by Lil Hamilton
“Thank you, Liona.”
She nodded. “Well, when you meet Lily you will know why I am being helpful and why I should not. Don’t be fooled by the description you have of her either. Like you, she wears a deep glamour daily, like a second skin. Her skin is the pearl white of the fae and she has distinctive blue eyes, fae blue. And black hair, that is true to form. If I were you I would think about her heritage more. Do not believe everything people tell you. Seelie lie like it is a second language.”
Like I didn’t know that. Half the time to understand any Seelie fae it was best to pretend they meant the exact opposite of what they said. People thought we had to tell the truth and we did, but there was a great deal of space between lying straight up and telling the truth. I ignored my brother while I finished my drink. I had to up my game and get things done. Knowing I had fallen into a fae political game with the Queen was deeply disturbing because I knew the price I would pay and it was going to take me several more drinks before I convinced myself I had the courage to suffer those consequences. It was one thing to be brave when you didn’t know the punishment you would suffer and quite another when you knew what it would be and it was a long, hellish torment. Even if the Queen thought I was completely ignorant and that I was just pursuing kidnaped faelings who were being sold into sexually slavery, I would still be punished for interrupting her plans. Since she could easily get me to freely admit that I knew otherwise it was not going to be pleasant at all. I drummed my fingers across the table. I couldn’t walk away from all those lives the coven had taken who would suffer so long at their hands. My temporary pain was not worth their combined suffering. I just had to tell myself that a few hundred more times and eventually I would get a hero complex and get it done.
***
Chapter 11
Its witches who run Haven streets.
Lan retuned, confirming what I already knew. The coven had called my cousin to the border realm, under a spell ritual and sent him to kill. No one could stop such a calling. Until we broke that coven. Or killed the witch who was the primary caller and tied to Eadon. If we could not, then if we caught Eadon, we could potential break the binding, but that ritual was extremely dangerous and would forever change him. It could only be done by demons though.
Viv called about her dead end and I told her to be more obvious in her snooping as a distraction. If I knew her, she would be making herself a nuisance and playing pranks on his elite vampire guards. It kept her busy and delayed her finding out what Chera had done to Warren, which no doubt, I would get blamed for. To distract Chera I got her to start scrying the Nihilo territory. We needed to find their coven house or figure out the best area to check out. Their territory was broad and diverse. It wasn’t like the whole area was swarming with witches. Okay, it was swarming with witches, but not all of the citizens were witches. Some were just humans doing human things, living in a very bad area because they were beholden to the coven in some way. Or they worked for the coven in some way. Generally they all had coven affiliations. If they didn’t they would be living in Newhaven and not in a witch saturated city like Haven. Those that were human who chose to live here and were not linked directly to a coven were those addicted to the coven drugs.
We met Dill at my office. I could almost call it Dillian’s office since he was the one who spent time in it and did most of my investigative work. Dill sat behind the desk looking very disrespectable in the opulent surroundings and tossed a file onto the polished antique surface.
“Guess who slinked back into town with Warren?” he growled.
I sat down while Lan began to explore the office. The office had to look upper class snazzy, simply because of my ambassador status. Most of my job required talking to various government officials about fae relations and the fae wouldn’t allow me to aim for comfort. It was all about status and wealth. It was about the only time I acted fae-ish. All cool, aloof and superior. Like everyone else, I slid into other roles comfortably, although most who worked with me tended to be astonished at my work façade compared to my usual potty-mouth, joker self. It wasn’t that I was an outsider even among my own, or a rebellious youth, it was simply that in my very nature was a dichotomy that couldn’t be merged. I sat down in a small chair across from the desk and unsuccessfully tried to slump into a comfortable position. It felt a little weird being in my office and not wearing my fae face, elegant clothing and dripping in shiny jewels. I made a note to myself to not do any business but fae business within the confines of the office, lest I confuse one part of my personality with the other.
“By your wording I’m guessing someone we kicked out of town?” I said, finally opting to prop my feet up on the desk. “Glad you were able to catch a whiff of someone down there.”
“Not you directly. Inter. One of their larger operations. But you know her directly, since she is the only other half-breed Seelie female authorized to live by your Queen to live in the northern border land territories.”
I grimaced. Other than Liona’s daughter, there was only one other woman in the border realm, North America anyway, who could claim Seelie fae breeding. That I knew of officially. By the sounds of it the Queen hoped to brew some more. “Myra the Hag. Just great.”
-She would be the Queen’s operative for this little experiment. It’s her style. I should have known it,- I added to Dill. I had already gone over with him all I had learned, including what Liona had said before Lan arrived.
I cursed myself for my stupidity. People referred to Warren’s partner as a faeling, as a witch and even as a faeling who had shape shifting abilities. All of that was Myra. But I didn’t get it. Not even when Liona spelled it out. There was another operative in town. But then that was the way Myra operated. Confusion spells, Hide spells, Obscure spells. In all likelihood every time I had been on the edge of coming to that conclusion myself I had been misdirected.
“Who is this woman?” Lan asked. “Is she the one behind Eadon’s binding?”
“Not directly, although she directed Warren to secure her for the coven. No, she is someone who is operating out of the Gutters for the coven,” I said. I could not disclose much about the Hag being she was another operative. “She is a witch, but has Seelie blood in her, not much but enough to cloud the issue as to who has authority over her. She pissed the covens off a few years back and was banned from the city. She created a curse that could be released through something like a pin prick and once it was in the body, beneath the witch’s protections, it would then leach her magic, and life force. Making that witch incapable of accessing her own magic and eventually sickening and dying. She said she was testing it. A few witches died in that testing. And since she is a leaching witch they did not believe her. It was true of course, she was, but she had the extra benefit of that energy meal at the same time. What she wanted was to use the same spell on a demon, even a minor one or a half-breed. She believed if she hit them with it, she would not have to find out their Name, eventually as the spell worked its way in feeding, she would unlock it. Maybe it works, I don‘t know. That is the sort of woman she is though.”
“The Accords witches banned her with binding spells it doesn‘t surprise me in the least she managed to bypass them,” Dill added. “However, the fact she is here at all, we might want to think of the real motives behind that.”
“Like before there is little we can do about her,” I said. Liona was right to warn me about going into the Gutters. I couldn’t act against another operative. But I could point Inter right at her. “I cannot legally do anything against her because of her Seelie blood,” I said, which technically was true. “We will stay out of her way, and we will get her operation shut down by Inter. Assuming we find the damned place.”
Now it made sense that we could not. Her fae blood line meant her spell work was a witch fae hybrid and that meant looking for witch shields was not the way to go.
“She’s good at what she does. Her father was a wolf shifter and her mother half witch and Seelie fae. Or so
it is said. Actually, her grandmother was one of those humans the fae used to steal for their own amusements and her mother was the result of that union. Her mother was tolerated well enough, as any half breed ever is, but when she got knocked up by wolf shifter they banned her from Faerie. The Queen saw Myra as diluting the purity of a fae blood line and Myra has been trying to earn her place back in since. Myra can shape shift, but more a magical change than a physical one and into more than just a wolf. Her fae blood allows her more control mentally over a victim and more natural talent, but like a witch she must use her personal energy to fuel magic or draw it in via blood magic or leaching. While she gained no immortality through her fae heritage, she is quite old for a mortal, because she has long ago learned how to extend her life unnaturally. I‘m talking way before my time old.”
Dill leaned back in his chair. “All of which means Myra has motives that are her own aside from what the coven is doing. Likely helped Warren track Lily and break her wards. Certainly brokered the deal between the coven and Warren. More than likely she is keeping an eye on the situation just in case minds need to be wiped or altered.”
Lan finally stopped his pacing. “But you don’t believe she is the one behind Eadon’s binding?”
“Not likely,” I said. “She is smart enough not to touch a demon calling, as that can back fire badly and certainly be traced directly to her.”
-She’s the one that ordered Lily taken to be given to the coven. So the Queen could experiment on their bond. Myra is likely the one doing the experimenting. I wish I could tell him how far this goes,- I sent to Dill. Binding oaths literally preventing me from discussing fae Operatives with outsiders. My team were considered to be my advisors, and were included in my oath bubble. I could reveal my secrets to them but they could not pass them on. In cases where they knew information I had not explicitly told them about, however, we could get around my oath binding by having them to spill the beans. Dill found this out himself, therefore it wasn’t a fae secret I told him.
-Do you want me to?-
-No. It’s bad enough as it is. If the demons understood what the Queen was up to things would get bad. Let’s just clean this the fuck up and fast.-
-Ray, with the fae involved in this mess, an operative doing who knows what and the Queen involved, we might need to tell them something. If the situation gets worse we don’t want them surprised by fae showing up.-
-It would be worse to tell them as this point.-
Myra would volunteer to do these experiments. Turning the mating bond against the demon and mate would thrill her to no end, simply because the Queen would likely use that knowledge against my mother, subsequently affecting me. I had honestly done nothing to inspire such deep loathing, except that one time I had use a smidgen of mind manipulation, convinced her to shape shift into a newt and then bound her that way for a week. I hardly think she had the right to be miffed about that thirty years later, especially since she had started it with her whole ‘make the diplomat’s life hell’ bit she did. Her best prank on me, and the one that earned her some pay back, had been when she had cast a very well structured curse on me one night when I had been drinking. The next day I had an extremely important meeting of the Accords and had been unable to say a sentence properly if my life depended on it. I kept saying the wrong words or miss-pronouncing things. To this day I have not lived that down with some of the long-lived Accords members; they still laugh so hard they cry when they speak of it. I have enough sense of humour and respect for her skills to quite appreciate the skill and creativity she put into that year of pranks. Guess she did not like mine so much. In her mind, it had not been friendly rivalry, since her goal had been to get me kicked off the Accords Council. Had I known what sort of work she did for the Queen I wouldn’t have been so forgiving on the matter. Later her pranks had become cruel. For my first few years of office I had to fight duels because people believed I was not worthy of representing them. Some of those had been near death experiences for me because they had been arranged by the Hag; the opponents had been extremely skilled, the weapons poisoned or spelled.
“We just have to make sure we find them before Myra ends it,” Dill said.
We wouldn’t catch Myra. She hadn’t survived centuries being stupid and acting without an exit strategy. Perhaps it was even her choice to keep Lily within the city. To taunt me into action. Action that would either bring the Queen down on me or give Myra an opportunity to be rid of me. Even though I couldn’t act against her, Myra and I had a few confrontations. The woman hated me, simply because I had more favor, was granted a position of authority in the mid realm and likely just because of my blood line. Yet, the favor she had gained with the Queen, hard earned over a few centuries of effort, was fragile. She was a woman who didn’t belong in any world and so hated them all. If she wanted to keep the Queen’s favor, such as it was, she wouldn’t be able to directly attack me either. Unless in a situation like this.
We used a coven territory map to speculate on where the main Nihilo Coven house was. Chera was right according to our most recent map. The Nihilo Coven controlled the Flats. To the west of their territory were the Whites, to the North the Eastfall vamps, to the east were Midtown Flats and the Gutters and to the south more coven territories. Thankfully, the White Coven controlled Olde Towne Main and I felt comfortable their graffiti protection signals kept the area safe enough. It did mean Nihilo ran through industrial and residential areas. I just could not tell what they pushed. Covens had to run a profit somehow. The norm for lower covens was new and interesting drugs to enhance the human consciousness, curses or protection.
Naturally I focused on the warehouses they controlled. Since whatever product they pushed had to be stored somewhere. I was a bit uneasy about storming a place swarming with black witches. If it came to a duel between any border realm witch and me, I would win. A mental duel wouldn’t even be a challenge. With spells, I needed little preparation. A gang of witches though was different. Blacks were insanely aggressive when it came to their territory and as such rather over prepared for assaults. Each of them would be buffered with charms that would slow some spells and most definitely with amulets that stored a particular spell and charge. Not to mention the place likely crawled with wards and without a ward pass they would hurt me just as well as any other intruder.
Yet such security measures made me inclined to think if they had an asset like Lily and Eadon that would be the place to hold them. Certainly that would be the place to look first. Or snag a witch to interrogate. I also thought it was the logical place to be holding the large amount of people they had taken already, who they needed to bind with spells before they auctioned off. So I was hoping to find Nemnae for sure, and not to find she was already sent to the brothel.
Dill gave me a grin. “Well, then. We gonna make a go of it?”
I stapled my fingers. “Hell ya. There’s no reason not to. We just have to be quiet about it. Having Lan along might save us some time as well. With his demon essence he will nullify most of the wards. The outer wards have to be general and non-harmful, or there would be no flow of people into the areas. Those will totally pop like bubbles for a demon. If they have Eadon there, they will likely be having trouble with them anyway. If they don’t, well, any number of things can cause a system of wards to short out. They could be low on juice or a leaching witch could be dragging it.”
“That’s true. Brian told me between the more completive covens, they’ll get a leaching witch to drag the power from other covens. I’m told it’s a highly sought after skill set, since most witches with the ability to leach from people, don’t necessarily have the ability to tap someone else’s spell weave. They will send someone to check that for short glitches but by then we will be in.”
Brian was a young Inter witch, who knew a whole lot on the theoretical side of magic and was a fine warlock as well. “Yeah, he would know that. Anyway, with no flare of alarm they might not immediately think it is an infiltration.”
“I agree. We’re going to have to keep a telepathic link open. I’ll spin a spell for that. Because their territory is so fluid the outer wards will be fairly weak and likely set with graffiti marks, but the inner ones will have to have some sort of permanent marking to add spell stability. If we coordinate our efforts I’ll be able to tell the moment Lan causes a disruption so we can pass through without triggering them.”
Dill was quite familiar with witch wards and the various markings of them. Half the city was tagged with the anchoring symbols associated with specific covens, creating a network of fluctuating spells. Most of them harmless to pass through, but rest assured when you did some witch knew of it. Some such thin weaves were all but unnoticeable, but when you passed through them part of the spell clung to you and you could then be traced. Usually it was lesser witches or young ones who monitored them. The mid rank ones that set them up and maintained them. In the case of black witches, the highest ranked members were the ones gathering the power by leaching spells and blood works. Every witch could be a blood witch; it was just a matter of having the stomach to tap into the energy saturated in the human body. Not every witch could be a leaching witch. It was an innate ability to merge with someone outside of themselves on an energy level and then to pull that in. They were rare, which was a damn good thing as far as I was concerned.
