Soul Cage by Phaedra Weldon Page A

woke up and discovered he
couldn't accesses the Grimoire ? Rhonda got all quiet and
mad at herself. She thought she'd misplaced that page. Went looking
everywhere for it—then one day she just stopped. Didn't talk about
it again."
    "You think that was
weird?" Nona said.
    "Well for Rhonda's
personality yeah. It was just after that she sort of got real
obsessive with Zoë's life. Asking all kinds of questions about her,
and then her with Dags—"
    "I remember that," Jason
said. "Asked me and Nick about her past."
    "But she knows all about
Zoë's past," Nona said. "Was it anything in particular?"
    Before anyone could answer
the door to the kitchen burst open. Jason and Nick were suddenly in
front of Nona and Joe was reaching for his gun.
    It was Rhonda. She
looked—scared.
    "Jesus woman," Joe said as
he straightened up. "Don't do that. I've been in the city all day.
I could have shot you."
    Nona stepped around the
two men and looked at Rhonda. "What is it?"
    For the first time in a
while she was sure she was seeing the Rhonda she'd known and
thought of as her daughter. The young woman's skin was very pale.
Circles hung over her cheeks, beneath her eyes. And she was
shaking. Her gaze slid from Nona over to Jason and a cold mask
covered her face. Her hands balled into fists and the air in the
kitchen crackled with static.
    "You," she glared at
Jason. "What did you do to him…."
    Jason frowned. His own
face changed and Mephistopheles harmonized with Jason's voice.
"Rhonda—"
    "WHAT DID YOU DO TO THE
BOOK!"
    That's when all hell broke
loose in the kitchen.

 
     
    -7-
     
    Joe Halloran never had
much use for magic. From a young age he'd shown promise with it.
Mostly when he didn't want it. His mother called it "leakage" when
things around him reacted to his emotional state. He didn't want to
be called a witch, like his mother and grandmother.
    He also knew both of them
had been disappointed he'd been born a male.
    Unlike movies and
books that told fictional stories about witches and magic, men were
also witches. Not warlocks. Warlock had a completely different
meaning. In certain circles, no witch ever wanted to be warlocked
because it meant the same thing as being banished.
    But when a family as old
as the Hallorans began producing what they called the divine
trinity, a make up of three women to symbolize the maiden, mother
and crone, it was expected the third child to eventually become the
maiden would be a girl.
    Big surprise that
day.
    His grandmother, the
second daughter of a second daughter, and his mother, also the
second daughter of a second daughter, had been very diligent in
following all the proper herbal and ritual assurances that her
second child would be a female. Her first had been a girl—and
though not magically gifted—Rachelle was smart, brilliant and
talented in many other ways. So it seemed logical the second child
would be female. None of the Halloran women had undergone sonograms
or amniocentesis to determine sex before birth. It was believed
those scientific methods would interfere with nature's work. The
fetus would be magically sterilized.
    Then out popped
Joe.
    Ignored at first by his
mother, who felt as if she'd failed the Goddess, Joe grew up
surrounded by love from his extended family, and most of all cared
for by his older sister. In time when it became evident that Joe
was indeed a witch—and a powerful one—his mother and grandmother
started taking a vested interest. After all, without the God there
cannot be the Goddess.
    But by then it was too
late, and Joe's opinion of magic was bullshit, as were his beliefs
in a system that'd failed him.
    But over the years he'd
discovered things would come naturally to him. Wish-Craft is what
he called it. He'd want something in a powerful way, and events
would arrange themselves to grant him whatever it was. A girl. A
promotion. A house.
    Except for one.
    There was one thing his
magic wouldn't give him.
    Zoë.
    And because of that
failure he'd started