Jilo (Witching Savannah #4)(101)

Jilo nodded. Perhaps she should let go of the pieces. Commit them to flames.

“I’ve asked about these entities,” Ginny said, “at least as freely as I can without arousing the suspicion of the others. All I’ve learned is that there isn’t much to learn. They’ve been around seemingly forever, lurking in the periphery. The one thing every source and contact I’ve found agrees upon is that they are tricksters, and tricksters are always dangerous, regardless of what their intentions might be.” Her tone turned sharp. “You do not want . . . we do not want anyone to learn you have been in contact with them, let alone that they have taken an interest in you. The Red King, your fellow in the top hat, is the most notorious of the quartet. He draws his energies from all—animal and human—who die through mishap or murder. He’s been giving his mark to those who kill for him as far back as anyone remembers. I wouldn’t be surprised if the story of Cain and the mark placed on him was a remembrance of an early pact between this king and a man seeking magic.

“This one. The one who sat here,” Ginny focused on an invisible point inches from her nose. “He calls himself the White King. He feeds from the leftover energies of those who take their own lives. He is the youngest. And the most loathsome.”

“He made himself look like me.”

“Of course, he would. The better to distort your true self.” Ginny’s eyes traced a path around the table. “The others. They, too, call themselves kings. The Yellow King, he was your fellow with the paper-thin skin, the Black King, your shadow. Like their brothers, they feed from the residual energy we leave behind when we die. It’s a bit like Jack Spratt, though; each can reputedly only digest the energies left by a particular type of death. Our ‘friend’ the White King would choke on the leftovers of a murder victim.”

“The bastard should choke.” Jilo felt her bile rise at the memory of his presence.

“Indeed,” Ginny said. “But as real as they may have seemed to you, they’re only doorways, portals to your Beekeeper, the source of this world’s first magic. Now, the Beekeeper, she is the stuff of legends among my kind.”

“Your kind?”

Ginny’s head tilted to the side. “Oh really, Jilo, by now you must have guessed. We’re witches, my brother and I, though your understanding of the word is without a doubt vastly different from its true meaning. I don’t mean to sound condescending when I say that. There are only a handful of those not of our kind who even know we exist. Even fewer know of our influence. The knowledge of how we came to be, well, that information is jealously guarded, even among witches. As a matter of fact, it was a bit above my own pay grade until Uncle Finnian’s passing.”

“Edwin is a witch?” This was the one point that stuck with Jilo.

“Yes, though Father has seen to it that his power has been greatly curtailed since he took off with Binah. My little brother has given up much more than you can guess for love.” She smiled. “But I suspect your sister’s love is worth any cost.” The smile drained away as quickly as it had arisen. “Listen, I need to be sure you have understood me regarding the Beekeeper. No one”—she pointed to Jilo as if she were reprimanding a child—“no one can learn of your connection to this force.” She lowered her hand, nearly placing it on the top rail of the chair before snatching it back. Stepping away from the table, she crossed her arms over her chest. “There are those who won’t judge you in terms of innocence and guilt. They’ll only see you as harmless or a threat. And you’ve been touched by a force we witches don’t understand. Witches are, in spite of our powers, still human, and humans tend to fear what we don’t understand.”

“But you don’t understand, and you don’t fear me.”

“No, I don’t fear you, but I fear for you. For a multitude of reasons.” She lowered her arms. “Now, I’ve answered your questions. I have one of my own for you.”

Jilo bit her lip, waiting to see where this was heading.

“The man, the one you’re trying not to think of, the one you don’t want me to know about,” she reached out and took Jilo’s hand. “Who was he?”

Jilo yanked back her hand and lowered her eyes.

“I know who he was already. Perhaps even better than you do. I just want to hear it from your own lips.”

Too much. Too much. Jilo began trembling.

Ginny drew her into her arms. “Tell me.”

“His name was Robert Jones,” she said, whispering the words in Ginny’s ear. “He used to be a pastor. I lived with him and his wife in Atlanta while I went to school. And I think . . . I think . . .” She swallowed hard. “I think he may have been my father.” She pushed back, freeing herself from Ginny’s embrace, astounded to hear herself give voice to those words. “He talked such nonsense. About being taken up by angels. Being showed visions of the disasters about to befall us. He disappeared. And then just before the Beekeeper came to me, he appeared here in my house. In the front room. He told me he’d been wrong all along—they weren’t angels who took him. They were devils. And he told me these devils took my mama, too, and used the two of them to make me. It’s nonsense. It has to be.”

“I wish it were, but I’m afraid it isn’t. That night at the club, I sensed there was something different about you. Your ability to tap into my magic makes sense to me now. It seems you weren’t so much born, as engineered. You were created as a weapon.”