Eyes fixated on me again. Okay, not so great and I hoped I wasn’t reddening from tip to toe. But not knowing the options the council were discussing, I knew what I wanted most of all. “I want to stay alive,” I said simply, which, when I thought about it afterwards, was ironic really, considering what happened less than thirty seconds later.
Étoile had edged up to the front of the audience so I ducked out from under Robert’s arm and went to stand beside her, where everyone could still see me but where I wasn’t quite the centre of attention anymore.
As I took my place next to her, the window behind me shattered. Glass exploded in every direction as a missile rocketed its way in and sailed through the space I’d just occupied, missing Robert by mere inches. The missile lodged itself in a fizzing mess in the wall. Like an idiot, I waited for the explosion but it didn’t come. Instead, something viscous, thicker than air but not as heavy as smoke, slithered from the bomb and all hell broke loose as those who had been caught by the glass cried out in pain and shock. Some of the gathering had fallen to the floor, bleeding, and the uninjured leapt forward to form a barrier around them as the sinister essence undulated nearer. I could hear a low murmur of chanting rise above the moans.
Marc and Étoile lurched into action, grabbing me and, with their arms entwined across my back, thrust me out of the way and into the lobby. We nearly collided with two suited men, our drivers from earlier, as they ran into the room. Voices rang after us, cries of astonishment and anger.
I head a man’s outraged voice say, “We can’t retaliate with our magic until the shields are removed,” but his words were met with angry disapproval followed by the steady of hum of voices in chorus, chanting words I didn’t recognise.
I cowered in Étoile’s arms as she hugged me tightly, one hand stroking my back in a curiously comforting way, which alleviated my panic. “They’re spell casting,” she whispered, her voice tickling my cheek as she explained, “some are reinforcing our protection. Some are trying to find the culprit. Mostly, they are keeping the magic from that bomb at bay.”
Marc stood in front of us, his face etched with fury, his fists balled as smoke curled out of the room but he didn’t make a move forward.
“What the hell was that?” I whispered, not sure if I should raise my voice.
“That, dear Stella, was very nearly your head,” said Étoile, in an equally horrified voice. For the first time, she appeared visibly shaken.
Steven, Robert’s Second, who had been standing with Bridget and Mary, came out of the door and signalled to us. I had half a mind to shoot for my room, but Étoile and Marc framed me, urging me forward.
“It’s quite all right now,” said the man. His head was bleeding and his suit was ripped at the shoulder. I could see a large shard of glass embedded in his upper arm. “Our magic has been reinstated and will hold.” He looked shaken and white as he swayed in front of us. I helped Marc manoeuvre him into a chair. Étoile grabbed a cloth from somewhere and was pressing it to his shoulder as she gripped the shard.
“Don’t do that. He could have sliced an artery,” I hissed.
Marc was holding my shoulders with both hands. “Étoile knows what she’s doing,” he whispered but I missed what he said next because Steven shrieked as she pulled the shard from his shoulder, dropped it to the floor and pressed her hand over the wound.
“We should call an ambulance, shouldn’t we?” My voice was almost a wail as I felt my heart beat faster with renewed panic.
Étoile shook her head and lifted her hand. Steven’s shoulder was bloody but the wound had healed. There wasn’t even a trace of a scar.
“Thank you. I always knew you were an excellent healer among your many talents.” Steven said as he tugged a pocket square from his breast pocket. He dabbed his forehead with it. “Now run along. More will need your help.”
Étoile nodded and hurried back into the devastated room. Bridget had staggered out and was leaning against the hallway holding a cloth to her face. Her dress sleeve was torn and her arm bleeding where she had been struck by glass. I guided her to the chair adjacent to Steven and she slumped into it, whimpering slightly. “The Brotherhood have found us,” she heaved.
“How did they breach our defences?” growled Marc, swinging his head around as if he were looking for the perpetrator. His fists were curled, ready to fight.
Steven shook his head and took a deep breath. “I don’t know. We didn’t think they had even made it to the States.”
Marc put his arm about me and his lips were millimetres from my ear as he whispered. “This is one of the most fortified places in the country for people like us. It’s protected by magic, powerful magic that we thought unbreakable. That someone, something, could breach it is unthinkable.”
I nodded, trying to understand but knowing at least that this was something big and bad.
“We need to finish this meeting and disperse,” continued Steven, shaking his head at Marc as he prepared to speak again. “We can’t be sure that it is safe here for any of us anymore. I hear the incantation has ended. Will you please come back in so we can finish?”
I looked to Marc and, despite his obvious anxiety, he nodded and started towards the room.
“Stella,” Steven’s voice was low as I passed him. He caught me by the elbow and I froze as he pulled me closer to him so he could whisper in my ear, “Find me later. I have something for you.”
I nodded and helped him to his feet, allowing him to lean against me as we went back into the room. The glass window had been repaired, and the shattered glass and debris that littered the floor had disappeared. Whatever it was that punctured its way through the room to land in the wall had also gone. If it weren’t for the injured moans and the trails of smoke, I would have wondered if I hadn’t imagined it all.
Robert stood with a woman, Mary, I thought. She had her hands pressed to the crater in the wall but when she turned to the crowd, she shook her head. “There is no trace,” she said with surprise in her voice. Her eyes were narrow and puzzled as if she couldn’t quite work out why she had to say such a ridiculous statement.
With my back against the wall, I scanned the room trying to register everything. Faces were red, hair dishevelled and the air was thick. In the minutes that we had hidden in the lobby, I could tell, even in my own inexperienced way, that powerful magic had corrected the preceding events. I felt it echo in the air around me like a fog. I had never felt magic like this before; I had never felt anything but my own magic until the moment when Étoile had rescued me. Here, it trailed past me, whispering through my hair and coolly washing over me, chilling me to my core. Then I felt it withdraw like it was being snapped backwards. It was the strangest thing I had ever experienced and I shuddered. Everyone else seemed to be ignoring it.
“She’s trying to find a signature,” said Marc in a low voice, as he sidled up to me and nodded at Mary who still had her hands pressed to the shattered wall, “like a crime scene investigator would for a bomb. Magic has a signature too.”
I nodded, trying to appear like I understood. The magic I had just felt had seemed alive – perhaps that was what a signature felt like.
“But she didn’t find one?” I asked.
Marc shook his head and explained, “That’s bad. Very bad. It means we don’t have a clue who attacked us and whoever it is, must be extraordinarily strong to get through the defences here.”
Étoile found us again. Her dress was stained with a large splotch across the skirt. I thought it looked like blood. Her hair and makeup, however, had not changed one bit. I vaguely wondered how she could appear so perfect amongst the strife. “They’ve wound new wards around the apartment,” she told us, including me as much as Marc. “We should be safe for the short term, but Steven’s right. We can’t stay here much longer. I expect they’ll make a decision about where we are going very soon.” She seemed nonplussed, as if she already knew what the decision would be, but she didn’t seem at all convincing when she added,
almost as an afterthought, “Don’t worry. You will be safe.”
“We have been infiltrated,” began Robert, his voice solemn as he addressed the untidy clan. Some of the guests had remained seated on the floor as others pressed what I thought were healing hands to wounds. Everyone looked dusty and tired after the skirmish. “Our safety has been breached. Stella, at first light you will be transported to another of our sanctuaries. It’s a safe house of sorts and you will be able to live there out of harm’s way for a while at least. Étoile and Marc will take you there and stay with you. You are under Étoile’s protection.”
Étoile and Marc nodded in agreement. Clearly, they knew something I did not but I would ask them later. I wasn’t enthused. What good was a safe house if apparently the headquarters could take a blast with no notice? And why was only Étoile my protector, and not Marc? I would have to ask later.
“We’re only sorry that we were not able to host you longer,” concluded Robert, moving towards me after delivering verbal orders to several members of the party. It sounded like he was telling them all to go to ground as soon as possible. “We’ll retire for the night. Thank you for coming.”
And just like that, we were dismissed.
Before I had chance to protest, Étoile piloted me out of the room, her hand firm on my elbow, which I was seriously thinking about covering up seeing how it was being used as some sort of quasi steering wheel for my body. I was so floored by the brevity of the pronouncement that I didn’t know what to think. Étoile put her arm around me again and was patting me rather absently while I drew in a breath.
“Stella?” I turned around to see Steven follow us outside the room. He signalled to follow him to one side, away from the entrance doors towards which people were amassing. He flapped a hand at Étoile and Marc so they lingered a few feet away. When we were at the hallway that led to the bedrooms, he extracted a slim blue card box from under the overcoat that hung across his arm, which he held out to me. Cautiously, I took it.
“In my other life,” he started, “I’m a lawyer. I worked for your parents and when they were declared dead, I wrapped up their estate. I kept these for you in the hope that one day we would find you and I would personally be able to give these to you. It’s mostly paperwork but there are some other bits and pieces that I thought you might like. There are some instructions too. Oh, nothing of immediate importance after all this time.” He shrugged nonchalantly, giving me a small smile and I thought what a nice person he seemed to be. “It’s yours now.”
“Thank you,” I replied, surprised. A little flutter of pleasure hit my stomach as I tried to think what on earth he could have kept of my parents. “It was kind of you to keep these things for me.”
Steven nodded and his face creased into a smile. I couldn’t help thinking he suddenly looked much older than when I’d first met him in his bee-like finery. He looked over his shoulder quickly and turned back to me, leaning in, his voice etched with age. “Your parents were good friends of mine. Perhaps one day, when there’s more time, I’ll have the chance to tell you more about them. Keep the box safe.”
As he inclined his head in a rather formal little bow, I caught sight, over his shoulder, of Eleanor looking at our exchange curiously. She quickly turned away and said something to a guest who seemed to be sobbing into a handkerchief, her hand pausing on the woman’s arm.
“Good luck, Stella, until me meet again.” Steven said as he took my hand and kissed it and I rather expected him to click his heels.
“And you,” I said, my voice wobbling a bit. Steven nodded and traversed the hallway, tipping his head to Eleanor and closing the door behind him. From the living room, I heard the heated explosion of voices and Robert’s rising above them to the tune of Eleanor’s heels clicking across the lobby.
“I have to make some calls,” murmured Étoile, who had glided across to me as soon as Steven had taken his leave. Marc was right behind her as she continued, “To make sure they’re expecting us though I imagine Seren has already told them. My sister,” she added for my benefit when I frowned at the name.
“Stella, can you be ready for seven tomorrow morning?” asked Marc.
“Yes, of course.”
“I’ll take Stella to her room,” said Marc as Étoile set off along the hallway and was in her room in a flash, shutting the door before we had taken our first step along the same route.
“Where are we going?” I asked Marc when we reached the door to the guest bedroom serving as mine for this night. “Tomorrow, I mean.”
“We have lots of places around the country but I suspect that we’ll be going to a place we have along the coast. Like my dad said, it’s a safe house, of sorts. Our kind go there to practice, to be taught, to learn.” Marc thought for a moment as if he hadn’t quite made up his mind. “It’s a good place to be.”
“Do I get any say in this at all?” I meant to be a bit more polite, but the words came out in a hiss. I shouldn’t be angry at him, he had looked out for me all evening and I thought I saw a kindred spirit in him, despite the differences in our backgrounds. “This is my life and I got along fine until you all got involved in it.”
“And if the Brotherhood weren’t bent on killing us all, you’d probably still be fine,” replied Marc. “We can’t send you back out there to be picked off by one of them.”
“So, it’s a case of do what you say or die?”
“Not what I say,” Marc emphasised and I wondered if his was quite a lowly role. Certainly Étoile seemed to have been spoken to with more reverence than he, which struck me as odd since he was the prodigal son. “What the council says. Look, Stella, I know it might suck right now but honestly, it’s the best decision they could have made. The place we’re going to is pretty good; there are others of your kind there. You’ll learn how to defend yourself and when you can do that, well, maybe things will be safer for you. It’s not forever.”
I slumped against the door frame, the box in both my hands, and sighed. “You’ve no idea how difficult it is to be taken away from everything you know.”
“And was that everything so great? From the little Étoile told me, it didn’t sound like you were having such a great time.” Ouch. I wondered if Étoile had been watching me for any longer than that day, my last day of feeling relatively normal. I wondered what she said. I hoped she hadn’t mentioned the squalid state of my flat, especially not to people who were rich beyond my wildest imaginings. Looking around, I was seriously going to have to pinch myself. I felt like Oliver Twist in Buckingham Palace.
“No, but it was my life, my decisions.” I struggled to tell Marc what I was feeling about being wrenched away but I could tell it was no use. My immediate future had been decided by a bunch of people I didn’t know. Plus, as Marc had already implied, where else could I go? Like he said, I might be killed, and after the attempt in London, strike that, two attempts now, my immediate future was looking dire. Being a transatlantic attempted murder victim really didn’t have any romantic ring to it, I thought and shivered.
“Don’t look so glum. Étoile will be there. And so will I.” Marc flashed me a smile filled with perfect, white teeth.
“At least I’ll know someone,” I muttered.
“There you are, looking on the bright side already.” Marc knocked me playfully on the shoulder with his fist and I couldn’t resist smiling back at him.
“It could be worse.”
“So much worse,” he agreed.
“Good job I didn’t unpack.”
“See? It’s like it was meant to be. We’ll leave early tomorrow, hope you get some rest. Don’t worry; the wards will hold for tonight.”
“Thanks. And Marc?”
“Yes?”
“I do appreciate what you guys have done for me. Saving me from the crazies in London, making sure my head didn’t land in a wall here, you know, minus the rest of me.” I shrugged like I was saying, small things, no biggie!
“No problem.” Marc’s face was inches from
mine and getting closer as we whispered in the hallway. I couldn’t help thinking how lovely he looked with the shaggy blonde hair and his piercing blue eyes. He was the kind of guy who would never have looked twice at me at home, yet here we were, on the interesting side of weird, having a conversation as though we were friends. Marc brushed a lock of my hair behind my ear. When I didn’t push him away but instead, rested my cheek in the warmth of his palm, Marc dipped his head and brushed his lips across mine, and for an instant, I wondered what the hell was going on, before pressing my lips back against his. His arms circled me and the kiss deepened but I didn’t know whether it was eddies of desire or the fear and adrenaline of still being alive that whirled in the pit of my stomach. I pressed against him and was abruptly aware of the card box I held, digging into my middle.
Drat and double drat.
We pulled apart slowly, and after a pause, where the floor seemed massively interesting to us both, Marc tipped my chin upwards with his hand and kissed me again, a delicate light kiss this time.
“Good night,” he said, his voice breathless.
“Good night, Marc.” It was all I could do to turn the handle, fall through the doorway and push it closed, leaning my back against the door as if I couldn’t possibly stand by myself.
The box was still clasped in one hand, so I set it on the bed as I contorted my arms behind my back to get the zip undone. I wriggled out of the dress and hung it back in the closet. I thought I had worn it for less than two hours and it was thankfully blood free. Perhaps they could still dry clean and return it, I thought for a moment, before shaking my head, deciding that the Bartholomews were most certainly not those sort of people. I wondered if I would ever have to consider the likelihood of getting my outfit blood-spattered in the future. I smiled to myself as I imagined asking a sales assistant for something blood repellent and in black. That would make shopping awkward.
I shuffled off the heels and lined them up on the closet floor where I found them, pulling on the t-shirt I had worn earlier. Out of instinct, I stayed away from the window, even though the curtains were already drawn.
Illicit Magic (Stella Mayweather Paranormal Series #1) Page 8
