Chapter One: Doro
Rejected again.
Why had I expected anything else? For three years now, I had propositioned every Teuton priest I knew—and many I did not—hoping to find one willing to conduct the blood-transfer for my fiancée and me. And for three years I had come up empty. No priest around here dared to attempt the deadliest ritual known to our people, not on a pair of women whose love defied cultural expectations.
The local priests were all cowardly males who feared social repercussions if the ritual succeeded. Amira might not agree with me on that, but today’s rejection cemented it in my brain. Offer your heart to a Teuton your age, and you’ll discover all the mysteries hidden from you. That was what the priest had said.
He had used the male form of the term ‘Teuton,’ his point blatant. Give up your unnatural attraction to a female outsider and breed magical children. That’s all you’re good for, anyway. You’re unhappy now because you’re ignoring your maternal instincts.
“As if I’d spread my legs and cook for some idiot who wants me to worship him like a mindless peasant,” I grumbled to myself as I pulled out of the diner’s parking lot. Thanks to the dampness of the road, my car’s tires squealed a bit on my way out. Glancing at the low hanging rain clouds, I stamped on the clutch in my quest to leave first gear’s uselessness behind. I should have known Karl’s uncle was just as bigoted as him.
My elemental magic seethed in my blood as I turned my car off the highway along the Inn River, striking out for the road winding homeward. Once I made it back to Wildertal, I would head for the local beer garden straight away. After that awful priest’s comments, I could use a drink. Especially if I could unload to Amira at the same time.
The past two weeks had been rough for our family. Visions of my father in his final hours swam before my eyes as I wound my way through birches and oaks, their branches heavy with moisture. He had finally relinquished his fight against cancer ten days ago, his spirit ascending into an eternity that seemed so far from the Alpine village I called my home.
He had never once chided me for my disinterest in men. He always said he wanted me to be happy, even if that meant cultivating a romance with the gracious outsider he and my mother adopted seventeen years ago. Amira and I grew up as sisters and best friends, supporting each other through the trials and triumphs of adolescence into adulthood. Just before my senior year of high school, when Amira confessed that she loved me as more than an adopted sister, it felt as though the fates had snapped into place.
But now our staunchest ally had passed into eternity, and a priest who lived a short drive from our village had the gall to suggest I find myself a man. A Teuton male who wielded elemental magic like I did. One who could bind my heart and cleanse it from its unholy yearnings.
“Obviously I’m begging to face death for Amira’s sake because my heart bleeds for a man. Makes perfect sense.” Darkness sharpened my vision as I rolled my eyes, taking the final curve into Wildertal. Pity it was a Friday evening and a rainy one at that. I would have to stifle my magic before I entered the beer garden. No need to terrify innocent outsiders with my black eyes.
I cast my elemental sense in a wide net as I turned into the tight parking lot, choosing a spot facing the street. Seven Teutons were inside the restaurant, and I recognized each of their elements. There seemed to be quite a few non-magical humans inside too, though I did not take a count of their empty spirits. Wildertal was a haven for tourists wishing to explore the Austrian countryside. On a stormy evening in late May, the only bar in town beckoned any and all.
Raising the hood of my jacket, I sprinted toward the oaken door as soon as I locked my car. A dimly-lit sign advertised “Kramhof: Alpine Retreat and Cuisine” to anyone passing through on the main street. Since the parking lot was nearly full, I suspected most patrons ignored the motel’s entrance in favor of the side door reserved for the bar. A painted gnome sat in a planter to the right of the door, tipping its pointed hat to the weary traveler.
I tossed the gnome a vague smile before tugging the door open. Pop music tantalized my ears from overhead speakers, the cloying scents of alcohol mingled with grilled foods luring me inside. My gaze fell upon my fiancée as I shut the door behind me. She stood just paces from me, clad in a prim Dirndl—her standard waitress attire—her back turned as she took the orders from a family with three young children.
Just the sight of her took the edge off my irritation. My muscles released a trace of their tension as I looked toward the bar along the far wall. I caught the eye of Rolf, the owners’ son and bartender. A glint of magic sparkled in his gaze for a split second before he looked down to top off a mug from the tap. He might get in trouble if his sister caught him doing that.
Amira brushed my arm on her way to the kitchen, her aura empty of magic but brimming with inquisitiveness. She knew I had met with Herr Hippler and doubtless wondered how it had gone. She had too many customers to attend at the moment, so I wove my way between the tables to the bar, planning to order a drink before seeking out a dark corner. None of the stools along the bar were free.
“Rough day?” Rolf eyed me with concern while he prepared my gin and tonic, his bushy brown eyebrows rising toward his hairline. I sensed his elemental energy reaching out to my darkness, offering a wisp of stability.
“Couldn’t get much worse,” I groused, taking the glass from him and catching the straw in my teeth. I took a slow sip, relishing the sharp bite of the gin. Rolf looked as if he wanted to pry further, but I turned away. “I’ll be in the corner. Catch you later.”
Thankfully, the two-person table Amira and I usually occupied whenever we met up here had not yet been claimed. I sauntered toward it in a daze, ruminating on my distasteful encounter with Gerhard Hippler and his wife. His bound wife, a witch whose gaze appeared strangely empty, even when she tried to lure me out of my shell with talk of her infant grandson. The baby was cute; she had shown me a boatload of pictures on her smartphone.
But that “maternal instinct” priests claimed I harbored remained dormant. Amira and I had talked about having children once she became a witch like me, but we agreed that she would be the one to experience pregnancy and childbirth. She longed to nurture a baby of her own, while I preferred to maintain my body’s current proportions. The blood-transfer would leave permanent scars without distending my abdomen.
My fiancée slid into the chair across from me while I sipped my drink and pondered dark thoughts about outdated customs and how best to overcome them. Her warm brown eyes met mine as she set a can of Fanta onto the table and leaned forward. “He won’t do it, will he?”
“He won’t because he’s a homophobe like his damned nephew. Says I need to find myself a Teuton male to unveil all the mysteries I’ve never dreamed of.” I curled my lip and traced a line through the condensation on my glass.
Amira’s shoulders slumped and she dropped her gaze to her soda can, twisting it around in a circle. “Maybe he’s just scared he’d do something wrong. I still think that’s Karl’s excuse, not that he’d ever admit it. He’s afraid he’d kill one of us by accident.”
“Ugh. Don’t mention his name.” I rubbed my forehead as memories from three years ago infiltrated my brain. Karl and I had grown up together, and he was the first Teuton priest I spoke with after I returned home from college. A guy I had long considered my friend refused to perform the blood-transfer upon Amira and me, the first in a long series of rejections.
“He’d only been a priest for what, a couple months when you asked him?” My fiancée cracked open her soda and took a swig, favoring me with a doubtful look. “I’m not sure I’d be brave enough to cut open two of my friends and summon a demonic horde in the process.”
I barely suppressed a snort, Amira’s nonchalance lightening my mood. “One demon. Just Wuotan. Not all of hell’s minions.”
“I really wish sex would work for us,” Amira sighed as I swirled a bit of gin and tonic around in my mouth. “It’d be so much less painful.”
“Blame Wuotan for that,” I muttered, eyeing what remained of my drink. As an outsider with no magic whatsoever, Amira could become a witch in one of two ways—through the blood-transfer or through elemental sex. I infused her flesh with traces of darkness every time we got intimate, but her blood remained absent of magic, her spirit as vacant as those of the other outsiders thronging the bar.
“I’m starting to wonder if our valley is cursed. Or maybe it’s the Inn.” Amira looked toward the door to the kitchen with narrowed eyes. “At least one person has died every time there’s been a blood-transfer in—how long has it been? Twenty years? Thirty?”
“Shouldn’t you be working?” A snappish voice interrupted our conversation, its owner nudging our table with her hip. Maja Kram looked down her nose at my fiancée, a hint of red fire outlining her steel gray irises. I stiffened in my chair and glared at her, opening my mouth to retort.
“I took my fifteen as soon as you finished with yours.” Amira beat me to it, her eyes growing round with innocence. “Why don’t you take care of the group that just came in? They sound like Americans.”
Diverted, Maja sailed off toward the entrance, where a group of youthful tourists stood shaking out their umbrellas, their voices carrying over the quieter murmurs suffusing the atmosphere. Now every sober person in the room would spend the next hour listening in on their conversation, testing their knowledge of oddly-accented English. And Maja would earn an unusually large tip.
“I can’t stand that bitch. Treating you like trash just because you’re not a witch yet. She’s got another thing coming if you get an element that routs fire.” I smirked at Amira and downed the rest of my drink.
My fiancée blushed and looked at her hands in her lap. “I don’t want to get in a fight with her or anyone else. I just want to be a witch so we can mate in full.”
She peered at me from beneath her eyelashes, prompting my heart to melt all over again. “We’ll find someone to do the blood-transfer for us. I promise. And the last time anyone around here came out of the ritual with two survivors was in the ’80s, back when Horst and Cord took care of everything.”
Amira chewed on her bottom lip, drawing my attention toward it. “Maybe we should have asked Horst to do it,” she said in a subdued tone, twisting her soda can around in a circle again.
Pain clasped my heart at the memory of my elderly mentor’s late husband. Horst had been a shining light in the village for so long, and I had helped Lady Ilsa care for him in his final months. His spunk never faded, his openness toward my fiancée and me a breath of fresh air in a community that sought to stifle us. He believed Amira would walk beside me as an equal one day.
“I don’t think either he or Cord were healthy enough to get it done by the time we were both ready. It’s just really dumb that none of the younger priests or the ones our parents’ age are willing. I mean, they want us to have magical babies so the Teuton people don’t die out, right? If you become a witch, you can have two kids so I don’t have to have any. It’d broaden the gene pool.”
Amira gazed at me thoughtfully as she took another sip of Fanta. “Got any leads for semen?”
My cheeks heated at the subject. “Possibly,” I replied as she rose to her feet and stretched, preparing to return to her duties. She headed for the kitchen, likely to check on the entrées for the family seated near the exit. I made my way to the bar and waited for Rolf to have a free moment so I could pay. As nice as it would be to drown my sorrows in hard liquor, I needed to get my car home.
I loitered at the bar until my fiancée returned to pour two mugs of beer. She met my gaze while she opened the tap, and I leaned over the bar to admit my darkest muses. “I think we’re going to have to take a trip to the Black Castle.”
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Chapter Two: Amira
Horror surged into me and I shushed my fiancée, scanning the faces of those gathered at the bar. Were any of them Teutons? Had any heard her?
One of the regulars flagged Rolf for a refill, while most of the others seemed engrossed in conversation or in the TV screens behind me. Some sort of soccer match was in process; I had not bothered to notice which teams played. I breathed out a sigh as I shut off the tap, shooting Doro a look before averting my attention to the young couple whose mugs I held. They came every Friday evening for dinner and drinks, and they lived on the other side of Wildertal near the chapel. A farmer and a ski instructor.
“I’m serious!” Doro called after me as I moved away from the bar.
“Later!” I tossed over my shoulder, hoping she would take the hint and head home. Rolf, Jasmin, and I were closing tonight. If Doro stayed that long, I might have to carry her to the car. Only one gin and tonic, and she had already proposed something that could bring trouble down on us, if the wrong person overheard.
Though I had no Teuton blood myself, I had lived among them since the Kimmig family adopted me at age six. And I knew going to the Black Castle was not an appropriate topic for public discussion. Maybe Doro brought that up to distract me from my question about semen. We had to get some somewhere, if I was to live out my dream of raising magical children together with her. It would be awkward to ask any of the local guys for something like that.
I felt myself blushing as I returned to the bar, my gaze passing over Rolf on the way. He had been single for a few months now, having decided to take a break from dating after his most recent girlfriend dumped him. Would he be willing to let me mother one of his children, once Doro and I found a priest to blend her blood with mine? Or would that ruin our casual friendship?
My fiancée had corralled Jasmin into a conversation, probably to gripe about her uncle’s potential homophobia. I loaded several empty glasses into the dishwasher, one ear tuned to what Doro and my coworker were saying. “Part of me thinks there’s something else going on, since nobody wants to take a chance on you two. Didn’t you ask any of the priests in Innsbruck?”
Jasmin sounded sympathetic, and my fiancée harrumphed. “I asked one guy when I was at school there, and he squealed on me to his grandfather, one of the priests on Innsbruck’s council. After that, none of the priests in the city would look my way. Either they can’t stand the thought of two witches building a life free from priestly oversight, or—”
“Maybe it’s something to do with your birth mom.” I came to Jasmin’s side as she broached an unexpected issue, her dark braid sliding over her left shoulder when she bent down to retrieve a cleaning rag.
Doro ogled my coworker, her lips parted in astonishment. “What?” She ran a hand through her short black hair, brushing it away from her face.
“Just thinking out loud,” Jasmin said as she mixed a cocktail, meeting my gaze before shifting her focus back to Doro. “But if nobody in Austria’s willing to do the blood-transfer for you two, maybe you should try Germany.”
I served several of the guests at the bar before wandering back to where my fiancée lingered at the corner, her chin propped up on one hand while she eyed the soccer match with disinterest. “She might have a point. You could always ask around on the forum, see if any priests in Germany would help us,” I suggested, drifting to the cash register to print bills for two of my tables.
“A Black Priest shouldn’t care about my birth mom or our preferences,” Doro murmured as I came around the bar, trailing my path to a table near the exit. “We just have to figure out what to offer as a fair trade.”
My sister departed before I could respond, and I spent the rest of the shift wondering how far along the dark path she dared to go. Sure, the blood-transfer depended upon a demon’s whims, which was why the ritual tended to be deadly for one of the two persons involved. But I could never seize the magic I had desired for most of my life in any other way. It was a chance I was willing to take, since Doro considered it an honor to offer her blood to me.
But now my fiancée spoke as if she would bargain with a Black Priest this very night, in an effort to grant me the gifts I longed to claim. While I knew as much about Teuton history, culture, and magic as any of the elemental witches in town, Black Priests were a taboo subject. All I knew about them was what Der Weg Teutonisch—the ancient Teutonic encyclopedia—revealed.
Males who had committed an unpardonable sin, exiled from the community using the filial curse. Sinister specters who inhabited the Black Castle, a stone fortress in the mountains along the Austrian-German border. Servants of Wuotan himself. Mages who fashioned dark spells shunned by the righteous.
Did Doro really believe we should ask someone like that to perform the blood-transfer upon us? What would a Black Priest demand in return? Would we have to relinquish our souls to a demon in the process?
The dinner customers trickled out as evening progressed, the storm outside still showering Wildertal with late spring rain. Just after the kitchen closed at eight p.m., I cornered Rolf at the same place Doro had dropped her bomb about the Black Castle. Glancing at the patrons lining the bar to ensure none of them paid attention to us, I gestured him to my level as he wiped a mug.
“How much do you know about Black Priests?” I asked in a low voice, hoping none of the people nearby were enhancing their senses with Teutonic magic. This was not the time to be overheard and misjudged.
Rolf’s eyebrows crimped in evident surprise, and he edged closer to me so our elbows nearly touched. “Cursed Teuton priests who lurk in the Black Castle?”
“I know that. But like, how dangerous are they? Is it true that they sacrifice people to Wuotan?” Just talking about such entities prompted shivers to run along my entire body. Thank goodness Rolf’s elemental energy radiated warmth.
“Outsiders.” My stomach plunged into my toes at Rolf’s clarification. He set one mug down and started on another, his hazel eyes passing over each person in the room as he went on. “I’ve heard they sacrifice outsiders to Wuotan, because the demon lord doesn’t accept Teuton blood as an offering. But they’re dangerous to Teutons, too, because if they get angry, they’ll kill anyone and anything in a five hundred meter radius.”
“A five hundred meter radius?” I squeaked, my jaw practically hitting the bar. “Even . . . even animals?”
“Even insects, they say. That’s why you don’t typically see Black Priests out in public. They keep to themselves to avoid causing mass destruction.”
My heart thudded against my chest as Rolf stacked the mugs he had cleaned onto a shelf beneath the bar, his body language as casual as always. Of course it did not disturb him to chat about Black Priests. The love of his life had not proposed a visit to their ominous lair.
“Did I hear you gossiping about Black Priests with an outsider?” Maja appeared abruptly behind us, her nose wrinkled in disdain as she scowled at her younger brother. “You should know better than that!”
“It’s not against the law to talk about them,” Rolf countered, gesturing for me to serve a pair of regulars at the far end of the bar. Ready to defend us both, as usual. I rolled my eyes internally while I poured another pair of beers, the siblings’ disagreement rumbling in the corner.
Maja had not been arrogant when I first started working at Kramhof five years ago. Then, she had treated everyone with respect, customers and coworkers alike. But everything changed after she met a handsome businessman at last year’s Taubenball, a dating event for Teutons only. Now she sneered at every outsider in town, proclaiming she could hardly wait until she could move in with her boyfriend and leave this “backwards village” behind.
Her boyfriend studied for the Teuton priesthood, and he lived in Augsburg. I found it hard to believe that he would confine himself to Teuton circles only, as a businessman, but Maja’s haughtiness stemmed from somewhere. Doro believed her boyfriend was using dark sorcery to alter her personality bit by bit.
As much as I longed to wield magic myself, I could never trust my heart to anyone but Doro. Teuton males—especially priests—dabbled too freely in the dark for my tastes.
Rolf and Maja seemed to have come to an agreement by the time I finished pouring drinks for each customer who needed another. She disappeared into the kitchen without a backward look when I approached, and Rolf shook his head. “You and Doro might want to watch yourselves,” he advised quietly.
“Why does she think Doro has anything to do with you and me talking about Black Priests?” I raised an eyebrow at Rolf and brushed a stray hair behind my left ear. Its dark brown tresses were up in a braid, my standard style for work, but locks always seemed to peel free before the end of the shift.
“Apparently she heard your sister say something about going to the Black Castle.” Rolf frowned toward the kitchen doorway. “If she spreads that around, Doro might have trouble finding work.”
“She wouldn’t.” I fumed, my nerves tensing as I fought an urge to race into the kitchen and give Maja a piece of my mind. That would be unwise, since she was the owners’ daughter, and since Nico Kram doubtless cleaned the kitchen himself after a long day on the job.
“I’ll try to keep her contained. But she’s gotten really uptight thanks to good old Jack.”
He pronounced the name in the English manner, and I snorted. “I thought his name was Joachim?”
“It is. I just think ‘Jack’ suits him since he’s skinnier than Doro. He could probably climb a beanstalk.”
The two of us started cackling and Jasmin joined in, having overheard the last of our banter. “Is Maja giving you a hard time again?” She retrieved a fresh towel from one of the cabinets and grinned at me, amusement lightening her face at Rolf’s antics. He swayed to the song playing from the speakers, pretending to climb a beanstalk.
I shrugged, not wishing to dwell on Maja’s prejudice. “She heard Rolf telling me about Black Priests, so now she thinks Doro’s messing with dark magic. Idiot.”
Jasmin mouthed a foul word before heading out to clean tables. “I hope Teya doesn’t try to make friends with her. Thank goodness she’s moving away from here at the end of the summer.”
“Oh, is that when she’s moving in with Jack?” I directed my query to Rolf, fighting a smile at the shortened name. It reminded me of the outdoorsy brand, Jack Wolfskin. They made excellent hiking gear.
“She’d leave tomorrow if she could, but Mama wants her to stay for the busy season. We’ll have to hire another waiter or waitress once she leaves. My parents are still upset that she doesn’t want to take over the family business.”
Rolf sighed and slumped against the bar, his expression hinting he wished he could escape Wildertal, himself. But he was loyal to his family, so I suspected he would grow old in the village, running Kramhof alongside an eventual wife. At least neither Doro nor I had to grapple with those sorts of parental expectations. Our father had worked at the hydroelectric plant along the Inn for decades, and our mother was a schoolteacher. They supported our separate career aspirations—my knitting business and Doro’s caregiving.
I chewed over the concept of asking a Black Priest to do our blood-transfer as the night wore on, waving a polite farewell to Maja and Nico when they slipped through a side door into their family’s part of the motel. Doro had a point when she said that our backgrounds and relationship should not prevent a Black Priest from doing the ritual. Anyone cast out of the Teuton community with a blood curse should have no qualms about family trees or lesbians.
Our mother and father had adopted us both, though Doro’s situation was more complicated than mine. The Kimmigs had chosen me from an orphanage in Egypt many years ago, rescuing me from a place that still haunted my dreams. Doro had been dropped off at their doorstep as a newborn while her birth mom was on the run from Teuton priests. All our parents had told us was that her birth mom murdered a priest for some reason, and she had begged our father to keep Doro safe.
In his final days, our father had mumbled a few words implying he needed to share some sort of message with Doro from her birth mom. But his awareness waned before he could explain, and our mother refused to offer any insight. She was struggling with her beloved’s death, though. Doro and I hoped she would open up within a few months, once time gave her the opportunity to grow beyond her grief.
Meanwhile, we needed to find a priest willing to blend our blood before we got too much older, since blood-transfers generally worked best for people in their early twenties. If all the priests around here harbored some sort of distrust of Doro on account of her birth mom—or on account of our relationship—maybe we ought to take a short trip down the dark path. Still, it would be safer to ask some priests in Germany first, I thought.
By eleven-fifteen, all of the customers had made their way out of the bar, so Rolf switched the sign in the window from Open to Closed. I sent a quick text to my fiancée, letting her know I would be home within a half hour. Then the three of us worked together to clean up, preparing the restaurant for the breakfast crowd. All ten of the motel’s rooms and suites were occupied, so Rolf’s parents would have a busy morning.
“You know Lori said Teya’s husband is a Black Priest,” Jasmin commented while mopping the floor.
“Wait, what?” I looked up at her briefly, then turned back to my task of cleaning the bar. Two guests had spilled beer over it toward the end of the night.
“That’s what Lori said. It’s why nobody knows where Teya lives, and why she won’t tell anybody, either. She showed up in our community out of nowhere last year, and she’s kept her mouth shut about what brought her to Austria in the first place. She won’t tell anyone her husband’s name, either.”
I considered my coworker’s claim, thinking back to the one time I had met Teya. Doro and I had gone to Innsbruck to watch the fireworks last New Year’s Eve. In the final hours of 2009, we encountered Teya and Lori in the main square. Teya was a lovely young woman with a vibrant personality who wielded the element of yellow fire. And she had been born in the U.S., without a trace of Teuton blood.
Doro had asked her about her experience with the blood-transfer on several occasions, usually when she met up with other Teuton witches for lunch at Lady Ilsa’s cottage. But Teya shared only vague details, mainly that it was key to refuse Wuotan’s temptations if you wanted to survive the ordeal. Doro said she had beaten Karl in an elemental duel at last year’s May dances—a witch skilled enough to trounce a Teuton priest in a friendly fight.
Teya was capable, gorgeous, and mysterious, a witch I hoped to get to know better once I attained Teuton blood. Was she really married to a Black Priest?
“Why would Lori say something like that if Teya wants to keep her personal life under wraps?” Rolf lugged a batch of bottles out from storage while I spoke, so I rushed to help him sort them. The bar was clean now, as was the floor. We could all go home once we finished restocking the shelves.
“Lori’s always like that. It’s why I never tell her anything about my private life,” Jasmin answered. “If Teya’s not careful, she’ll have Karl setting up a gang of priests to track her down.”
Rolf mentioned something about Lori’s ritual wedding, set to take place the following Friday. All of the young Teutons in town would be attending, along with the bride and groom’s relatives. Lori had pined for Karl—Doro’s bane and Jasmin’s brother—since grade school, but the young priest returned her affections only recently. I wished them well despite my fiancée’s distaste for Karl. At least now his family would stop trying to force him into a relationship with Doro.
As an outsider, I could not attend their ritual marriage. Doro did not want to go, either, but our mother urged her to support her friend. Next Friday night, I would have to run the bar on my own for a few hours. Hopefully Nico would help out after he closed the kitchen. Teutonic weddings were traditionally held at twilight, so at least I would not have to juggle food along with the drinks.
Jasmin did not reopen the subject of Teya’s husband until we headed for the exit, having parted ways with Rolf. She drew close to me as we stepped out into the rain, touching the sleeve of my jacket. “I didn’t want to mention this in front of Rolf, but Lori told me one other thing about Teya. You know how she always wears mirrored sunglasses?”
“Yeah?” Doro’s car idled at the curb. She had come to drive me home, even though we lived less than a half kilometer from the restaurant. Warmth bloomed within me at my fiancée’s thoughtfulness, and I stepped toward her car.
Jasmin tightened her hold on my jacket, locking me in place. Before I could ask her to let go, she hissed, “Lori says Teya’s husband cut her eyes out. With a knife.”
Nausea roiled in my stomach, and I yanked myself away from her. “Do you want a ride home? I’m sure Doro won’t mind.” I held onto my propriety despite my chattering teeth. No way had Teya’s husband cut her eyes out. No way.
We ducked into Doro’s car shortly thereafter, and my sister drove toward the woodsy section of Wildertal where Jasmin lived with her parents. She and Doro chatted for a while about random things, while I stuffed my hands into the pockets of my jacket. My body quivered as I pictured Teya’s face, sunglasses hiding her eyes from sight even after dark. That was something blind people did. I knew that. She had not needed guidance from Lori when we met her on New Year’s Eve, though. Her husband cut her eyes out with a knife.
“You’re awful quiet,” Doro said after we dropped Jasmin off. I met her gaze for a second as she turned her car toward our side of town. “Did Maja treat you like shit after I left?”
I shook my head and drew my legs together, trying to get a handle on my emotions. “We’re not going to the Black Castle to do the blood-transfer. We’re not. I don’t want some Black Priest cutting our eyes out just to give me Teuton blood!”
Doro caught her breath, darkness seething in her irises as she focused on the street before us. “Oh. I guess you found out about Teya and her husband?”
A strange sound escaped my throat. “You knew? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“There are other prices to pay for a Black Priest’s services. You can ask Teya about it next Saturday. She’s invited us to dinner at Emi Pizzeria in Ried.”
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Chapter Three: Doro
Disagreeing with my fiancée was never a satisfying experience. I always wanted to talk things through right away and reach a compromise, while Amira tended to lapse into silence. While I understood her need to process her feelings, impatience churned in my blood as my brain conjured up apocalyptic scenarios.
What if Amira no longer wanted Teutonic magic, now that she knew about Teya’s situation? What if she insisted we remain unequal partners, that I must be the one to get pregnant in order to expand our family? Who had told her about Teya, anyway? Was this Maja’s latest attempt to undermine us? Persuade Amira that all Black Priests would gouge people’s eyes out if asked for a favor?
Amira did not speak again once we reached home. She retreated into the bathroom, and within a few minutes I heard her switch on the shower. I stood at the end of the hallway with my hands on my hips, looking from the bathroom door to each of the other three doors along the hall. Our mother had gone to bed long before I went back to Kramhof. She had spent the evening staring blankly at the same soccer match the bar’s patrons watched.
I hoped our mother would find the strength to attend mass on Sunday. Her grief hung in the atmosphere like a shroud, even with her husband’s hospital bed and its paraphernalia gone from the parlor. She planned to take one more week off from teaching, and I would comfort her as much as possible. We still had a lot of legal paperwork to finalize, and eventually we would have to sort her husband’s belongings, deciding what to keep and what to donate.
Whether she would ever explain her husband’s cryptic statements about messages from my birth mom was anybody’s guess. The man may not have been entirely lucid when he made those claims. Teuton priests had captured and slain my birth mom shortly after she left me with the Kimmigs. Deep down, I wondered if Jasmin’s proposal might hold water. Maybe no priest wanted to do the blood-transfer for Amira and me because they feared I might become a killer like my birth mom.
Breathing out a sigh, I headed for my bedroom after eyeing the door to Amira’s room for a long moment. As much as I longed to await her there, I had no desire to force my presence upon her while she seethed about my secrecy. I should have told her what little I knew about Teya’s situation long ago.
So I shut my bedroom door behind me and proceeded to strip, having taken a shower already. I cast my gaze over the contents of my room, trying to decide how best to distract myself in case Amira preferred to spend the night in her own bed. Floor-to-ceiling ebony curtains blocking the window with its cushioned seat, a black dresser with mirror, a desk—upon which my laptop snoozed—and chair, a lifetime’s collection of stuffed animals occupying my silvery couch and bookshelf, and the queen-sized bed decked with black satin sheets, black pillows, and a silver-gray blanket Amira knitted for me when I finished my degree.
My bedroom’s color scheme was an emo kid’s dream. I enjoyed immersing myself in the darkness in my private space, for black whispered softly to my magic. I allowed my element to seep into my blood and veil my vision as I bunched up my clothes and chucked them into the laundry basket in my closet. Smirking at the sight of my obsidian irises reflected in the mirror, I tugged a giant T-shirt over my head, taking a second to pat my short hair into place.
“May all the priests flee from me in terror,” I growled, grinning as I turned for my bed. So what if Karl’s uncle was as misogynistic as the rest of his peers? The Black Priest residing in that infamous castle would surely blend my blood with my fiancée’s. I just needed to convince Amira that was our best option. And figure out what to offer in exchange for his services.
I had just started reading a mystery by Agatha Christie when the door slid open to reveal Amira clad in a light yellow tank top and cloth shorts, her damp hair woven into a bun atop her head. She gave me a chiding look as she shut the door behind her, then moved toward my desk chair, her swaying hips catching my attention. Reading could wait till later.
“Are you still mad at me?” I asked as she leaned back in my desk chair, her bronze arms lifting into a stretch. Setting my book onto the bedside table, I pushed my lower lip into a pout.
Amira stuck her tongue out at me. “I won’t be, as long as you stop keeping all the horrific Teuton stuff to yourself. You think we ought to go to the Black Castle to get the blood-transfer done, while one of your friends is blind thanks to her priestly husband.”
I sighed and sat up straighter against the headboard, folding my hands into my lap. “I don’t know if it’s true that Teya’s husband cut her eyes out. I haven’t had the heart to ask her. Lori might just be making that up, since she’s really leery about the idea of Black Priests. Her family’s all about the straight and narrow.”
“So Teya is actually married to a Black Priest? Even with the whole deadly anger thing?” Amira draped one arm over the back of my chair, dread shadowing her features.
“I think so, but I haven’t asked her point blank about that, either. Whoever her husband is, he wants to keep his identity to himself. I wish she’d tell me more about her blood-transfer, though. Her husband gave his blood for her, and both of them are still walking this earth. A cross-gender blood-transfer with two survivors. What priest around here managed that? How much does he charge?”
I snickered at the absurdity of it all, though I had wondered about the details of Teya’s experience for a while now. According to Der Weg, in ninety percent of blood-transfer rituals, one of the two persons involved died. Der Weg also declared that mingling the blood of a male and female always resulted in tragedy. But Teya, an American-born Teuton, strode into our community one year ago with yellow fire at her call and an unknown male shielding her heart from harm. No one knew her husband’s identity, and no one knew who had performed a cross-gender blood-transfer upon the two lovebirds.
Had a local priest successfully blended the blood of the living with the dead?
“Remind me when Teya became a witch?” Amira looked pensive, her gaze upon the calendar hanging over my desk.
“At the end of 2008. A few weeks before Christmas.” I yawned and wiggled my toes beneath my sheets, my shoulders sagging with weariness. It had been a trying day even before I dealt with Herr Hippler’s rejection. Who knew settling an elder’s affairs was so mentally draining?
Amira echoed my yawn and got to her feet, rising onto her tiptoes to stretch before crawling into bed beside me. Grateful for her nearness, I sank down onto my pillow and reached out to take her hand beneath the sheets. Our fingers wound naturally together as I shut off the desk lamp, ready for a lengthy snooze.
“You know who died in December 2008? Or at least, disappeared without a trace?”
My fiancée’s observation prompted my eyelids to shoot open again, a gasp escaping my lips as a piece of the puzzle fell into place. “Cord.”
How had I not recognized that possibility before? Cord was one of two very old Teuton priests who called Wildertal home; Lady Ilsa’s late husband, Horst, was the second. Cord had hired me as his part-time caregiver shortly after I graduated, mainly to help him with simple tasks each morning and keep his dialysis machine cleaned. The man was in his early nineties and in fairly good health aside from his failing kidneys. When I entered his cottage one morning to discover a farewell note and no elderly priest in sight, it had rattled me.
“If Cord did Teya’s blood-transfer, then her husband probably killed him afterward,” I whispered, a skeletal hand clasping my heart. “Since he keeps himself hidden from other Teutons.”
“You sure you want to ask a Black Priest to grant me Teuton blood?” Amira’s fingers tensed against mine, and she scooted closer to me. “It’d be a lot safer to ask a normal Teuton priest, right? Maybe one of the ones on the forum?”
I sighed and leaned my head against hers. “I’ll send some DMs,” I conceded, though the prospect of doing that made me want to crawl into a hole.
Over a decade ago, the Keyholder and Lady of München had created an online message board for Teutons and those just below the threshold of elemental control. I had run across the forum as a young teen, back when we had dial-up internet and chatted on ICQ. It had been nice to make connections with other young Teutons behind the veil of online anonymity. But these days, most people had moved to social media, the nights of racing to keep up with posts in the RPG threads long gone.
And quite a few users knew I was a lesbian. I doubted the few priests who still browsed the forum would be willing to blend my blood with that of my adopted sister. Some people in town still thought our love wandered a forbidden path, even though we were not actually related. One Egyptian, one Austrian Teuton.
One witch of darkness and one aspiring sorceress. Could we ever find a man open-minded enough to grant our most desperate desire? Once we both claimed the power to invoke an element, would a Teuton priest agree to unite us in ritual marriage? That was the only way we could legally marry—in a ceremony that would bind us before witnesses of earth, air, water, fire, and soul.
***
The following week passed as well as could be expected. Amira worked her usual shifts at Kramhof and knitted a blanket for our neighbor’s new baby. I visited several older people in our village, checking to see if anyone needed the services of a caregiver. After a year of caring for my father, it felt weird to put myself out there again. I might have to overhaul my résumé if none of the elders in town needed medical assistance yet.
Our mother slowly emerged from her lake of sorrow as the week progressed, cooking dinner for the three of us on Wednesday—the first time since our father passed away. While we sat around the dining room table enjoying her goulash, I prayed silently for courage before cautiously broaching the subject that had gnawed at the back of my mind since our father’s death.
“Papa mentioned something about a letter my birth mom left for me before the priests murdered her,” I said, watching my adopted mother’s reaction. A wince marred her face, and she kept her gaze on her bowl of goulash. Amira laid a hand over my right knee from her place at the table.
“He made it sound like it’s important,” I went on when our mother remained silent. “Do you know anything about it?”
Our mother gave a pained grunt and laid her fork down. “A lot of Vera’s past is murky,” she murmured, referencing my birth mom’s first name. “But she asked your Papa to take care of you, and make sure the priests didn’t destroy your chance at a peaceful life.”
My element seeped into my blood, and the overhead light darkened a shade. “A peaceful life? Are you saying the priests that murdered her wanted to take me, too?” Amira tightened her grip on my knee.
“I don’t think it’s you per se.” My adopted mother lifted her head to meet my gaze, uncertainty evident in her clear blue eyes. “Your parents were collecting information on the inhumane ways sick Teutons are treated. You know that those who are mentally unstable are held in a safe place apart from civilization, to keep their magic from erupting in a destructive manner. The doctors there also treat women suffering from broken heart-bonds.”
Amira and I looked at each other and spoke the appalling word at the same time. “The asylum.”
“Why is a place like that still active?” Amira asked as my forehead wrinkled in confusion. “There can’t be that many insane Teutons out there. There’s less than a hundred thousand altogether!”
“Would it be wise to place a mentally ill witch who wields the power of fire in a standard hospital?” Our mother raised her graying eyebrows at Amira, then picked up her fork again. “Unless we want scientists to experiment on us—which has happened in years past—we have to handle those cases ourselves.”
“But isn’t it healthier to care for people like that at home?”
“Wait.” I crossed my legs under the table, extracting my knee from Amira’s grip, and eyed my adopted mother pointedly. “You just said my parents were doing something that could shed light on evil practices in the asylum. Parents. I thought my birth mom killed my father. Wasn’t he a priest?”
“Vera killed the elderly priest who had enslaved her heart. She fled to the asylum for sanctuary, in hopes of repairing the damage that man did to her spirit. Your father took Vera under his wing and held off those who wanted vengeance for as long as he could. But in the end, his efforts weren’t enough to save her.”
Tears glistened in my adopted mother’s eyes, and she looked down at what remained of her goulash. “I’m so sorry, Doro. Your Papa took Vera’s request to protect you very seriously, which is why we told you only the basics about her and her honorable Truhtein.”
She used the Teutonic word master to refer to my real father—a priest I had always imagined as a villain. Apparently, my perceptions were inaccurate. What message had my birth mom left for me in her final letter? Did it reveal the atrocities happening at the asylum? I envisioned cruel doctors and priests shutting mentally ill witches away, suppressing their elements in the name of public good. It would be terrible to reach for the darkness that embodied my spirit and come up empty.
A lump had formed in my throat, but I forced myself to talk around it. “Did they murder him too? My biological father?”
My adopted mother bowed her head, and Amira gave a soft cry of anguish. “I’m so sorry. I hope you can forgive your Papa and me for keeping this close to our hearts all this time.”
I closed my eyes for a moment, sinking into the familiar obscurity that had been my refuge for most of my life. Amira’s arms laced around my shoulders, her head tilting against mine, her ambrosial scent soothing the gaping wound that had opened in my heart. My parents had fought the mistreatment of the sick and lost their lives in the process. Maybe it was up to Amira and me to take up their cause, to shed light on oppression Teuton leaders perpetuated.
“What about the letter?” I reopened my eyes, blinking dark tears away as I met our mother’s gaze. “Does it say anything about what goes on in the asylum?”
“I don’t know what it says. I never read it, and neither did your Papa. Vera sealed the letter with mystic sorcery that shields its contents from anyone but you. Her spell sheathed a folded paper in solid crystal, alchemy beyond anything I’ve ever come across.”
Amira pulled back just enough to look me in the eyes, her arms still offering much needed stability. “Your birth mom was a powerful witch,” she said, pressing soft lips to my cheek.
I tossed an arm around my fiancée’s back, keeping her close. “So the letter is encased in a crystal right now, and I’m the only one who can open it. What do I need to do, infuse it with my darkness? Sprinkle my blood over it?”
Our mother eyed my sister and me in turn. “I asked Lady Ilsa to study it quite a few years ago. She and Horst determined it awaits the blood and magic of Vera’s only child—and that of her heart’s deepest treasure.”
*************************************
Looks like Doro & Amira have a crazy journey ahead of them! Will they find the courage to ask a Black Priest to grant Amira magical blood? What do you think Doro's birth mom reveals in her mysterious letter? Find out more every week by joining my Teutonic Friends membership! ✨
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