Witches of Barcelona: A Dark, Funny & Sexy Urban Paranormal Romance Series (Blood Web Chronicles Book 2)

by Caedis Knight

  Everyone in the room is either softly weeping or busy working. Beatriz and Luisa are at opposite ends of the room, methodically migrating across it and pausing to lay their touch on each attendee. Beatriz can’t take away pain like Luisa, but I guess she can gift people soft dreams and ease their grief that way.

  I’m the only one without a function here. What could my contribution be? Checking that the eulogies aren’t made up of lies?

  As usual, I have no purpose — an outsider looking in. Despite my forced MA membership, in the Witch world, I’ll always be a no one.

  I startle as a door thuds open at the end of the grand hall and my mother emerges. She’s wearing a gown of purple tulle accompanied by a dramatic veil. Treading softly behind her are the Nox triplets dressed in identical white shrouds. They all look slightly shell-shocked, like nocturnal animals pulled from the dirt and into the light.

  I give Jan a feeble wave, but he keeps his head down and follows his siblings silently. My gaze wanders and I see Rachel the Good dressed in a purple snakeskin suit, Estrella a few feet away in tasteful maroon, and beyond them, the Winter Prince.

  My heart skips a beat.

  The prince is flanked by an entourage of bodyguards in military finery, this time in dark grey. Perhaps their grieving colors. He catches my eye and winks as if we’re not at a fucking funeral. My stomach somersaults again, but I stay where I am.

  Someone takes my hand, a young Witch I’ve never seen before. A Touchmage? I shake my head violently. No. She moves on.

  As much as I trust Luisa now, there’s still something eerie about Witches like her floating through the room taking pain from guests as if it were discarded plates. The dead should be missed. Their absence should be felt, not muted.

  I blink and I’m transported to the aftermath of my father’s death. There was no funeral. No grieving. No closure. Nothing but the cold numb absence of an end.

  A searing hate rocks through me as I watch my mother, their new First, take her place by the podium. She gazes at the body of her former best friend, but the veil hides whatever she’s feeling.

  “The Nox will now channel the fallen First,” she announces.

  The triplets dutifully take their place in a triangle shape around the room.

  Luisa has worked her way over to me. She holds my hand, and we turn our attention to the front. This is it. This is the moment Maribel comes through and speaks. Will she explain how she died? Or will it just be a bunch of riddles like the other dead?

  I feel my hand grow clammy in Luisa’s and she squeezes it, probably thinking I’m nervous about the Nox. I am, but only because I’m about to finally get my story.

  Ramon, Jan, and Alba stand silently, heads bent low, their faces the only spot of color against their white outfits and bright snowy hair. All I can think about is how that freaky black blood of theirs is going to stain their clothes.

  But this time there’s no blood.

  Beatriz shuffles uncomfortably beside my mother, then whispers something to Salvador who is frowning on her other side in concentration. It’s unsettling how the three of them look like the perfect magical family. My mother turns to Salvador who returns her an ‘I don’t know’ look.

  “You may proceed,” Solina says to the Nox.

  Alba widens her lips, but no smoke comes out. With a helpless look she turns to her brothers, but they simply stare blankly back at her.

  “Why isn’t this working? Talk to her?” my mother barks at them. “Maribel! Show yourself!”

  Alba and Jan make their way over to their brother, and instead of the triangle they hold hands in a circle, eyes screwed shut in concentration. They start the same chant as they did in the basement, but still, no blood appears.

  Then, with a sudden jolt, Ramon starts to convulse.

  My mother gives a self-satisfied smirk as if her shouting sprung the triplets into action, but their eyes aren’t black. Jan and Alba glance around helplessly as their brother clutches at his throat, making a thick gurgling sound. He coughs, spraying the guests nearest to him with murky water. Mud and silt bubble out of his mouth like a fountain, soaking his white tunic.

  “He’s drowning! Alba screams at Solina. “Someone help him. He can’t breathe!”

  Ramon is drowning like Maribel did, choking on the thick sandy floor of the Mediterranean. My mother pushes her way to them and lays a hand on Ramon until his gurgles turn to rasping breaths.

  “Go,” she says, her voice icy cold. “You failed. Clearly, more time is needed in the darkness for you three. That was a disgrace.”

  Humiliated, the triplets don’t argue as they shuffle their way through the crowd, refusing to meet anyone’s eye. My chest aches for them. I know how it feels to be on the wrong side of Solina’s disappointment. Beatriz’s head turns as her gaze follows them out of the room, a strange expression on her face.

  “Let us proceed!” Solina declares.

  With a sweep of her hand, Maribel’s body rises from the altar and floats out of the room, a file of guests following as if they were a long purple snake.

  Luisa lets go of my hand and I lean into her. “What the fuck was that about?”

  “No idea.” The color has left her cheeks. She’s not the only one looking completely bewildered and confused. “I have to go,” she mutters, joining the rest of the convoy trailing behind the body and out to the garden.

  I hang back, then fall into step behind my mother.

  “You shouldn’t treat the Nox like that,” I hiss under my breath.

  She doesn’t need to turn around to know it’s me.

  “Do not concern yourself with MA dealings.”

  “If I shouldn’t concern myself with their dealings, then why force me into the MA?”

  “I made an MA member of you because it’s what’s best,” she says. “To keep us safe.”

  The garden of the First house is elevated, forest on one side and, beyond its mosaic-tiled wavy walls, the city of Barcelona stretching out to the sea. The three famous Grimm-like houses of the park are below us, tourists scuttling around like ants completely unaware of what we are about to do. The sun has already set, and the eerie silver light from the moon highlights my mother’s sunken cheeks as she steps beneath a large pine, gaining us more privacy.

  “Being part of the MA didn’t offer Mikayla any added protection,” I say.

  My mother winces. “Things will be different with me in charge.”

  Is she really trying to protect me? I think back to my father’s words, warning me to stay away from my own mother.

  “Mom, why didn’t Dad have a funeral?”

  “Stop making everything about you, Saskia.”

  “Tell me!” I cry, grabbing her hand.

  Her eyes dart around, eager to avoid a scene. She brushes me off.

  “We do not honor Wolves,” she says, before gliding off.

  We do not honor Wolves. Her words linger, stinging the air around me like acid rain as they sink in one by one. My father didn’t get a fucking funeral because the MA didn’t think he deserved one? Because he’d been turned through no fault of his own, after all he gave to the association?

  I unclench my fists; my nails having left half-moon marks on the palms of my hands. But my blood-curdling anger soon turning to curiosity.

  Maribel's body has finally stopped moving and is now hovering over a patch of grass beside a few ancient-looking tombstones. They must be the other Firsts. The heads of the MA are always buried here, in their own backyard, while the bones of the other important Witches are placed in the tombs beneath The House of Bones.

  Maribel’s body looks small, almost childlike, as it floats peacefully over the moonlit grass. Rafi and the other Elementals step forward, hands outstretched. Their chanting fills the air, a tune more melodious than the Nox’s creepy incantations, and slowly something starts to rise from the ground. Roots. They curve and twist around Maribel, forming a bird nest-shaped cocoon. A woman I don’t recognize steps forwards with a lit
torch. She holds it aloft as Rafi channels a tendril of fire from the torch onto the nest.

  With a sharp whoosh, Maribel’s silk-clad body ignites. Bright sparks swarm into the air like fluorescent fireflies, dancing in spirals. I’m at the back of the gathering but I can still feel the ferocity of the flames. They crackle and pop, but before she is fully incinerated, the cocoon webs itself shut, turning into a coffin of roots trapping the flame within. The earth opens up like a gaping mouth and with one gulp swallows the Witch into the ground.

  I blink. Where moments ago, there was a body ablaze, now there’s nothing left but a flat stretch of grass rippling with remnants of magic.

  “A Witch does not burn!” my mother cries, her warrior call startling me.

  “For she is made of fire!” the crowd thunders back.

  The Elemental chants resume as one by one giant poppies erupt over the spot where Maribel’s body was consumed. In no time at all the ground is turned red, her very own bloody blanket. As the last flower is formed, the chanting stops, and her grave is complete — the final seal on the procession.

  Soft murmurs break through the crowd, Witches and Warlocks making their way back to the house. Only a few linger to pay their last respects and weep, the Touchmages literally on-hand and ready to assist.

  I feel a deep cold run across my skin.

  “I’ve always found your kind’s funerals odd,” says the Winter Prince, his icy breath causing the hair to rise on the back of my neck.

  I turn to face him. He’s leaning against a crooked stone column, surveying me in his usual cool, measured way.

  “Your kind don’t die. Is that why you find it weird?”

  “Oh, they do die. Sometimes.” A somber shadow falls across his glacial features. “But when our kind dies, we celebrate. We drink at revels, we dance, and…” He pauses, allowing his gaze to slip past the curve of my periwinkle dress. “And we fuck.”

  “Our Paranormal customs are weird enough without grief orgies,” I say, putting my hands up as if to say ‘no, thank you.’

  “Grief is an aphrodisiac, Saskia,” he replies with a smirk. “But that is not what I’m here to talk about.”

  “No?”

  “I have delivered on my promise.” He nods at the poppy-covered patch of grass. “Maybe you will trust me now.”

  “They’re saying it was suicide.”

  “Maribel was not the type to take her life. Far too in love with herself. The deeply vain do not self-sacrifice.”

  “So did you, or another powerful Fae, kill her?”

  He makes an exasperated huffing sound and rights himself. “The Fae did not have a hand in Maribel’s death.”

  Well, Fairies can’t lie. So that’s that.

  “But you benefited from her death?”

  “I can benefit from a death without having caused it.”

  “But…”

  He raises one brow. “Although I did not kill Maribel, you should still keep in mind that the Fae are not the only Paranormals who had problems with the last First. She broke many treaties and had many enemies.”

  “Who else were her enemies?”

  He ignores my question. “Do me a favor,” he says. “Influence your mother to consider agreeing with my final demands on the Witch-Fae agreement.”

  “Hah! If you think I have influence over her you’re kidding yourself!”

  I snort-laugh, but when I turn around the prince has gone.

  An hour has passed, and half the guests are drunk. Mages love drinking to remember...and drinking to forget. I wade past toasts in Maribel’s name, Witches who were earlier gossiping about the late First now singing her praises, and finally find Beatriz. She still looks skittish and jumps when I tap her on the shoulder.

  “Are you OK?”

  “Fine,” she replies. “I’m just drained from dream-gifting.”

  I feel the ping of a lie but decide not to push her. Funerals bring out different things in people and it's not my place to pry.

  “How come Xavi isn’t with you?” I ask. “Thought you were going to introduce him to Salvador?”

  “The event isn’t catered, so there’s no way I could sneak him in.” She gives a sad smile. “Also, bringing a Shifter to a First’s funeral is really pushing my luck. Introducing him to my dad is one thing but expecting the entire coven to be cool with it is naive.”

  She’s right.

  “I have to go talk to my dad,” she adds with a shaky breath. “Then I’m getting the hell out of here and seeing Xavi.”

  She kisses me on the cheek and scuttles off.

  My own love life isn’t much to celebrate, granted, but at least I can be thankful I’ve never had to bring any of my past partners to an event like this one.

  Witches do not honor Wolves. My mother’s words still itch at the back of my mind. What is it with MA Witches and their deep hatred for all Paranormals that aren’t their own? It’s insidious.

  The Winter Prince’s words flow into my mind next. The Fae are not the only Paranormals who had problems with the last First. She broke many treaties and had many enemies.

  Maybe I could ask Jackson to hack Maribel’s Blood Web account. Although it’s unlikely the MA would keep their documents online; Witches are so archaic they have paper copies of all their important documents.

  Wait! If Maribel had any incriminating evidence, she would keep it in her home. This is my only chance to find her office and search through her correspondence.

  With a quick glance around the busy room, I slink off towards the stairway.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  It doesn’t take long to find Maribel’s quarters and then her office, it’s almost as if the whole house leads you there. Her home library and office are the centerpiece of the building, the crown jewel in her mosaic maze.

  I quietly close the door behind me, annoyed to see there’s no key in the lock to turn, and breathe in the musty scent of old books and leather furniture.

  Dark wooden bookcases line the walls, although in true Gaudí style they are curved and twisted, each old book balanced on shelves that look like wooden vines. The windows are just as wobbly in shape and the wall is inlaid with gold and emerald tiles. With my head tilted up, I spin in a full circle. The ceiling is painted with a fresco depicting the sky at night, reminding me of the magical moon in the Nox’s basement.

  There’s no technical equipment on her desk; no laptop or even a landline phone, nothing but aging yellowing paper, an inkwell with some feathered quills, and a couple of animal skulls. Birds, I think. Maybe she was using them as paperweights. I shudder.

  Besides the desk is a glass cabinet. Displayed inside is an old book, a little like my Witching Day book but way older, with an assortment of faded spells handwritten in the margin. There are also empty glass vials and bottles, dating back centuries, and in the center a small bowl containing teeth. Not human teeth but canine. I squint at them. They aren’t thin enough to be Vamp fangs, they look like...Wolf’s teeth. Who the fuck has a collection of Werewolf teeth?

  I grimace, thinking back to Rachel the not-so-Good and her vial collection of horrors.

  Turning back to the desk I pick up one of the sheets of paper and inspect it. It’s blank. I try another and another. All blank. Next to the dusty bookshelf is an old-fashioned filing cabinet with metal handles. It’s locked. Well, this is going well.

  I half-heartedly poke about the bookshelf, picking up gemstones and twigs, but there’s nothing here that will help me discover who her murderer is. Complete waste of time. Maybe there’s something in Maribel’s bedroom?

  I’m about to head for the door when I hear my mother’s voice outside.

  “Salvador!” she giggles.

  Giggles?

  The door rattles and I clamber under the desk as they fall into the room. Luckily, the desk is so old and cracked I can see them through the joints in the wood. Actually, not so lucky.

  “Maribel’s office,” Salvador coos as he pushes my mother against the
wall, his mouth all over her neck. “Kinky.”

  Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no.

  “Soon to be my office,” she says coldly. “And then my home. When that moment comes, we can christen every room. Until then…”

  Who the fuck says ‘christen’?

  I fight the vomit rising in my throat and steady my breath as they continue kissing. If I stay any longer, I will become a spectator to my mother’s ‘christening’ and then I will truly be beyond any therapist’s help.

  “Why won’t you marry me, mi amor?” Salvador’s voice is throaty. “I can’t wait any longer. I need you to be fully mine.”

  My mother sobers, withdrawing from his embrace.

  “I need my reputation unsullied. I can’t afford another scandal.”

  Salvador pushes the hair out of her face. “I’m fixing it tonight.”

  “Still…”

  He pinches her chin between his fingers. “Cariño, don’t I fix all of your problems?”

  “Exactly which problem are you referring to?”

  “Don’t play dumb, reina. It doesn’t suit you,” he keeps kissing her against the door. “Marry me,” he says again.

  Her answer is a cool swift “no.”

  Salvador swears under his breath as he straightens up and adjusts his suit.

  “A good leader trusts their allies, Solina,” he says, before opening the door.

  My mother steadies herself, eyes sweeping over the desk where I'm hiding. Terror grips me as I notice I’m casting a light shadow on the ground. I keep as still as I can, and she dismisses it as a trick of the light.

  She follows him out of the door, and at the sound of it closing with a light click, I finally breathe out.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “They nearly fucked on my head, Luisa!” I cry as we stumble out of Maribel’s house. “It’s not funny. I’m adding it to my long list of traumas.”

  She laughs. “What were you doing in Maribel’s office?”

  “I was trying to find the toilet. Wait up, where are we going?”