Once Bitten, No Longer Shy by Julie Steimle (chrome ebook reader txt) 📕

nodding to himself with surprise that Troy did not know. But Art chimed in, lifting a hand. “I’d like to know that too. I’ve never heard of them.”

Randon looked to Hanz, each trying to decide who was best to explain. Randon was Troy’s friend, but Hanz was more likely to know the most.

“The Holy Seven is a group of chosen warriors for God,” Silvia said.

They looked to her.

She sighed, explaining. “Look, I can only tell this from the point of view of my old coven, so chime in when you can, boys.” She looked to Troy. “As far as I know, the earliest account of there being a Holy Seven was in ancient Egypt. They were magi—educated and skilled individuals selected, some say, by an archangel, to act as a shield for the innocent when the interference of a heavenly angel would remove the factor of faith from the equation. As you know, religion requires faith and not proof. It isn’t magic.”

Art’s mouth slowly opened again.

“The Holy Seven have a patron angel—or I suppose as Danny puts it, a patron elf,” she said.

“A what?” Art stared. “Like Legolas?”

She shook her head, growing irritated with him. Art didn’t quite deserve it. He just didn’t know these things existed.

“No,” she said crossly. “Elves are powerful beings, some so powerful the ancient people would have considered them as gods. Some were even mistaken as gods.”

Art pulled back as if she had spat at him.

“Your brother told me about this last night,” Hanz said. “He told me their patron elf had gone missing, and they were charged to find him again.”

Silvia nodded to him. “Yeah. Danny’s been in London for the past year researching it. It’s amazing to me that he’s back now. I’m not even sure why he or zombie-boy did come back.” Yet as she said this, she was smiling at Hanz with a clear guess behind her eyes. Then shaking her head, she added, “But anyway, the point is, the Holy Seven’s job is to track down wayward magical beings, undo dangerous magic such as curses, and lead people away from dabbling in magic. So of course that means they are entirely against witches, which is why coven hates them.”

“I like them already,” Art muttered, looking away.

Silvia shot him an extremely dirty look. It occurred to Troy then that she and Art must have argued about something before he and Randon returned to the apartment—probably about witchcraft. The second after Troy thought this, he guessed what it was. Silvia most likely offered to do a shadow spell for them and Art definitively objected using words she took personally.

Randon caught on too, peeking once to Hanz while coloring a little. He said with a slightly raised voice to Troy, “So… Anyway, the Holy Seven have passed on this responsibility for generations. Do you remember Mr. Jones? That substitute History teacher who left the school around Christmas of our senior year?”

Troy nodded.

Silvia perked up, surprised and yet also interested.

“He was one of the last of the previous generation of the Seven,” Randon said. “Mr. Deacon is a close acquaintance of his and knew about his secret job. My guess is that Mr. Deacon was hunted by him and had been spared. The thing is, I found out from Rick that Mr. Jones went to Rick’s hometown that winter—got permission from the Deacons so he could enter the town past the witches’ curse that won’t let outsiders in—and that is where he found all eight of the Seven of today.”

“Eight of the Seven?” Troy stuck a pinky in one ear and dug around for earwax, not sure he heard Randon right. All that stuff about curses and getting permission was a bit too much. All he knew about Middleton Village was that it was full of witches and where the Deacons originated.

“You heard me,” Randon said, chuckling. “Eight were chosen this generation—all of them connected to Rick’s hometown of Middleton Village, Massachusetts.”

Troy looked to Silvia, who was from that town also. She nodded, grinning.

Then she chimed in, “To be fair, the first Seven in Egypt started with eight. It’s just that one of them had turned traitor.”

“He turned traitor and helped a coven of thirteen witches create the first vimp,” Hanz murmured.

They all looked to him. Silvia seemed the most surprised.

She nodded. “Yes. How’d—”

“Mr. McDillan told me,” Hanz said. He sighed. “When Eve and I got engaged, he also wanted to make sure I knew what I was getting into.”

Troy got chills. Clearly Eve’s fate was interlocked with the Holy Seven’s. And it was even more chilling that there were eight this generation, as in the beginning. He wondered if there was any significance to that. Would one of them also turn traitor?

However, all that aside, knowing how much the vampires were terrified of Eve, if the Holy Seven had survived generation after generation, when generation after generation of vimps were incarnated, then clearly they were extremely dangerous people. If the vimps of the past could not destroy that legacy (especially considering how Eve was), then they had to be powerful.

“So, anyway,” Silvia said to Troy, ignoring the others. “I just want to propose this to you—”

“No, Silvia,” Randon said, as if reading her mind, rising from his seat. “I already brought it up with Troy. If Art is not ok with it, then neither is he.”

Troy clued in. It was about the shadow spell.

Silvia’s expression fell. She stared at Troy, stiffly not looking at Art, but said to Randon, “What’s the matter with it? It worked for Audry and me. It works for me and you.”

Troy opened his mouth to reply, but Randon interjected, “Audry was not that religious. And you know Rick didn’t like it.”

“Danny didn’t mind,” Silvia snapped. “And he’s one of the Seven.”

Nodding, Randon agreed. “Yes, but your brother wanted you safe and knew you were not going to hurt Audry. Besides, he would have been just as willing to be your shadow if Audry had said no. He was prepared for it.”

“Yeah, but if a member of the Holy Seven would not object—”

“I would object either way,” Hanz spoke up.

All of them looked to him, going silent. None of them apparently had asked Hanz’s opinion about the shadow spell—but then he was only planning to stay at the apartment temporarily.

Art audibly sighed with relief.

“No offense, Silvia,” Hanz said. “But I could not in good conscience allow my friend to get involved in witchcraft.”

Silvia stared more at him, freezing a little.

Hanz sighed gently shaking his head. “I dragged Art into this. I’m not going to drag him any further. We already blessed this apartment. Clean living will keep him and Troy safe.”

“Are you so sure?” Silvia asked as if Hanz’s words was a heavy drenching of cold water.

Hanz nodded silently. He said in a calm voice, “We blessed this apartment before you got here…”

Silvia rolled her eyes.

“…And like Art said while we were in the store, we would like to keep the spirit in this apartment a holy one.” Hanz gazed at her solidly, waiting for her to see that he had entirely agreed with Art at the time of their argument.

 She inwardly groaned, muttering about church-goers.

“What religion are you, if I can ask?” Troy asked.

Hanz and Art exchanged a look. Hanz then said, “We’re LDS.”

Randon stared blankly. So did Silvia, neither recognizing it. But Troy had that weird impression again in the back of his head of suits and name tags.

“Meaning?”

Sighing, Art said, “We’re members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. LDS or Latter-Day Saint for short, though we’ve been shifting away from that nickname.”

Randon, Silvia, and Troy exchanged another confused look, though Troy knew he was on the cusp of understanding something.

“We’re typically nicknamed Mormons by people outside our faith,” Hanz tagged on with a weary glance to Art.

“I thought Mormons were a cult,” Silvia shot back, practically triumphant with a vindictive stare at Art.

“We’re not a cult.” Art retorted indignantly. “Only people who want to discourage others from investigating our church say that we are a cult. We’re nothing of the kind.”

“Says you.” Silvia huffed.

“And me,” Hanz chimed in.

Silvia shook her head, clearly feeling sorry for ‘poor deceived’ Hanz.

“And William McAllister, Eve’s brother.” Hanz added.

Troy’s eyes widened. Dr. McAllister was a Mormon? Did Mormons become doctors? He thought those missionaries rode bicycles because they could not use technology. Didn’t they think tech was a sin? Yet Hanz stood there in modern clothes, owned a cell phone, had ridden an airplane to get to the East Coast, had taken the train to New York, and was talking about joining the army. And he was a doctor.

“The word cult is used to stigmatize others,” Hanz explained tiredly. “The same way some people are called conspiracy theorists just because they are pointing out criminality within certain corporations and government. The same as some people calling others a Nazi simply for not trusting socialism.” Then with a nod to Silvia and the others, “Or calling some people freak for simply being different. The term Mormon these days is used like a racial slur, which is why we are distancing ourselves from it. We’re followers of Jesus Christ.”

Randon tilted his head in a cat-like way, thinking on that. Silvia’s cheeks were flushed. She was still feeling indignant over the argument she had with Art. Troy sat, bemused, wondering exactly what it meant to be a Mormon if they were not a cult—and why were they called that again? Didn’t they have a different bible? He had heard the same as Silvia.

Art sighed, shaking his head. “Look. I’m sorry I hurt your feelings when I said what you did was evil. It’s just that witchcraft is….” He could not continue on. It clearly pained him to talk about it.

Randon winced. Troy could see his friend understood Art’s point of view immediately. Of course Randon had always steered clear of witchcraft himself until he met Silvia. It was what had cursed him to become a familiar. His mother and sister had tortured him with it. They even tried to kill him and use his blood for a spell once. Of course witchcraft was awful. And they had met other witches, besides. All of them had been nasty. Silvia was the first they had tolerance for, and only because she was the sister of a member of the Holy Seven and had left her coven. Yet with a peek to her, Troy knew she had not entirely abandoned the practice of witchcraft. She still kept it as a hobby. Rick himself still did not really trust her. And though Daniel was trying to help his sister leave it all behind, he was too busy to be fully active in the effort.

Finally Art said with raised hands, “Look, I’ll admit it. I’m scared, alright. I don’t want to get into the middle of this. And I don’t know why I keep bumping into your group of friends—but my life has not been the same since I roomed with Andrew Cartwright at basketball camp. And I’ve seen things since then. Weird things. My natural instinct tells me to run. But right now, in this moment, God is telling me to stay and help you guys. But it’s freaking me out.”

Hanz slapped an arm around his shoulder, patting it.

“How do you know it’s God telling you that?” Silvia asked with lingering skepticism. She wasn’t quite ready to forgive him.

Looking her directly in the eye, Art replied, “Because God helps you accomplish what He asks, and things end up better because of it.”

She rolled her eyes.

“I was in Cochem when Rick Deacon and his friends were attacked by those wolves,” Art said.

All of them stared, taking in breaths. That was a weird coincidence. Too much of one.

“I never told anybody this, but my friends and I had no intention of going there,” Art said, “and yet I felt distinctly compelled to go visit Cochem. I also felt strongly compelled to invite Rick and his friends to