White Witch (Haven Book 1)

by Lil Hamilton

  Eadon howled again, obviously pained by his resistance and took several more steps towards me. I fired out three spell at the same time, with quick fast trigger words, hoping one would slow him down. They all flew right into that black aura, fizzed and broke apart. He swung at me and I rolled away just in time. Then I did not bother with a spell just drew in energy and blasted it out. It hit him in the chest and with a scream he fell to his knees. That stopped him all of two seconds. That tornado of energy blasted out at me in a gust that knocked me off my feet and up into the air. I took control of my fall, curling in the air and landed into a roll, which looked smooth but was jarring. It felt like I had just earned myself a severe sun burn.

  He was on me faster than I could blink. There was no reality where I could move faster than a demon, especially when they could skim through it with teleportation. His telekinetic wind lifted me into the air and began to squeeze. The combined compression pain and sharp current pain took my breath away. I squeezed my eyes shut and counteracted the only way I could. I expanded my mental aura and connected with his, just as I would for a fae duel, but in this case the arching pain in my head was immediate as our energies burned against each other. Thankfully, he was young and didn’t know how to immediately respond to an internal attack. I aggressively pushed inward and when I hit his internal threshold; that line we all have that separates our inner mind from our sensory mind.

  I broke through it and then was free to push a spell right into his mind. ’Mentis, Verusi, Persuadeo, Credeire, Verus,’ to trigger the spell and thrust upon him the true belief that what he knew and sensed was not what he thought. Once the spell was set in him, I whispered into his mind what he did see, feel and know that I was his Lily.

  He stilled suddenly, no longer compelled to attack. I felt his mind recoil in horror at the knowledge he was hurting what he most cherished in the world. I fell to the ground released from his grip, but didn’t stop the connection I had with him. Because he was a demon, and as such firmly grounded in reality, his inner essence would soon reject what he physically knew was not real. It gave me a breather while I tried to figure out a way to contain him. Not overly hurt, just hold and preferably in such a way the witches would not be able to recall him. Unfortunately, I didn’t have ready at hand the complex spells and containment devises I would usually have for a called demon hunt.

  Lan popped in with a crack of energy and slapped a hand on Eadon’s chest. With a snap, that sucked all the energy from the area, Lan opened a black swirling portal within Eadon and recalled him to the Hells. Then he glared at me. “I felt him. You didn’t call me.”

  “I was a little distracted.” I stood up, feeling like a walking bruise. It had not even occurred to me to call to him. That made me feel rather stupid, but I was not about to admit that. “They will only call him back.”

  “He is gone for now. They will have to do a calling ritual to bring him back, once they become aware he has been banished. His family may be able to hold him for a time.”

  “You took a witch captive?”

  “Back at the house right now.”

  “Good. Meet you there and we will see what he knows,” I said, spinning a spell to meld with a mind.

  “He could have killed you,” Lan said.

  “Could have, would have, should have… but didn’t.”

  “The true death, Ray. There is no coming back from that.”

  I glared at him. “Yeah, that is life, my friend. That is why we are so completely alien to mortals. We have no sense of the potential of our demise. I get a feel for that here in the border realm.”

  “Must be a rush. Risk yourself like that again and I will help you out with a near death experience.”

  I laughed and then winced. Might have a few broken ribs I would need to focus heal. “You amuse me, demon.”

  ***

  Chapter 12

  What I like about Inter is that they try really hard to pretend they own their reality.

  I made short work of interrogating the prisoner. Felt like I needed a shower or two after I went into that mind. Yuck. I wished I could scrub my brain with a tooth brush. When I came out Dill and Viv were discussing the Gutter situation while Chera listened. Lan was up in the kitchen with Sebastian plotting who knows what, but nothing good I suspect. And I wondered if holding two witches illegally in my storage room was stretching the bounds of my immunity.

  “That was a good job you did, Chera,” I said. “Might have to start giving you more work.”

  Chera smiled slightly and that alone made me happy.

  “Hanson wants you to call him ASAP,” Dill said. “I told him we would submit an incident report, but that we had been carrying out a separate investigation.”

  So much for happy.

  “I need sleep ASAP. Man, those bound demons take a lot out of me,” I said. All that contrary energy was causing some serious backlash as I healed. It was like I had been on a spell bender and was feeling the effects.

  “I doubt he will wait for his answers. I think we are lucky he didn’t drag us all in to make a formal statement.”

  “Such sympathy from my most loyal friend,” Viv said oozing sarcasm because she had no use for Inter. They did after all have the audacity to interfere in vampire affairs.

  “Did you get anything from the witch? Or were you too tired,” Dill mocked and I gave him the finger.

  “A lot more than I wanted. A great deal more filth than I wanted to expose myself to. That little trick by the way is apparently how they teach themselves to protect their minds from Inter psychics. They just start rolling out memories and random thoughts. I really didn’t need the show. Fortunately I’m not a psychic and my spell got him in line. He knows the higher ups in the coven are holding special prisoners. He knows one is a demon. It is the Coven House they are held at, but he doesn’t know where it is. He has even been there before and still doesn’t know where it is. I went deep into his memories to try and pin point it, but those memories are significantly blurred. Place must be warded right up, so you forget moments after leaving. The vague impressions I get are of a residential area. That is what we need to find. Unfortunately scrying for it will be pointless, since obviously it was set up not to be found or remembered.”

  Dill shrugged. “There you go, time to bring Hanson into the loop. It’s their job to find them and watch them. Guaranteed he knows where it is. For certain the Inter witches know.”

  “Yeah, damn it all. We have to bring him in because we need to find Lily fast and we also need the brothel taken down. I want him to help us, voluntarily, to find Lily and in return we will offer him information on the brothel. I don’t want him to interfere with the retrieval of the witch. First, she is Seelie born which means in my authority. Second, she is mate bonded which means in the demons authority. Thirdly, my cousin is bound which means we need to kill those witches and I don’t want interference in that.”

  “I know what you’re thinking and this is no time for you to get all contrary,” Dill said. “This is their realm and they have a right to run it as they please.”

  I frowned slightly. Dill was an expert at seeing through my public face. “Not according to Myra. She is going to get out of this squeaky clean as well.”

  “It is not our job to take her down. If the Accord witches can’t do it then they are not worthy to serve on the Accords in the first place.”

  “They will probably cover her ass too. Damn it all to hell.”

  “Damn it all to hell?” Viv said with a smirk.

  “Human hell, I mean,” I said with a grin.

  “You’re chat with Myra seems to have you all riled up,” Dill commented, because of course he could sense the core of rage in me beneath all my smiles and wit. It was pointing out the obvious, but he was warning me that I needed to control my emotions. Poor Dill. He was forever watching my back. If I demoned out and killed people it wouldn’t go well for me. There is no such thing as ‘I’m a demon’ defense. Maybe human law couldn’t
touch me as long as I had ambassador standing, but they sure could boot me from the realm. So far, given the friendly border realm, it hadn’t been too much of an issue. That didn’t mean Dill would not tranq my ass if I went all nutso on a mission. He had done it before.

  I got up and went to the mini fridge of beer I had in my impromptu meeting room. I grabbed a Canadian and downed half of it. My rage simmered down a bit.

  “Spill,” Chera said.

  I could tell them all my secrets. I felt that I needed people I could open up to because I was not like most Seelie who seemed to get a rush from hoarding secrets. My oaths bound me tightly though. While I felt I owed it to Lan to explain how Lily and my cousin had fallen foul to fae politics in the most horrific of ways, I could not. I could with my team because the Queen permitted me to have advisors and she didn’t specify what race they were. Only that they were bound by similar oaths. If I revealed something to them I was not permitted to share, such as Myra and what she was up to, that binding was passed unto them. Except for Chera who was pure human in nature because the Queen considered humans to be similar to rats and one simply did not have a rat as an advisor. Also binding oaths on humans were essentially ‘soul bindings’ and were banned by the Accords. Not saying the Queen would not bind a ‘rat’ if it served her purposes, but she couldn’t get me to when I was her public face in Haven. Which meant, once I explained the entirely of the situation to her… she could then pass it on to Lan. And that is exactly what she was going to do. I couldn’t just let the Queen do what she was doing to her own people and others without telling the demons. And that there are what loopholes are for.

  “This whole situation is sanctioned by the Queen. Myra is continuing her experiments with her leaching curses but she enhanced it to destroy the essence. Wipe out the consciousness, memories, awareness and personality. Of witches and faelings. I think some demi as well…those where their breeding permits it anyway. Then she implants personalities-on-demand to sell to the rich and powerful, but ensuring each and every one of them is tracked and is a perfect little spy for the Queen.”

  Before they could begin to question me I held up a hand. “It cannot be fixed. It is taken. It is eradicated. Eroded. No more. They are nothing but shells. It is why I left Nemnae behind, because there was nothing to recover. Her body will die without touching Faerie and her essence so… depleted, and she is no more.”

  I let them take that in and then I continued, “It is more than just that. The Queen is dabbling in breeding. Lily had been hiding but the Queen found her long ago and was watching closely. She wanted to see who she would mate with and if it was a demon or demi-demon, to claim those children to have a stronger link to this realm and potentially a stronger influence in the Hells. When she found out she had mated with a High Demon she had the Hag explore the mating link to see if it can be manipulated or destroyed. All suggesting that the border realm is going to be used as a base of operations to carry out very specific attacks in the Hells. This is long term of course. I’m not suggesting they are invading the border realm right now, or that they have any trained hell breed assassins, only that that is the game plan. That means my role in the Accords is simply to pacify the humans.”

  I choked out the last statement and drained the rest of the beer.

  “Are you going to inform Inter?” Dill asked.

  “Hell no. On what suggestions? My little paranoid conspiracy theory, maybe concocted because I have a secret alliance with the Hells? Not to mention I fucking can’t formally or informally accuse the fae of such devious actions. Not unless I want to suffer the effects of breaking my fucking oaths to the Queen. Nor can any of you, not without proof and proof has a way of disappearing when the Lords are called in to interfere.”

  “She would use their need to mate against them,” Dill said, but his tone held such deep emotion it was lowered a few octaves.

  “Yeah,” I said, feeling weary. “Minor demons right now. But watching the Seelie live ins and seeing if they mate up to potentially use any offspring. And to test the strength of the bond.”

  Dill nodded. “So this is a fae mess after all. I understand your constraints in accusing Myra or pointing out the true state of affairs. We never really do divulge the true state of affairs anyway. We do have some freedom though, Ray. You have the right, given your role assigned by the Queen, to ensure all fae are protected in the border realm. Her blood line does not matter. What Myra is assigned to do, also does not matter. You are free to act.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Still sucks butts. Call Hanson up and set a meet at my office in two hours. That gives me time to shower and maybe trance a sleep for an hour. Chera you are off duty until we gets things going. You and Lan should spend some quality time together and then get some rest.”

  I couldn’t directly tell her to tell him anything. That would break my oaths as well, but she knew what my look meant. Not like we had not played this loophole before. Or used others who had no idea we were using them so.

  Lan found me sitting on the edge of my bed staring into space half an hour later. I just could not get Nemnae’s empty eyes out of my mind. I couldn’t grasp how Myra could have wilfully destroyed the nymph’s core essence like that. Or the fact she had done so to so many. We had saved some certainly and I didn’t know the numbers, yet, of those who had been psychically destroyed. He sat down beside me and took my hand and said nothing for a long moment. I could feel the pulse of his aura against my shields with the left over rage I had felt boil out from the living room when Chera had discussed the fae undercurrent to the situation. The mate bond was sacred and the Queen had ordered her operative to take the couple to experiment on it. Let a coven bind Eadon as well. Not that it could be proven. All that could be proven was that a coven had decided to dabble in slavery and demon binding.

  “It isn’t your fault,” Lan said finally.

  I shook my head. “It isn’t about fault, Lan. It is perhaps my fault it happened here since it is a personal vendetta this city was chosen,” I said having to choose my words vaguely due to my oaths. “I know I couldn’t prevent any of this from happening. I am but one person. This is bigger than me. So much bigger. It is just that I am so bound up in oaths that even if I knew about everything, even if my Queen told me everything, I wouldn’t have been able to do a damn thing. It sickens me. What she is doing. It is why I left Faerie. These sorts of games are so common. She plucks memories from her people, or warps them or taints them. She plays with her people all the time. She has done so with me many times. I have lost years. Just taken from me. I don’t even know why. She’s that powerful. What happened here doesn’t surprise me. Faelings are ignored by their fae blood because they are weak and most mortal but the Queen never ignores that which can be used to her benefit. Even if it has to be destroyed first. If her people mean nothing to her how can I expect half-breeds to mean anything to her? I fought to be here. You have no idea how I fought to be here. But just as oath bound.”

  I ran a hand through my hair feeling as old as my years and just as weary. “I can’t fight the sickness of her mind. It infects even here. And my hands are tied. I thought to win some freedom and instead I must watch such horrors occur.”

  “No, you are putting a stop to it.”

  I laughed mockingly. “Hardly. The Hag taunts me by being here. I know she works elsewhere. Here is but one of many places.” As she said she just wanted me to stop it so I would be punished, as I would be. “Briefly stopped it here. And only because I didn’t know what was really going on. Had I known, I couldn’t have acted.”

  “I wanted to ask you something but I know you cannot answer. I know your Queen hates the impure and yet she let one of her lower court mate with the vampire master. She allowed Lily to mate with your cousin. You say she wants half-breeds to bind the half-breeds to Faerie, as you are bound. Why would she want to? When she loathes them so?”

  “I can speculate about that. I’m not so oath bound I can’t speculate. I’
d say she wants border line connections. It has seemed since the truce was made she has made great efforts to establish her fae here, with land rights and publish image but also to make connections. Cross breeding. If you want me to say honestly I would tell you that I believe she, in her insanity, is losing her grip in the wild magic of Faerie and she fears losing it altogether. If she does she will not be able to hold it. She will have to pass it to a full blood and then she will have to flee. And I believe she would flee here, where she will have already established herself. That is what I think. I think she is preparing. I could be wrong. It could be that since some of us bide here she feels she must control some aspects of the human world to ensure we are protected. She’s a control freak. And paranoid. It could be that. But, since I have lived here, the wild magic now runs rampant in the Labyrinth and we have disruptions regularly, flare ups and even bubble portals popping in and out. It was not like that before.”

  He pulled me into a hug and I snuggled into his warmth just enjoying that heat and comfort he offered so easily. “You have more choices and freedoms than you believe.” He pulled back and looked down at me. His obsidian eyes met mine and I felt like I was looking into the depths of a black hole with a light deep into its core. “You choose to do what you can and that means a great deal. Keep choosing to do so. Don’t let her kill your spirit. And know you will always be welcome in the Hells.”

  Then before I could deny that his lips touched mine softly and I let out a sigh. His hand slid up to the back of my neck and those lips danced across mine distracting me from all thought and worries. His tongue darted across my lips, I opened my mouth and the kiss became more engaged more passionate. On my part more frantic. I needed to forget. I needed to just be physical for a moment and forget the suffering my people had handed out so easily on our own kind, as if the faelings meant nothing. He let out a growl as I dragged him down onto the bed by his shirt and proceeded to remove it from him. Buttons flew, fabric tore; some his, some mine. Mostly naked I was free to roam those defined muscles and run my nails down that long back.