Donovan's Desire

Midnight Magic

Giving Ash's bony old form back to the earth was harder to do than Addy could have planned, but she doubted that it was her magic fighting against semi-frosted soil, and more because she just did not want to let her closest companion go. 

But who would have taken care of him once she was gone? Charles would find some way to take the property over and develop it, and Ash would have wound up in a shelter, or worse. 

Better that he had gone when he wanted to, following Maple along into a place where things had to be better. Right? Addy knew she would be there soon. At least she hoped she was going to the same place...

She was  not sure if Melanie was awake enough to sense her coming back into the house after putting her feline friend to rest, but she was as quiet as a mouse, just in case. Sliding into her bed, she ran her fingers over the softness of the covers and stared at the few items on the shelf hung over her desk. There was a small wooden box that was some sort of puzzle she had never been able to figure out nor touched in years, her mother's old bone flute, and a picture of her parents. 

They would know how to handle all of the chaos surrounding her life. Her parents were like yin and yang, the sun and the moon, the dynamic duo. That night, the one that haunted Addy like a fly that she just couldn't swat, had destroyed everything and it had been executed brilliantly. The spirit had simply separate what Addy thought could never be worked apart; the bond between her parents.

It just showed that this was not some mindless entity wandering in search of a host, or blood to drink, but a calculating and duplicitous monster. There was an end game that it desired and that was getting to her to use her. But why? Power? Strength? Was it planning a massive takeover of the government or the world? What did Addy have to offer that made her so much more enticing than  a more powerful witch like Zira?

Maybe it wants to grow the world's largest zucchini, she thought sourly. Or maybe it all came down to revenge. It had been in the process of eradicating her mother and herself, taking her father as its vessel. Perhaps he had been the prize and the spirit was making sure none would ever come after him. 

What she wouldn't give to see them now.

Sitting upright so quickly her abdominal muscles almost cramped, Addy's heart began speeding faster and faster in its cage. Sifting through her nightmares and memories, the endless library that they were, she could only press her eyes tightly closed as she finally realized one extremely fucking obvious fact. 

The thing had possessed her father. And shifted into a wolf-like horror. Her father had been a wolf shifter just like Berlin and Doggy. Which meant she was part wolf at least...

Jumping out of her bed, only halfway trying to keep quiet through the ringing in her ears, she opened the drawer hidden beneath her desk and pulled out a well-loved and worn book. The cover was a deep brown, but the edges now showed the light color of leather beneath the stain, a pentacle within a circle branded right into the center. A moon stone was set in the heart of the pentacle, repelling those that had no business opening the book. Her family's grimoire. 

It used to sit front and center on a holder above the fireplace mantle, the pride of her mother's lineage and hard work, but now had been reduced to hiding beneath a thick layer of socks so Charles would not discover it. 

She hadn't opened it in years, the feeling of her mother so close it caused her pain to hold the thing. But now she needed answers. It was life or death for her and if she did not use every resource available, she would die.

Flipping through the pages, she rushed to find the spell her mother had told her never to use under any circumstances. Well, this was not any circumstance, it was the only circumstance. She had nothing to lose.