I couldn’t help but notice her word choice. You got stabbed. She didn’t want to acknowledge the involvement of Grams in the incident any more than I did.
“It’s because I got stabbed that I have to be involved. If someone is going to take that asshole down, it has to be me,” I said, curling my knuckles onto the smooth wood table.
Dorian cleared his throat. Through our bond, I felt a hint of wariness and unease. “Laura has a point. Wagner obviously wants you out of the picture. As long as you’re alive, you’re a threat. He’ll do anything to take you out, and he has…well, he has your grandmother on his side. I worry what will happen when you inevitably come face to face with her again.”
My heartbeat roared in my ears as I kept my gaze focused on the table. If I looked into the concerned faces of my friends, I didn’t know how long I could stay strong. Now was not the time to break down into tears. Now was the time to destroy our enemies. “It just took me by surprise. It won’t happen again.”
“And if she comes at you with a knife?” Anastasia asked, crossing her arms over her chest. “What will you do then, Zoe? Because I find it hard to believe you’d do anything other than stand there and take it.”
Blood rushed into my cheeks, and I whirled away from the table. “You’re asking me if I’d fight her.”
“Well, would you?” Anastasia asked.
Gritting my teeth, I closed my eyes and remembered the look on my grandmother’s face when she’d stabbed me in the heart. I’d never seen anything like it before. It was like she’d turned into something else, possessed by a darkness that had twisted her mind into thinking I was the enemy. But there’d been a moment. A flash of my Grams in there. Even if she was drowning in her magic, I knew her true mind was still alive. Somewhere in that soul of hers. “No one is going to attack Grams, whether I’m there or not.”
“Zoe,” Dorian said. “I know you’re hurting, and it’s hard to accept that she’s turned into this, but—”
“But nothing,” I said fiercely, turning to face them again. “She might be far gone, but she is still my grandmother, and I refuse to let her go without a fight. We will take down Wagner, get my grandmother back, and we will somehow fix whatever happened to her.”
Laura gave me a sad smile while Dorian crossed his arms over his chest with a frown. I could tell by the looks on their faces that neither one of them believed we could save her. They looked as though they felt sorry for me, a fact that only caused my fury to boil even more. Only Anastasia looked as though she understood.
“Sometimes, when a Daywalker is overcome by the bloodlust, we’re able to pull them back from the brink,” the vampire said with a nod.
“This is different,” Dorian said. “Her grandmother is not a hungry vampire. She’s a shadow, and they’ve never been known to turn away from their darkness once they’ve given into it. Once it’s done, it’s done.”
“Well, I refuse to give up,” I said. “We have to at least try. Either you can help me or not.”
Dorian let out a heavy sigh and shook his head. “Fine. But if it comes down to her life or yours, Zoe? I’m going to choose yours every damn time.”
There were now fifteen bone mages clustered in the Bone Coven’s living quarters. After the mansion had burned down several months before, the council members had moved into the two-level penthouse suite in a high-rise building downtown. One floor was dedicated to office space and coven business while the other floor consisted of bedrooms, a kitchen, and an expansive living space where the council could relax during off hours. Not that there’d been much time off lately.
While Dorian and I had been out of the country, Laura had ushered curious—and demanding—bone mages into the living room to wait for our return. They looked impatient and angry, to say the least. Several of them were pacing the floor, their faces lined with tension. When I walked in, they all stopped what they were doing to turn and stare. Three mages who had taken up residence on the sofa suddenly stood.
“Zoe Bennett? Are you our new Magister?” One of the younger mages asked—he had dark red hair and looked like he was only about fourteen or fifteen years old. Beside him stood an even younger girl whose hair was tucked behind her shoulders in tightly-bound braids. It was a stark reminder that the coven was far more than just the council members and the Enforcers I’d spent the past several months around. The Bone Coven was a community full of witches and warlocks of all ages. Mages who lived normal lives, going to work and raising families. And they needed our help.
I cleared my throat. “I’m, ah, not your Magister. But yes, my name is Zoe Bennett, and I’m here to try to answer any questions you might have.”
Another mage stepped forward—a man in his late forties with graying hair at his temples. “What’s happened to Magister Salvatore and the other council members? There’s rumors going around. Terrible rumors about a battle with the Sun Coven. People are saying the entire council is gone.”
“And what about the reports of demons on the news?” A girl about my age piped up from the back of the room. She wore dark, tight-fitting clothes, and she tapped the dagger at her waist. Hell, she looked a lot like me, but the tone of her voice grated on my nerves. “Seriously, it sounds like you’ve let the coven go to shit.”
Irritation boiled in my veins, but I tried to keep my nerves steady. I couldn’t blame her reaction, as annoying as it was. They’d heard rumors and stories and had no idea what was going on out there. And what they had heard sounded scary as hell.
Several of the mages all started talking at once, raising their voices to be heard over the other. Laura frowned and glanced my way, clearly uneasy by this onslaught. With a deep breath, I raised my hands in the air and waited for the commotion to die down.
“Okay, I know everyone is concerned by what’s going on, but we need to take this one question at a time,” I said. “Okay?”
The girl in the back grumbled, but everyone slowly nodded as they settled back into their seats. A dozen expectant faces looked up at me, and a strange sensation passed through my gut. I’d never in a million years expected to be in this kind of position—taking charge and trying to calm people’s fears. But strangely, I didn’t feel uneasy about being in the hot seat. I felt almost…empowered.
“Unfortunately, what you’ve heard about a battle at the Sun Coven is true,” I began slowly. “There was a very large fight, and we lost a lot of lives. Not a single council member made it, including the Magister. Now, I know this is scary and worrying, but we will get everything back to normal as soon as we can. Dorian, Laura, and I will be taking charge until we can find a replacement council.”
A hand shot into the air, and I gave the woman a nod.
“What about the Daywalker?” she asked, pointing to Anastasia. “What’s she doing here? I thought they broke the truce with us. Is that not true?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but Anastasia broke in before I could come up with a reasonable excuse for her presence in this room.
“Mages targeted my family, killing several of them. My father responded the only way he could, by dissolving the truce.” Anastasia crossed her arms and leaned against the door. “However, I know not all mages are the same, so I am here to help any way I can.”
A few grumbles went through the crowd, but I held up my hand again to stop them. One thing was for sure, I didn’t want anyone running off our Daywalker friend. She’d proven herself handy in sticky situations, and we could use the firepower right about now, especially next time we came up against Wagner.
“Isn’t Laura a blood mage?” one of the mages asked. “Why are we being led by people who aren’t even bone mages?”
“Well, it doesn’t stop there,” I said, taking a deep breath. Here was the moment I’d been dreading ever since that shadow mark had etched itself into my skin. But I’d decided to come clean, and now was the time to do it. If I was going to expect these mages to follow our hastily-formed council, they needed to know exactly who they were trusting wi
th their lives. It was time for me to shed the shadows and step into the light. “Anastasia is a Daywalker, Laura is a blood mage, though she has pledged herself to the Bone Coven, Dorian is a cursed Unbound, and me? Well, I’m a shadow mage.”
The room fell silent. Moments ticked by, and the only sound was the clock that hung on the wall. Everyone was stunned, clearly taken aback by my announcement. While they’d known the truth about those who surrounded me—except perhaps Dorian—they’d never dreamed of a shadow mage amongst them, let alone taking charge of the safety of the coven. They would likely not want to follow me, and if that were the case, then so be it. I wasn’t their Magister. I was only someone who had been thrust into this position until we could find a replacement.
“You don’t seem like a shadow mage,” the young girl finally said. “I thought they were mean and evil. Full of horrible madness.”
“Some of them are,” I said with a nod as I knelt down before her. “But just like anyone else, it’s our choices that make us good or bad, not the magic we’re born with. While I’m nothing close to perfect, I’m trying to do the right thing.”
“Are the demon rumors true?” one of the mages asked. “Are we under attack? Is another war coming?”
Frowning, I looked up and gave the woman a nod. Gasps filled the room, and one of the women began to cry.
“There’s a weapon,” I began, “that can cut holes in the veil. A warlock is using this weapon as well as a spell to bind and control demons. But what he doesn’t want to admit is that it only strengthens those creatures. They can become corporeal and engage in physical fights, and they’re immune to normal magic. We’re trying to stop him, but there may come a time—and soon—where we need all the fighters we can get. Trust me on this. I’ve faced these demons. They’re hard to fight and even harder to kill.”
The man nearest to me stood, his grave eyes locked on mine. “If this is true, then I don’t care if you’re bone, shadow, blood, or sun. We need a leader who has faced these demons and who has won.”
There were a few murmurs of dissent, but most of the mages stood from their seats and gave me solemn nods. Eyes wide, I turned to glance at Dorian, who didn’t look the slightest bit surprised. He merely gave a slight smile and a nod, agreeing with the mages before me. Somehow, I’d become their de facto Magister, the leader of the Bone Coven. And I’d never felt more scared and exhilarated in my life.
The leather-clad girl shoved through the crowd to stand before me. For a moment, my calm control slipped when I saw the flash of anger in her eye, though I wasn’t surprised. Even though most of the mages here were happy to follow me in this time of turmoil, I’d be an idiot to believe that everyone would go along with it, no questions asked. I wasn’t one of them, not truly, even though I’d grown up surrounded by bone mages all my life. And, to some, I’d always be a dangerous outsider who could snap at any moment.
But when she yanked her blade from her waist and pressed it to my throat, I realized far too late that she wasn’t a bone mage at all.
Chapter 15
Shouts rang up around me. The warlock only inches to my right raced forward and wrapped his arms around the mage’s neck before pulling her back. Dorian lifted me from the ground and carried me to safety. The girl seethed as she writhed against the man’s strong arms, her eyes shooting daggers that were as sharp as her knife.
“Let me go,” she said, squirming. “She needs to die.”
Dorian let go of my arms, and I stood tall, ignoring her repeated protests. “Take her to the interrogation room and prep an empty cell. One with no windows. Make sure there are plenty of wards.”
Taking a deep breath, I pressed a hand on the interrogation room door and called to my Intuition. There was no flicker of warning. No tingling on the back of my neck. Of course, there hadn’t been earlier either. It was if she knew I could tell when something was about to go wrong, and she’d somehow gotten around it. I’d have to ask her how she did that. Not that she’d confess.
“Are you sure you want to be the one to do this?” Dorian asked. “Or that we have to do this now?”
“She just tried to kill me,” I said. “I need to find out why, though I have a hunch already.”
“Wagner,” he said with a nod. “I bet you anything he sent her here when he found out that you hadn’t died in England.”
“That’s two assassination attempts in twenty-four hours,” Anastasia said. “Must be some kind of record.”
“How wonderful for me,” I said drily, turning back to Dorian. “We need to find out what she knows. It could help us form a plan to track down Wagner. He might have been one step ahead of us before, but he couldn’t have expected that we’d take her prisoner and question her. This just might be what we need to get the upper hand.”
“So,” I said, perching on the edge of the table, “how’s Professor Ivan Wagner doing these days? Was he disappointed to find out his plot to kill me didn’t work?”
“Not as disappointed as you were when you found out your grandmother wanted to kill you,” she said with a smile. “That must have been quite the blow. Literally and figuratively, of course.”
Her words grated on my raw emotions, but I kept my face blank despite every instinct to react otherwise. She was trying to rile me up, which meant I couldn’t let that happen. Otherwise, she’d win.
“He must have been pretty desperate to send you here.” I waved at our surroundings. “There was no way he could have thought you’d succeed in the middle of so many bone mages.”
“To be honest, we didn’t know you were having some super serious meeting to announce your shadow status,” she said. “I was just going to sneak in and do it when you were sleeping. I’ll have to say, your little coven friends surprised me. I thought your announcement would be a gift. Everyone would be pissed as hell that a shadow wants to take over the Bone Coven.”
“Sucks to be you,” I said, smiling back.
“Oh, don’t look so smug,” she said. “Wagner won’t stop. Eventually, a knife will hit you, and your vampire boyfriend won’t be around to save you. All it takes is one moment when your guard is down. And don’t even think about trying to block his tracking spell. It won’t work.”
Interesting. So, he’d been tracking me for awhile now. I wasn’t particularly surprised, but it was good information to have.
Unfortunately, the interrogation yielded absolutely nothing else of use. She fell silent only moments after she’d spilled the beans about the tracking, her lips held tight together as if they’d been glued. After an hour of an endless stream of unanswered questions, I gave up and returned to the living quarters to share what I’d learned with the others.
“Right. Wagner is tracking me,” I said to the room full of mages. A couple of the earlier visitors had joined us this time—they’d wanted to get involved in the fight even before Wagner put a hit out on me, so they were gung-ho now that things had developed even further. We’d taken a quick vote in the living room, and everyone had agreed to fight in the war.
“Not exactly a surprise,” Anastasia said. “Maybe you should put a stop to that.”
“No,” I said. “We’re going to do what he did to us. Set a trap. Let him track me. When he shows, we’ll be ready.”
“How can we be certain he’ll fall for it?” one of the mages asked. “Just because he’s tracking you doesn’t mean he’ll follow you wherever you go. If anything, he might be wary after failing twice in such a short time-span.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “He’s obviously impatient, and he wants me out of the picture as soon as possible. All we have to do is make it impossible to resist. And, while we’re at it, we’ll hunt some Nosferatu and get some more fangs, just in case the demons attack before this is all over. It’s going to be a long-ass night.”
And that was how I found myself roaming the grounds of Dorian’s castle seemingly by myself. Dorian, Laura, and Anastasia were inside the main building while I strode through the misty rain wi
th my hands shoved into my coat pockets. Anastasia had come up with the idea that Ivan Wagner might not just be tracking me. He could be tracking all of us. And if he was, he’d be able to spot a trap a mile away unless we did our best to mask the situation.
So, we’d returned to Britain. He might see that move as a quest to track down his location since it was the last place we saw him. By now, he’d no doubt already know about Dorian’s castle, so it would seem normal for us to use it as our base while we went on the hunt for him. And, if he tried tracking me now, he’d see me roaming the hills deep in thought—no doubt mulling over the fact my grandmother had tried to kill me—a thought I hammered home by pressing my hand against the fading wound by my heart.
“I know what you’re trying to do,” a familiar voice slithered out from behind me. Turning, I found myself face to face with Ivan Wagner. This time, he was alone, though the sweeping chill that followed close behind made me question just how alone he truly was. He might have come without another mage, but he hadn’t come unprepared.
Demons were lurking somewhere on these grounds.
“I think it’s probably obvious to anyone that we’re here in Scotland to find you,” I said. “Thanks for doing our work for us. I didn’t think it would be quite this easy.”
“You meant this to be a trap,” he said with a smile. “I think you forgot that when tracking someone, you can hear and see what they’re doing. That includes mysterious meetings in council conference rooms.”
Heat filled my cheeks, and I pressed my hand against my sheath. “Maybe that was part of the plan. Well done on falling for it.”
With a laugh, he shook his head. “Nice try. Go ahead and send out your signal. It won’t be answered, I’m afraid to say. Your friends inside the castle are currently…preoccupied, shall we say?”
“You’re lying.” I narrowed my eyes. “The castle is warded tight. There’s no way in hell you or anyone else could have gotten inside.”
Witch's Fury (The Bone Coven Chronicles Book 4) Page 7
