Chapter 10: The Power of Memory
The Lodge’s main room was a cathedral of tense silence. The grand, carved-wood space, usually thrumming with the low buzz of arcane energy and murmured conversations, felt brittle. The massive hearth held only cold ashes. The single, fat candle on the central wine barrel guttered, making the moonlit sigils on the ceiling seem to writhe.
Jan O’Connor lay on a deep velvet sofa, her body rigid. Her fiery red hair was splayed against the cushion like a spilled offering. Her eyes were open, staring at the rafters, seeing nothing. Her chest rose and fell in shallow, mechanical hitches. Beside her, in a worn armchair, her brother Johnny was a mirror image—same red hair, same frozen mask of hollowed-out anguish. The curse had them. It was a surgical strike, a focused beam of nullity that had bypassed their defenses and poured freezing grey cement into their souls.
Fatima stood by the stone fireplace, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. She’d changed out of her elegant clothes into simple black leggings and a tunic, but she looked smaller, younger. The weight of the city, of her friends, of this impossible fight, pressed down on her shoulders. Shiv O’Connor was a statue by the window, her back to the room, staring out into the dark forest. The pendant holding her husband’s ghost hung from her clenched fist, the stone cold and silent against her palm.
The heavy oak door groaned open. Aaron Sweeney entered first, his perpetually ink-stained fingers holding the door for Annie, who carried a woven basket from which a tiny calico face peeked out. Mara and Zack followed, their city clothes looking starkly out of place.
Mara’s lawyer’s eyes scanned the room, taking in the scene with ruthless efficiency. She saw Fatima’s defeated posture, Shiv’s rigid back, and finally, her best friend laid out like a corpse on the sofa.
“Jesus Christ,” Mara breathed, her professional composure cracking. She didn’t hesitate. She crossed the room in quick strides, her heels clicking on the flagstones, and dropped to her knees beside Jan. She grabbed Jan’s cold, limp hand.
“Jan. Jan, look at me.” Her voice was firm, commanding. No response. Not even a flicker.
Zack hovered behind her, his warm eyes wide with horror. “Is she…?”
“She’s in there,” Fatima said from the fireplace, her voice flat. “Oliver used the ghost of Marty O’Connor to amplify Jan’s own curse back at her. It’s eating her from the inside out. Johnny and Brigid, too. It’s not just dampening joy. It’s erasing the memory of feeling.”
Mara’s mind, brilliant and pragmatic, made the connection instantly. This wasn’t an external assault. It was a psychic siege on the very concept of happiness. And you fought a memory with a memory.
She leaned close, her mouth inches from Jan’s ear. Her voice dropped, becoming low, private, intense.
“You remember sophomore year,” she began, her words quick and clear. “The night you decided the library needed ‘libidinous levity.’ You snuck in a bottle of cheap tequila and a harmonica you couldn’t play.”
Jan’s breathing hitched. A tiny, almost imperceptible spasm in her thumb.
Mara pressed on. “You found me in the stacks with that poli-sci grad student—what was his name? Brad? The boring one with the nice hair. You were buzzed, feeling powerful. You winked at me, and you whispered that spell. The one that felt like warm honey pouring into my brain.”
She described it, painting the picture with stark, vulgar clarity. “My panties were soaked through in seconds. It was like you’d flipped a switch in my spine. I dropped my books. I didn’t even look at Brad. I just pushed him back against the Philosophy section, my hand going straight for his zipper. I got his cock out right there between Kant and Kierkegaard. It was already hard, and I just shoved it into my mouth.”
Jan’s lips parted. A faint whisper of air escaped.
“I hated you in that moment,” Mara whispered, her own face flushing with the memory. “I was furious. But my body… god, my body was on fire. I sucked him like my life depended on it. Deep-throating him, gagging, tears in my eyes from the sheer need of it. You leaned against the shelf, grinning, watching me with this proud, possessive look. I came just from sucking him, Jan. Just from the taste of him and the feel of your magic holding me down in my own lust. I came so hard I bit his dick.”
A low, shuddering groan escaped Jan’s throat. Her fingers curled, weakly, around Mara’s.
“That’s it,” Mara urged, her voice gaining strength. “Remember. You pulled me off him, my makeup ruined, my lips swollen. You said, ‘See? You needed that.’ And then you… you made me beg.”
Mara closed her eyes, immersing herself in the humiliation and the blinding pleasure of it. “You made me get on my knees and beg you to fuck me. Right there in the stacks. You had that stupid pink strap-on in your bag. You shoved my skirt up, didn’t even take my panties off, just ripped the crotch aside. You pushed into me from behind, and it was so big, so much bigger than Brad. I screamed into a copy of ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’. You fucked me like you owned me, pounding into my cunt, telling me what a good, dirty slut I was for you. And I was. I came again, screaming your name, my pussy clamping down on that silicone like it was the only real thing in the world.”
Jan’s body arched off the sofa. A full, ragged gasp filled her lungs. Her eyes blinked, cleared for a second, swimming with confusion and a dawning, desperate hunger. “M… Mara?” she croaked.
“Yes. It’s me. Stay with me,” Mara said, gripping her hand tighter. “You remember. You have to remember the feeling. The heat. The sweat. The way my cunt ached for days after. The look on your face when you came, just from watching me fall apart.”
Jan’s other hand came up, clutching at Mara’s sleeve. “More,” she rasped, her voice a dry leaf. “Tell me… about the shower. After.”
Mara almost laughed, a wet, relieved sound. “The dorm shower. You followed me in. You were still wearing the strap-on. The water was scalding. You pinned me against the cold tile, hooked my leg over your hip, and fucked me slowly. So fucking slowly. I was begging you again, begging for you to go harder, to fill me up. You kissed me to shut me up, your tongue in my mouth tasting like tequila and sin. You made me come with your fingers on my clit while you were inside me, and I screamed so loud they almost called security.”
With each graphic, explicit memory, color was returning to Jan’s face. The grey pallor receded, replaced by a flush of returning life. She was clawing her way back from the void, using the visceral, untamed memories of the pleasure she’d authored as a lifeline.
Across the room, Shiv turned from the window. She watched her daughter’s revival, her face an unreadable mask of grief and resolve. Then her eyes shifted to her son. Johnny was deeper in the ice. His magic, tied to time, was less about sensation and more about connection—threads of causality and memory that Oliver’s curse had severed with cruel precision.
Shiv walked to him. She didn’t kneel. She stood before his chair, a mother facing her frozen child. She lifted the pendant, the river stone from Ballymore, and pressed it to Johnny’s forehead.
“John Patrick,” she said, her Irish brogue thick and soft. “You remember your Da. Not the ghost. The man.”
Her free hand rested on his shoulder. “You remember the smell of his pipe tobacco, the one he wasn’t supposed to have. The sound of his laugh when you’d successfully pranked your sisters. The way he’d let you stay up late to watch those old black-and-white monster movies, even when I said no.” Her voice hitched. “You remember the day he taught you to ride a bike in the alley. He ran beside you, holding the seat, his hand on your back. You were so scared. Then he let go, and you were flying. You were flying, Johnny. And he was cheering so loud the whole neighborhood heard.”
A single tear traced a path through the stubble on Johnny’s cheek.
“He loved you,” Shiv whispered, her own tears falling freely now. “He loved you with every beat of his mortal heart. That love is in you. It’s in the timelines you walk. It’s the reason you keep trying to fix things. That feeling… that’s real. It’s stronger than any curse.”
She leaned down, her lips brushing his ear. “Come back to me, my boy. Your Da needs you to.”
A shudder wracked Johnny’s frame. He drew in a sudden, sharp breath, as if surfacing from deep water. His blue eyes, so like his father’s, focused on his mother’s face. He didn’t speak. He just reached up a trembling hand and covered hers where it held the pendant.
In the corner, Aaron and Annie watched, their hands tightly intertwined. Sophie the kitten peeked from the basket, letting out a soft mew. The sound broke the last of the tense silence.
“It’s working,” Fatima breathed, a spark of her old fire returning to her eyes. She strode forward, businesslike. “Good. We have a window. The curse is iterative. It learns, it adapts. Oliver will know he failed to permanently disable them. He’ll be coming. Or we need to go to him.”
Jan was sitting up now, supported by Mara. She looked drained, haunted, but present. Her gaze found Shiv and Johnny, and a wave of profound relief washed over her features. Then it hardened into something else. Rage.
“Where is he?” Jan’s voice was still rough, but it carried the familiar, stubborn heat.
“We don’t know,” Fatima said. “Bethany and the Golden Wands are scanning. Lady Eleanor is scouting the ether. But he’s cloaked. He’s using the ghost’s energy to mask his signature.”
Aaron stepped forward, his ink-stained fingers flexing thoughtfully. “That’s the key, though, isn’t it? The legal principle.” Everyone looked at him. He spoke with the calm certainty of someone citing a well-known statute. “Jan’s original curse on Oliver, by the magical by-laws and standards the Fair Bargain upholds, was a fair punishment. He killed her dog. He threatened her city. The scales balanced.”
He glanced at the pale, shaking form of Jan on the sofa. “His subsequent attacks on others—Brigid, Johnny, Ginny, Molly—that’s new debt. That’s not fair. It’s predatory interest. So if we can find him and force a reckoning, I believe I can invoke Fair Bargain authority to break those secondary curses. The ones on everyone else.”
Jan nodded, the movement sharp with intent. She tried to push herself up, to stand. Her arms trembled. Her legs buckled, folding under her like wet paper. She collapsed back onto the cushions, a shudder of frustration wracking her frame.
Fatima was there instantly, a firm hand on her shoulder. “You need to stay here. Let others take care of this mess.” Her voice was gentle but unyielding.
Jan’s eyes, burning with weak fury, locked onto hers. “He’s coming after me and mine. Try and stop me.”
From the floor, Mara didn’t look up from steadying her friend. “Stopping you might not be that hard right now, Red. You can’t even walk.”
The air in the center of the room shimmered, cooled, and coalesced. Lady Eleanor Hawthorne materialized with the polite abruptness of a ghost used to interrupting the living. She adjusted her translucent bustle, her face unusually grim. “I have found the cur.”
The room stilled. Shiv turned fully from the window, her gaze a laser.
“An abandoned industrial building by the river,” Eleanor continued. “Brick and rust. He is within, and he is not idle. He has constructed a apparatus. From my perspective, it appears designed as a focusing array, a broadcaster. Its purpose is to take the curse he holds and transfer it outward. To the rest of the world.”
A cold, silent horror settled over them.
“It would rob everyone,” Eleanor whispered. “Not just of joy. Given time and power, of all higher feeling. A global listlessness. He also still holds the inert Beacon’s Edge. The ghost-light in its gemstone is not just energy. It is a spirit, fully conscious, and trapped.” She looked directly at Shiv. “It is a man. A kind man, screaming silently.”
Shiv’s breath left her in a pained rush. Her knuckles around the pendant were white. Without a word, she strode toward the door, Larry ruffling his feathers on her shoulder.
Arlene moved, a blur of serene grace, placing herself between Shiv and the exit. “Siobhan. Stop.”
“Get out of my way, Arlene.” Shiv’s voice was low, deadly. “I don’t care about your Green Moon artifact.”
“You must,” Arlene said, her tone leaving no room for argument. “We need to retrieve the dagger to free Martin’s spirit. That act is the key to reversing the curse. If the dagger is destroyed in a brute-force assault, Marty could be lost forever. Your children will never be free. Nor will Stacy, or Ginny, or Molly.” She stepped closer, her voice dropping, fraying at the edges. “We both loved him. Let us be clever for his sake.”
Shiv stared at her rival, the woman who had also wanted her husband. The raw need for violence warred with the cold, terrifying logic. She closed her eyes. A single, sharp nod. “Fifteen minutes,” she conceded, the words gritted out. “A Green Moon I trust leads the charge. Fatima. After fifteen minutes, I am coming through that wall.”
Fatima didn’t flinch. She simply nodded, accepting the weight. “Understood.”
The main door opened again. Vivian entered, her demon-shadow aura subdued, shepherding Amy, Jason, and Yukio inside. Katie “Boom Boom” Manelli followed, her Goth attire dusty, a fierce light in her eyes. “Got the civvies clear,” she announced. Rainbor ducked through the doorway behind them, his orcish frame nearly filling it, a massive, rune-etched axe held casually in one hand.
Fatima’s mind clicked into gear, assessing assets. “Okay. Here’s the play. The Twins will scout ahead with Lady Eleanor for exact placement. Katie, Vivian, Rainbor—you’re the breach team. Offensive focus. Aaron, you’re with the novices. One of them will need to light the blade once we have it.”
Stacy stepped from the shadowed corner near the hearth. Her athletic body was coiled tight, her eyes flat and dangerous. “I’m going.”
Fatima met her gaze, seeing the utter lack of restraint there. The curse had stripped away Stacy’s caution, leaving only pure, protective fury. It was a risk. It was also a weapon. “Fine,” Fatima said, reluctant. “You’re with the breach team. But you follow Rainbor’s lead until we’re inside.”
Shiv’s voice cut through. “My revenge comes after my husband and children are safe. But remember this. Oliver Stansworth owes a debt to this family. And I am the collector.”
Annie, clutching her basket, nodded along. “Plan sounds good. But where are the novices?”
Upstairs, in a spare room smelling of lavender and cedar, Britney lay back on a quilt, her blonde hair fanned out. She’d already shucked her novice tunic. Her bare breasts peaked in the cool air. “C’mon, Syd. It’s tradition. Best way for a Green Moon to get ready for a fight. Get the juices flowin’, the power hummin’.”
Sydney, the redhead from Vermont, stood nervously by the bed, wringing her hands. “I just… is it really the time?”
“It’s exactly the time,” Britney purred, hooking a finger in the waistband of Sydney’s leggings and pulling her close. “Ain’t nothin’ but life force. Let’s make some.” She leaned up and kissed Sydney, swallowing her gasp. Her hands were efficient, pushing the leggings down, cupping Sydney’s ass. “You’re thinkin’ too much. Just feel.”
Sydney allowed herself to be maneuvered, her reserve melting under Britney’s confident touches. She knelt over Britney, their breasts pressing together, and returned the kiss with growing hunger. The theory was sound; sexual energy was a potent primer for their magic. Britney’s fingers found Sydney’s cleft, sliding through her slick folds. “Yeah, there it is. You’re so wet for me, you prim little thing.”
“Shut up,” Sydney murmured, but she was grinding against Britney’s hand. The nervous energy was transmuting, sharpening into need. She broke the kiss, moving down Britney’s body, her mouth leaving a hot trail. She took Britney’s nipple between her lips, sucking hard, teasing the peak with her tongue.
Britney moaned, her Southern accent thickening. “Oh, sugar. Just like that.”
But then something shifted. Sydney’s hesitancy burned away in the heat. She pushed Britney’s thighs apart, her gaze fixated on the glistening pink flesh revealed. Without ceremony, she buried her face between Britney’s legs.
“Fuck!” Britney cried out, back arching. Sydney’s tongue was not tentative. It was voracious, lapping at her slit, plunging inside, then zeroing in on her clit with relentless, sucking pressure. Sydney’s hands pinned Britney’s hips to the bed, holding her in place for the feast. The aggressive takeover was shocking. It was electrifying.
Britney thrashed, whimpering, a cascade of filthy praise tumbling from her lips. “Yes! Eat my pussy! That’s it, you hungry bitch! Don’t you stop!” Sydney didn’t. She fucked Britney with her tongue, her nose buried in blonde curls, drinking her in. Britney’s climax hit her suddenly, a raw shout torn from her throat as she flooded Sydney’s mouth.
Before Britney could recover, Sydney surged up her body. Her eyes were dark, possessed. “My turn,” she breathed, and it wasn’t a request. She shoved Britney onto her stomach. Britney, still pulsing, complied with a breathless laugh. Sydney positioned herself behind, her wet cunt pressing against Britney’s ass. She didn’t seek penetration. She ground her swollen clit against Britney’s slick skin, her hands gripping Britney’s hips, pulling her back onto each frantic thrust.
“Rub that pussy on me,” Britney groaned into the quilt, pushing back. “Make a mess.” Sydney’s movements became jagged, desperate. She fucked against Britney’s body, the slick, slapping sounds filling the room, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps. She came with a choked scream, her whole body seizing, drenching Britney’s back and the sheets beneath them.
They lay tangled, sweating, breathing the same air.
The door opened a crack. Fatima’s face appeared, impassive. “Get dressed,” she said, her voice all business. “We have a mission.”
Downstairs, the teams were forming near the door. The energy was taut, focused. On the sofa, Jan gripped Mara’s wrist with surprising strength. She pulled her closer, her voice a feverish whisper only Mara could hear.
“You need to get me there.”
Mara shook her head, lawyerly dissent. “Jan, you can barely stand. You’d be a liability.”
Jan’s smile was ghastly, determined. “I don’t need to do much. I just need to be there. He’s using a curse I made. His connection to it… runs through me.” She coughed, a dry, wrenching sound. “I’m the original creditor. I need to be present for the foreclosure.”
Outside, engines growled to life. Rainbor’s borrowed truck. Katie’s van. Fatima stood on the Lodge’s threshold, a general surveying her soldiers. She met Shiv’s stony gaze and gave one final nod.
Then she turned and led them out into the night, toward the river and the whispering, trapped ghost within the dagger. Toward the machine designed to unfeel the world.
On the sofa, Jan watched them go, her body broken but her will a naked, shining thing. “Get me there, Mara,” she repeated, and it was no longer a request.