Page 38 of Poltergeists & Change of Life

Aidon was at my side in an instant. "Need anything, love?" His tone of voice conveyed his concern and love. It also held a hefty dose of guilt because I hadn’t signed up for this. His mother had foisted the pregnancy upon us with her enchanted pomegranate seeds. I'd reassure him I was overwhelmed with joy about the babies as soon as I could talk again.

I spat into the toilet and gave him my best attempt at a smile. "Just the usual," I said, answering his question. “A time machine, a gallon of pickles, and maybe the power to smite our enemies with morning sickness. You know, the basics."

He helped me into the kitchen, where we were greeted by the most bizarre welcome wagon this side of the Twilight Zone. Mom was there, looking like Martha Stewart's magically-inclined, vampire-shifter cousin. She was wearing a flour-dusted apron and pulling a tray of croissants from the oven that made my stomach growl. Nina was bouncing between 'worried sick' and 'dying to hear all the gory details’. And Selene was helping Layla carry what looked like a broken book shelf. Looked like Hattie’s reign of terror continued. In other words, it was a normal scene for our house.

I pressed a kiss to Mom's cheek and snagged a piping hot croissant from the sheet as Tarja and Binx joined us. Tarja's emerald eyes locked onto mine. There was a mix of concern and relief evident in her feline gaze.

"Welcome home," Tarja's voice echoed softly in our heads. "I trust your journey was eventful?"

I snorted and then took a bite of the croissant. I took a moment to savor the buttery goodness before responding. "Oh, Tarja, you have no idea. 'Eventful' doesn't even begin to cover it. Let's just say Prague will never be the same."

Melinoë rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. “I got us out of there, didn’t I? Besides, memories have already been wiped, and Dad sent in a crew to make repairs.” Before I could stop her, she’d given drops from the River Lethe to several mundies. Thankfully, it wasn’t a full dose. However, they’d never be the same.

Tarja's whiskers twitched in what I'd come to recognize as her version of a sympathetic smile. "And you’ve learned more about using restraint while here," my familiar told Aidon’ssister. I loved Melinoë, but as a goddess of the Underworld, she operated by a different set of morals. Aidon was worse when we met. He’d changed and evolved. “Perhaps you guys can share more details over lunch. And perhaps a cup of calming tea for you, Phoebe? Your mother created just the blend to settle both nerves and stomachs.”

The croissant had abated the nausea for a moment, but it was threatening to return. The amount of morning sickness I had this time around made me think of the women Fiona used to treat with hyperemesis gravidarum. Many didn’t realize the condition was persistent and could last throughout the pregnancy. "You know what? That actually sounds perfect."

“I’ve already started the kettle,” Mom replied.

Stella was still buzzing like she'd mainlined a case of Red Bull. She grabbed a croissant, sat beside Nana, and went into full planning mode. "Okay, team!" she chirped, spreading out our intel like she was about to give a TED talk on the apocalypse. She’d made copious notes during the flight home. "Let's break this down!"

I lowered myself onto a chair, feeling about as graceful as a walrus on roller skates. "You know," I mused, "being pregnant, I thought there'd be more 'aww, you're glowing' and less 'quick, save the universe before your water breaks’.”

"Speaking of glowing," Mom interjected with a mischievous glint in her eye, "I've got a potion brewing that might help with those magical fluctuations. It's an old Silva family recipe. With a few... Dieudonne tweaks."

I smiled at her. "That will come in handy as I get further along.” Mom had embraced being a kitchen witch and potion master with gusto and loved experimenting and creating new shit. She was a natural and picked up information from studying magical ingredients and their properties that I did not. I’d blow up the Sanctum if I tried half of what she did with ease.

“Can we get back to recapping our current predicament?” Stella asked. We all nodded and she continued, “We've got an ancient cult with delusions of cosmic grandeur and a witch with an unhealthy fixation on Phoebe.”

“Don’t forget we have enough magical firepower to make Merlin look like a birthday party magician," I interjected. “And no idea how to use it all to find and eradicate Lyra.”

Stella chuckled and shook her head. "We might find the answer to that as we go through the information. According to the texts we... liberated from Prague's most inhospitable catacombs. The Covenant of Eternal Night requires the Heart of the Abyss as a focal point for their reality-merging extravaganza. And Lyra created it to take over the world. They’re working together for now.”

Nana held up a finger. “But we can play them against one another. Neither will like being used by the other.”

“However,” Stella continued as if Nana hadn’t said anything, “they can't control it directly. They need..."

"A conduit," I finished as my hand instinctively cradled my swollen belly. "Let me guess, something akin to, oh, I don't know, a set of magically supercharged triplets gestating in the womb of a witch who can't seem to stay out of trouble? Honestly, at this point, I'm half expecting to find out I'm also the long-lost heir to some interdimensional throne. It would really round out my resume of 'most inconvenient magical destinies’."

The silence that followed was so thick you could have cut it with an athame and served it with a side of demonic horror. Tarja's tail twitched in what I'd come to recognize as her 'prepare for an exposition dump' tell. "The Covenant of Eternal Night isn't your garden-variety cult of megalomaniacs. They've been pulling strings behind the scenes of history for millennia. Think less 'weekend hobby for bored suburbanites' and more 'shadow government with a fetish for cosmic reorganization’."

"Fantastic," I muttered, reaching for a pickle with more aggression than the situation strictly called for. "What this predicament really needed is an ancient, all-powerful secret society. Why don't we throw in some lizard people and flat earth theorists while we're at it? It’d really round out the conspiracy theory bingo card.”

Nana snorted and set her tea down. “Do you think if you collect them all you win a tinfoil hat and a lifetime supply of paranoia?”

Mom suddenly perked up. "You know, all this talk has given me an idea. I think I could whip up a potion that could help us. Something to, shall we say, lubricate the wheels of fate?"

I squinted at Mom, my stomach doing somersaults. That mischievous twinkle in her eye spelled trouble with a capital T. Last time I'd seen it, she was just starting to dabble in kitchen magic. Let's just say her attempt at enchanting cookie dough went sideways faster than you could say "bippity boppity boo."

"Mom, as much as I appreciate your culinary creativity,” I began, “perhaps we should focus on plans that don't involve potentially volatile magical concoctions? I'd rather not add 'accidental reality implosion' to our list of home renovation projects. We’ve had enough over the past couple of days."

But Mom was already bustling around the kitchen and pulling out ingredients. The island looked like a witch's apothecary in no time flat. "Nonsense, dear. A little magical mixology is exactly what we need. Stella, would you read out the key components of that Heart of the Abyss?"

Stella looked both intrigued and mildly terrified. Lifting a shoulder, she began rattling off a list of ingredients and the ritual that went along with it. It sounded like a shopping list for a universe-building kit. Mom tossed various herbs, powders, and what I strongly suspected was a chunk of meteorite into her cauldron as she listened.

A glow emitted from the pot that would put most EDM festivals to shame when the potion began to bubble. While Mom worked, Aidon outlined our plan to infiltrate the Covenant's stronghold. It was a strategy that could generously be described as ‘equal parts brilliant and suicidal’, involving disguises, diversions, and an amount of magical explosives that made me seriously consider investing in interdimensional insurance.

I was eyeing Mom's bubbling cauldron with the kind of suspicion usually reserved for IRS auditors and door-to-door salesmen when all hell broke loose. And I mean that literally. The temperature in the room dropped faster than my ex’s standards after a few tequila shots. The lights flickered like a low-budget horror flick. It was accompanied by a wind that had no business being indoors. It whipped through the room and gave us all hairstyles that would make an eighties rock band jealous.

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