“So they would murder the vampires, fairies and shifters on her behalf, on her command.”
“There’s no doubt? Can we check?”
Nobody answers me and we are all silent for a minute. I wait until they tell me what to do or decide what we do next. I might be the head witch, but I’ve accepted it’s in name only. I have no power here – nor do I want it. I panic at the thought of being in the middle of this war as it is and I’m still not one hundred percent sold on being a witch, truth be told.
It’s definitely not as much fun as I thought it would be.
“So demons are a bad thing?”
Fletcher looks at me like I’m crazy, or stupid, or both and I feel a little hurt. I give him a ‘how should I know’ look and his mother takes pity on me. Sad.
“Ellis, demons are a very bad thing. Ghosts are very real, although not everyone believes in them, they do exist. They are always benign, and they usually have unfinished business. Cliché, but things are often clichés for a reason.” She shivers, actually shivers. “Demons are different. Demons are the undead but unlike zombies, which don’t exist, by the way, demons are evil. Pure evil – and they know it and they love it. They are already dead, so they are very hard to kill. They hate everybody and everything for no reason whatsoever. You can’t reason with a demon, and Zeta must have used some very dark magic indeed if she was able to harness them and use them for her own needs. They don’t play nice.”
Fletcher looks at me and his expression is so bleak that I could cry. “Ellis. Demons have been locked away for hundreds of years. If she’s opened the portal, if she’s let them out...” He trails off, shaking his head, tears filling his eyes. I don’t know what to say. This is all way over my head.
“So how do we find out if the demons have been freed? Where would they be? Are there a lot of them? How do we stop them?”
The three who ought to know more than me just shrug.
Helpful.
We lapse into silence again and it’s excruciating and then Elodie’s phone goes. “Ember,” she says as she answers it.
Thank fudge for Ember.
Listening to one side of a conversation is never fun, so I watch Fletcher watch his mum instead. He looks devastated – even more so than when Layland punched him in the face or when we saw Zeta get murdered.
This feels different – even more serious than the rebels, even more worrying than the hearts in a box. This feels scarier.
“They’re coming back here,” Elodie announces. “They’ll bring the others with them. We can prove now – thanks to you, Ellis, that this was all down to Zeta. If the demons are out – Griff, we need to check that – then everything is different. We’ll need to band together.”
“Will the others want to help us, after we tied them up?” See how I use ‘we’ not ‘you’. Team work.
“Ellis – I know you don’t understand because a few days ago you had no idea that any of us existed but believe me – if the demons are out then the others will have no choice but to help us.”
I say nothing. I can tell that she’s serious and scared and...I can’t help myself. Here I go again with the stupid questions. I lower my voice so only Fletcher can hear me – his mother is very close to the edge. “Out of where?”
Fletcher gives me that look again, and I give him my look again. In fairness to me, are any of these questions stupid? How should I know where the demons have been? We’re not exactly close.
His voice is flat and the look on his face frightens me. “A place worse than hell.”
The word alone is enough to make me shudder. I know it won’t be the hell I know of; it’ll be worse than the hell we are all told about, warned about. Goose bumps pop up on my skin, and I feel cold all over.
This isn’t fun anymore.
Was it ever?
“I need a shower,” Fletcher says and leaves the room without even looking at me. Rude.
But I give him some grace – he’s having a pretty terrible few days. So, I sit quietly, check my phone, play a few games, and then Elodie and Griff excuse themselves and it’s just me.
And I feel like a wally. Or a lemon. Just sitting. Waiting. While demons from a place worse than hell run around outside killing everyone.
Hmm.
I cannot sit still any longer, so I go up to Fletcher’s room.
I sit on his bed and flick though a magazine about gaming, and then the door opens and in he comes.
Oh. My. Word.
This seventeen year old witch is actually a god. I think it and then I blush and then I have to look at him, and then my toes curl because he’s so lush, and then I have to look away, and then I look back, and I’m afraid I’m looking awful shifty because I cannot look at him, but I cannot look away.
He’s wearing a towel around his waist, his skin is wet and he has just a smattering of hair on his chest and I want to touch it and I want to touch him, but I am too aware that he’s almost naked, and then I look at the towel, and then I have to shake my head and look at his face again.
Then I take a breath, because he’s smirking at me. He knows full well what I’m thinking and only too well the effect he’s having on me and he’s actually enjoying my discomfort.
Really?
And then I have to stand up and walk over to him and slip my arms around him, running my hands – my now wet hands – over his skin, his arms, shoulders, back. His face.
We lean in and kiss. And kiss and kiss and kiss. I am very aware that there is only a towel between us.
I have a sneaky feeling he’s pretty aware of it too.
His hands are in my hair, tangling in my white curls, and then I have to step back.
We’re both almost panting, our breath ragged, his skin dry now. I lean in and kiss him one more time, letting my tongue linger in his mouth, running my hands – just the once – down onto the fabric of the towel, feeling the shape of his backside. “I should go.”
“Wait.” He touches my hair and whispers something and I see the colour change back to normal.
5
Fletcher lets out a groan when Ellis shuts the door behind her, and he dresses quickly before either of them changes their minds.
Now is not the time to get into that kind of thing, though he wants to so very badly.
Back downstairs they are both blushing as they hold hands and wait for Elodie and Griff to join them.
“If demons are that bad, why would she let them out?”
Fletcher shrugs. “I suppose it shows how much she hated us. I really can’t see why. I know my dad didn’t use her as a crone, and she was pushed to one side – but that’s not worth doing this. Killing all of us? Setting the other creatures against us? I don’t understand her.”
“She must have been a very powerful witch to be able to do that.”
“She was.”
Griff comes into the room. “Hey you two. The others are on their way with Ember and the girls.”
The mood is sombre as they wait, how will the council members react to being tied up and kept prisoner?
They hear them all arguing before they even see any of them and the four of them exchange a worried look.
Ember marches into the room and stares at her sister. “You try!” She throws herself down on a chair, fury making her features less pretty than usual.
The other supernatural creatures who follow her in look just as angry, confused and panicked as she does, though there are less of them than they were expecting. “I didn’t think we should all come,” Ember explains, her voice as angry as her face.
“But she wouldn’t let us free them either.” Mya is crying.
“It’s unforgivable!” Vann says, fury making him more handsome than usual.
Ember throws her hands up. “I couldn’t free them. I didn’t really want to free you! We have no idea if Zeta and John – if it definitely was them – acted alone. We already know that your trio of rebels have killed as many witches as they were able. Including the head witch. Tha
t is what’s unforgivable.” She has barely any breath left.
Elodie touches her sister’s shoulder and straight away the anger visibly melts away from her, she looks like a balloon that’s deflating. Magic.
“I think she did the right thing.” She holds her hands up placating the other creatures. “Please, don’t be angry. But if she freed them, what would they have done? If she left them in Scotland?”
Mya shakes her head, refusing to answer.
“They’d have been angry and retaliated. But they can’t – not yet. We need to tell you what Ellis saw, you need to hear it, we need to know for certain if the demons have been let out. Then we can decide what we do about this war between us. None of us is innocent in this.”
Mya nods, although her eyes are still swimming with tears. “I don’t like it, but I do understand. But now we’re outnumbered. Are we safe?”
Mya the vampire, Vann the fairy, and Gregory the shifter are the only three creatures that have travelled with Ember down from Scotland.
“You are. I hope you believe me, and I hope we’ll prove it to you. This isn’t a trick. Ellis saw the demons through Zeta’s eyes, and she saw that it was the demons who murdered all of your species. On Zeta’s say so. Then she wanted to cause more trouble, so she murdered the three creatures and sent you their hearts.”
She plays them the recording from Fletcher’s phone.
“So what do we do next?”
“We think we need to go to the portal.”
“Is it true? Do you think they are-” Vann lowers his voice. “Free?”
A shudder runs through all of them as a collective when Elodie nods.
“We shouldn’t all go,” Vann says. “Just in case.”
Elodie nods. “I want Ellis kept safe.”
“We do too.”
“I suggest me, Griff, you Vann, Mya and Gregory.”
“I should come,” Fletcher says. “But I don’t want to leave Ellis.”
“She’ll be fine with me,” Ember says. “I know how important she is.”
Fletcher looks at Ellis with a conflicted expression on his face. He desperately wants to go, to fulfil the duties his father would have if he was alive, but he doesn’t want to abandon Ellis, either. Ellis nods, giving him permission almost and he smiles before going to her side and kissing her cheek.
“And if the portal is open?”
“Then God help us all.”
Fletcher takes Ellis to one side. “Are you sure you don’t mind me leaving you behind? With Ember and the girls?”
“I don’t love it. But I get it. I know I need to be kept safe, but...I’ll miss you.”
He has a flash back to kissing her wearing only his towel. “I’ll miss you too. You’ll be safe.”
“Will you?”
He shakes his head. “I have no idea. But I hope so.”
They kiss quickly and quietly, and then Ember hurries him away.
“Go on, I’ll keep her safe.”
Fletcher follows his mother out of the house, reluctantly, watching as Ember shuts the door, ready to put all the protections back in place.
Elodie turns to the three of them and asks: “Are you happy for us to fly you?”
Mya checks with the others before nodding her acquiescence. “It’ll be quicker.”
Each of the witches holds on to one of the others, to fly them to the portal. It’s pretty uncomfortable, but they arrive in no time at the forest that houses the portal.
“This is Galloway Forest Park,” Vann says, recognising it straightaway. “I had no idea the portal was here.”
“Nobody does. Well, nobody is supposed to,” Elodie says.
Griff shakes his head. “Zeta knew – being the crone, she knew everything, but it was us witches that placed the portal here. We wanted it somewhere hidden away, where nobody would come across it by accident.”
“It’s been here the whole time?”
“Yes – hundreds of years. It’s all written down in one of our books.”
“It wasn’t just us who decided to banish them,” Fletcher says, his tone defensive.
“I know that. It was decided universally. Fletcher – we don’t hate or distrust you; we want things to get better too.”
Fletcher looks at Gregory like he doesn’t quite believe him; he doesn’t.
“We’ve all been manipulated in this. We’ve all lost.” Elodie’s voice is quiet. “Are we ready?”
They nod.
“We can’t fly the whole way. There are protections in place. But we can get close.”
They join back into their pairs, and fly into the forest, before coming to land just on the cusp of a dense thicket of trees.
Elodie uses her magic to undo the protections and rush them all inside the circle of safety. She starts the protections up again. “Just in case.”
As they walk inwards, they all hear the crunching under their feet and look down at the same time. “Bones,” Gregory says, distaste evident on his face.
“Hungry demons,” Griff says, bringing up the rear.
They are all on edge, on high alert, creeping closer and closer to the portal. Elodie knows the way instinctively, and when the trees clear, they all gasp.
Only Elodie and Griff have ever seen a portal, being shown this place years ago, when Adam was made head witch.
The others are mesmerised by what they are looking at.
It’s exactly as a portal is portrayed in a book or film: a swirling mass of green, blue, purple, pink, spinning in mid-air with a thick black hole at the centre.
Except this one also has a visible tear in it, the black centre tearing into the rest of the portal like a crack on a phone screen.
They are all sombre looking at, but even without the obvious damage to the portal; they know. The floor is littered with animal carcasses and bones, rotting maggot-infested guts and half chewed body organs. Evidence of a post-banishment feast or celebration or both.
Elodie is wretched, pale faced and shaking. “I cannot believe she did this.”
“I say, thank the lord she’s dead, because I’d kill her for this.” Griff is furious, and frightened, a terrible combination. Being scared makes him even more angry; he’s almost hysterical with rage. “I would.”
Elodie touches his arm, preoccupied. “I have no idea how many are in or out, but with your agreement,” she looks to all of them, “I want to close it again. Just in case.”
They all nod. They cannot risk any more demons freeing themselves and joining the party.
“And now?”
“I have no idea.”
“Well, how do you herd demons back to hell?”
Elodie starts crying. “You don’t. Only the one who called them out can put them back in. Only Zeta can do it. And she’s dead.”
This shocks all of them, and the air of despair that falls over the group is as thick as a blanket.
Ellis
Well this is fun, Let’s see... loads of supernatural creatures want to kill me, then we find out that there are demons on the loose, who I reckon want to kill everyone, and then Fletcher leaves me here with this bunch of harpies.
Great!
So, there’s Ember – glaring at me, and the twins too, so at least I don’t feel singled out.
Then there’s Miss Sally Big Boobs. And I know that’s childish and silly, but I feel childish and silly. I hadn’t realised how quickly Fletcher has become my security blanket in this whole thing. He’s always by my side, looking after me, looking out for me, protecting me, kissing me.
Now I feel abandoned and lost.
So, I’ll just call her Sally. Be a grown up. Besides, Molly would remind me at this point – he’s got his tongue in your mouth, not hers. I miss Molly.
Sally’s pointedly ignoring me, and so are the twins from hell, and so I ignore them too.
I play on my phone, scroll through snapchat and insta and try to forget that demons want to kill us all, and rebellious supernatural creatures want to kill us all,
and I stay silent.
My gran used to say: least said, soonest mended, and I feel like her words are right for this occasion. I don’t want to talk to any of them, and I don’t want to draw their attention to me, and I’m pretty sure they don’t want to talk to me either.
How am I the most powerful witch in the country but I feel as vulnerable as a worm in a nest of hungry birds?
And why am I comparing myself to a worm? And what would any of them think if they could read my thoughts?
I shake my head; glad that they can’t. They can’t, can they?
I sneak a little glance at them, and they are all looking at me. They quickly look away and so do I. Why were they looking at me? Why did I look at them? Why did I let Fletcher go without me? I would literally rather face a thousand hungry demons than these three.
“Excuse me,” Ember says and I almost cry watching her leave the room. I want to run after her, throw myself at her stilettoed feet and beg her to look after me.
I don’t.
I sit and squirm and within seconds the vipers have joined me at the table.
I look up – I have to, or they’ll think I’m even more weird than they already think I am. I smile. Ish.
The three of them scowl at me. Oh, the masks have slipped now all the adults are out of the way.
I take a deep breath and lean back in my chair.
This could get ugly.
Sally goes first, smirking. “Did you enjoy the little memory I sent your way? Of me and Fletcher?”
I nod. I cannot let them see weakness – I cannot let them know that my palms are sweaty, and my toes are curling with awkwardness. I hate confrontation and I hate mean girls. Unfortunately, I’m getting both at the same time. “Yeah, it was fun. A little tame – when we were kissing earlier, he was naked apart from his towel.”
She can’t help but look shocked, so do the twins and then they let me have it – all the nasty and mean things they’ve obviously been thinking about me this whole time. It all comes at me, a three-pronged attack – uncalled for and unfair, but I sit there. What else can I do.
Talia starts it. “I cannot believe Fletcher’s with you.”
“What does he see in you?”
The Accidental Invitation (The Chronicles of the Accidental Witch Book 2) Page 5
