Supernal Dawn Read online

  “We have our orders,” the older woman said in a stern tone, “and protocols to follow.” She had long, gray hair tied up in a bun in back, and she was so overweight she needed a cane just to walk. “Gratitude aside,” she went on with a steely look to Ember, “every Affected goes to quarantine.”

  The lead agent finished speaking in private with the police chief and barked an order.

  “Sanders, Ellison,” he said, angry at whatever he’d just discussed, “escort them outside.”

  “No,” a familiar woman’s voice said from behind.

  Lee turned to see his mother.

  She’d always had an intimidating presence, but he’d never seen her quite like this. By the tone in her voice, the strength in her stance, the confidence and resolve he felt brimming within her, it was clear she felt like the one in charge. Others shrank away from her without realizing it, veteran officers with guns.

  Blood smeared one of her cheeks, caused the scars on her hands and forearms to stand out in pale lines beneath the crimson slick. She may have stopped to help someone beyond saving, but for a terrifying moment, it looked entirely like something else.

  “Mrs. Macconal,” the older woman said in a careful, even tone. The sensations coming off her had changed in an instant, to fear and a begrudging respect. All of the agents’ had. “It’s an honor to finally meet you.”

  Why are they so afraid of her? Lee wondered and looked at his mom in a new light. Just what the hell’s going on at the spice shop?

  “Hello, Alice,” his mother said with a withering gaze. Her eyes turned toward the lead agent. “Jim. You know better.”

  Aunts Gwen and Brianna entered the room and moved to stand behind her, followed by cousins Deidra, Rory and Steph. Grans Cara, Wynne, Dana and Abigail came in from the other side, just in front of aunts Kendra, Maureen and Rowena. More cousins trailed in after, all of them girls somewhat close to his age. Blair, Alanna, Genevieve, Cordelia, Arlene, Keara, Tara and Seanna, they filed in and filled the room with a threatening presence, like the charged promise of a brewing storm.

  “You know who I am,” his mother said, and it sent shivers across his skin. What he sensed in her wasn’t anger. It was a warning. “What I am.” Jim remained silent, but his jaw tightened in response. “You didn’t really think you could take one of us without a fight?”

  One of us?

  Lee immediately looked to his sister. He’d always felt looked down upon by the older women in his family, all his grans and aunts. The only male Macconal since his father had died, he’d grown up feeling like he was to blame for everything, for his father’s death, for being born a boy. He never understood why they’d held him in such disdain, barely tolerated his presence, made him feel like less of a person, unequal to the girls. His cousins didn’t act that way. They loved him, and he loved them right back. But his grans and aunts? They could go rot for all he cared. There was no doubt in his mind that this show they were putting on was all for Ember.

  “That I’d let you take my children?” his mother went on, and wires in the ceiling crackled with bright sparks.

  Men and women were once more reaching for guns or backing away, like it was Tompkins all over again. The police chief ordered his officers to stand down.

  To Lee’s mother, the chief said, “Leslie, please. We didn’t have a choice.”

  Jim had finally found his voice.

  “Would you really risk it all right now,” he said, and Lee sensed the duplicity in him, “with all that’s going on out there? You’d expose yourselves like this?”

  “For my children?” his mother asked, incredulous. She clenched both bloody fists. “You have no idea what I’d risk.”

  Cells had entered all of them as soon as they’d come into range. They were normal, just regular people, but there was something odd occurring as the moments drew on. There was a power building in them, especially his mother. He couldn’t quite figure it out. It wasn’t electric, surging through synapses or along the spine. It was...something else, an internal force growing at the center of their bodies and radiating outward, gathering in the air. It wasn’t a visible energy, at least not yet, but Lee felt it filling the room with a static charge.

  “You can take Ember,” Alice offered, like she was trading gaming cards, “but we can’t let you take both. It’s already too late for Lee.”

  “That’s fine,” his aunt Gwen replied all too quickly, and he hated her for it.

  His mother tightened her lips in a frown at her older sister. Gwen only stared back, her feelings on the matter clearly shown.

  Screw you, too, Aunt Gwen.

  He wanted nothing more than to reach out and hurt her. His anger at all her snide comments over the years, her poorly hidden disapproval, boiled up inside him. He wanted to yell at her, to walk over and slap her across the face, but all he managed was to clench a fist in frustration.

  Motes of blue flared around her, and aunt Gwen lurched, grabbed at her stomach. She doubled over and threw up with a long and hard retching. Lee could feel how much it hurt her. It was all he could do to keep from laughing.

  “Sorry,” she said to his mother and glared at Lee. Did she know it was him? “Without a conduit…”

  His mother nodded in understanding, helped her sister stand. She squared her shoulders and walked toward him. All the others moved in too, each placing a hand on the shoulder in front, until they closed around Lee and Ember and touched them as well.

  “This isn’t the way,” Alice said in a weak warning, the way a victim might try to stop an armed robber. “Mrs. Macconal. We need each other.”

  “Leslie,” Jim said, as if they’d worked together a long time, and she was throwing away all they’d built. “Don’t.”

  How the hell do they know each other? Lee fumed.

  His mother turned to Jim.

  “If you come after them, after us,” she said, and that power ran the edge of her tone, as if it strengthened the words, gave them weight and terrible consequence, “I’ll make you regret it.”

  Everything turned white, and a ringing in his ears drowned out the sound of all else. When the brightness faded, they were standing in his basement. The others began to disperse, as if nothing strange had happened. He was still disoriented, trying to clear his vision, but everyone else carried on like they’d done it a hundred times.

  You knew, he thought and scowled at Ember. Like the others, she wasn’t the least bit surprised at what had just happened. How could you not tell me?

  “Lee,” his mother said, wiped her hands with a towel and sounded as if she were asking him to take out the garbage, “would you give us a moment? I need to talk to Ember.”

  He blinked and raised both brows.

  “Are we seriously not going to say anything about how we just fucking teleported?”

  “Language, mister!” His mother’s voice was stern, but Lee refused to back down. She sighed and tried to give him a patronizing pat on the arm. He pulled away and gritted his teeth. “Please. You and I will talk later. But right now, I have something important to discuss with your sister.”

  “Fine,” he said, beyond angry at the both of them, at everyone in his so-called family, “but this better be good.”

  He went upstairs confused and hurt. He had no idea what’d just happened, and no one would even look at him. Whatever secret they were keeping, it was clear he wouldn’t find it out from anyone but his mother.

  None but Ember had been changed, so they couldn’t have powers. What then, magic? Lee stopped just outside the front door.

  Oh my god, they’re all witches.

  “Hey,” Jen said, without looking up from her phone. She was seated on the stoop, like she’d been waiting there a while. He sat down next to her, stunned by the realization that suddenly made sense of his shitty life. She leaned into him, both a nudge of relief that he was all right a
nd to wake him from his stupor. “So,” she said, “You’re one of the Affected.”

  “The what?” Lee asked.

  He looked over at her phone, saw messages in a chat room flying by.

  “That’s what they’re calling them,” she said, “people who were changed by the Rumbling. Seems some of them have powers. Most don’t, but one thing’s for sure, none of them are human anymore.”

  “Great,” Lee said sarcastically. “Not only is everyone in my family a witch, but now I’m an alien. That’s just awesome.”

  Jen almost laughed. It was easy to forget how pretty she was, especially when she smiled.

  “That totally makes sense,” she said. “Come on, you had to know something was up. The spice shop? All those grandmas and aunts and cousins getting together every week? I mean, your family is huge, and you’re the only guy? I thought they were at least wiccans or maybe an all-female cult.” She flicked imaginary dirt off her shoulder. “I was almost offended they didn’t try to recruit me.”

  Lee could only shake his head at what his life was becoming. How could he trust any of them ever again? How could he keep living with them?

  Jen slipped an arm around his.

  “I didn’t mean you were an alien. You still look and act the same. You’re still the same guy I grew up with,” she said and poked him in the ribs. “My best damn friend. You’re just changed, on the inside. It’s purely physical, you know?”

  “You’re not afraid?” Lee glanced at the texts going by, the pictures of chaos across the world. “They’re afraid,” he said, “and they should be.”

  “I am a little,” she admitted, and he could feel the truth of it, “but not of you. I’m more scared for you than anything else. Take a look.”

  She showed him pictures of a giant yellow tent near the stadium. There were people in contamination suits directing a long line of Affected inside.

  “They set up quarantine downtown,” she said. “Every news station has been telling people to go to the hospital to get checked out if they think they’re Affected. Then the CDC showed up with this tent. Now the hospitals and police are directing everyone there.”

  Lee saw military as well, for all the good those assault rifles would do them.

  “It doesn’t really look like a lot of people, though.”

  “It’s not, when you think about it.” She scrolled through more pictures. Most of the Affected were teens their age. She said, “Just a few hundred so far, and only a dozen or so with powers.”

  “That showed up on their own,” Lee pointed out. “There’s bound to be lots more out there. If any of them react like the guy I saw tonight…”

  He let the idea fall away. It was too horrible to think about.

  “What about you and Ember?” Jen asked. “Why’d the police let you two go?”

  Surprised, he asked, “You know she’s one too?” She made a face that clearly said nothing escaped her notice. “They didn’t. Let us go, I mean.”

  Lee held his head against a rising ache.

  “They’re never going to let us go.”

  - Ember -

  Ember stared down at her hands. What the hell had happened? The room was a wreck. It reeked of blood. So did she. Blood spatter covered her arms. The front of her shirt. Her jeans. Sure, she had seen blood before. It wasn’t unheard of in some of the meaner magics practiced by some of her even meaner relatives, but this was human. And it wasn’t offered. For a moment, she thought she was going to throw up. Only there wasn’t anything in her stomach to toss.

  The shock began to fade. She swallowed the bile that had risen into her throat and focused on what had happened.

  Then she made the mistake of looking down. Suddenly, she was staring down at the body of the man whose blood she wore. And once again reality struck her, hard.

  Lee. Had. Shot. A. Man. Her baby brother, had killed.

  “We are totally screwed.” She grabbed him by the sleeve, pulling him away from the bloody mess.

  “Let go.” He yanked away from her, his shirt ripping.

  “You—We killed someone, dammit!” She gripped the piece of fabric still in her hand. “We have to go. Now!”

  “He’s not dead,” Lee said. He didn’t sound happy about it.

  “Are you serious?” She looked down at the body. Sure enough, the guy’s chest rose and fell. Just barely, but he was still breathing. “Holy crap.”

  Before she could say anything else, the Police Chief marched through the door. He was trailed by two men and an older woman. All of them in dark suits. All of them with a look that said government agent so plain it might as well have been written on their foreheads in dayglow paint.

  “You two,” one of them ordered, “stay where you are.” He turned to the suit beside him without fully taking his eyes off Ember and Lee. “No one in or out, Thompson. Secure the building, and isolate the Affected.”

  The other man nodded and hopped to, pointing at able-bodied officers and directing them like a man who has been in charge of more than one ugly situation. Ember didn’t like him. She didn’t like any of them. And she especially didn’t like it when the blond woman eased over to Lee and asked him how he was doing. The way she touched him was way too friendly.

  Ember tried to move between them, but her brother brushed her aside.

  “I’m so glad you’re all right,” the woman said. Her voice was husky, full of emotion. Who the hell was this wannabe cougar? “When I woke up, I was worried you’d been taken,” she said, genuine concern showing in her face and her body language.

  “Lee. You want to tell me something? Like who the hell this person is?” Ember asked.

  “Agent Taylor,” the woman said. “Your brother and I are...” for a moment her face grew confused. Then she shrugged. “We’re good friends.”

  “Uh-huh.” Ember raised an eyebrow at Lee. He just stared at her, like he was trying to figure something out. “Whatever.” She glanced down at the undead guy Lee had shot, then looked away again, feeling sick. “What’s going to happen to us now? Are we being arrested?”

  “Not arrested. Detained,” the man in charge replied. “You and the other Affected will be taken into custody, quarantined.”

  Agent Taylor sidled closer to Lee, like she was trying to shield him with her body.

  Lee looked uncomfortable, but Ember was too busy ciphering the minimal difference between being arrested and detained to really care. “We just saved your asses!” She shouted. “How about taking that into consideration?”

  “True,” one of the uniforms said. “They seemed to know just how to take him down.” He tapped his fingers to his forehead in a kind of salute. “Thanks.”

  “We have our orders,” the older woman told her. “Protocol must be followed. There’s no room for missteps. Gratitude aside, every Affected goes to quarantine.”

  “Sanders, Ellison, escort them outside.” The lead agent waved a hand toward the door.

  “No,” said a familiar voice.

  Ember never thought she would love hearing her mother say no. But right now it sounded better than anything she’d ever heard her say.

  She watched as their mother, Matriarch of the Macconal clan, stalked across the room, people giving way before her as if they recognized her for the storm she could be.

  Lee turned to face her. Even he seemed to wither beneath her imperial gaze.

  The older woman was practically beside herself. “Mrs. Macconal,” she simpered. “What an honor to finally meet you in person.” It was clear she feared their mother, but she stood her ground and didn’t give way like the others, even when their mom turned a sour eye on her.

  “Alice.” She gave the woman a curt nod, then turned to the suit in charge. “Jim, I thought you’d know better.” She frowned, and her displeasure seemed palpable.

  Quietly, but overtly, the room
began to fill with aunties and cousins. If mom was a storm, the Macconal clan women were the apocalypse. Power rolled off them. Ember felt her magic being drawn, like an urgent need. Her hands itched, pricking with heat and energy. Only her stubborn anger and the knowledge that her mother didn’t really need her untrained power held her rooted in place, instead of rushing to lock grid with them.

  Cousin Seanna, her green eyes flashing, gave Ember the look. The one that told her she was being stupid. Again. But their mother acted like she didn’t notice her reluctance. She ignored Ember completely. Instead, she addressed the agents, as if throwing down a gauntlet, one she expected them to leave where it lay. “You know who,” her look raked over them, “and what I am; what we are.”

  The lead agent, Jim, kept his mouth shut. Ember had to give him credit in the smarts department. On the other hand, he totally lost cred in the guts department. Though, she didn’t know anyone with half a brain who would stand up to her mother. Especially, not while she was backed by the force of the entire Macconal coven.

  “You didn’t really think you could take one of us without a fight?” Her question was obviously rhetorical and they knew it.

  Lee glanced at Ember and she looked away, her face burning. She couldn’t stand the hurt in his eyes. As much as they fought, she loved her brother, hated the thought of truly hurting him. She’d always known one day he’d learn about them, about the family business, all the lies she’d told him. All the things she had never said pricked at her conscience. The coven had chosen their own time and place for outing themselves. And some of them were so pleased, their gloating tingled in the air, riding the power that threatened to crest at any moment.

  By now, the hum of power was so strong the room was all but vibrating. They truly had come for a fight. She threw a surprised glance in the direction of Aunt Gwen, but the older woman was lost in the rising power. For a second, Ember thought they were going to loose their magic on the agents with no concern for any of the other survivors in the room.