Chapter 1 – Astra
Astra pressed her phone to her ear and leaned close to the car window. The lights of the grand old Whitlock house burned soft yellow through the falling snow.
“Are you ready?” Her breath misted on the glass.
“We’re locked on,” Crispin said. She could picture the taut smile that went with that tone. Her lips curved with her own smile of anticipation.
Tonight was a big step forward.
She left the line open and dropped her phone into the pocket of her jacket. “Tom.”
Tom levered his bulk out the driver’s door. She heard the snap of an umbrella and then he opened her door.
Astra stepped out, careful of her heels on the snowy driveway. She wrapped a scarf around her neck with a quick twist and pulled her white coat on over her jacket.
“You’re hiding under Tom’s umbrella, aren’t you?” Crispin asked from the phone in her pocket. Her sense of hearing was such that the layers didn’t block his voice.
“Appearances, remember? They take this all so seriously. Now hush.” She buttoned up her coat. “Tom, let’s go.”
Their footsteps crunched on the light December snow as they approached the Whitlock house. The Buckinghamshire mansion rose above them in a wall of stucco. Its grid of large windows were sealed from the night by heavy curtains. The house was old, Georgian era, with a tall, imposing front door. The Whitlocks had been part of the wave of wealthy English families who bought the land up cheap in the early nineteenth century, when cholera and famine forced much of the previous population to move to larger towns seeking work.
“Tom,” Astra said, at the foot of the entrance steps. “Once I’m inside, best move the car back down towards the gate.”
He rumbled his assent. She glanced up at him and saw his nostrils twitch as he tested the scents in the brisk air.
The front door opened as they reached the top and the Whitlocks’ butler assumed his post on the threshold. He folded his large hands in front of him and regarded Astra with dark eyes. Astra knew his name was Samuel De Costa and he also served the family as its gatekeeper. She would not be able to pass the house’s threshold without his permission.
“Astra Kallis. I’m here to see Eleanora Whitlock.”
“Are you expected?” Samuel’s breath plumed the air, but he made no sign he felt the cold rushing through the open front door.
Astra allowed herself a smile. “Oh no, not at all.”
Samuel tipped his chin forward and moved to the side of the doorway. “Please enter, Miss Kallis.”
Tom watched Samuel as though trying to guess how fast he could run. Her reproving look sent him marching back out into the snow, pulling the umbrella shut on the way. Tom was never one to shy from the elements, not for his own benefit.
Astra’s heels clicked on the floor as she entered. She tried to feel for some sense of the threshold Samuel had released as she crossed it. She tried to feel the decades of mystic defences that she knew to be built into the house. She sensed nothing.
For now. Just for now.
Samuel ushered her into a parlour and left to find Eleanora Whitlock. Astra strolled into the centre of the room and turned in a circle, taking it in. The ceiling rose high overhead, trying to make her feel small. The lights of the chandelier dazzled her and the royal crimson carpet was as thick as a well-tended lawn. She met the gazes of the portraits watching her from the walls and curled her lip at their self-importance.
She unbuttoned her coat. “You should see this place, Crispin. It’s everything you’d expect of one of the old families.”
“Rolling around in faded glories?”
“Real and otherwise. Hush now, I hear someone coming.”
Footsteps descended a distant staircase, one she judged to be as swaddled in carpet as the floor beneath her feet. The sound was far too soft for a human to hear yet. Of all the gifts she should have received, only the enhanced sense of hearing had been given to her.
For now. Just for now.
She stood facing the doorway. The two pairs of footsteps paused at the bottom of the stairs and she heard an aged, female voice. Then the footsteps parted, one set coming her way.
Calling reinforcements? she wondered and grinned.
Eleanora Whitlock stalked into the parlour, unperturbed by the sight of either Astra or her smile. She looked like she was made of twigs wrapped in old leaves, but sorcery and a will of oak had given her strength in her age. She wore a casual trouser suit from a European designer and as for jewellery, only a single ring on her right forefinger, a ring with the strange green stone of a witch. She was one of the most important people in Britain, certainly in the shadow world they both inhabited.
Astra let the other woman speak first. It was hard not to let her smile broaden.
“You are persistent,” Eleanora said at last. Her voice barely quavered. Time was winning, but not without a fierce fight.
“That’s such a polite way of putting it.” Astra thought she heard a cough of laughter from her pocket.
Eleanora glared down her nose at Astra for a few moments, before seating herself in one of the parlour’s plush chairs. She made a gesture to another chair, as though dismissing Astra into it.
It was easy to keep smiling, given how Astra intended the visit to go. She sat down and crossed one leg over the other.
“If you are going to pursue me to my very home, I suppose I must hear you out,” Eleanora said. “But with matters at their current level of tension, I am sure there is little I can do for you, whatever it is that you actually want.”
“Oh yes, what could someone like me possibly have to say that would matter to a person like you?” This time she did hear Crispin chuckle.
The gaze Eleanora’s trained on Astra had broken the nerve of many council petitioners. The anticipation bubbling inside Astra made it easy to stare back. She had promised herself the pleasure of drawing this meeting out, but it was hard not to skip to the end right there and then.
She heard Samuel approach and knew by the clink of porcelain and silver that he brought tea. Eleanora remained wrapped in what should have been an intimidating silence. She waited while Samuel placed the tray on the table between the two women and served them.
Astra cradled her teacup in her hands, enjoying the heat after the touch of the winter outside. “You have such an interesting house here, filled with so many old things.”
“We are one of the oldest magical families,” Eleanora said. Her impatience made her terse.
“Oh yes, going right back to the end of Napoleon’s reign, don’t you? And yet it wasn’t until the 1960s that you finally got someone onto the Shadow Council.” She glanced up at one of the portraits on the wall. “They called him Old Bulldog Bertie, didn’t they? Because he kept barking at people until they elected him, just to get him to leave them alone.”
She enjoyed the growing anger pulling at Eleanora’s features. “It seems–”
“It wasn’t until the World Wars that you gained real power, was it? I mean you had money, you always had money, but barely more than a few scraps of real power. Not like the Mandellans or the Blackwoods. Not until the World Wars.”
Eleanora set her cup down and rose to her full height. “I have more important things to do than listen to childish taunts. Samuel will show you out.”
Astra watched her stalk towards the doorway. “But then they had to let you into the club, didn’t they? Because you had one little thing they needed.”
Eleanora juddered to a stop. Astra stared at her back. She imagined Eleanora’s mind racing, deciding how to respond, knowing she’d already blown her chance to pretend Astra’s jibe was meaningless.
Eleanora turned, slowly. Her face was white, equal parts fright and f
ury. “Whatever you think you know–”
“I know more than you.” Astra settled back in her chair and turned her teacup around in her hands. “They never told you what they dug out of the ground, did they? They just paid you off to keep you happy. What did they offer? Books of magic? Tutoring for the next generation of Whitlock children? It must have been a real leg up, anyway, to give Old Bulldog Bertie the balls to bust his way into politics.”
Eleanora put a hand on the back of her chair. Her nails were long and red on her skeletal fingers. “I will have you and that failed beast you slink around with ruined for this.” Astra heard Crispin curse her from her pocket. “But first you’re going to tell me why you’ve gone to the trouble of provoking such and end yourself.”
“I want two things from you.” Astra took a sip of her tea. She could taste the charm magic laced into it – a few leaves of flavouring that should have made her more compliant. “First, I want to know exactly where they dug it up. It’s the only thing I don’t know, you see. I want the longitude and latitude, down to the inch.”
“No doubt your second demand is as impossible as the first,” Eleanora said.
“Oh yes, it’s even better.” She put the teacup down on the tray. “You’re going to name my friend Crispin as your successor to the London Shadow Council.”
Eleanora’s eyes opened wide. She looked so surprised that Astra wondered if anything had surprised her in decades. Then Eleanora tipped her head back and laughed. It was a harsh and cawing sound, which Astra endured easily in the pleasure of knowing what was about to happen to her.
“You haven’t done such a good job of protecting this island of yours, have you?” Astra asked. “You and the Shadow Council. You allow all this self-destructive in-fighting to go on, while those who would destroy us draw closer. It’s time for new blood. New approaches. New methods.”
“We’ll bury you for this, girl,” Eleanora said. “We’ll throw you down a hole so dark you’ll forget your own name.”
“I’m not afraid of the dark.” She reached up with one hand and pulled the long needle from her hair, which fell down her back in a thick wave that reached to her shoulder blades.
Eleanora frowned.
Astra winked at her. She held up her left hand, placed the tip of the needle against her palm and drew it towards her. It cut a bright line of red into her skin. Astra closed her hand into a fist.
“What are you doing?” Eleanora lifted her right hand. The gem in her ring caught the light and split it into shifting colours.
“Too late.” Astra watched a drop of her blood fall to the carpet and vanish into the rich red fabric. “Crispin.”
She heard him utter a word in the language that spoke to the universe. She felt the circle of warlocks he led release their spell onto the sample of her blood they possessed. The spell plunged across the meaningless distance between them. It did not strike and overcome the defences of the mansion – it did not need to. The spell manifested through her in a tremendous electric surge.
White light consumed the parlour. Astra heard Eleanora cry out. Everything around her became transparent – the furniture, the walls, Eleanora herself. She saw into the structure of all things.
Then the light contracted until it hung behind her.
Eleanora snapped her fingers before she could even see again. Her ring flashed green and a chime sounded, like a grandfather clock. To Astra, it sounded like the alert came not from any direction, but out of the air. The mansion’s defences were, at last, reacting to her. She heard feet pounding towards her from distant corners of the house.
She watched Eleanora lower her arm and blink. She took a step backwards.
Astra smiled.
Behind her, an apparition floated in the air. It was colourless, but it thrummed with ghost electricity. The apparition was of a man wearing only a cloth garment that hung from his waist to his knees. His head was hairless and his eyes were twin abysses that gazed back from deep within the mortal edge. Every square millimetre of his skin was marked with alien writing, dark against his glowing form.
“That…” Eleanora shook her head, staring at the apparition.
“You recognise him,” Astra said. “By description at least. You never saw him, did you? Just read the descriptions after the Trafalgar incident. Yes, Eleanora, this is the ghost of the wizard Savraith. And yes, he is under my complete control.”
Eleanora’s gaze flicked between Astra and the ghost.
Three people burst into the parlour. One she judged to be Eleanora’s son, the others her adult granddaughter and grandson. Regardless of what magical talent they might have been born with or achieved through hard work, their family name ensured all three wore rings just like Eleanora’s.
“Stop her,” Eleanora said. She lifted her right hand towards Astra and her family members did the same. Each began the words to a different spell.
Astra turned her left hand. Behind her, the ghost of Savraith made an identical gesture. Eleanora’s teacup leapt from the table and splashed its boiling contents across her right arm and chest. She shrieked and staggered backwards.
Astra straightened the fingers of her right hand. Savraith did the same. The chandelier pivoted towards the Whitlock offspring as though they pulled on it. The diamond-shaped glass crystals detached themselves from the chandelier with little clinking sounds. They shot across the room and stitched themselves across the faces and chests of Eleanora Whitlock’s brood.
Astra couldn’t help it. She giggled at all the screaming.
Eleanora had backed across the floor to a dresser adorned with silverware. She clutched her scalded arm to her chest and shook so hard Astra feared she’d snap her withered bindings and fly apart.
Astra reached into the inner pocket of her coat and drew out a pen and a long envelope. From the envelope she took a folded piece of paper, which she placed on the coffee table and smoothed out with her palms. She uncapped the pen and set it on the paper.
“I took the liberty of drawing up the succession papers,” Astra said. “Come and sign them.”
Eleanora glanced up at the ghost of the wizard and appeared to weigh her chances. Astra let her have a moment.
“Go to hell,” Eleanora said.
Astra sighed. “That won’t do at all.” She drew on the power of the ghost and breathed it into her voice. “Come over here and sign.”
Eleanora tried to resist. She shook and cursed, but she crawled across the thick red carpet and took the pen in a trembling hand.
Astra caught a glimpse of movement in the corner of her eye. Eleanora’s grandson was dragging himself back towards the doorway through which they’d all come rushing. Astra wiggled her fingers at the chandelier and its lowest tier snapped off. When it hit the carpet its six arms came to life. Its lights went from warm yellow to ghost-electric white as it scuttled after Eleanora’s grandson. Wrapping two metal arms around the young man’s neck, it pulled tight. He didn’t have much strength left to struggle, but he still kicked as the chandelier killed him.
Eleanora bent against the table and wept. “Tears?” Astra asked. “I’m amazed you have any moisture in you at all, you dry old thing.”
“You’re a monster.”
“Oh no, not yet.” Astra giggled again. “But that’s the plan.”
She put one high-heeled boot against Eleanora’s shoulder and pushed. The old woman tipped over on her side and lay there, shaking.
“And now,” Astra said, “the coordinates of the dig site.”
Eleanora bared her teeth in a grimace. “I don’t have the slightest idea what they might be.”
“Just because you can’t remember them doesn’t mean they aren’t still in there.” Astra fixed her gaze on Eleanora. She raised both arms and pressed her index fingers to her temples.
Savraith’s ghost mimicked the gesture.
Eleanora groaned and sagged back, every muscle in her body loose. Astra could feel her trying to tear her gaze away, but Astra had her hooked.
“Tell me the coordinates.”
Astra’s will, with the strength of the wizard’s ghost behind her, drilled through the structure of Eleanora’s mind. She didn’t know the coordinates. She only knew where they were recorded.
From her pocket, Crispin cursed.
“You heard then?”
“We heard,” he said.
Astra released her will. Eleanora rolled on her side, gasping for breath. The shock of Astra’s efforts had not quite killed her. Not that it mattered.
“The finale, Crispin.”
The ghost brightened again. The hum of his electricity rattled her teeth. Astra spread her arms wide and let the power roar into her.
The room caught fire.
The velvet curtains first, then the couches on which they’d sat. The carpet joined in and within moments the fire, driven by the wind of her will, danced through the grand old house. Only a circle of floor beneath Astra remained untouched.
She reached out a hand towards the merry flames. The heat was there, beyond the zone of safety around her. She wanted nothing more than to spin the fire around her fingers, to draw the words of her joy in burning whorls and loops in the air.
But not yet. Not just yet.
She heard Eleanora speak and looked down. The dry old thing had found some last reserve of strength. Astra watched her cast her spell, using words she could not understand. She saw the green gem on her ring brighten.
Astra closed one hand into a fist.
Eleanora burned as fast as old tinder. She didn’t even scream.
“Astra.” She could barely hear Crispin over the deep voice of the fire. “We’re getting a counter-force from the house. Pavel thinks the house defences are destabilising. You need to leave before they blow.”
Astra sighed. “If I must.”
She strolled towards the doorway and the flames pirouetted out of her path. She laughed to see their enthusiasm. The smoke was thick now, but it too rolled around her, around the safe place Crispin had kept for her in the heart of the inferno.
Savraith’s ghost drifted mutely behind her.
The door was smoking, but not yet burning. Astra flicked her right hand and the wood exploded outwards. Fresh air rushed in and the fire whooped as it burned hotter.
Immortal Make Page 1
