Page 6 of Midlife Demigod Unexpected

“It was made over a century ago by the first guardians of Cougar Creek Coven. They got together, one from each of the groups, and they made a blood pact. If the cemetery ever needed protecting, their descendants would all gather together to protect the cemetery.

“It’s bad when something like the pentacle of time is enacted?” I asked.

My mom nodded and I suddenly looked at her a little bit closer. She was aging. Not in a bad way, my mom would always have a youthful, vibrant nature and spark of intelligence about her, but I could tell she was tired.

“Mom, you’re too old to be getting caught up in all of this crap,” I said. “You need to rest. “

“I can’t,” she said. “We finally found out that it’s a portal which will create a doorway for the dark Fae to come into New Attica.”

“The dark Fae were banished from this area,” I said.

My mom let out a light hiss. “They’re trying to start a revolution against the light Fae.”

“That would create another massive war. Why would they want that?” I asked.

“Same reason anyone wants war. Because they’re greedy.”

“The coven would like to come by the pub today, if you don’t mind,” Hilda said.

“There’s no pub anymore,” I said sadly.

“Still, if it’s all the same to you, we’ll come by.” My mom looked at me and I realized she wasn’t actually asking. She was basically letting me know they were going to go by the remains of the pub today. If I wanted to be there, I could.

“Well, it’s your people who did this to me, so I suppose it’s your people who are going to have to figure out how to put it back.” I shrugged. “Hey, can I magic the pub back?”

“Not without raising a lot of questions in the neighborhood,” my mom said.

I pursed my lips wondering how much magic we could get away with before people started asking questions.

Chapter 5

My mother insisted on driving us to O’Halloran’s, which kind of cracked me up because she said I was too stressed to drive, but it was more stressful with my mother behind the wheel. She was leaning forward, her seat practically pressed right up against the steering while she peered over the edge of the dashboard. Regardless, we made it there in one piece, but it looked like we were already the second group of people there, if not the third or fourth. I had expected to see maybe somebody from the police department, but the fire chief told me they’d already come by and that I needed to go down to the police station when I had a moment to file a report.

After I finished with the fire chief, I ventured over to the conspicuous group where my mother was standing. A number of other women my age were standing with her. Trina was nowhere to be seen, something I was slightly grateful for. It was hard for me, the relationship Trina had with my mom. They had been close since I was a teenager and even though now as an adult, I understood I was my mother’s daughter and there was never going to be anyone else to take my place in her life, Trina still annoyed me. Every time I saw Trina, I reverted back to when I was a teenager and wanted all of my mother’s attention to myself. She was unable to give it, because, not only was she caught up in all of her plans, but she was also training Trina in how to be a witch.

Something I would never be able to do because I had no magic.

“Hi,” the tall brunette said to me. “I’m Mae.” she smiled warmly and held out her hand.

I nodded, taking a deep breath and gripping her hand firmly. “Nice to meet you, Mae,” I said. My issues weren’t her fault; she didn’t have to put up with them. Regardless of what was going on, it wasn’t her fault I wasn’t magic. If the stories my mother told this morning were true, these women had been up against a lot already.

“And this is Jane.” She pointed to a leggy dark-skinned woman, who I immediately wanted to hate because she was so gorgeous, but I couldn’t because she was beaming at me like a shining light.

“Hi, Jane,” I said, nodding, and then finally I turn to the third person in the group, a short, curvy Asian lady with another broad smile on her face.

“This is Kartika,” my mom introduced the last woman.

I took a step back for a moment and scanned the three of them. They were all looking at me with smiles that were inscrutable. They were planning something.

“What’s going on?” I asked, turning to my mother. “I mean, you tell me the three of them wanted to see what was going on down here and fine, they can see it. The building burnt down. A guy did it, and judging by the magic I saw, he’s one of your people.”

“We wanted to walk around the grounds and see if we could get a signature read.” Mae said.

I turned to my mother. “Why do we need further investigation? The guy who did it was playing his fiddle in my pub. If he wasn’t a demon, he was a cambion.”

“Because if you remember, there are different levels of cambions and we want to find out if this one was acting of its own volition or if he was under the control of another,” Hilda explained.

---