Blood Like Magic, page 11
Keisha’s eyes are sharp as they meet mine. “See? We can keep the powers we have if you do nothing. For anyone who cares about their gifts. I know our history and ancestors are important, but they’re just that, history. We live right now. The only reason Dad stays in this house is because he has some desperate hope to study under Granny and do ancestors know what. Him being here drives Mom up the wall, but she stays because she wants to be Matriarch, and she’s already hot-tempered, so it’s a bit hacking much. A future without magic would mean there’s no reason for them to keep forcing themselves to stay here.”
A shock runs through me. “You want to split up the house?”
“You don’t even like Dad.”
I rummage in my head for an excuse and fail to find one. I don’t adore Uncle, but the idea of any of us not living together makes me feel like I’m breathing through a straw in a sealed box. “We’re family. We should live together.”
I don’t miss Keis shifting on the bed.
Does her vision of the future not include her staying in our ancestral home? Does she want to leave us? To leave me?
Keisha throws her hands up. “That’s not even the biggest thing.” Her gaze burns across my skin. “You know yourself, Vo. Do you think you’ll be able to do the task that Mama sets? I know Keis wants you to believe in yourself, but can you?”
Her words are like a noose tightening around my neck. A promise of pain. It’s the truth in them that stings. If I couldn’t manage the standard Calling everyone else in my family before me passed, how can I complete this unnamed task?
Keis jumps up from the bed and waves her hand. “Hack it. Now that everyone’s said their piece, let’s go. Voya needs to think things over.”
Eden pats my hand. That’s me. A teenager being comforted by a first grader. “I think you’re going to pass,” she whispers conspiratorially in my ear. A secret just for us.
My eyes start to water, and I suck them back with a sharp inhale.
My cousins file out of the room except for Keis, who lingers in the doorway.
“Do you not think we should live together?” The words slip out of my mouth like mousse from a well-greased mold.
“Thank you for asking Rowen about the internship.” Keis drums her fingers on the doorjamb. “I know you’ll do the right thing for the family. You always seem to know what’s best for us. But at the end of the day, this task is about you.” She leans forward the slightest bit. “Do me a favor, just think about if you could do it. And if you can’t believe even for a moment that you would pass, reject the task. But for once, give yourself the benefit of the doubt before you decide.” She closes the door behind her without waiting for me to agree, and I listen to her steps get farther and farther away.
Keis is wrong. If this task were just about me, then it wouldn’t affect anyone else.
But out of everyone I’ve asked for advice today, her words will always be the ones I care about the most. My cousin, who has always known me best, even before she could be in my head.
And so I do what she asked and think about if I could do Mama Jova’s task.
When Wimberley failed to pass her Calling all those years ago, we were a different sort of family. The kind of Thomases who prized power and survival above everything. Witches who bled people for more magic and competed fiercely to stay on top. Granny changed that. She risked our status to create a sort of Thomas who wasn’t willing to hurt others, and she still managed to maintain our reputation. I’ve never had a lot of friends, only Lauren. But I’ve always had family.
Just Voya couldn’t do this task. She couldn’t save Eden and our family’s magic.
But Voya Thomas, the girl surrounded by family, I can believe in her. She has a chance to get that perfect ending. To save her sister’s life and give her a chance at magic. To make sure that generations after her will have blood that runs full of power. To have a shot at knowing their ancestors until the day they die. To maybe become the witches who Keis dreams of, the ones who change the world.
We suffer and we survive.
I asked Mama for a second chance, and she gave it to me. I’m not going to waste it.
Slipping off the bed, I search in my bedside table until I find the pair of mini scissors I use for cutting my cuticles when Keisha and I have mani-pedi nights.
I try not to cry out as I stab the sharp end into the pad of my thumb, squeezing around the skin to push out a drop of blood.
There’s nothing making me do it. No supernatural force is putting this task into motion.
It has to be me. I have to make this choice.
Once I’m standing in the middle of the room, I let my blood drip on the hardwood.
Blood.
And intent.
The words don’t come strong out of my mouth. They’re a whisper as timid and fragile as my resolve. “Mama Jova.”
Heat permeates the room, as hot as the New Orleans sun was in the memory that Mama showed me. Sweat breaks out on the back of my neck and forms a thin sheen on my forehead.
My ancestor curls out of the smoke that appears in the room as if in the middle of a dance, with her arms curved above her head and her torso twisted. Tendrils of the dark wind sneak into my nostrils and fill them with the harsh vinegar tang of rotting sugarcane.
Johan taught us that slaves used to burn the sugarcane to kill the pests that would try and ruin the crop. Simultaneously, they would burn the dead to save time. The plants would come out of the process for the better, easier to harvest and haul. And the bodies would be tossed away with the unwanted charred leaves and bugs.
Mama Jova lets her hands fall at her sides and observes me.
Her nakedness makes me shift on the spot, but I don’t turn away. “Um, hello.”
She rolls her eyes.
Off to a great start. I wring my hands. “I’ve decided to accept the task.” I fight the urge to back out on my words, the small bit of me that believes fighting against the bigger doubt.
She doesn’t nod. Doesn’t move. Doesn’t do anything to make me think she’s heard me or cares.
After a minute, she holds out her hand.
I stare down at it. I’m not good at making choices, but if there’s a chance that I can succeed, save magic and save Eden, I’ll take it. And I need to succeed, because I’m not going to lose her.
I reach out my hand and clasp Mama Jova’s.
Her lips spread into a thin smile that makes me shudder. She exposes her thumb, the pad of it splits open of its own accord, and she grips my hand, pressing our bleeding thumbs together.
I stare into her eyes. Something moves there. Not satisfaction or sadness. Just something. “Your task is this: you will find your first love and destroy them.” Her voice is as empty as her lover’s eyes were as he lay dead against the tree. “You have until the Caribana carnival, when your ancestors once again reveal themselves, to complete my task. I look forward to your success. Remember, I chose you for a reason.”
She disappears and leaves me standing in the middle of the room with blood leaking from my thumb. The droplets splashing on the hardwood echo in the room.
Destroy.
Reduce to utter ruin. Wipe out. Make void. Vanquish.
It’s just a fancy way to say that I need to murder my first love.
We’ve been pure witches since before I was born, before Mom was born. We promised not to spill any blood other than our own for magic. None of us would ever even want to hurt someone for power. And now I have to do the opposite.
Caribana is a month away.
Thirty days to fall in love and become a murderer.
Mama Jova left me with nothing but this task and the lingering smell of smoke.
There’s no explanation that comes along with what I have to do. No rhyme or reason. We have the privilege of meeting our ancestors, but like a ghost in a movie, they don’t give you any instructions for how you should please them.
This can’t be right.
Mama Jova can’t really believe commanding me to take a life will have some sort of benefit to me or the family. And saying she chose me for a reason, how does that help? Do I look like a killer to her?
The knock on my bedroom door shocks me out of my trance. Mom doesn’t wait for me to answer before she comes barreling into my room with the rest of the family squeezing in behind her. The strength of the magic must have let them know what I did.
She squishes me in a crushing hug, and Eden joins in. Dad hovers nearby and ends up patting me on the shoulder.
Granny comes over with her arms crossed. “And?”
“I accepted her task.” My voice doesn’t sound like mine; it’s too soft but also too high-pitched. I notice the slightest sag of Granny’s shoulders. Priya has the opposite reaction, her shoulders going stiff and hiking up. I continue, “She wants me to kill my first love.”
Everyone but Keis looks shocked. She couldn’t wait the few seconds not to read it out of my head. She just shrugs in response, though the movement is too sharp. I imagine this isn’t the task she expected when she told me to believe in myself.
Mom rubs her hands up and down my arms. She’s trying to force her face to be neutral, but her brow keeps furrowing.
Murder isn’t our way. Some impure families will split a man from sternum to scrotum to grant a single pure wish. Once, we did too. Our ancestors believed in that sort of blood. It took twenty-five of them to move this house. It also took fifty slaver and slaver-sympathizer bodies, gutted and drained.
But not anymore.
Granny raised us so we would never have to do that.
Never have to stand in a dark basement like the Davis kids and shove blades into someone while they scream and beg.
Just thinking of it makes my throat ache.
Priya clenches her hands into fists. Her family’s history is as blood-free as the Huangs. There’s no way she would have predicted a task like this. I promised her I would do it, and I have to, but now saving her daughter also means accepting the stain of impurity. One impure soul ruins the whole batch. My deed will mark us all. Everything that Granny worked for will be for nothing. We’ll have to start again from the beginning. And after slipping into impurity once, will the pure families even trust our word when we try again? All those carefully cultivated relationships and customers, gone.
Granny pushes forward. “Who are they? Your first love?”
Keisha snorts. “Do you know who your granddaughter is?”
Okay, ouch.
Everyone’s eyes swivel to me. “I don’t have a first love.”
“Shocking,” Keisha whispers.
“I could have!”
“You would have to date someone for that, and you don’t date.” She jerks her thumb at Keis. “She doesn’t either. I’m not judging. Maybe you don’t even want to fall in love. That’s cool too, whatever. But like… was I wrong?”
“You’ll have to find one,” Priya says, her voice quiet. “I just… This can’t be the task. What were the exact words?”
Keis jumps in for me. “ ‘You will find your first love and destroy them.’ ”
“Okay… That could mean… It could be…” Priya struggles to come up with an alternative. “They can’t actually expect you to do this? Our ancestors would never!”
“Meaning?” Granny asks with a scowl.
Priya snaps her mouth shut.
“Say it,” Granny says, voice harsh. “Your pure-for-generations family wouldn’t set a task like this, is that what you mean? Unlike us. Sorry we don’t all have squeaky-clean legacies.”
“She didn’t mean it like that,” Dad cuts in. Even though I’m pretty sure she did. Our family is new to purity. Hers has been doing it from the start.
“I’m sure she didn’t. Living in our impure ancestor’s house like she is.”
Priya shakes her head. “I’m sorry. I appreciate everything you’ve done for us… I’m just shocked, is all.”
Granny harrumphs and turns back to me. “You don’t have any idea who may be your first love?”
“She’s not actually going to do this, right?” Mom says, incredulous. “She’s not going to kill someone.”
“I’m trying to get more information so we can figure out what this task means.”
“More information? You need to have a chat with Mama Jova about what the hell she’s doing!”
“Voya,” Granny says, voice stern. “You don’t know anyone who fits that? Even a crush, for ancestors’ sake.”
I open my mouth to say no again when Luc pops into my mind. The rude NuGene intern who is apparently my highest romantic genetic match in the entire world. At least, the places where genetic data is available, which is pretty much worldwide.
“I think… maybe I know a guy,” I mumble.
Keis’s mouth pulls into a grimace. She says, “Well, genetics don’t lie.”
“Genetics… Hack me! You got into the beta for NuGene Match?” Keisha may not be a mind reader like her sister, but she’s quick on the uptake. “I’m so jealous,” she whines.
I hit her with a glare.
“Not jealous of the murdering thing, but like, everyone has been waiting for proper genetic matching forever. Now you know who your first love is.” She nods at Mom. “And I’m with Auntie, Granny should ask Mama Jova what’s up. No one gets tasks to kill people. Not pure families, for sure. There’s no way you have to do that.”
Granny squints at us. “What’s this matching thing? Who is this?”
“NuGene put out a program that gives you a genetic romantic match. I got into the beta test,” I say, trying to keep up with her questions while my brain is still processing that I may actually have to do this.
“They do that for teenagers?”
“You have to be at least sixteen is what the package info said—it’s age of consent. Mom gave me permission!”
Granny stares at Mom, who shrugs helplessly and says, “I dunno, it didn’t seem like it would be an issue. And Voya’s already had her sex talk.”
I cringe. The sex talk consisted of Mom and Auntie piling me and my cousins into a room when we were twelve and thirteen—sans Alex, who’d gotten her talk three years earlier—and playing an overly detailed feed video, then asking if we had any questions after. Suffice to say, none of us asked them anything and had our AI assists answer anything else we wanted to know.
“Okay,” Granny says with a sigh. “You have a potential first love.”
Alex gapes at her. “Why are you acting like you’re trying to find the target? Voya’s not going to kill someone, right?”
“Obviously,” Auntie and Uncle say at the same time. They scowl at each other, as if annoyed that they’re still in sync after divorce.
Uncle gestures to Granny. “There must be something you can do. You’ve fought for purity for decades. We’ve fought for it. If she kills someone, it stains the entire family.”
Of course that’s what he cares about. The stain on the family, not the fact that I would have to murder someone. I stare at Granny along with everyone else in the room, pleading for her to come up with some sort of solution. I know this is the task that Mama Jova set out for me, that I need to pass to save Eden, but murder… Even thinking of it makes my stomach curdle like butter in a food processor.
“The task is the task,” Granny says, her voice strained.
Mom lets out a huff and throws her hands up. “Unbelievable!”
Granny ignores her. “Who is this guy, your match?”
“Granny…,” I say. This can’t be happening.
“Let’s just focus on the falling-in-love part for now, okay? We’ll figure out the rest later. Who is he?”
“He hates me, and I’m not jazzed about him.” I stare at my bare feet. “His name is Luc Rodriguez. He’s a NuGene intern and apparently one of Justin Tremblay’s sponsor kids.”
Dad’s face mutates into a near-teeth-baring expression that he quickly tries to pull back into indifference as Priya grips his arm. Mom’s eyes flare wide, and sparks shoot off Auntie’s fingers. Uncle crosses his arms and stares anywhere but in my direction. Granny is the only adult who manages to keep her face still. But it’s too still. Unnatural.
I look around at my cousins, who seem as confused as I do. Except for Keis, who has her eyes squeezed shut and her hands pressed over her ears from what is clearly a surge of emotional thought.
Rowen Huang’s words come back to me: You can’t always trust people. Especially outsiders.
But my family has never reacted this way to non-magic folk. Keisha goes on dates with non-witches all the time. This is something other than them just being upset that Luc and his sponsor father aren’t magical. I swallow. “What did I say?”
“I’ve always said, our ancestors give us the tasks we need.” Dad’s voice has an undercurrent like a lashing, and he speaks through clenched teeth. “Genetics don’t lie. That’s the boy, and that’s the task.”
“You can’t be serious?” Priya snaps. Having had enough of it all, she picks up Eden and leaves the room, my little sister crying out on missing the drama that I’m sure she hardly understands. Dad hisses out a swear between his teeth and follows after them.
Mom hugs her arms around her chest and keeps shaking her head like that will make everything disappear.
Even if no one wants to tell me why, my task just got that much more complicated.
“How long do you have?” Granny asks.
“Until Caribana.”
She crosses her arms and lets out a breath, her face pinched. “Long tasks are not good.” She presses her palms to her eyes the way Mom does when she’s stressed. “I… Just focus on falling in love. We’ll figure something out. Don’t worry.”
Easier said than done.
Whether it takes me two days or thirty doesn’t matter. I accepted this task, and my family is putting their trust and belief in me.
