The Old

“So this is your uncle’s house.”

“It’s really all of our house,” Lewis said. “It’s where I grew up. We used to live in a huge apartment over the store down on Bryn Mawr, a few blocks away. But then we moved up here into the old neighborhood, and this is the house I remember from when I was about ten.”

Lewis shrugged as they went up the steps.

“Much nicer,” Chris said, coming to the steps of the newly painted porch, “than the house I grew up in.”

“Now that you’ve told me, I don’t doubt,” Lewis said. He did not knock on the heavy glass door. The first floor of the house was stone, and the second floor brick while the attic dormers were grey wood. As they entered the living room, Chris thought, Yeah, I could see a witch living here.”

“We’re in the kitchen,” Owen shouted.

“Here we come,” Lewis said, and then he turned around and told Chris, who was already looking at the bookshelves, some of them sagging with tomes, and tables which had in turn, crystal orbs in elegant stands, jade dragons, glass curios, skulls human and otherwise, and wands which were long and polished or twisted and curved, “Feel free to look around.”.

Chris nodded and Lewis added, “Though, of course, you know it wouldn’t do to run around touching things.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“You would,” Lewis said. “You already are.”

Down Morse Street a car slowly passed, and looking to the great harp in the corner and the tapestries hanging from the wall, Christhought that, though witches cottages had abounded in his day, they were nothing like this.

“Tell your vampire to come back here!” Owen called, and Chris was so shocked, he went through the great dininig room and down the corridor bordered by bedrooms and bath to the kitchen where the man he had only half seen a few nights before stood over a great boiling pot of… well, no potion, but gumbo, sprinkling file powder into it, and then turning from the pot as he turned down the eye.

“You are Owen,” Chrisoffered his hand.

“And you are Chris,” Owen took his hand. “Welcome into my home. And this is my other nephew, Seth.”

Owen was dressed much the same as Lewis, in a Cuban shirt, and loose pants. But Seth was in fine black trousers and an immaculate white shirt and trim vest, like something out of the past, like something a vampire would wear, Chris imagined, and as he took Seth’s hand he noticed what no one else mentioned, which was that Seth was, as far as Chriscould tell, white. He had a thin dark beard lining his jaw, and wavy dark hair, and Chris imagined that perhaps, in this country, he might not have been entirely white or, and this was as likely, Lewis was not entirely Black.

“Lewis hasn’t told me anything about his family,” Chris said.

“Well, then this would be the time to ask lots of questions,” Owen said.

“Seth. Lewis. Get bowls and silverware. Chris, be so good as to help me with drinks and bread. It’s Sunday, we’ll eat at the table like civilized people.”

While the phonograph played behind them with the rich old sound Chris was convinced you could not get any other way, Owen speared a shrimp from the bowl of brown gumbo and said, “I had two sisters. I was the youngest. Lewis is my younger sister’s grandson. Seth is the grandson of me oldest.”

“Grandson? Grandsons?”

“I flatter myself and think that this confuses you because I look so young and virile for my years.”

“Well,” Chris allowed, “there is that.”

“I like him,” Owen told Lewis. “You should keep him.”

Lewis, taking mercy on Chris’s curiosity, explained, “Our great grandmother was once married to a white man, and that was Aunt Cressida’s father. Cressida married Doug Moore, who was also white, and that’s where cousin Kyle came from. And Kyle was Seth’s father.”

“But the clan?” Chrissaid.

“The clan is something else,” Owen said, “as I’m sure your blood clan is different from, say, your blood family.”

“My blood family is long dead.”

Owen nodded, but did not say anything like, “I’m so sorry.” That would have sounded stupid.

“I am one of the heads of the clan. They call me the Master. The other head is the Maid. But in days gone by my mother was the Maid, and Lewis may be Master after me. I never knew a witch more powerful than my mother.”

“Save Augustus.”

Seth had said his name and when he did both Lewis and Owen gave him sharp glances.

Chris turned to Seth, uncertainly.

“He is another uncle,” Lewis said, shortly.

Owen said, “I am the head of my clan, but strictly speaking, Augustus is the head of our family, and,” he turned his eyes to Seth, “The less said of him the better.”

“Is the entire family… ? I’ve heard of family witchcraft.”

“As have I,” Owen said. “Usually it means that people live in a clan, and we do, and that the clan considers its members family, though I have heard of hereditary witches. I’ve heard of people who say they grew up with it. The way some folks grew up Methodist. Me? I grew up a Roman Catholic like most Dunharrows. As far as I know, you cannot raise someone as a witch. The best begin as something else and come to the Craft later. I would not say it was coincidence that Lewis came to it, Not entirely. Some bloodlines have more of a talent for it than others. I will not say, even, that it was coincidence that he came to be part of my clan. But it was not entirely familial.”

“I had no idea what Owen was until I was almost twenty,” Lewis said. “He is my father’s uncle. My father had… There is nothing magical about my father or my mother. I was looking for something else, feeling other things. Meeting other people. They say it happens to every witch. One of the people who came to me was Owen. He looked at me and said, “I always knew it. And that was that, really.”

“But we are a family of witches,” Seth said. “Only I’m not.”

“Seth has dreams,” Lewis noted.

“But that is not quite the same,” Seth said. “Being saddled with weird shit you can’t understand isn’t the same as being a witch.”

“I’ve told you—” Owen began.

“Yes,” Seth said tiredly, dipping his crusty bread in the gumbo. “If I could apply myself my gift could turn into something real.”

Seth was handsome in an odd way, his face oval, his eyes wide apart.

“I would rather not have wacky dreams,” he told Chris, “than sit around and learn from them.”

Owen closed his mouth, looked at the table, and Chris thought he might be holding his tongue from saying things he’d said before.

“Do you feel that?” Lewis asked.

“By that do you mean the chill in the air?”

“Yes. Not much,” Lewis said, “just the reminder that summer’s almost done.”

As they walked down Morse, Chris squeezed Lewis quickly.

“Owen wanted to drive us home.”

“That’s a very long drive,” Chris said, “and I just wanted to walk with you to this El Station and then sit with you and look at you and-”

“You’ll get tired of me soon enough.”

“I doubt that very much, Mr. Dunharrow.”

As they passed the alley a block from the station, a boy was coming down it and he said, “Excuse me.”

“Yeah,” Lewis and Chris said together.

“You all catching the EL?”

“We are,” Lewis said before Chris could speak.

The boy still stood in the alley, and Chris came to him. Lewis followed, thinking he certainly would not be in this alley by himself.

“I was wondering if maybe… if you have a card you could fit me in too. I’m trying to get back to Logan Square and I’m fresh out of cash.”

Lewis Dunharrow was more disconcerted about someone walking out in an alley in the approaching evening than usual, and he looked at Chris who looked down on him only for a minute before he said, “Sure we can.”

“Thanks, guys,” the boy said. “I really appreci—”

But even as he said it, he took out the gun, and he aimed it straight at Lewis, and in the same moment that Lewis realized it was a taser, Chris lifted the boy up by his neck with a super strength, and knocked his head against the wall, the taser falling from his hand.

“I was just fucking around!” the boy cried. “I was just fucking around. I was going to shock you.”

“You’re the one,” Chris’s voice changed while Lewis watched. “The one that hit the man in the back of the head when he got out of the car to help you. His wife was afraid for his life. Do you know my boyfriend went to the hospital to look after him? You’re the one that cracked a kid’s head open on this very street. Left him with injured eyesight and high hospital bills when he was just minding his business and heading home?”

“I was playing!”

“And two others from what I’ve heard. How many?”

The boy kicked Chris in the stomach, but when Chris’s grip only grew stronger, the defiance in the boy’s eyes died, and he tried to scream, but Chris’s free hand went over his mouth.

“Please!” the boy’s eyes went to Lewis. “Don’t let him hurt me.”

Lewis only watched.

“What should I do, baby?” Chris turned to him.

“You should do what you think is best,” Lewis said.

“What you think is best!” The boy’s voice went up an octave. “What the fuck—!”

“How many more people?” Chris said again.

“Three. Some old bitch the other day. So… six. Six.”

“You…” Chris began, “prevail upon people to help you. Pretend to be in need, and then when they come to help you, severely injure them? And you think that’s… fun? That’s your entertainment.”

“I don’t know!” the boy wailed, tears springing to his eyes and washing down his red face. “Please let me go. I’m evil. I’m crazy, alright. I’m a crazy fuck. PLEASE let me go! I’m a fucked up person.”

Chris lowered the boy so they were face to face. The boy’s eyes widened, seeing those teeth, seeing the fangs rise up in Chris’s mouth.

Lewis watched the dark stain of urine blossom at the boy’s crotch, and run down his leg

“You’re a monster,” Chris growled.

“I know!” the boy admitted.

“Unfortunately for you,” Chris told him, before lunging on his throat, “So am I.”