by Rhys Lawless
Wade gazed at me, and so did Winston, expectantly, as if I had the answer to everything and the magical fix-it-all. I wish I did, but I was far from the powerful witch they thought I was.
“What happened? How do you know he was abducted?” I asked.
Winston took a deep breath as he relived the events of his lover’s disappearance, and I tried to pick up any details he might have thought irrelevant.
“We were supposed to go and offer our services to the Crow. He’s friends with the owner, and he wanted us to convince the guy that I could work security some nights to help keep everyone safe. You know, build the trust and everything.
“We were meeting outside the pub so we could go in together. He was already waiting when I got there, and all I had to do was wait for the traffic lights and cross the street. But I didn’t get a chance.
“A black SUV appeared out of nowhere and stopped in front of the Crow. When it was gone, so was Hew,” Winston said. “I tried to follow them, but the van was going at a crazy speed, and I lost them. I was going to use my connection with him to keep hot on their tail, but as I was running and getting closer, I lost him. As if he…”
Winston closed his eyes and bit down whatever thought was gnawing its teeth in his head. It wasn’t difficult to guess. If the familiar bond was impossible to sever, then it was entirely possible Hew was…
No, he couldn’t be. The death of a mate was felt. I’d heard of way too many widowed witches succumbing to depression and oblivion after the loss of their mate.
Hew was still alive. I was sure of that. But something seriously dangerous was at play here.
“I think it’s time for the big guns,” I said, and both brothers lifted their gazes to meet mine.
“What do you mean?” Winston asked.
Instead of answering, I turned and scanned the crowd of EMTs, police officers, and field agents looking for the familiar face of my high priest.
“I’ll be right back,” I told them and gave Wade a gentle squeeze of the hand to reassure him, but he winced in pain.
“What’s wrong with your hand?” I asked him.
Wade looked from me to his brother and then back to me before he spoke.
“I broke it.”
“What? How?”
I’d only left him on his own for five minutes. What the hell did he get up to, to end up with a broken arm?
“I got ambushed by some witches,” he said and explained what happened at the alley. “I’m fine now. Go speak to Graham. It’s okay.”
I shook my head and wrapped my fingers around his arm.
“Not before I’ve fixed you,” I said and used another healing crystal on him.
If we kept ending up in trouble like this, I might have to mortgage our house to afford the healing spells we were going through.
Once I’d made sure he was fine and Winston was sort of okay, I left them to their own devices and approached Graham, who was analyzing some dust residue, and interrupted his concentration.
He turned to look at me, questions in his eyes.
“Did you find something?” he asked.
I shook my head. “It’s time you for you to help, though.”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” He chuckled and tried to return to the residue.
“For years, I’ve watched the high council give out orders and sit back while everything fell into place around them. Whenever something big happens, they take credit while the coven does all the hard work. And when things fail, it’s always the witches under their servitude who take the fall.”
“That’s what the high council is there for, Caleb-boy. They make the hard decisions and make sure we are safe.”
“Are you seriously still taking their side after what they made you do? No! That’s not what the high council is. They don’t work hard. We are the ones working hard to keep us and them safe. But it’s time they played their part.”
“What do you mean?” Graham asked.
“They are some of the strongest witches, aren’t they? It’s time they showed us their strength and help us stop Christian and the witches who are out of control. You need to set up a meeting.”
Graham shook his head with uncertainty.
“I don’t think that would be a good idea, Caleb. You’re not in their good books.”
“Good. They’re not in my good books, either. We’ve got something in common. Set up a meeting. Now,” I yelled and made sure he got the message. If he didn’t do what I told him, there would be consequences. High priest or not, I’d make him pay.
Graham fidgeted as he tried to get his phone out of the pocket of his jacket, and he flipped the antique phone, which he considered more secure, open.
As soon as the device touched his ear, he spoke on it.
“We need to talk. Things are getting serious,” Graham said.
“I’ll say.” I huffed, and Graham reached up to block the microphone with his hand and gave me an evil glare.
“When?” he said. I pointed my finger at the ground, and he said, “Now.”
Then, as quickly as he’d made the call, he ended it and slipped his phone back into his pocket.
“And?”
“Let’s go,” he said, giving up on trying to convince me otherwise.
I glanced at the ambulance and whistled. Both Winston and Wade looked at me and stood as soon as I called them.
“No, no, no, Caleb. You can’t bring witch hunters to the council. They will punish you. They will punish all of us,” Graham shrieked.
“Non. Negotiable,” I said to him very slowly so that he got every part and understood the meaning.
“Where are we going?” Lorelai asked as she joined us and once both Rawthorne brothers were next to me.
“It’s time I introduced Wade and Winston to the high council,” I said.
Graham’s despair showed on his face, and I couldn’t help but be amused by it.
Even though he tried not to show it, I could tell Wade was nervous about meeting with the high council. He kept biting his lip and taking deep breaths.
I couldn’t blame him. After all, they’d played such a big part in his career, even if they’d kept behind the scenes, and he owed them a lot of his guilt and shame.
Graham, Lorelai, and the three of us left the crime scene at the riverside behind us and headed for the City of London on foot.
As expected, Graham tried to change my mind about the brothers, but all I kept telling him was how non-negotiable it was. It was actually starting to irritate me. Graham had tried to convince me of how sorry he was for what he’d consented to do for them and for Christian, yet every step of the way he was only proving to me where his true loyalties lay.
Once upon a time, I’d considered this man the closest thing to a father that I’d ever had, yet with every word, every action, he was pushing me farther and farther away from him, and I couldn’t make up my mind if I was more upset about what he’d done or about the death of our relationship.
“What can the high council do anyway?” Graham said as we approached London Bridge.
“It’s time they stopped being the puppeteers and got their asses into action,” I said. “They’re powerful witches. The least they can do is help out the victims at the river or the investigation at Xtasy. Although, I’d much rather they put their powers and connections to good use and found the witches that are causing these disasters.”
“Hear, hear,” Lorelai added.
“They won’t. They’ve sworn to stay out of the field. It’s the only way to stay neutr—“
“Neutral? Really? Was it neutral sacrificing young witches to Christian? It’s not time to be neutral, Graham. It’s time to act. Before a war breaks out and they are forced to take a side that’s only going to make things worse,” I shouted.
A group of friends boozing in the beer garden of a pub all stared at me with terror written in their faces.
We stopped in front of The Shard, London’s tallest high-rise, which took its n
ame from its shape. Four sides meeting at the top like shards of glass.
Graham looked up.
“What?” I asked.
“We’re here.”
“What do you mean here? Like, here, here?” I said, pointing at the skyscraper.
Graham nodded and headed for the entrance.
“You can’t tell me the high council is based in a fucking skyscraper. That’s ridiculous,” I said, but Graham didn’t seem to hear me anymore.
He approached the front desk and placed his arm on the surface, leaning casually on it.
“Here for H.C. Ward. Name is Durham. They’re expecting us,” he said.
The man at the desk typed something on his keyboard and nodded in approval.
“Please use lift number thirteen, Mr. Durham,” he said and pointed to the lifts.
As soon as we approached number thirteen, the doors slid open and we all entered before the doors shut, and we were hoisted up into the skies.
I would never have thought the governing body of the coven would be based in the city. I’d always expected them to be tucked away underground in the catacombs of old London, sitting on thrones made of gold and velvet.
I expected the lift to stop on the second or third floor, or even the tenth, but instead, it kept going. It went past the twenties, the thirties, and even the forties. We eventually came to a stop on the sixty-sixth floor, and when the doors opened, I was the first to step out.
There were witch security guards every few feet, all holding staffs that were decorated with intricate spells that I could sense even from afar how strong they were.
They all inspected us as we walked past them. The walls behind them were decorated with famous paintings from across the ages. I noticed some Dalis, some Picassos, and some William Blakes among others I wasn’t familiar with. Something told me, however, considering where we were and the security level, that those things weren’t knock-offs.
“Where even are we?” Wade groaned.
“I know,” I said as we followed Graham down corridors, which he was way too familiar with despite their intricacy.
“Nice to see how the other half lives, huh?” Lorelai said.
I didn’t get the chance to agree with her or tell her if we kept the café that we’d be requesting a significant pay rise because Graham stopped in front of a white set of doors and knocked.
The knock sounded ominous, and I couldn’t help feel a knot in the pit of my stomach. I was hoping I was doing the right thing. After everything that had happened, I shouldn’t have come here, but I had to at least try, right?
We heard a loud unbolting sound and the door swung open slowly, letting us into a dimly lit boardroom with the night skyline of London as the background.
People in suits were sat behind a long, u-shaped table, all looking serious and sinister.
“Graham,” said a witch in the middle. I recognized her as high priestess Matilda, “You’ve…brought company.”
She looked a lot different than when I’d met her before. While she’d been dressed casually when she’d introduced herself to me five years ago, she was now dressed to a T in a black trouser suit, her blonde hair stretched in a bun at the crown of her head.
Had she dressed down to meet me so she could appear friendly and down-to-earth, or was this her uniform?
“Caleb insisted,” Graham said, and I could have punched him if I wasn’t busy scanning the rest of the room, spotting more people I’d met over the years, all looking vastly different than they had before.
“Is it national suit day today? Did I miss the memo?” I asked.
No one seemed to respond to my joke, so I turned to Wade, but he was standing still, looking whiter than the wall behind him.
“We should have dressed up,” I told Lorelai, and she nodded.
At least she wasn’t terrified of facing the high council. That was some consolation.
“Yes, I’ve got a great red suit at home. If Graham had told us, I’d have popped that on.”
“We are not here to discuss suits,” Graham said with a bitterness in his voice.
“Of course not,” I snapped back at him. “We’re here to talk about important issues. So, I’ll jump straight in, shall I?”
“What do you want, Caleb? Why are you even here?” Matilda asked, and gone was the friendliness she’d once had in her voice, replaced by a cold, calculating woman.
“I want you to act,” I said, raising my voice to match hers.
“What Caleb means—“ Graham chuckled awkwardly and stepped in front of me.
I put my hand on his forearm and shot him with his own fear.
“Never do that again. If I want to explain something, I’ll explain it myself,” I said, and he cowered in the corner so I could take control of this conversation.
“Well, you are here now. Speak, Mr. Carlyle. What do you want us to act on?” Matilda said.
I wasn’t going to be intimidated by her. These people disgusted me. They didn’t deserve my fear or respect.
“Don’t you know already? Christian is back stronger than before, and as if that wasn’t enough of a threat, witches are attacking humans in terrorist acts I’ve not seen the likes of ever before.” She didn’t seem to react to my words.
I scanned the room and right at the end, on the other side of where Graham was standing, I spotted Ash.
Ashton Beauchamp. The man I’d been hired to protect not too long ago and who had ended up in my bed instead. Or, me in his bed, to be more accurate. He might have been uptight about our relationship and wanting to keep it a secret, but he didn’t strike me as a bad guy.
Sure, he was filthy rich and didn’t want to recreate a gay, witch version of Pretty Woman by taking a working-class, poor little witch, but he couldn’t have known about the horrors the high council had committed. Did he? Had there been anyone on the board that was actually a good person who didn’t think crossing the line between good and evil was necessary to protect the witch world?
“And what do you suggest we do?” Matilda said sharply.
“What do you mean what should you do?” Lorelai shouted and stepped in front of me. “Come out and help us find those fucking witches. Are you people out of your mind? You’re sitting here like fucking investors when hundreds of people have lost their lives tonight alone!”
“Watch your language, Lorelai. You’re walking on very thin ice,” Matilda said.
At that, I laughed. I couldn’t stop myself. It was all I could do to keep me from spitting in their faces.
“She is walking on thin ice?” I shouted.
“I think we’ve heard enough,” Matilda said and stood up, pushing her chair back with a shrieking, hair-raising sound.
“You’ve not heard anything close to enough.” I growled.
Matilda’s eyes glowed as she slammed her hand on the trestle table.
“Your time is up, Caleb. You dare to bring witch hunters to our base after everything they’ve done, and you disrespect the entire council by shouting in our faces? No, we have heard more than enough. I’d suggest you leave now, before I decide you need to be punished for this insubordination.”
“What the—“
“We gave you a job to do, and you have failed miserably. This is your mess. You created it by trotting across London with a witch hunter up your ass, trying to prove what exactly? Christian is at large because of you. The ley lines are surging because of you. Everything that is happening is because of the decisions you made on that rooftop a month ago. Why do you think we assigned the job to you? It’s your fault, you fix it,” she said, and by the time she finished, she had to catch her breath.
I admired her passion and rigor, but I loathed every single word that had come out of her mouth.
“Are you people for real?” Wade said. “You call yourselves a council, yet you throw a member of your coven in the water with a rock and you expect him to float?”
Matilda glanced at him with a sour face and raised her hand to stop him.
“The high council doesn’t listen to witch hunters.”
“Maybe they should,” Lorelai shouted. “Because I’ll tell you what, nothing you’ve said has made any sense since we stepped into this room.”
“Lorelai, please. This doesn’t concern you,” a man to Matilda’s right yelled.
Lorelai shot him an evil glare.
“If you’re not going to hear from a familiar or a witch hunter, you will hear it from a fellow witch,” I said. “Maybe it is my fault that the ley lines are surging and Christian is at large. After all, I did decide to let myself get killed to save someone else. But does the entire high council know about your deal with Christian?”
“What deal?” Ash asked, and I gave him half a smile for giving me the sign I needed to know I was doing the right thing.
If Ash didn’t know, then perhaps there were more people in the dark than I’d thought.
“Whatever deal the high council made is none of your business, Caleb,” Matilda said.
“Oh, but it is,” I said. “And you better shut up now. You’ve said your piece, it’s time to say mine.”
Matilda gasped and her eyes glowed even brighter. So much so that her hands caught fire.
“Matilda! Calm down,” the guy who had shouted at Lorelai a few moments ago said.
She looked at him and took a few breaths, the flames dying down.
“Now that you’ve thrown your toys out of the pram, may I?” I asked, and she shook her head. I didn’t care. “I’m sure a lot of you know the deal you struck with Christian when I failed to retrieve his crystal. Because you people were scared I’d fallen in love with that asshole, and you didn’t know how to destroy him, so you decided to let me live without my memories of that year I went undercover and where I hid the crystal that bound his life. But you had to do something to save yourselves. Was it you, Matilda? Or was it someone else who went to Christian and offered him fledgling witches in exchange for your safety?”
“What do you mean, Caleb?” Ash pushed his chair back and came to stand in front of the boardroom.
“Graham was feeding Christian the names of new witches the council deemed weak. They had a quota to fill, you see. So, for five years, they sacrificed hundreds of witches to feed that monster.”
