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WitchWar 05

Page 21

by Emma Mills


  ‘The police made a statement saying any human victims would be protected but currently it was more important to flush out the imposters. That’s us. They think we’re imposters. They think we’re not human, that we’re some kind of devil’s spawn,’ she finished, with a sob that caught in her throat.

  Aunt Sarah’s eyes were ringed with tiredness, her skin sagged and her eyes had lost their light.

  ‘Aunt, it’ll be fine, I promise. You’re safe here. No-one suspects this house and I’ll stay as long as I’m needed. I could call Daniel; he would come,’ I said.

  My aunt shook her head and smiled weakly.

  ‘No, there’s no need… not yet anyway.’

  ‘What I want to know is what have the Council been doing?’ Noah demanded. ‘They haven’t got Pierre out of Number Ten, they didn’t stop the attack on Exodus and now they haven’t done anything to stop this attack on Salem. What are they playing at?’ he said, bewildered, as he unconsciously rubbed Brittany’s back in a slow, comforting gesture.

  Brittany smiled and took a step closer, her eyes briefly closing.

  ‘Do you think it could be a tactic to draw Brooke out of hiding?’ I asked.

  My aunt shook her head.

  ‘I don’t think so. Firstly they have no idea she is here. If they did I’m sure we would know about it by now. For all they know she is holed up on some remote island without access to the news… or taken hostage somewhere. No, it doesn’t fit. I think this is something bigger. It’s almost as if they are working with Pierre and yet I cannot see why or how.’

  The phone interrupted us, shrilling suddenly and making us all jump.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Noah said, quickly leaving the room.

  When he came back his face was frozen with shock.

  ‘Susannah’s on her way back. She says she’ll be about fifteen minutes,’ he said.

  ‘What? She can’t risk flying in daylight,’ Sarah said, pulling herself upright. ‘Pass me the phone. What can she be thinking of?’

  ‘Mom, she needs to get home safely and quickly. They’ve arrested Liz and Morgan. They’re going to be tried for witchcraft,’ he whispered.

  ‘What?’

  ‘How?’ I asked, thinking back to the two very different witches we had met in Salem. Liz was a friend and member of our coven, who ran a white witch shop in Salem. Morgan was a member of the Blood Moon Coven, a coven of dark witches. She too had a shop a few doors down from Liz.

  ‘It’s impossible,’ I added.

  Aunt Sarah frowned.

  ‘Are you sure, Noah? I have to say that for Liz to be caught out is one thing, but I cannot see Morgan allowing herself to be arrested.’

  ‘They had protection spells on their buildings, so once the firemen put out the surrounding fires they shone like shiny new pennies, with not a scorch mark to be seen… stupid mistake really,’ he said.

  ‘But even so, how were they captured? You said yourself that so far it’s been a repeat of the original witch trials. Those poor women in Texas that were murdered last week were human, but any self-respecting witch can easily evade arrest,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know. We’ll have to wait for Susannah,’ he said.

  It didn’t take long before she flew into the house, her hair whipped by the wind, her cheeks flushed.

  ‘Susannah!’ my aunt exclaimed. ‘What is going on? It cannot be true?’

  ‘I’m afraid it is, Mom,’ she said.

  ‘Did anyone see you near the house?’ Sarah asked.

  Susannah shook her head.

  ‘I was careful. I stayed high until I was right above our land. There is no-one around.’

  ‘Good, now tell me what can we do? Has Adaryn been notified?’

  Adaryn was the witch representative on the Council. She was Welsh but generally split her time between the Scottish and the New York headquarters. She had also come to our aid years ago when Brittany and I got into trouble with a necromancer in Louisiana.

  ‘I left a message on her phone, but I think she is still in the UK,’ Susannah said.

  ‘Have you informed the rest of the coven?’

  Susannah nodded.

  ‘And they have arrested both Liz and Morgan?’

  ‘Yes, I believe so. As you know I went to Salem this morning to see if I could assist with anything, but I was too late. I should have taken the ley lines…’

  ‘No, Susannah, it is too risky. I told you to drive and I stand by it,’ my aunt said.

  ‘When I arrived they had put out the fires and already had Liz in handcuffs in the back of a van. Another van was parked next to it, and screams and curses erupted from inside so I knew they had Morgan as well. I have no idea how, but they must have had help.’

  ‘It would definitely take more than handcuffs and a van to hold Morgan,’ Sarah agreed quietly.

  ‘Couldn’t you get Liz out?’ Saffy asked suddenly.

  Susannah shook her head.

  ‘A crowd had gathered. It was awful, Saff. Salem used to be such a fun place, but now it was like they hated everything magical. They had surrounded both vans, shouting, cursing and rocking them. The news vans were all there as well, so not only would I have had to do serious magic, but there is no way that I wouldn’t have been seen.’

  ‘We need to switch on the news and find out what’s happening if we are to save them,’ my aunt said, pulling herself from the chair with a determined air.

  Witches verified and apprehended… Evil knows no bounds… Green-eyed witches finally proven in a monstrous showdown…

  Headline after headline scrolled across the bottom of the screen, highlighting the events of the morning. The camera crew were too late to see Morgan being apprehended, but we saw a group of five men escort a pale-faced Liz out of her shop. Screaming locals threw rubbish and jeered as she was led to the van, hands cuffed behind her back.

  ‘They’re vampires,’ I said, peering closely at the screen. ‘That’s how they caught her.’

  Saffy sighed.

  ‘Not necessarily, Jess,’ she said with a smirk. ‘I’ve shown you many times how vampires aren’t as strong as a well-aimed spell.’

  ‘Well, it seems this time you were wrong,’ Noah interrupted, offering me a quick wink.

  I rolled my eyes.

  ‘One witch against one vamp and yes, Saffy, you’re probably right, but one witch surprised by five vamps? I think even you might struggle. They would have had her in cuffs before she could raise a circle or lift her hand.’

  ‘Jess, look!’ Brittany interrupted us.

  I turned and watched the screen. They were showing new footage of the vampires smiling at the cameras and waving, before climbing into a black limousine. The vans were then driven away. First Liz’s left, following the black limo, and then two policemen climbed into Morgan’s van. The engine appeared to start and then stall. The driver tried again. Liz’s van and the vampires had disappeared from view as the onlookers, now whipped into a frenzy, rocked the van and chanted. One of the policemen climbed out and aimed his gun. The crowd backed off a little before suddenly surging forward again.

  ‘What are they doing?’ Brittany asked quietly.

  ‘It’s as if they’re possessed,’ Saffy whispered, staring at the screen.

  They surged forward in a wave that engulfed the policeman, who fired, shooting one civilian through the skull, with another falling before the gun was ripped from his hands. The hungry crowd enveloped the officer, stampeding and charging towards the van, hands clawing at the metal, yelling obscenities.

  We watched in silent horror as the crowd toppled the van, pulling the other policeman from the cab where he disappeared under the tide of humanity. The pack of baying humans surged forward as more people joined, some scrambling on top of the vehicle. The reporter, who like us had fallen silent, now began to speak in a panicked voice.

  ‘I can hear sirens. Back-up is on its way… No! I’m not getting any nearer. Are you insane? The crowd appears to be attempting to pull the rear
doors of the van open…’

  ‘Oh, no!’ I mouthed.

  ‘Not a good idea,’ Brittany added.

  A man appeared to ram the doors with a metal pipe, while yet more people climbed on top of the van and tried to prise the window out of its frame.

  ‘What’s that noise?’ The reporter asked, presumably of the cameraman.

  The camera zoomed in closer and a subtle boom could be heard from inside the van. I looked at Sarah and Susannah, their faces anxious. I looked back at the screen just in time to see the rear doors explode out of their frames, before hurtling twenty-five metres down the street, taking a dozen or more rioters with it.

  ‘Oh God!’ the reporter groaned, as the camera flitted between the bloody bodies strewn along the road and the van from which Morgan was now emerging.

  The crowd sensed a change and seemed unsure of what to do next. Those that were standing in her way didn’t get a chance to decide. She stood tall and stared straight at the cameraman before rolling her shoulders a little and turning her back. The camera zoomed in as if sensing what she was about to do.

  ‘No, no, no!’ Saffy said.

  The handcuffs on her wrists suddenly burned bright orange.

  ‘How does that not hurt her?’ Brittany asked.

  ‘It will hurt, a lot,’ Susannah said.

  We watched, spellbound, as she turned the metal to molten lava that flowed onto the pavement. It took all of five seconds and when she was done she spun around, her face a plane of agony. She muttered strange words and blew on her wrists. Then she turned to those pedestrians closest to her and blew on them too. They were thrown backwards as if carried by a tornado, crashing into the remaining humans who morphed into a mess of crazy panic, scattering in every direction.

  The faint sirens grew louder and a stream of police cars suddenly poured into the road behind her, the first screeching to a halt. Morgan looked behind at them, seemingly unconcerned and then at the cameraman again.

  ‘Yes, I am a witch and you do not get to decide my fate,’ she bellowed loudly towards the crowd which, bolstered by the new police presence, was tentatively creeping towards her once more.

  A policeman opened his door and a pointed a gun at her.

  ‘Put your hands behind your head…’ he began.

  Morgan shook her head, as if irritated by the intrusion, and turned around. She thrust out her hands so that his car, with him still inside, was thrown back into the one behind. She then lifted her hands into the air and began chanting, calling her vortex. Electricity flickered through the sky, which was darkening with every second. She turned and toppled another couple of police cars, people now scrambling everywhere, looking upwards at the electric storm gathering overhead. Her chanting grew louder and the lacing of electric patterns all began to condense. I’d seen this happen before, ten years earlier, on a Yorkshire moor.

  ‘They need to stop her,’ I said.

  ‘No time,’ my aunt said.

  ‘Where is the bloody Council?’ Saffy exclaimed, as my aunt just shook her head.

  ‘Fire!’ a policeman yelled to his colleagues across the crowd, but they had no-one to fire at. Morgan had soared up into the sky, sucked upwards by a black tornado of her own making.

  Brittany scowled.

  ‘She’s so showy,’ she complained. ‘She could have just jumped a ley line as soon as she got out of the van, but oh no… she wants to put on a show, and now the entire world is going to think we are all dark witches.’

  ‘Do you think she will follow the other van and get Liz out?’ I asked, as my aunt picked up the TV remote and switched the screen off.

  She shook her head.

  ‘I doubt it. If I know Morgan, she will think it serves her right for refusing to use black magic to escape. In fact I wouldn’t put it past Morgan to have allowed herself to be captured in the first place, just so she could get the airtime.’

  A small voice deep inside me murmured in agreement. Would I use black magic again to save my skin? I blinked and swallowed down an unwelcome wave of pleasure as I recalled the feeling of the dark magic in my veins. Moran’s words sprang up unbidden. There’s a significant amount of dark power in that child… be careful, she had warned, talking about me.

  ‘There are those that will always put their life before their morals and those like Liz who will wait it out,’ my aunt said, disrupting my thoughts. I knew which type I was. I’d already proved it.

  ‘I’m a vampire, not a white witch,’ I said, suddenly leaping from my chair as if scalded.

  ‘Jess!’ my aunt exclaimed. ‘I wasn’t…’

  ‘I mean what did everyone expect, really? Morgan warned you all those years ago!’ I stalked across the room.

  ‘Jess!’

  I ran out of the house into the garden, through the garden gate and into the forest. I sprinted until I reached the family circle, a natural glade in the forest surrounded by ancient trees. I slumped against my favourite, an old elder tree, emotion churning in my belly. Ever since the day at Exodus my emotions had been harder to control. The dark magic had been unleashed, and it was like being served a meal fit for a queen before being turfed out onto the street and told that for the rest of your life you had to eat porridge. As much as you might like porridge it was never going to be good as that one meal!

  It took ten minutes before Susannah found me.

  ‘Jess?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I know your Mom wasn’t talking about me, but it just happened that I was thinking about what my choice would have been at the exact moment she opened her mouth,’ I explained.

  Susannah nodded and sat down next to me.

  ‘I know what you would have chosen, not because of your past actions, but because I would have too,’ she said, staring at me. ‘I think Liz should have fought harder.’

  ‘You would have done what Morgan did?’ I whispered.

  Susannah shook her head and smiled.

  ‘Not quite, but I wouldn’t have sat in the back of that van hoping the Council would turn up to save me,’ she said.

  ‘Nor me,’ I agreed.

  ‘Remember, Jess, that I know the lure of black magic; the strongest witches always do.’

  ‘Your Mom didn’t,’ I said quietly.

  ‘Mom was a great coven leader, but she will tell you herself that she was not the strongest witch. Don’t forget, it was your mother who was supposed to be High Priestess, not Mom. It’s always the eldest daughter that gets the lion’s share.’

  I nodded.

  ‘I don’t agree with Mom about black magic. I don’t see everything as black and white; it’s not that easy. You know that better than anyone.’

  ‘But I used the darkest of spells,’ I whispered.

  ‘Which is why you can still feel its power lingering in your veins. It’s like the difference between a heroin addict and a pot smoker and, Jess, if we thought you had killed those men without a need to you wouldn’t be allowed in this house. If we didn’t trust you to make the right decisions in the future we wouldn’t have allowed you to stay,’ she said.

  ‘You can trust me,’ I said, more to myself than Susannah.

  She smiled.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘We have to get Liz out,’ I said. ‘I don’t trust the authorities and I don’t believe the Council will help either.’

  Susannah smiled.

  ‘I was hoping you’d say that. I have an idea.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  We reached Salem by late afternoon with thirty minutes to spare. Susannah had dressed in a smart black suit and used a variety of simple transformation spells to change her appearance. The last thing we needed if any of this went wrong was for a local from Malden to recognise her and lead the witch hunters back to the house. Her shiny black hair was now blonde and she had a Scandinavian tan to match.

  ‘Right, so I’ll meet Jay and get set up at the city hospital,’ she said quietly. ‘Jay said their live link would immediately interrupt whatever recording was going out
from the reporter at the city hall.’

  I nodded. We hadn’t thought that I would need as much disguise, but it didn’t take much to spell hair colour, so we decided to change my dark hair to a vampy red. It went well with the ruby contacts I put in, and was a popular colour among vampires. I dressed in my tight leathers and slicked some red lipstick on my lips.

  ‘You look weird,’ Susannah said, eyeing me.

  I grinned.

  ‘Now you look like a clown! I suggest you don’t smile,’ she added.

  I scowled instead.

  ‘Right, we’d better move, otherwise Jay and I won’t be ready. Be careful, Jess, and remember our promise… at any time, okay? No heroics.’

  I nodded.

  ‘It’ll be fine. We won’t need to flee, I’m determined,’ I said.

  She set off in the direction of the hospital, while I turned the opposite way and struck out for City Hall. When I arrived a stage had already been set up outside with a cordoned pit for the reporters and a barrier to keep the already growing crowd back. I lingered in the shadows and scoured the backstage area. There were two vampires standing at the entrance to the building and another two by the side of the stage. I took a quick breath and walked over.

  ‘Hi,’ I said, as I sauntered over to the two by the stage, seeing them watch my every step.

  ‘Who are you? I don’t recognise you. You’re not from the Boston clan, are you?’ the first vampire asked, as I leant nonchalantly against the railing.

  I shook my head slowly, tilting my face towards them slightly.

  ‘Nah, I’m from England. The big boss sent me… Pierre, I’m sure you’ve heard of him?

  ‘Oh, she’s from England,’ the first vampire repeated in a phony British accent.

  The second vampire nudged the other in the ribs quickly and eyed him.

  ‘Pierre, you say?’ the second asked.

  This was where I was gambling, and where my arriving only ten minutes before they were due to broadcast was hopefully going to work in my favour - no time for them to check my credentials.

  I nodded and casually flicked my tongue across my fang.

  ‘Of course Sebastian used to be my boss but… well, I’m sure you heard what those bastards did to him and my friends…’ I paused, staring at them.

 

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