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When tasked with rescuing Daniel Mangan from the clutches of the Red Court vampire Luke, Honey thought it best to begin with negotiations rather than an outright assault.
“You’re making a mistake,” hissed Trixie as she stood with Honey in the receiving parlor of Luke’s mansion. Thanks to a potion of Honey’s creation, Trixie’s form was rendered invisible to everyone but themselves.
“I told you,” Honey said, her voice low and patient. She ran her fingers over the religious medal, which had once belonged to Daniel, hidden in her pocket. Engraved with St. Jude’s visage, it had served as a Confirmation gift, an icon of his personal patron saint. “Luke is the leader of the largest Red Court coven on the east coast. If we can avoid conflict by discussing our concerns rather than instantly resorting to violence, I prefer the latter.”
“I still think offensive maneuvers would give us a better advantage,” Trixie insisted. The lone daughter of legendary mercenary Helen “The Hellhound” Johnson, she and her brothers were all formidable warriors, exceptionally skilled at combat and weaponry. However, their upbringing meant that Trixie, Brian, and Mart readily defaulted to violence that, in Honey’s opinion, was oftentimes unnecessary.
Honey gave a graceful shrug, still rubbing the medal. “Luke isn’t especially well known for his hospitality, so you may just get your wish. But remember: we’re only here to find Daniel and bring him to safety. Not to stage an all-out war.” Psychic energy pulsed from the pendant into her palm, the sensation making her fingers tingle. Its output told her that Daniel was nearby; they could retrieve him in short measure if need be.
“As if these Red bastards don’t deserve it,” Trixie grumbled. “All I can say is, this kid better be grateful to us for rescuing him.” They were retrieving Daniel at the request of William Regan, a good friend to them both and the loyal advisor of Honey’s father.
The thud of footsteps on the floorboards before the door prevented Honey from answering. When the door swung open, Honey immediately offered deference to her host.
“Luke,” she said, sinking into a practiced curtsey. “Thank you for inviting me to your lovely home.”
“Oh, it isn’t a problem.” Luke swaggered over to a chair and slouched into it, reclining back and disinterestedly watching Honey. On the surface, he appeared human, with pale skin, dark hair, and dark eyes. His gauche attire matched the decor of his home — brassy and ostentatious. He was someone with more money than he knew what to do with, and he emphasized his finances in the showiest of ways. “I’m no clairvoyant, Madeline, but I know you’re not here for a social call. You want to take Danny back with you.”
Honey chose not to comment on the overly familiar address of both herself and Daniel. Various rumors had circulated throughout the supernatural community regarding the true nature of Luke’s relationship with Daniel. “Then you must know our reasons. Daniel is young —”
“He’s the same age as yourself, nearly twenty,” Luke cut in.
Annoyance surged through Honey at the interruption, but she could not point out her host’s rudeness, not while she was a guest in his home. “But his uncle is concerned for his wellbeing, and wishes to see him home. Each of them are the only blood relative the other has left in the world,” Honey implored. “If only you could find it in your heart to release Daniel from your hold —”
“Ah, yes,” Luke gracelessly broke in once more. “His uncle, William Regan, your father’s attendant. Both of whom are Forest Guardians.”
Honey blinked, momentarily floundering. She’d been unaware that Luke was privy to such information.
He smirked at her. “You really think I would surrender a powerful tool like Daniel to an alliance of wizards? Ones who are already in a position to dispose me if it is their desire? I think not, Madeline. In fact —”
Exactly what Luke thought would forever remain unknown to both Honey and Trixie, as the latter disabled the invisibility potion and threw a handkerchief containing a pocket of pure sunlight directly over Luke’s eyes. The action blinded him, his eyes sizzling as the sunlight made contact with his face, and he fell to the floor, writhing and screaming in agony. His human mask ripped, the skin on his face and torso tearing to reveal the hideous bat-like creature beneath. Not yet satisfied, Trixie withdrew another handkerchief, forcing more light onto Luke. The action caused his human disguise to melt away even further, exposing more of his true leathery skin.
But Trixie wasted no time in gawking, simply hefting her sword and using it to slice deeply into Luke’s now exposed stomach, cleaving open his abdomen from breastbone to pelvis.
Honey sighed, readying her own weapons. “Now you’ve done it, Trix. Killing the most influential Red Court leader on this side of the country.” Though Luke was still twisting on the floor, the movements were just a formality; he would be dead within seconds.
Trixie shrugged, yanking open the parlor door. “You heard him. He wasn’t going to give up the kid, and I didn’t want to take the risk of him attacking us. Besides, I’ve been itching to take out some of the Reds for a while now. C’mon, Hon. Regan’s nephew needs rescuing. Which way?”
Tthe religious medal thrummed against her palm. “Up the stairs,” Honey said confidently, following as Trixie dashed toward the gilded marble staircase.
They took the steps three at a time, hearing the shrieks and howls of the household as Luke’s death resonated with the rest of his coven.
“Get ready,” Trixie said through gritted teeth as she loaded sunlight-tipped arrows into the miniature crossbow mounted on her wrist.
As if her words were a catalyst, three vampires, already in their humanoid bat forms, materialized just before them at the top of the staircase, snarling with their fangs at the ready.
With a murmured incarnation, Honey set all of them aflame, but her offensive tactics did not stop Trixie from firing at them anyway.
“Just to be sure,” she said when Honey sent her a reproachful glance.
Shaking her head, Honey dodged around the thrashing vampires, darting down the darkened corridor. The medal was humming in her hand. “He’s this way, in one of these rooms.”
The words were barely spoken before doors crashed open from both ends of the hallway, vampires spilling out. Within seconds, Trixie and Honey would be trapped.
“Better make a decision soon,” Trixie urged her, rapidly firing her crossbow.
A wave of magic from Honey sent the first line of vampires reeling back, giving her sufficient time to concentrate on the medal’s pulsations.
“In that room.” She indicated a door nearly overwhelmed by vampires. “Daniel is there.”
“In that case . . .” Trixie whipped out what appeared to be a small cannonball. “Light my fire, won’t you, Hon?” She asked her lover with a grin.
Rolling her eyes playfully, Honey complied, and Trixie tossed the artillery into the crowd of vampires. The resulting explosion forced the vampires back further, and Honey and Trixie were able to sprint into the room, slamming the door behind them.
“Nice of Luke to outfit his home with the best defenses,” Trixie commented, rapidly turning all of the locks and fixing the door’s barricade in place.
“I doubt he ever anticipated anyone ever being foolish enough to try to use his home against him,” Honey replied wryly, hurrying to the figure on the bed, about to wake him. However, she paused, her hands outstretched in midair. “Goodness, he's beautiful.” With alabaster skin, sleek ebony hair, and fine features, Daniel Mangan did not appear to be a living being as much as a intricate work of art created for the sole purpose of awing its admirers.
“A pity physical beauty doesn’t translate to any practical talents.” Trixie roughly shook Daniel awake. “Let’s go, Sleeping Beauty. For your sake, I hope you’re not a deadweight.” Her greeting was punctuated by the battering of the Red Court vampires at the door.
Daniel’s eyes opened, revealing an icy blue gaze of stunning radiance. “What? Luke, is that you?”
“Luke’s dead. You’re coming with us,” Trixie informed him tersely, dragging him off the bed. She glanced at Honey. “Then again, even if we get past those vampires, we don’t have horses. Think you can cut a path through the Nevernever?” Her question referred to the magical realm that existed beyond the mundane world, home to various supernatural entities.
Honey opened her mouth to reply, but never managed to respond: the door was beginning to jolt and splinter under the vampires’ assault.
“No need,” Daniel told them hoarsely, bringing both of them to glance at him in surprise. He did not look well, with dark circles shadowing his eyes and a drawn face, but for the moment, he was standing on his own. The position brought Honey to notice he was wearing some skintight leather attire; judging by Trixie’s appraising glance, his outfit had registered with her as well.
“Let me.” Moving with swiftness Honey wouldn’t have thought Daniel to possess in his weakened state, he pressed a palm against her forehead. Suddenly, an odd sensation overcame Honey, as if gale force winds were pummeling at her mind. Then a sharp shock of raw pain shook her to the very core of her being, and she could not prevent an agonized shriek from tearing from her mouth.
“You bastard!” Trixie snarled, thrusting her sword at Daniel. “Just what the hell —”
But out of nowhere, torrents of magic were swirling around them, circling with such speed that their very breath was stolen from their lungs. Dimly, Honey was aware of the door giving away and the vampires flooding forward, but that didn’t matter. The three of them were already gone, moving space and time at a breakneck pace. Wind whipped at her face, and she closed her eyes to prevent them from watering. For a terrifying instant, they were soaring through empty air, and Honey felt her stomach plummet, but then they landed in a heap, back on solid ground.
Scrambling up, Honey surveyed their surroundings, and was astonished to find they were at the ruins of Crabapple Farm, looking up the hill at the Manor House. The sun was just beginning to set. She and Trixie exchanged amazed glances, and then looked at Daniel, who was unconscious and unmoving on the ground.
“He teleported,” Honey said in awe. “And the only being with the capacity to do that is a —”
“Werewitchpyre,” Trixie finished for her. She prodded at Daniel’s unresponsive form with her foot. “Good. I’m glad he proved not to be entirely useless.” She lifted him off the ground, easily picking him up with one hand under his knees and the other under his shoulders. “Let’s take him up to the Manor House and share the good news, shall we?”
Together, as the sun began to dip below the horizon, they began the trek up the hill to their safe house.
Dawn was just breaking when Honey awoke, but the other half of the bed was already empty. Biting back a weary sigh, Honey rose and dressed in a simple gown. Most of her mornings in the Manor House began in this exact manner: being confronted with the sight of an empty bed that her heart yearned to see filled.
If anyone asked, the Bobwhites of the Glen were a charity group that operated out of the Wheeler estate. The public facade wasn’t entirely misleading; after all, the BWGs did perform a service to the public. However, the object of their mission wasn’t feeding the poor or nursing the sick. Instead, their aim was to kill monsters.
“Loup Garous, rogue vampires, necromancers, dark magic practitioners, and anyone else upsetting the balance between magic and mundane,” Honey told Ben when he had arrived to learn the wizarding arts from her. Though he was older than she and had been a wizarding apprentice for longer, his hedonistic ways had prevented him from ever making much progress.
“ ‘Loup Garous’?” Ben repeated blankly.
“Feral werewolves, the cursed kind that are more animal than human.” Honey handed him a tome of supernatural lore. “Time to start studying, Ben.”
Now, Honey proceeded to the guest rooms that was occupied by Daniel Mangan. At the moment, Ben was sitting vigil at Daniel’s bedside.
“How is he?” Honey asked softly.
Ben shrugged. “No change from last night. He’s still stable, I guess. But, he looks . . . well, dead.”
“According to all available literature, he’s in a state of suspension in order to reach a full recovery,” Honey informed him. “Right now, he’s between life and death, but then, as a werewitchpyre, he’s not technically alive or dead.”
“If he really is a werewitchpyre, that is. I always thought those stories were just a myth,” Ben commented.
“Magic runs in Regan’s family just as it does ours,” Honey reminded him. “His half sister was part angel in addition to being a wizard. Since Daniel’s father was a werewolf, and Luke transformed Daniel into a vampire —”
“We have the incredibly elusive werewitchpyre with us today,” Ben finished for her. “I only hope that once he wakes up, he remembers that we rescued him from that bastard Luke.”
Honey nodded. If Daniel did choose to join them, a werewitchpyre would be an enormous asset to their forces. “Thank you for sitting with him, Ben. I’ll send Diana up to relieve you, and I’m also going to ask Brian to check on Daniel before they leave.”
Apparently, Brian had a similar line of thought, because Honey encountered him on the stairs as she went to retrieve him.
“On my way to look in on Daniel,” he said as he moved past her.
“Just what I was going to ask of you,” Honey said, looking at him gratefully.
Beyond the Belden siblings’ skills and wits in battle, each of them had their own forte. Brian was a gifted healer, an expert with diagnoses and remedies. Mart was a resourceful survivalist, able to adapt to the environment no matter what the circumstances. And Trixie was the most effective combatant, rivalling her mother in her heyday.
“Trixie is out preparing the horses,” he told her, tossing an understanding smile over his shoulder.
“Thank you,” Honey said automatically, with a partial curtsey to indicate her gratitude. Being a bloodline wizard hadn’t saved her from years of etiquette lessons. The expectations of a lady of her station were thoroughly cemented in her mind to the point that she couldn’t discard them, not even around longtime friends like the Beldens.
Jane Morgan was sitting in the kitchen when Honey paused in the doorway, leaning back in her chair with her feet propped up on the table as she repaired a saddlebag.
“Morning,” Jane greeted her, not halting in her work for an instant. “If you’re looking for Dot, she’s saying a private goodbye to Jim before she leaves for her warden meeting. And Diana’s gone down to the village to acquire some supplies for our journey tomorrow.”
That was right, Honey realized. At first light the next day, Diana and Jane were leaving for Saratoga, to aid a Mr. Worthington, who’d complained of ghosts wreaking havoc in his home.
“I was going to ask her to sit with Dan,” Honey started, but Jane interrupted with a wave of her hand.
“It’s no trouble. I’ll go and be with him.” With a nod, Jane exited the kitchen, heading toward the staircase.
Continuing out of the house toward the stables, Honey found her mood darkening even as the sky lightened. When they’d begun this fight, none of them had been completely aware of to what they were committing. None of them had fully considered just how many goodbyes they would say, the number of journeys on which they would travel, and the endless worrying that whoever was out in the field would never reach home.
The sun continued its climb into the sky, and Honey raised a hand to shield her eyes from the bright rays, moving forward despite the hindrance of her vision. Once she was in the shade again, she dropped her hand to find Trixie tending to her horse only a few paces away, her back to Honey.
With a smile, Honey simply watched the scene for a moment. She and Trixie had met as children, not long after her family had adopted Jim, when the Wheelers took up residence at the Manor House. That summer was occupied by swimming in the lake during the day and taking horseback rides through the forest under the moonlight. Honey had been thrilled to make a new friend outside of the magical community.
But as the years passed, the darker forces of the magical world became apparent, and the need to retaliate against them even moreso. When their parents decided to move their household to another estate, Honey and Jim had elected to remain at the Manor House, to ensure darkness did not overtake their land. After Crabapple Farm was destroyed by a Skinwalker (which was summarily executed by Helen), Trixie, Mart, and Brian stayed while their parents and Bobby moved on to Idaho to be with family. The goals of Jim and herself aligned with theirs, and the task was self-evident: prevent the dark forces from expanding further, and find whoever or whatever was increasing their power and numbers.
Initially, it was just the five of them. But then Diana had joined, then Jane, then Dot, now Ben, and perhaps Dan. Their numbers were rising, just as the dark’s were.
Every one of them had their specialities. Jim was not only a wizard, but a Forest Guardian, as was their father and Regan. Born with red hair, they were uncommonly skilled at tracking and predicting the behavior of supernatural creatures. Diana was of the Winter Court, but defied the Faerie Queen, determined to remain her own agent, and could manipulate the glamour and charm of the Fey to their advantage. Dot was a warden of the White Council, with more than sufficient expertise for the position, but also held the necessary connections and influence to smooth the path for any disputes that might arise between the BWGs and other wizards. Jane, despite her youth, was immensely gifted with mimicry, battle and stealth tactics, and field medicine.
Personally, Honey considered her own talents more of a burden than a strength.
Both of her parents were wizards. Her mother’s family had descended from the legendary sorceress No-mah-ka-ta, the witch of the Catskills who had once ruled Westchester by bending nature itself to her will. As No-mah-ka-ta’s heirs, the wizards of Honey’s bloodline received a unique bond with the land of Westchester, a consciousness of the land itself, and all of the magic and creatures that moved within it. Intellectus , Honey’s mother called it. The immediate ability to know all of the supernatural ongoings within Westchester the moment they transpired, and accordingly, to craft better defenses to meet and hold off threats.
How and why Intellectus was passed down through their blood remained unknown to Honey, though she frequently pored over books in search of the answer. Her working theory was that Sleepy Hollow, which served as the heart of supernatural activity in Westchester, emitted an ancient magic. Its power engendered specific magical aptitudes to be carried along wizarding bloodlines for generations, continuing on through descendants, even when the ability logically should have expired with the individual.
The trait had its drawbacks, however. As her Intellectus was an inheritance rather than a personal achievement, the awareness vanished the moment Honey stepped off of Westchester soil, as it did for all wizards of her mother’s bloodline. When her parents’ carriage passed over the boundary line as they left for their new household, her mother’s tether to the earth had evaporated. Ben hadn’t even known of the ability before he joined Honey at the Manor and she told him about it. As such, Honey and Ben often found themselves remaining at the Manor House by default as the rest of the Bobwhite completed daring quests.
“You’re the last line of defense,” Honey’s brother Jim once told her. “If the Manor House is ever attacked and all else has fallen, you’re the one person we can rely on to hold our safe house.”
His words were of little comfort to Honey. After all, Jim wasn’t the one stuck waiting for their friends to return each and every time, wondering if the delay in the arrival meant injury or death. He wasn’t the one preparing potions and bandages in preparation for their injuries. He wasn’t the one watching worriedly, each and every time, as their friends rode off into the distance, wondering if this occasion was to be the last glimpse of them she ever saw.
Suppressing her bitterness for the moment, Honey moved forward. Trixie looked up at the sounds of her footfalls.
“Morning, Honey,” she said casually. Already dressed in her leather armor, with her bow on her wrist and sword at her side, she was fully prepared for battle.
Swallowing the lump that rose in her throat at the sight of the packed saddlebags, Honey inwardly scolded herself for being overly emotional. Still, her heart thudded in dread as she faced the inevitability of Trixie departing yet again. “All ready, then?” She tilted her head toward Trixie’s horse.
“Yeah.” Trixie reached into her pocket, extracting a lump of sugar for the black mare. “Me, Mart, and Brian are heading out to handle that Grendelkin near Cobbett’s Island.”
Nodding silently, Honey tried to curb her resentment. They needed to protect innocents from monsters. It was their sworn duty, and also the one she and Ben inherited by their Intellectus. But sometimes, all she wanted was a life of normalcy, away from death, away from bloodshed, away from killing or risking being killed. She was tired of being endlessly surrounded by death, of constantly trying to prevent it, delay it, or induce it.
“Hey.” Trixie drew Honey forward into fierce embrace. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
“I know.” Traitor tears spilled out of Honey’s eyes, and she wanted to tell Trixie that no matter what battle or what end, she would always be with Trixie and would always wait for her. But when the two of them pulled back, Honey could see from Trixie’s face that she already knew.
Gently, Honey reached out a hand traced the trio of scars that started above Trixie’s left eyebrow and continued diagonally down her cheek, away from her nose. The marks, gained during a struggle with the Winter faeries, marred the roundness of Trixie’s face and served as a tangible reminder of the violence that now dominated their lives. Gone was the good-natured, stocky girl Honey had known during childhood; in her place was battle-hardened warrior with the muscles and injuries to prove it.
Moving slowly, Honey cupped Trixie’s face and drew her lover into a soft kiss.
“Be safe,” she whispered to her, her words nearly stolen away on the soft wind. Their aims were noble, their intentions were noble, and Honey desperately wished that they could afford to act in ways that selfish instead of noble.
They separated then, Trixie returning to her horse to swing up into the saddle, and Honey turning away to walk back to the Manor House. Even as she heard the clop of the horse’s hooves as Trixie rode off, Honey did not so much as glance in the same direction, refusing the reminder that she was being left to wait once again.