White Witch (Haven Book 1)

by Lil Hamilton

  “I’m honestly glad you do. I would rather not be dealing with the Ice Princess all the time. That’s what they called you when you first came in to meet with Inter.”

  “Ah, yes. See, that there is my Ambassador fae face.” I opened my door. “Now let’s hurry if I don’t get some food into you ASAP you might fade into nothingness.”

  She smirked and took shotgun.

  ***

  Chapter 13

  In battle, be in control or dive into a berserker rage and hope you are the last one standing.

  ‘Sassy witch, in location,’ Hanson said through our ear pieces. He wouldn’t let me telepathically linked to everyone. Said something about it being rude to invade another brain. ‘Hood secured.’

  It hadn’t taken the Inter Tactical team long to take out the coven protectors of several bound minor demons. They were trained in ways to take them down. Bet it had been quite the little scrimmage though. The most silent and efficient scrimmage I’d ever seen. It was rather impressive to see them in action.

  I couldn’t see Samantha, who would be on the left corner of the property, of course. The girls were using invisibility charms, but instead of igniting the spell with their own blood they used mine, which would add some strength and duration to it. I did see how reality warped around her, but you would have to be looking at the spot and have the sight capable of seeing such a thing.

  ‘Skinny witch in location,’ Mary said. She was in the backyard area.

  ‘Bitch witch in location,’ Liz said, she was also in the back, so that together they created a triangle of power. I have no idea why it was always a triangle. Chera told me something about triangles, composed to three witches at three points was great for defensive trapping magics. While a circle of witches great for rituals. The squares must feel left out, but don’t they always? They had stabilized an impressive containment field and a sort of bursting dispel layer to it to null any charms and enchantments on a basic level within the residence, but just a pulse of it as to not alert anyone and not hinder our own attack. It was crafty and skilled work. Sure as Hells made my part in the raid easier.

  Craig touched his ear piece. “Red team on standby.”

  We waited then, for the three to set up their holding spell. Containing the scene for one, obscuring the streets for another. I didn’t know how they did it or what sort of witch rituals required. Their prep work had sage, twigs, colored string, blue powder and yellow powder. And of course the usual blood igniting trigger. Sometimes I wondered if their ingredients were even necessary, or if it was just that they needed to think they were. Or if it was just a bunch of crap they threw together to make it look more impressive. It was always all ‘eye of newt for stability’ and never ‘frog legs for taste.’ Any fae artefact or charm container was what we chose aesthetically. The object had no meaning; it was just a way to contain our own energy. An extension of ourselves. Some material simply held certain spells better or longer. Witchery had loads more semantics.

  “Hey, Brian. You know what I just thought about?”

  “What?”

  “The greatest similarity between fae spells and witchery. I mean, there had to be one, with the fae blood in there, but it never seemed so obvious.”

  “Now? Now you have an epiphany about metaphysics?” he said in disbelief.

  “I do my best thinking before a fight.”

  “Yeah, it’s called ADD,” Craig said.

  I grinned. “Bet you’re right. You should see me on a stake out. Never mind that. Do you want to hear my brilliant thought?”

  “Sure,” Brian said. He adjusted his belt, pulling out a few vials and making sure they were in the right spots. The three men had spent a great deal of time on prep. We were going in strong, knowing the coven would already be on high alert.

  “Kay. Get this. It’ll blow your mind. Fae magic is all about our will imposed on our environment. Flawed will means flawed spell. Our charms are an extension of ourselves. Witchcraft is not about will it is all about belief. True and strong belief that the rituals and objects you use will direct your energy into the form you want. If you don’t completely believe you can do a particular spell, or don’t believe some of your tools will be effective, then they are not. See? Both are mental energy influencing our environment!”

  Marcus shuffled his feet.

  Craig rolled his eyes.

  Brian gave me a grin. “Consider my mind blown, Ray. We should smoke a joint sometimes. Bet we could come up with loads of stuff, you and me. And you’re right, witchcraft needs belief.”

  I felt they were rather underwhelmed by my awesome revelation. I’d let it sink in a bit. They would come to realize how profound it was later.

  We waited about another ten minutes before my mind started wondering again. Started wondering about ways to mess with witches’ beliefs to affect their magic.

  ‘I’m going in,’ Lan said.

  I perked up.

  ‘Go for it. But be cautious. Teleport into someplace obscure until we know what we up against down there. If it’s safe to do so secure Lily as soon as we enter. We don’t want them rabbit holing her out of there.’

  I touched my ear piece. “Demon in the hole.”

  ‘Copy that,’ Hanson said. ‘Blue team in position.’

  As soon as I felt the witches establishing their spell work I said, “Well, boys, you ready to roll?”

  “Always,” Marcus said with a positively feral grin.

  I grinned back. I touched my ear piece. “Red team on the move and ready to shake, rattle and roll.”

  ‘Copy.’

  With Craig and Marcus behind me and Brian taking back guard we made our way to the house. As we walked the boys mumbled and rubbed charms into activation. They held an incomplete spell within them that needed a boost of energy and words to complete. I felt their spells settle over them. Ones to dull sound, others to make them indistinct to the enemy and another to cause confusion. War witches were all about brute force. They would throw anything out there that would give them any advantage and then had fallback in their long, spelled daggers. Marcus being the exception, as he carried a gun. I told him on many occasions that a gun was just not smart. Too many ways to mess around with it, causing a misfire into his face. But he was a man and men like to have the manly things and things that represented their other manly things to make them feel manlier.

  “Red in position and entering the field,” Brian said.

  We passed through our witch’s markers and onto the lawn of the coven residence. At this point I was shrouding us with a Conceal to pass through their outer wards and make sure their watcher wouldn’t alarm the others. The spell was designed to mask the presence of a gifted aura, making a guard ward think we were mundane humans and thus acceptable. We stepped onto the porch and I approached the door slowly. I placed a hand on it and felt the strengths of the guard wards. As I suspected they were mostly targeted to humans, but they also had fae and demon touches. The inner guard wards were triggered by intent and not just blood. If you intended to enter without permission it would be triggered. How it was triggered depending on your blood. I felt the current of it running through the walls. I smiled slightly. No one ever took into account the ability of the fae to manipulate our environment, even if the middle realm was more… solid. I leaned down and touched the base of the door and drew my fingertips upward, willing the guard spells to simply move in a different way. I swept my fingers over the enter doorway and then stepped back. I could feel the void I had created. I didn’t even need to get fancy.

  I nodded to Brian. He whispered into his mike, “Doorway is cleared. Entering residence.”

  I turned the door knob slowly. Infinitely slow, until I heard the light click and slid the door open. It opened without even a creak. That was not usually the case. Witches tended to use many means to warn them of any supernatural or natural predators. Mundane things such as bells on the door to minor spells that caused noticeable creaks when a door was opened. They were a
tricky breed.

  I scoped the entrance. There was an open living room to my left. No occupants. Very mundane with beige micro-fibre furniture and a massive flat screen TV. It looked very middle class, very normal and very fake. There was not that sense of the place being lived in. No family pictures and no messy coffee tables. Or in this case the sense of several witches occupying the same space with witch paraphernalia all over the place. Either they lived well beneath their means and had a damn good housekeeper, or this place was simply a cover by which they moved around operatives but had no actual live ins. That meant having Lily and Eadon here was simply because it was secure and they had not arranged a place to properly stash them yet. It also meant our Intel that this was the Coven House of the upper members was false. Directly in front of me was a small hallway that looked like it led to the kitchen. To my right a staircase up. Craig made some hand gestures to the others motioning to the living room and up. If I read them right he sensed three people upstairs. He then nodded to me and began to ascend the stairs, while Brian took the living room.

  Marcus led me further inward. We were taking the downstairs while the others cleared the building. The door downstairs was already opened. Marcus stood to the side and then peered over the side to look down. He looked back at me and lifted a brow. Then he made the hand signal of a circle to indicate he sensed magic in use. We slowly descended and at the base I slowly leaned out and looked around the corner. It took very little to assess the situation but it felt like one of those lone frozen moments that just stretched on.

  Lan and my cousin clawed at a confinement circle and getting nowhere. I cursed inwardly. I didn’t think they had the skill to set up such a demon trap. When Lan teleported in, a spell had snagged his energy signature and plopped him in the circle. Obviously Myra had helped them set that up; knowing at least one of Eadon’s relatives would come looking. Three witches held the circle. Another three surrounded a frail woman who was pinned to the ground. She was emaciated and I knew the witches had been leaching her energy. I also knew it was slowly killing her and she didn’t have the strength to fight back. She didn’t even scream, just writhed on the ground making a hoarse gasping noise.

  It was impossible that they were draining her to death. It made little sense. If she were half human and of the long lived, due to her Seelie blood, the border realm would provide enough energy to replenish her. Only someone with no human blood could be drained to the point of true death in the border realm. As it was not our native land and it did not feed us. As this realization sailed through my mind Lily’s wild gaze met mine. Her eyes were the same crystalline turquoise as her father. If any fae saw them they would know her blood line. Myra would have known it. As my eyes held hers I froze for a moment, feeling a rush of adrenaline and then rage.

  I jerked my head back and leaned against the wall panting. Marcus gave me a quizzical look. Then that deep part of me that was demon raged forth and my mind just snapped, discarding all rational thought. Marcus was shaking his head emphatically and held me firmly by the shoulders. I felt my body begin to change, as energy crawled through me and my aura expanded. I ripped away from Marcus and charged into the room.

  I grabbed one witch by the neck and flung her away from Lily. I grabbed the next one, wrenched her close and sank my teeth into her jugular and then ripped out. I knew Marcus was trying to cover me, likely cursing me for not waiting for the others. Neither of us anticipated there was other witches present and cloaked from sight. When they became visible they were just more targets. When I was in a rage there was no such thing as outnumbered. I was thinking of nothing expect killing anyone who had harmed Lily.

  The world slowed suddenly as someone grabbed my shoulder from behind and I felt the sharp sting of a blade being thrust into my lower back. I hissed and tried to twist around but my assailant moved with me and stung me with his blade three more times.

  I fell to my knees. There was a whirling thrum in my ears. I could see Lan clawing frantically at the ward that still held him. I watched Marcus tackle my assailant. I felt blood soaking through my shirt and the wounds burned. If looked down and saw my rich purple blood spreading through my clothing. They didn’t heal. Even when I focused on them, my flesh didn’t assert its form. A cursed blade. Immortal killers. I fell forward and groaned. Even so I dragged myself closer to Lily.

  I watched as Brian stood by the stairs trying to do damage control as Marcus was surrounded. I caught a flash of Marcus and he was bleeding. Sucking back my demon rage was terribly difficult, but I forced myself to do it. I fished through my pockets until I felt the octagon shape of a stone I had endowed with a strong dispersion spell that would nullify magic for a few moments. With a sharp inhale of pain I winged the stone towards the binding circle and whispered out the trigger words. The spell ignited and the circle snapped.

  The two demon males were in a full blood rage and tore through the witches. Massacred them. I leaned over Lily and stared down at her. I rubbed my charm necklace encasing us in a shield to protect us from the elemental storm the demons were causing. Her pale skin, with the ever so faint fae sheen to it, her pointed ears and her eyes were all fae born. The short spiky black hair was not, but that could be a human trait. Yet it was not. Although there was nothing to her in appearance I knew we were closely related by blood. Her essence was my essence. Her eyes stared at me, with a blank expression as though she didn’t see me. Maybe she didn’t because her face was drawn in pain and there was a raw edge to it that suggested a pain so deep it could not be expressed. I knew she was deeply wounded in a way I couldn’t see. Her physical wounds were bad enough. Most of the bruising looked like they were fading, which suggested once they lured Eadon in they began to tinker with the bond. I knew she would not heal in the mid-realm.

  My shield snapped and I groaned. My energy reserves were bleeding out of me as fast as my blood itself.

  Eadon and Lan were suddenly at our side. Marcus was guarding a live captive in the corner. I looked at Lan as he pressed a hand to my back in a futile effort to stem the flow of blood and a frustrated expression because he didn’t know what to do. He snarled something to Marcus and Marcus told them Inter was coming in. “They can’t do anything,” I said. I groaned and held my side. “Hurry. Take my blood and draw a circle around me.”

  “What?”

  “Do it now. We need to get Lily and Eadon out of here. Lily and I need to heal or we will die.”

  Eadon snarled and pulled Lily to him. I wanted to snarl back and pull her back to me but choked back the instinct.

  My blood already pooled on the ground. Lan quickly smeared it in an arch, and then smeared again the other way. He quickly completed the other side and then lifted me in his arms, so we were all secure in it. I was too weak to make a proper circle, but my blood would flare it. I pulled my aura in and swirled it around the circle, feeling it ground in my blood.

  I nodded to Marcus. Then I activated the circle and let out of wheeze from the sudden jerking pain. I focused harder and connected to my patch. Because of my weakening and pain it felt like we were being ripped from the world. But then we arrived and I felt my patch around me, with the electrical currents to the air and reality curling around me, through me. I let the circle drop and sighed in relief as I felt my wounds sluggishly seal. Cursed blades were designed to kill the Long Lived in the mortal realm, but only slowed healing in Faerie. You had to keep us in the border realm for them to work and I was long ago refined ways to escape.

  I stood up and the world reeled. Lan caught me by the arm. “I‘ll feel better in a second. Lot of energy to heal those wounds and then the blood portal even more. Emptied my reserve.”

  Eadon held Lily in his arms, pulled to his chest. His teeth were still full length.

  “We can’t stay long. With you guys here, pulling my plot energy it will cause alarm with my neighbors. I have alliances with them, but if we are here too long they will send emissaries.”

  “Why here?” Eadon snarled.
<
br />   “Why not?” I said with a grin. Then shook my head; as if I needed to enrage the already overly possessive mated demon. “She can recover far faster here. We wait a night then you can take her home. She needs to be home to be safe.”

  He nodded, but looked far from pleased.

  I was reining myself in as best I could, but I felt like I was cracking inside. I felt like something was going to give or snap and I would never find my center again.

  I gave Eadon an assessing look. “She simply needs to absorb some Faerie air. Take her upstairs to one of the rooms and see to her. We will talk after we have rested.”

  Eadon snarled something in the demon speech and carried his mate away.

  “Not much one for words is he?”

  “He barely constrains his rage,” Lan replied. “He could have gone rogue on us there, out to kill any witch for hurting her. We got there just in time.”

  I shivered. “I know the feeling.”

  Lan looked around the open chamber, the sculpted ceiling, and the detailed murals on the far wall, the wood paneling and finally to the stone staircase circling upward. “So, a castle of some sort?”

  “Well, I grew up in castles of some sort. This one is like a fortified manor really. I change it from time to time.”

  He ran a finger down my cheek. “Your demon nature is riled up. Still. Why is that?”

  I clenched my fists. I felt the surge of emotions in me and I desperately wanted some sort of release for them. I had not killed enough witches to release my rage. People would die before I was finished, of that, I was certain. A death was owed for all those responsible. “Prince Gilliad lied to me. That girl doesn’t have a drop of human blood in her. She could have died there. Died the true death far from Faerie.”