by Sean Stone
“Ashby, what’s in Ashby?” Toni asked.
“It’s vampire territory,” Adam said, but it wasn’t them that he was worried about.
“But we just made a truce with them, why would they have Holly?”
“We need to get the coven together,” Adam said, pulling out his phone.
“Over some vampires? Shouldn’t we talk to Richie or Victor first, it might be a misunderstanding,” Toni said.
“It isn’t just vampires in Ashby, Toni. It’s Bartholomew Road. That’s where the Thirteen are.”
*
James stood in the garden of number thirteen Bartholomew Road asking himself whether he could really go through with what he’d been asked to do. He’d killed people for Jonathan Langford over the years, murdered them without blinking but something about a ritual sacrifice just seemed like a step too far. Kristen was stood by his side, the other disciples were surrounding them in a circle, with the exception of Jamal who rarely came to the house, and Lucien who could not come out in the sun due to his vampirism. Nick was stood at the head of the circle, watching intently. In the centre of the circle, strapped down on a simple wooden table was Holly Mitchell. James had never met her before and didn’t know the woman remotely but that didn’t make his task any easier. Around her wrists were two thick iron bracelets that Kristen had assured James would block the sorcerer’s power.
Nick had given James the bracelet from Alistair’s shop this morning; apparently he’d been and had the chat that Alistair wanted but had told nobody what the conversation had been about; at least that’s what they were telling James. Kristen had enchanted the bracelet to be used as a device to harbour magic and it now clung tightly to James’ right wrist. It felt unnatural, an alien object that shouldn’t be there, in time he would get used to it, he’d have to. When he looked at it and saw his son’s name he was was reminded of his reasons for becoming a disciple and it helped to ease his objections.
The sun glared down on the circle and James had to squint to see clearly. He’d expected the ritual to take place at night but Nick had insisted on doing it as soon as possible. The ritual was no less effective during the day it seemed, contrary to what James had thought. He knew that some rituals could only be cast in accordance with the phases of the moon but this was clearly not one of them.
There was an impatient murmur from someone to James’ right and Kristen nudged him in the back. James glanced at Nick but his face was neutral. Finally, James stepped forward. He approached the sorcerer slowly, he still didn’t fully trust the bracelets, although if they weren’t working she would surely have tried to flee by now already. Kristen followed behind him, as his mentor, it was her job to guide him through the ritual. Everywhere he went she was there. He didn’t go to many places but he was allowed free roam of the house now. He didn’t mind her company, he was actually growing quite fond of her, but a little privacy from time to time would be appreciated. He supposed that they didn’t fully trust him yet and it was her job to keep an eye on him. Maybe after this ritual that would change.
James should have been more excited, according to Nick he was about to become the first werewolf-warlock in history. There was a chance that his werewolf genes would reject the magic but Nick believed the chance was slim, if a vampire could do it then why not a werewolf? It was hard to get excited, though. James had spent years fighting the supernatural. He’d spent years being ashamed of becoming one when he’d been bitten all those years ago and now he was going to willingly cast himself even further into the supernatural world. All he needed was to become a vampire too and he’d have the full triangle. He kept the end goal in his mind at all times; a cure for lycanthropy. A chance to reconcile with his son. Nick had promised it and all the disciples said he was a man of his word. Of course, it relied upon Nick actually acquiring the power to cure James which as of yet he did not have.
James reached the table and stopped beside it. Holly was awake. Her eyes were wide with terror but she wasn’t moving, she must have been paralysed — hopefully by magic rather than physical force. She had a gag wrapped around her mouth but James could still hear her trying to speak through it. Kristen flicked her wrist and a fire sprung to life at the foot of the table. Then she reached down and ripped the gag off Holly and cast it into the flames. James looked at her questioningly.
“Hearing her pleas is part of the initiation. You have to choose us over her and she has to be given the chance to sway you,” Kristen explained. That particular aspect of the ritual seemed unnecessarily cruel. The task was hard enough, but of course, there was always something to make things worse.
“What is going on?” Holly asked, her voice was quiet and croaky where she hadn’t drunk for some time. She’d been locked up in the cellar for days. James ignored her. The best way to stop himself from feeling any guilt was not to engage with he victim whatsoever, he’d learned that in his previous job. Think of her only as the victim — never give them a name.
Kristen took out a knife from her jacket pocket and held it over the table for him.
“I thought I was using this?” he said and lifted his wrist to show the bracelet.
“That will take the power but you still need to use something to kill her, remember?” Kristen said. He did remember, she’d already explained the process to him in Alistair’s shop.
“What? You’re going to sacrifice me?” Holly demanded, her voice as loud as it would go. James ignored her and took the knife. The sun reflected off the blade and caught his eye making him squint.
“Heat it in the flames,” Kristen instructed and James did so. “The fire purifies the blade so the magic can flow untainted.”
“I don’t know who you are but you really don’t have to do this. We can make some kind of arrangement, can’t we?” Holly said. James withdrew the knife and returned to the centre of the table.
“I have to kill you. To get your power,” James replied, refusing to meet her eyes. He shouldn’t have engaged with her but he found he just couldn’t kill her without some sort of explanation.
“Warlocks,” Holly said, understanding dawning on her. “You’re the Thirteen.”
“Well, not yet,” James replied. Then he found that he wanted to give her something that he’d never given to any of his other victims, he felt he owed it to her. “I’m sorry that I have to do this. I’m sorry you have to die. But you need to understand that it is completely necessary.” He’d never explained his actions to his victims before. He’d always been a cold killer. But he found that telling Holly why he was killing her somehow helped to justify it in his own head. He doubted that it helped her in any way but that was irrelevant, she’d be dead in a few minutes and wouldn’t feel anything at all.
“For what?” The pleading was gone from her voice, she’d accepted her fate, now she just wanted to know why.
“For me to get the life that was stolen from me. To get my freedom back. To stop being a beast.”
“A beast?”
“A werewolf.”
“With enough magic maybe you will be able to stop being a werewolf, but if you go down the path of a warlock you will never stop being a beast,” Holly said and looked straight into his eyes. He held her gaze. It didn’t deter him.
“Then I’ll just have to find a cure for that too.” He jammed the knife into her chest before she could say another word. She let out a strangled gasp and her eyes widened. James didn’t break eye contact. He watched her eyes mist and fade until they became lifeless orbs in her head. He closed his own eyes so nobody would see the regret in them. The shame. Of all the kills he’d performed this one was the hardest. It was the only one he’d been given a choice about. Jonathan had always ordered him to kill, there was never an option; it was kill or be killed. Nick had given James the choice and he’d still chosen kill. Did that make him a bad person? Maybe. But he’d still do it again. And again and again and again. Whenever there was the chance that he could be human and have his son back it would do whatever needed
to be done.
The air that had been silent and still started to whistle as the wind around him picked up. He felt his hair and clothes start to ruffle as the wind grew stronger and stronger. The knife which he was still clasping starting to vibrate violently but he didn’t let go, he knew he had to hold on or he’d lose the power. He opened his eyes and saw the fire at the foot of the table explode to life and shoot up twenty feet in the air. Then it dropped back down in an instant. With a great whooshing sound, it darted around encircling him, Kristen and Holly. It leapt into life again, shooting up twenty, maybe thirty feet in the air, and cut off his view of everyone else. The vibration from the knife turned into a shaking like that from a rodeo bull in a Texas steak house. His bracelet started to shake as well and looking down he saw that it was glowing gold in the afternoon sun. Suddenly the fire leapt up twice its height again, the wind that had been swirling around him hit him full on in the chest, knocking him back a step and then just like that it was all gone. The air was silent and still and the fire was dead. All that remained was charred grass and the corpse of a young woman.
“You can let go now,” Kristen said and nodded at his hand which was still gripping the knife. He released it and took a step back. Is that it, am I a warlock now?
“Congratulations, I knew you wouldn’t disappoint,” Nick said as he crossed the charred grass toward them. “You’re a fighter, you’ll do whatever it takes to get what you want, isn’t that right?”
“Absolutely,” James said quietly. He fought hard not to show any signs of remorse in front of Nick. He had to be strong, merciless.
“Welcome to the team, James.” He turned to address the others. “We can once again call ourselves the Thirteen!” he shouted to cheers from the other disciples. Why thirteen, though? What’s so special about that number?
“What now?” James asked, keeping his voice steady and even. He felt unwell and wanted to get back to his room as soon as possible. It was the one place that Kristen allowed him to be alone.
“Kristen will teach how to control your new abilities, how to make them your own and then we can get to work.”
“What about my cure?” James asked bashfully.
“You’ll get it as soon as I have the power to deliver it. There're a few things we need to do before I can perform the ritual that will give me the power. Don’t worry, though, you’ll get what I promised you,” Nick assured him. James didn’t really trust him, though, Nick had promised him speed once and then supplied him with washing powder. The more pressing question was what Nick really wanted with the power he sought. It wasn’t just to cure James of lycanthropy, there was something else, but what?
Nick gave James leave to return to his room and get used to feeling of having magic inside him. As soon as James got there he went straight to his bathroom and threw up.
*
CHAPTER TEN
Clara sat behind her new desk in Winters Research Laboratories in the former CEO’s office. She’d taken the office for herself and moved the CEO’s office down the hall. She didn’t need an office because she wouldn’t be there very often, but her business advisor thought that it would be a good idea to have an office of her own, he thought it would remind everyone who the company belonged to. She could have chosen a smaller office but she felt that she should have the one that both her father and grandfather had occupied before the company was taken over by Jonathan Langford. Even though he hadn’t occupied the office for years, she felt close to her father being inside it. The only place she didn’t like, the only place she wouldn’t go was the balcony. It was the balcony that Nick had thrown her father from. The concrete paving slabs below had been replaced but Clara could still see the blood pooled on them when she looked, it was a memory that she would never forget.
Jamal shuffled the papers he was looking through from the sofa and continued reading. The two of them were barely apart these days. He’d done some sort of magic — which he wouldn’t explain to her — that allowed him to track her movements so that every time she went somewhere unexpected he appeared to make sure she wasn’t going to Bartholomew Road. He was invading her privacy and treating her like a child. She’d considered reporting him to William, but she knew that if William knew she was planning on going after Nick then he’d tell Jamal to watch her constantly anyway, he might even have her locked up. Clara knew that he was more than willing to imprison people illegally, it was how she’d learned the truth about SIT in the first place — when William had locked up Isabella Redmane because he thought it was for the good of the town. What was not good for the town was Nick, but nobody seemed to care about the threat he posed. They were all too scared. He was back in town now and Clara had to find a way to destroy him. She couldn’t do that without magic. And Alistair said that the only way to access her magic was to confront Nick. She wasn’t stupid, she needed a plan before she confronted him. She needed more than just a plan, she needed a weapon. There was no weapon that could kill Nick but if she could hurt him long enough to escape after activating her powers then that would be good enough. If confronting him even did activate her powers; Alistair hadn’t said it was a sure thing, but she had confidence that it would work. Jamal thought otherwise, he was adamant that the only thing a confrontation would achieve was her death. But he hadn’t gone to William about what she was planning so she assumed that meant he was going to help her. They hadn’t spoke much about it since leaving Alistair’s.
The phone on Clara’s desk buzzed and the woman who she’d been told was her assistant spoke through the intercom. Her name was Sally — or Susan — Clara couldn’t remember.
“Mr Bryson to see you, Miss Winters,” she said. Clara had told her to call her Clara but it would seem that she didn’t want to. Clara wasn’t sure what her assistant would do when she wasn’t in her office, which was going to be most of the time, but her business advisor had said that wasn’t an issue.
“Send him in,” Clara replied, then she realised she hadn’t pressed the intercom button and doing so said it again. Jamal snorted from the sofa and Clara shot him a frosty glare.
The glass doors slid open and Timothy Bryson stepped in. He wasn’t a remarkable-looking man, average height, simple side-parted, dyed brown hair and a heavily wrinkled face. He wore a smart three-piece suit. After hours of trawling through files on each of the board members Clara, William, Phil and Jamal had agreed that Timothy was the best candidate for CEO. He’d served as the chief financial officer for over 10 years and had always remained loyal to the Winters family, to the point where he had been excluded from Jonathan Langford’s inner circle when he’d taken over the company. The entire organisation knew about the supernatural, the pharmaceutical research was a front for the real research, but only a few select people knew about what Langford was up to. As CFO, it was likely that he’d managed to catch glimpses of Langford’s secret research. Clara had fired everybody who had been in Langford’s inner circle, she was taking no risks.
“Miss Winters, it is a pleasure to meet you,” Timothy said as he shook her hand.
“And you Mr Bryson. This is my associate, Jamal Rasul,” she said indicating Jamal who stood up and shook hands with Timothy. “I understand that you knew my father?” Clara asked as they proceeded to the sofa area.
“Yes, your grandfather too. They were good people, I’m only sorry that I couldn’t do more for them,” he replied as they sat down.
“What do you mean?” Clara asked.
“There was nothing I could for your grandfather but when your father lost the company — or rather, had it stolen from him — I should’ve looked into things more thoroughly. I might even have been able to reverse things. That’s why Jonathan kept me out of the loop, he knew where my loyalties were.”
“Why didn’t you do more?” Clara knew that her questioning was harsh but she needed to know that she could trust him to run her company. Clara had suggested that William use his mind control power to make Timothy follow their instructions, but apparent
ly the researchers at the labs developed a way to counteract the vampiric ability.
“I was scared. Jonathan had defeated wizards, witches, werewolves and even vampires. How could I beat him?” Timothy said. He shook his head and looked away. “I hid my head beneath the sand and got on with my life.”
“Are you scared now?” she asked. He seemed genuine enough.
“Jonathan Langford is dead,” he said, looking at her as if waiting for her to prove him wrong.
“And Nickolas Blackwood is here instead.”
“I don’t know who that is,” he replied and she believed him.
“Probably best to keep it that way,” Jamal said, and Clara agreed.
Clara pulled her jacket into a more comfortable position. She wasn’t used to wearing business clothes and hadn’t worn a suit since her application to the police force.
“You probably know why I’ve asked you here,” she said and smiled.
“I’ve got some ideas, but I wouldn’t like to presume anything,” said Timothy. He returned her smile.
“I’d like you to be CEO,” she said. “Will you take the job?”
“I think the company would look better being steered by a Winters once again. May I ask you why you don’t want the job for yourself?” he said.
“I don’t know anything about business,” she admitted, perhaps unwisely. Besides, she wanted adventure, not a desk job.
