by Rhys Lawless
I didn’t know how long it would take, and I wasn’t going to sit on my ass while he prepared it, so I got up and paced around the room, taking a closer look at his decor.
I approached the mantelpiece where numerous frames were placed on the shelf over it. There were pictures of other people posing with Graham. At first, I assumed it was his family until I came up against one of Caleb. He was much younger, and his hair looked different. I almost didn’t recognize him. I knew him as the silver-haired dude with the nose and eyebrow piercings who had stolen my heart. The guy staring at me in the picture was just a kid. A kid with a shaved head and glasses.
Was this how he’d looked when I’d met him before, when he’d gone undercover in the BLADE force? Was this who he had been before he’d erased his memory of us to protect a secret?
Sometimes I wished I hadn’t made the decision to forget everything Christian had made me do. Sometimes I wished I’d chosen to remember even if I couldn’t handle it. I wished I could remember Caleb and me. Remember falling in love with him for the first time. How did I feel back then? Did I freak out because I was attracted to another guy? Or did it feel as normal as it did now?
Sure, it hadn’t come easy to me this time around, but maybe old me found it even easier to be with Caleb. Had I always been attracted to men and had Christian made me forget that?
That had never crossed my mind. Could he have manipulated me that much that I had changed orientation? Surely I would remember that. But then again, I didn’t remember much, and the things I did, I wasn’t entirely certain if they were true. Sometimes it was better to live with lies than to know the truth, right?
Caleb looked happy in the picture. Even if Graham had committed unspeakable crimes, he had given him a gift. He had given him the witch community and a cause. Something to live for. He’d made him belong to something, to a coven, finding some sort of stability in his life after everything he had been through. And I was taking all of this away from him simply by being with him. How could I ever make it up to him and to everyone else I’d hurt? Could I even do that?
And when would Caleb realize he didn’t really love me and that his coven meant more to him than being with me? Because that was bound to happen. How could he love me?
“I said don’t touch my stuff,” Graham shouted behind me, and I jumped.
I hadn’t even heard him walking in, so I almost dropped the frame I was holding, but I steadied it in my hands and put it back in its place. I sat down on the couch again.
“Is it ready?”
“It is,” he said and opened his hand to reveal a green stone.
I reached for it, but before I could grab it, he closed his fist around it.
“Before I give it to you, tell me, why do you need it?”
I stared at him, unwilling to give an answer. He waited for one nonetheless, but I wasn’t going to back down.
“Fine,” he said and opened his palm to give me access to the stone.
I took it in my hand and inspected it. It looked real. Certainly felt real. Thankfully, I didn’t feel the urge to ground it to a powder and snort it. I’d take that as a win.
“What’s the spellword?”
“Protect,” he said slowly, as if it wasn’t a spellword at all but a threat to me.
“You’re not going to regret this.”
He sat down and crossed his legs.
“Something tells me I am.”
I stood up, about to leave, when I caught a glimpse of the frame again.
“Can I ask you something?”
His eyes narrowed and he didn’t blink.
“Has there ever been another witch hunter that found out the truth and decided to change?”
He answered almost immediately.
“Never.”
Was that true? There had never been another witch hunter to find out the truth and make a change in their life? I hoped it wasn’t.
“All the terrible things you did for Christian. How can you live with yourself?”
His frown deepened, and his mouth opened in shock.
“How dare you—“ he started, but I cut him off before he could continue.
“I’m not asking to make you feel bad. I’m asking for advice.”
“What advice?”
“How can you live with yourself after everything you’ve done?”
He pursed his lips and his nostrils flared.
“I did what I had to do to protect the many. That’s how,” he shouted.
“But I killed blindly. Sometimes I even enjoyed it.”
“I can’t help you with that,” he yelled.
I nodded and squeezed the spell before putting it in the inside pocket of my jacket.
“I guess…” he muttered behind me, and I turned.
I caught him rolling his eyes and taking a deep breath.
“At least you can live with yourself because you weren’t in control of your actions,” he said, and his honesty made me feel sorry for him.
As much as he was trying to hide it, he felt terrible about what he’d done. And I could definitely relate to that.
I thanked him and left his house. I could almost feel the energy blasting me out of his home, as if he’d put up the security the moment I left.
When I came out of the front garden and looked behind me, the house I saw was not the house I’d been in. The mansion I had walked out of was now derelict.
Clever man, protecting himself. Now I could protect others from myself too.
I decided to rent a bike to take home. At least that offered some sort of security and safety from harming others and didn’t mean I was exhausting myself, and it got to my apartment block a little after eight in the evening.
I rode the elevator, this time without any chance encounters with Mrs. Weatherby, and entered my apartment. As soon as I’d shut the door, I heard a knock.
“Speak of the devil,” I thought to myself and turned to open my door.
Mrs. Weatherby often knocked on the door to borrow things even after I’d told her a hundred times I didn’t cook.
It wasn’t Mrs. Weatherby.
Lloyd was standing on my doorstep. My partner up until four weeks ago. But it wasn’t just a social visit. He was bleeding. He had a big cut across his chest, and his eye was bruised. Blood was dried under his nose, and his left leg was twisted.
“Lloyd, what happened to you?” I asked and immediately put his arm around my neck and helped him inside the flat.
He yelped in pain with every step that we took until we reached the couch, and I helped ease him onto it.
“It’s—“ he started to say but choked on blood. I helped him turn sideways so he could spit it out and clear his throat. “It’s Christian. He’s back. And he’s killed them all,” he said, and the terror chilled my body. “He’s killed all the Blades.”
Seven
Caleb
“He’s the man who tried to kill me. He tried to kill you. And you want me to listen to him?” I asked Wade when I arrived at his apartment.
He’d sounded so panicked when he was on the phone, I’d literally dropped everything and raced to his house. The taxi I had taken had cost me a fortune, and after discovering what had got him so upset, I wasn’t sure it was worth the cost.
Lloyd Jenkins. Witch hunter and asshole extraordinaire. The man who’d chased after us the entire time Wade and I had been trying to swap hearts and find out the truth about the high council murders. The man that had chased us down the streets of Whitechapel to kill us. And Wade wanted me to help heal him.
“Look, Caleb. Lloyd has been lied to all his life too. Okay? He may not have been controlled by Christian, but he was still told all the crap they taught us at the force. He needs a second chance too. And he doesn’t have much time left,” Wade begged me, his eyes red and swollen.
I couldn’t understand why, but he really cared about this dude. And if Wade cared about someone, then I cared about them too. That didn’t mean I had to like them.
“Fine. But I’m charging him.”
Wade tugged at my shoulder and gave it a squeeze.
“I’ll pay you,” Wade said.
I sighed and let go of him. Lloyd had been lying in Wade’s bed, which meant both of us would have to go bed shopping if we were to have a decent night’s sleep ever again. Wade had tied cloths and T-shirts around Lloyd’s wounds to stop the blood flow until I got here. The man was barely conscious but still flinched when I sat down on the bed next to him.
“He-he-a…witch,” he groaned, a barely audible sound.
“Well done, Sherlock. You win,” I said and removed a green crystal off my bracer and placed it over him.
I didn’t normally carry healing stones with me, and I didn’t keep many at home, just enough to stock the first aid kit, but since both Wade and I almost lost our lives, repeatedly, over the span of three days, I’d made sure to get enough to avoid a recurrence.
I couldn’t use Nora anymore. Since she’d sacrificed herself twice for me, and I’d made a promise to myself and to Annabel that I’d never use her abilities ever again, not even for small things.
“Cura,” I said, and the crystal exploded all over Lloyd, encasing him in green iridescent dust like a fancy Egyptian mummy, and within seconds, his body absorbed it, leaving no trace of his wounds.
“What the fuck did you just do to me?” Lloyd said as soon as he felt well enough to sit up.
“You’re welcome, asshole,” I told him.
He had just cost me four hundred pounds, and he wasn’t even grateful. Why did Wade even like this guy? He was a puny little bastard.
“Lloyd, he just saved your life, idiot. The least you can do is be grateful,” Wade shouted at him.
Lloyd grimaced and edged away from my touch before giving me a half-assed thanks.
“I thought you’d be done with him after everything that happened,” he said. “You lost your job because of him.”
Wade laughed. “Oh, Lloyd, you don’t know anything, do you? Come on. I’ll make coffee, and you can tell us what happened.”
He grabbed Lloyd by the back of his neck and pushed him in the direction of the living room. Wade gave me a quick glance and an eye roll and disappeared next door while I stood up and inspected the bed.
Was it salvageable? I’d used cleaning spells before, but Graham was a bastard and charged a fortune for them, and I wasn’t asking him for any favors again.
Ah, fuck it. I’d buy us a new one. Maybe one of those new memory-foam beds with the human name should do it. And I could put a protective spell around it so it never got dirty. Hopefully, the spell wouldn’t even be needed, but you never knew in this world.
I joined them in the living room where Lloyd sat on the couch and Wade was over at his kitchen brewing an espresso for the asshat I’d just saved.
“Tell us what happened. Christian is back?” I asked him, and he glared at me as soon as I addressed him.
“I’m not talking to a witch.”
I crossed my arms in front of my chest and stared right at him.
“Listen, you little douchebag. If it weren’t for your friend and me, Christian would have become an unstoppable monster and would have killed all witches.”
“Good. Then we’d be rid of your scum.”
“And who do you think he’d go after next? Once he’d got his fix from all the witches? Oh…wait. He already has.” Lloyd looked away from me and bit his lip. “The problem is, he should be dead. If he isn’t, we’ve got a problem. So talk, for fuck’s sake.”
Wade approached with a cup and handed it to Lloyd.
“You can trust Caleb. He’s a good guy,” he said and put his hand on the small of my back.
The look on Lloyd’s face said it all. Not only was he shocked Wade was still working with “the enemy,” but he was also in awe that Wade was touching me in such an intimate way.
“Fine,” he finally said and looked down at his coffee as if he was looking for liquid courage.
And it turned out he did need it because what he had to say wasn’t easy.
“I don’t know where to start.”
I didn’t want to be the cliché guy that said from the beginning, but that’s exactly what I did.
“I don’t know where the beginning is. When you and Winston were dismissed, Carter cracked the whip on the rest of us. Anyone who had been close to you guys was put under the microscope to find out if there were any other traitors. But everyone in the force wanted to know what happened to you, and most importantly what happened to Christian.
“So Carter told us everything. He told us about the Nightcrawlers and what Christian truly was, and then he said that you and Winston stopped him with the help of a witch. He said the only reason he wasn’t going to go after you was because of what you achieved but warned us against witches and Nightcrawlers.
“We’ve all been assigned classes to catch up on all the shit Christian kept from us. To be honest, most of us feel that’s all we’ve been doing. Witches trails have gone cold since you left, but there have been numerous incidents of magical activity around London.”
“The ley line surges,” I mumbled.
Lloyd shrugged.
“Yeah, whatever that’s supposed to mean. Everyone was starting to feel deflated, and there had been whispers about the force being better under Marlowe’s direction even though he was evil.”
I huffed. “Evil doesn’t begin to cover it. Did Carter tell you that Christian had performed blood magic on Wade and his brother that made him control their every action, every thought, every memory?” I yelled. Not at Lloyd in particular, but everything he represented.
“What?” he asked.
Wade dismissed the subject as if it was nothing.
“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you later. We’ve got more important stuff to talk about now,” Wade said. “Tell us about the attack.”
“The attack.” Lloyd nodded and looked at his coffee again. “He came out of nowhere. He didn’t look like himself. He was furious. His eyes were—I don’t know how to describe it—like, possessed. Some of us didn’t know how to react. If he was back, did that mean Carter had lied to us?
“Then Carter came out of his office and ordered everyone to arm themselves, but it all happened in a flash. Carter was the first to be killed. Christian put a sword right through his heart. Then, all hell broke loose. We tried to kill him, but nothing seemed to faze him. I’d never seen him like that before. So inhuman.” The emptiness in Lloyd’s eyes told me he’d been scarred for life. I knew first-hand what it was like to witness such destruction. I felt for the guy.
“He never was human. He hasn’t been in a very long time,” I said, and Lloyd nodded.
“He killed so many. I-I had to…” Lloyd welled up, and he stopped to sniff and compose himself.
“Whatever you had to do, you had to. To survive,” Wade told him.
“I pretended I was dead,” Lloyd admitted. “While he killed everyone, I pretended I was down for good. I…”
He broke down in tears and finally let a side of the real Lloyd show. I liked this side of him more than the hateful asshole he had been earlier.
“He would have killed you if you hadn’t. There was no way you could stop him, Lloyd. There was no way anyone could.” Wade sat down next to him to put his arm around his ex-partner.
“I could have tried. I—“
“No. You couldn’t. You’d be dead if you had, and we wouldn’t know any of this,” I said, and he hesitantly raised his eyes to meet mine.
“If we can’t stop him, how can you?”
I wanted to tell him I was powerful enough to end him once and for all. I wanted to tell him that the witches could get rid of him for good. But I couldn’t in good conscience do that. So, instead of lying, I shrugged.
“Don’t know yet, but I’ll find a way.”
“Lloyd, was there anyone else who survived?” Wade asked, but right then a loud knock disturbed the tension in the room.
&n
bsp; “Are you expecting anyone?” I asked as we both jumped and gestured for Lloyd to stay quiet.
Wade shook his head slowly, and I tiptoed to the door, careful not to leave a shadow underneath the crack.
“It’s just Winston,” I said and opened up.
Winston barged in with Hew in tow, and Lloyd stood up to get a better view of both of them.
“Another witch? What is going on with you two?” he said, looking at Hew and his jewel-loaded choker.
“I heard what happened at HQ. What are you doing here?” Winston said to Lloyd, decidedly ignoring his comment.
“Lloyd was there when it happened,” Wade said.
Hew stepped closer to Lloyd and inspected his blood-soaked clothes.
“How did you survive? No one else did,” Hew said, and Lloyd flinched away from him. “Also, I’m only half-witch, if you must know.”
“How do you know no one else survived?” Wade asked.
“After we heard, we went to HQ, and Hew spoke with everyone,” Winston said.
That made sense.
“What do you mean spoke with everyone? Everyone died,” Lloyd yelled.
Hew put his hands in front of him and gestured for Lloyd to keep it down.
“Calm your tits, man. I spoke to their spirits. I’m a psychic.”
Lloyd took a few steps back and collapsed on the sofa.
“You’d think I told him I was the president of the United States with that kind of reaction,” Hew said and rolled his eyes.
“He faked his own death so he could escape,” I told Hew. “Did none of the dead Blades see Lloyd leave the force?”
Hew shook his head.
“I think they were all a tad too shocked after what happened that they didn’t get a chance. Half of them wouldn’t even talk to me because they thought they were still alive and I was an intruder,” he said and laughed. “Idiots.”
“Hey!” Lloyd shouted. “Have some respect for the fallen heroes, will ya?”
Hew crossed his arms and smirked.
“Fallen heroes? Puh-lease. Catch up with the times, dude. You’ve been feeding a dhampir all these years, and your best hunters have switched sides. That should tell you how much of a hero you are,” Hew said and raised an eyebrow when Lloyd turned to look at Winston.
