by Sean Stone
She was on her way out to go and watch number thirteen when she heard Bianca’s voice from behind her. Not long after Arthur had died, Bianca had started staying over to make sure that Clara was alright. Clara suspected that William had told Bianca to make sure she wasn’t left on her own. After Bianca had gone back to her flat Clara found herself getting lonely in the big house and had asked her friend to move in. They’d lived together ever since.
“Where you heading?” Bianca asked as she protruded from the kitchen, a spatula in one hand.
“Just out. Clear my head,” Clara said vaguely.
“So you’re not going to Nick’s house then?” she replied. So Jamal had told someone. At least it was Bianca and not William.
“What?” Clara said hoping playing dumb would prove fruitful, but she could feel her face flushing red, giving her away.
“I know you’ve been going there, Clara. I followed you once, I thought you were going out drinking or getting high or something,” Bianca said. The look of concern on her face made Clara’s stomach tighten with guilt. It wasn’t fair to make her friend worry like that.
“I’m not that stupid,” Clara said. Drugs weren’t something she’d even considered trying. Working for the police she’d seen enough drug addicts to know better than to take that path.
“No, you’re stupider,” Bianca replied. “What if Nick saw you? What if he confronted you?”
“He’s not even in town.”
“But if he was? He’d kill you without blinking,” Bianca said.
“He didn’t kill me last time,” Clara muttered sullenly. The last time she’d seen Nick had been moments after he’d killed Arthur. She’d tried to attack him and he’d just shrugged it off. He could easily have killed her then, but he hadn’t. He’d just mocked her and then disappeared.
“That doesn’t mean he won’t next time.” Bianca turned and walked into the living room.
Clara thought about leaving and going to the house anyway but she knew that she couldn’t. She’d spend the entire evening feeling guilty. Instead, she took in a deep breath and then followed Bianca. She found her sitting at one end of the sofa, looking down at the spatula she was turning in her hands.
“I can’t just let it go, Bi,” she said as she slid onto the sofa next to Bianca.
“I know you can’t and I’m not saying you should, but what is going to his house going to achieve, honestly?”
Clara went to answer but found that she couldn’t. She’d never really considered it. “I don’t know,” she confessed, feeling foolish. She just wanted to watch, to make sure she knew the moment Nick returned. She didn’t know what she was going to do when he did.
“Right.” Bianca nodded. “Nick has to be dealt with, I’m not disputing that, but you’ve got to be patient. You’ve got to wait until we have a weapon or something we can use against him.”
“I might have found a solution to that already,” Clara said and then told her what William had said earlier.
Once she had finished Bianca made her promise not go back to number thirteen and to stay away from Nick and his disciples until they had some means with which to fight them. Clara made the promise but even as she did she had her doubts that she would be able to keep it.
Over the following week, Clara did keep her promise. She stayed away from the house and worked toward finding a way to fight Nick. Each morning she’d attended training with Jamal, either at his home or the office and although she didn’t make any progress his resolve remained strong. He was confident that she would overcome whatever was blocking her, even if she wasn’t. At the end of the week, she finally got her meeting with the bank manager, but it produced disappointing results.
“They said no,” Clara told William. “The bank manager doesn’t think I’ll be able to repay the loan.” He was right too. He’d showed Clara all of his calculations and if she’d been given the loan she would have never been able to keep up the repayments and she would have had to file for bankruptcy within two years.
“Okay.” William nodded briskly, clearly displeased.
“Is there something else we can do? We need to get those weapons,” Clara said. She wasn’t about to let her chance to kill Nick slip away.
“I agree, it is imperative that we acquire whatever weapons or information is held in those laboratories,” William said, reminding Clara that there may be no weapons at all.
“Couldn’t we just… go in?” she suggested, knowing what his answer would be. William was a stickler for the rules no matter how much they got in the way.
“I’d rather not.” It wasn’t a no. “I could try and get a warrant but I’m not convinced I’d be successful. There are a few other financial avenues that I can try before we resort to either of those courses of action, though,” he said, rubbing his smooth chin with his index finger.
“Where are you going to get that kind of money from?” Clara wondered if he actually knew how much it would cost to buy shares in a such a large company. It certainly wasn’t the sort of money that people left laying around.
“Don’t worry about that, all you need to worry about—” he was interrupted when Zander burst into the office, his eyes bulging out of his skull.
“There’s an incident over in Wandworth,” he said quickly, almost stuttering. Wandworth was pack territory but the coven had been trying to reclaim it for the last couple of months.
“What is it?” William stood abruptly.
“The sorcerers are doing something and the werewolves are on their way to stop them. A fight’s about to break out.”
“Get the team and let’s go,” William said, already heading for the door. Clara had been about to clock off but it looked like her plans had changed.
By the time they arrived in Wandworth the rest of the field officers had joined them. The entire team was usually split into a day team and a night team, but on certain occasions, like the full moon which was when most of the fighting took place, they all came together.
“This way,” Cassie said and led them towards the woods. Cassie was the only werewolf on the team and her sense of smell was fantastic for tracking. There were no signs of a disturbance so far, but Clara knew from experience that magic was ideal for concealing things.
“Do we have any more information about what is actually happening? What are the coven up to?” Jamal asked as they moved toward the scene. Clara wondered if Adam had ordered the coven to do whatever they were doing or whether they’d acted of their own accord. Adam was the coven dynast; being the only sorcerer left in the coven after Arthur had been murdered, he ascended to the position by default, but since the rest of the coven had returned to Cedarstone he’d been met with some opposition. There were some sorcerers who felt that they were better suited for the role.
“According to the report, the sorcerers are trying to cast a spell to repel werewolves,” Bianca’s voice said over their headsets. Bianca had learned early on that she wasn’t cut out for fieldwork so William had given her the role of dispatch officer. She seemed to enjoy the job more and it made things easier for the team when they were out in the field.
“Repel werewolves?” Jamal repeated dubiously. “I’ve never heard of such a spell. Which isn’t to say it’s not possible.” He started fumbling in the leather pouch that he kept on his belt.
“Is Adam with them?” Clara asked.
“Don’t have any names,” came the reply.
“William, if you keep their eyes off me I can try to stop their spell,” Jamal said. He had some small black objects in his hand. Clara wanted to ask what they were but it wasn’t really the time for questions. William preferred her to stay in the background when they were on tasks such as this one; he still didn’t think she was ready to get fully involved.
“Alright, did you get that everyone? Keep their focus away from Jamal,” William repeated and the team murmured their understanding.
It didn’t take long to find the disturbance. Just inside the woods there were four sorc
erers in a clearing, all women, a wide circle of salt laid around them. One of the women was elderly, in her sixties at least, but the others were young. The older woman was Genevieve Laurent, Adam’s main opposition in the coven. She’d been nothing but a nuisance since arriving in town, she was responsible for most of the disputes with the pack. They had quite a file on her back at the station.
Inside the clearing, they’d set up a small alter on the stump of a tree. Clara could see an athame, a small cauldron and several velvet bags containing who knew what. The three young sorcerers were kneeling around the alter, hands linked and heads bowed, mid-ritual. At the edge of the circle stood Genevieve, her chin held up confidently. No doubt she was powering the salt and keeping the werewolves at bay, whilst the younger sorcerers performed the ritual to repel the werewolves.
Outside the salt circle stood three werewolves. It was dark but only a waxing moon hung in the sky, so they were in human form. Clara knew from that they would be stronger than usual, though. A werewolf grew stronger as the moon became fuller and weaker as it waned, but they could only transform on the full moon. That’s why SIT had grown to love the night of the new moon; it meant no trouble from the pack. If only the coven and the clan had a similar weakness. Clara recognised one of the werewolves as Connor Digby, the pack alpha.
“What’s going on here?” William asked, sounding bored. He probably was, the squabbling had been going on for months with no sign of any progress. Clara was growing tired of it herself.
“These crones are up to their voodoo in our territory,” Connor said aggressively as he walked round the circle to meet William. “We’ve just come to see them off.” Connor was something of a brute and diplomacy was not his strong suit. The war between the pack and the coven could have been resolved weeks ago if Connor would just negotiate, but he was too stubborn and block headed.
“This is our territory,” Genevieve said. She moved over to join them, remaining on her side of the salt, carrying herself in a regal way. Her voice was rich like treacle. “This has ever been coven territory. It is sacred to our people.”
“So sacred you abandoned it the moment the curse hit? It hasn’t been your territory for thirty years, witch,” Connor replied, snarling. “The council gave it to us.”
“The council which you helped to overthrow?” she asked pointedly.
“Stop it,” William ordered. “This fighting has got to stop. And tell them to stop whatever they’re doing.” William pointed at the three women knelt at the altar.
“I’m not going to do that, Inspector,” Genevieve replied politely. “They are in the midst of a ritual in which we have invested a great deal of power. I would not see that power go to waste.”
“What ritual?” Connor asked through clenched teeth.
“One that will stop you entering this land in your… more natural form.” She gave him a sardonic grin. Connor let out a loud grunt and slammed his fist into the invisible barrier that her salt spell had created. “Raising your hand to a lady? I find myself less than surprised.”
“You need to come to some sort of agreement,” William said. “You have got to compromise.”
“Werewolves don’t compromise,” Connor said roughly.
“The coven has already offered to relinquish our claim to the Woodlands territory if the werewolves will do the same for Wandworth,” Genevieve said. Clara wondered whether that proposal had come from Adam or from Genevieve.
“Both territories are already ours, you aren’t compromising you’re just making a demand,” Connor seethed. The other two werewolves remained silent, their eyes fixed on the sorcerers.
“Genevieve you need to stop what you’re doing now,” William instructed. “You’re in breach of the town’s rules.”
“The town’s rules or your rules, Inspector?” she asked, one long eyebrow raised.
“I’m enforcing the rules.”
“Rules which you set. Tell me something, how are you any different from the council?”
“The council would have killed you months ago, I’ve been more than tolerant,” William said in a low tone, it was almost threatening.
“The coven does not answer to you Inspector,” she said curtly. She started to turn toward Jamal, who had been walking around her circle depositing his small black objects in the grass.
“No, you answer to Adam. Did he authorise this?” Clara cut in, pulling her attention away from Jamal again. William shot Clara a glance which might’ve been congratulatory or reprimanding, either way, she ignored it.
“Clara Winters. You’re on the wrong side of the salt, you should be here with us, leading us,” Genevieve said softly.
“Adam is coven dynast,” Clara replied. It wasn’t the first time someone other than Adam had asked her to take leadership of the coven.
“He’s no dynast of mine. That role is reserved for you and as far as I, and many others are concerned, nobody else can fill it.”
“So he didn’t tell you to do this?” Clara pushed for an answer. Lesson one of interrogation: never be swayed from your original question.
“Adam Kent is more content to sit amongst books and ignore the situation at hand. He is happy to sit by whilst territories which belong to us, territories which are sacred and precious such as this one fall into the paws of these animals,” she spoke quietly but the vehemence was still clear, each word oozed with it.
“Something’s blocking the ritual, Mother,” one of the girls at the altar said as she looked up from her position.
“Yes, that would be me,” Jamal said. He was standing on the other side of the circle. “Jet stones. Used to negate the energy flowing from your circle,” Jamal informed her smugly.
Genevieve breathed in sharply, her face a tight picture of frustration. When she spoke her voice had a certain roughness to it that made her seem a lot less lady-like. “There is something deeply unsettling about you, Mister Rasul. Something that disturbs me even more than Mr Digby’s entire pack of savages.”
“If you say so,” Jamal said, not bothered by her words in the slightest. Clara held back a chuckle.
“You may have obstructed us this time, Inspector Marshall, but you will be unable to be present at every confrontation. Your numbers are too few. Consider that when you inevitably choose a faction to support. After all, it is the only way you will get the peace you claim to crave,” she said haughtily.
“It’s Detective Inspector actually,” he corrected.
She afforded him a small smile before turning away. She crossed the salt circle and with a twist of her ankle she brushed some of the salt aside, breaking the circle. Clara and the team braced themselves to stop Connor and his wolves from attacking them but were surprised to see the werewolves do nothing. Genevieve sauntered out of the circle. The three younger sorcerers gathered up their items and then hastily followed, glancing nervously back at the werewolves. Genevieve dragged out each step as they vacated the area, almost daring Connor to attack. Clara felt like pouncing on the wretched woman herself but knew that she wouldn’t have her job much longer if she did. After what seemed like an eternity, the sorcerers were finally gone and the team turned back to Connor.
“Next time she shows her face in our domains, I’m going to rip her face off,” Connor warned.
“We did you favour by blocking her ritual, now I want one in return,” William said, ignoring the threat.
“Well that depends on the favour,” Connor said, crossing his arms over his chest.
“No fighting this full moon. You keep your pack out of trouble and away from the clan and the coven.”
“I don’t think so, pal,” he replied at once, folding his broad arms over his chest.
“Maybe next time we’ll let them finish their ritual,” William threatened.
“Alright,” Connor said. “But this is the only time I’ll agree to this. Never again.”
“Fair enough,” William replied and then with a brief nod of his head he motioned for the team to follow him and he
led them away.
Clara followed, her heart pounding in her chest. It wasn’t the first time the team had had to deal with a situation like that and it wouldn’t be the last. The crisis had been averted this time but Clara knew that sooner or later one would arise that they would not be able to control.
*
CHAPTER TWO
Adam rapped four times on the door and waited. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides, Genevieve had a lot to answer for this time. A minute later the door eased open and Elizabeth stood in its frame. Her young face was bright red and she kept her eyes down, no doubt nervous due to her own involvement in Genevieve’s plans. But it wasn’t Elizabeth whom Adam had come to reprimand; he was only interested in the ringleader.
“I need to speak to your Mother,” Adam said and pushed past her. The girl made no attempt to stop him. At least one member of the Laurent family knew who was in charge.
He went straight through to the living room where he found Genevieve sitting rigidly in her high back armchair, sipping a cup of tea complete with a saucer. He resisted the urge to strike the cup and saucer from her hands.
She looked up with a bemused expression on her face. “Adam, what a-” she began, but he was in no mood for her nonsense tonight.
“What were you thinking?” he said forcefully. The more he looked at her the angrier he got.
“Am I to assume that you wish to speak about the incident with the werewolves in Wandworth this evening?” she asked calmly, not in the least bit bothered by his behaviour. Her lack of concern only angered him more.
“Is there another incident I could be referring to?” he demanded.
“Why don’t you take a seat,” she said, gesturing with one hand toward a free chair.
