitive to such things. Under the seal was a magical gate that glowed blue white and was now open, and from this gate poured forth many magical creatures.
Lorenzo looked annoyed and spat, “Does every mana gate have to be infested? These pests are wretched.”
Heather was startled by the colorful surge of faeries and sprites issuing forth from the breach. Gnomes and pointy eared goblins came afterward and were followed by indescribable horrors that slid into the shadows. Heather was abashed. Heather didn’t know how to close the gate she’d opened. Then a single monstrous form slithered out of the glowing opening. A dragon—huge, green, and scaly—spread its wings and flew into the sky. Heather gasped in horror at the creature as it sailed away.
Fortunately, most of the creatures were small and stayed nearby, but the dragon and a few others escaped. Monet had to pull Heather back to safety.
Lorenzo made a few gestures and the hillside exploded. Earth slid over the gate and gathered host.
“That will keep them in for now. They can’t come through the gate into the dirt.”
“What did we do?” Heather fretted.
“Just freed the energy of an eldritch gate. Now, there is more mana for us to use.”
“But, all those creatures?” She glanced in the direction the huge green dragon had flown. It was now a speck to the north far over the sea.
“...Will cause some problems but not for us. We go home now.” Lorenzo had the car running. During the return trip Heather was subdued. What had she done? She felt she ought not have breached the seal. And, her suspicions of the motives of these two were growing steadily. As much as she loved Monet, she was beginning to see things for what they were.
Once home, Lorenzo broke out a vintage bottle of wine as Monet hugged and kissed Heather on both cheeks. “You did it my dear. You did it!”
Heather was less than thrilled and had come to a decision. Lorenzo pushed a glass of the deep red liquid into Heather’s hand.
“A toast to our wonderful apprentice.” Monet downed the drink and looked expectantly at Heather. Heather stared at the wine, and then downed the earthy flavored liquid just like her mentor had. Lorenzo preferred to sip his vino.
“Now, dearest Heather, we have one last task to ask of you. We have a new spell you can help us with.”
“I’m sorry. I’m through...” The room spun around Heather as she fell to the floor and into blackness.
“I thought she might say that.” Lorenzo chuckled.
Monet tongue kissed her brother lustily and had more wine to celebrate. “Oh, brother, isn’t she just perfect?”
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