by Rhys Lawless
His frown deepened and his dark eyes flared with disbelief.
“Is this true?” he asked Matilda.
“Most of them didn’t have much of a future,” she said, and I felt a fire erupt inside of me.
“How dare you justify your actions. Even if they didn’t go on to become high fucking priests and priestesses, they still deserved a future,” I shouted.
“Wh-why? Why would you agree to this? Who else knows about this?” Ash asked and scanned the room.
No one reacted.
“Speak, people. Open your motherfucking mouths and speak.” He shouted this time.
We didn’t get a chance to find out if Ash’s words would spring anyone into action because the doors behind us burst open, and in a blur of fire and wind, Christian walked in, followed by Hew and the witch that had betrayed us, Danielle, and another dozen or so people behind them.
“Hew!” Winston shouted as the entire high council knocked their chairs over and grabbed for the crystals on their spellbooks.
Hew giggled and brushed Christian’s arm.
“Guess again,” Hew said in a higher pitch than his usual voice.
“Council, at the ready,” Matilda shouted, and everyone held their spells out.
“H-how did you get through,” I asked, but then I noticed the bloodbath behind them as the flames went down.
The security guards, the witches who’d been trained rigorously to keep the high council protected, were all dead.
“What a welcome,” Christian said, but his voice sounded deeper. Darker. “I’m only here to talk.”
“Attack,” Matilda shouted, and a pandemonium of words and spells and dust suffocated the room so terribly I could barely see what was happening in front of my nose.
I hyperventilated. My hands shook. I started to panic and tried to sense Wade’s position when the dust cleared and Christian, Hew, and the rest revealed themselves unscathed.
Hew was leaning forward, his face red, blowing at the dust, creating a whirlwind that drove the substance at the walls, painting it momentarily like a canvas.
“Hew, what are you doing?” Winston cried. “Why are you working with him?”
“What the hell just happened?” Ash asked at the same time.
Hew stepped forward and grinned, extending his arm towards Winston.
“Oh, sweet darling, I’m not Hew. I’m Rhafnet.”
“Rhafnet? The…the demon?” Ashton mumbled.
Hew gave him an evil glare, verifying that indeed, there was no Hew left in that body.
“The Goddess, dear child! Has no one taught you to respect your creators?” Hew hissed.
“What creators? Hew, what are you talking about?” Winston asked.
“Council at the ready,” Matilda shouted again, and I wanted to tell her to shut up.
Christian did it before I got the chance.
“Do shut up, witch. I’m here to make you an offer.”
“We are done making offers with you, Christian,” she yelled.
Christian’s face hardened, and Hew came to his side, caressing his arm. It looked so wrong. Everything about what was happening in front of our very eyes was wrong.
“He’s not Christian, either.” Hew giggled.
“Then who are you?” I asked him.
Christian’s black eyes stared me down until his lips twitched to the side.
“I’m Ealistair, your father. The father of all of you.”
“What’s he talking about?” Wade whispered to me.
Danielle stepped forward and tutted.
“You people call yourselves witches and you don’t know where you came from? Ealistair and Rhafnet created us all and gave us our powers. Kneel at their service or die,” she shouted.
“That will be enough, Danielle,” Christian said.
“Forgive her. She didn’t mean that,” Hew said. “She had other plans, you see, and she’s still bitter about it.”
Danielle glared at Hew, and I could tell she wanted to say something, but she held herself back.
Before she could retreat behind Christian and Hew, I grabbed her wrist and forced myself inside her head.
I was supposed to take on Rhafnet. Not that filthy half-breed. This was not part of the plan. When I told Christian about the ley lines, I was supposed to take on the spirit of Rhafnet.
Danielle’s anger was burning hot inside her, and her thoughts were a jumble. She pulled her hand away from me, blasting me with some invisible force.
“Don’t touch me, traitor.”
“Can someone explain what the fuck is going on?” Lorelai shouted.
I took a step forward, towards Christian and Hew. Wade tried to grab my hand and stop me, but I wasn’t scared of them.
“I’m not the traitor, she is.” I pointed at Danielle. “She never wanted to help Christian in the first place. She was the one that told him about the ley lines, but she kept part of the truth from him, didn’t you? He’d thought he would feed on the magic underneath and live forever, when in reality, he’d be releasing two demons. You were supposed to host Rhafnet, but it didn’t work out, did it?”
“Damn it, Danielle,” Christian spat. “I told you I needed a psychic to take on my wife’s spirit.”
“It’s true. I can’t just take on anyone’s body,” Hew said. “It helps that he’s a raven too.”
“So…so Hew is really gone?” Winston asked.
Hew shrugged.
“He’s still here somewhere, but I’ve put him to sleep. It’s my time now.” He smiled.
“Why would you want to release demons into the world?” I asked Danielle.
Her posture changed and went from a furious madwoman back to the mischievous witch she was.
“Be—“she started, but Christian didn’t let her finish.
“Enough. We are your creators and you have two choices. You can choose to fight on our side, which you should, or you can fight against us and die.”
“Fight who?” I asked.
Hew tapped Christian’s chest lightly and tiptoed around to me.
“Humans have been running this world for way too long, don’t you think? We’ve been forced to hide our true selves or die at their hands. That’s not why I birthed you, my children. That’s not why we created you. We made you to be better. We made you to rule,” Hew said.
“You’re talking genocide,” Ash muttered. “How can you?”
“We call it survival of the fittest,” Christian said. “So, who’s with us? Who’s ready for the rise of the witches?”
Matilda stepped forward and the entire room watched her.
“Is it…is it really you?” she asked.
“My child, of course. Let me look at you,” Christian said, and she lifted her eyes to stare at him. “You’ve got fire in you, like me. I could use you in my new world. Imagine not having to answer to the humans. Imagine the humans having to answer to us. We can be their masters like we were always meant to be. We can start with London and work our way around until humans are a thing of the past. Join us. Join me, and you will be rulers beside me.”
A chill cooled my core. All this time we’d thought Christian was behind this, but it was something worse. It was demons with plans of grandeur. This wasn’t going to end well.
Matilda bowed to Christian and stood in front of him.
“Who’s next?”
I glared at Matilda, but her confidence was back.
“You’re a traitor to your kind,” I told her.
Hew shook his finger at me playfully, a sly smile on his lips.
“Whoever doesn’t join us is a traitor to their kind. Don’t get things mixed up.”
I looked behind me at the rest of the room. No one was moving. Everyone was staring at the intruders but not taking any action.
“I guess we’re all—“ I turned to say to him when I heard witches behind me approach and say, “I’m on your side.”
Only they weren’t on my side. They were on Christian’s. The man that h
ad shouted at Lorelai walked behind Hew, as did the people that’d been sitting next to him.
Soon, it felt like the entire room had decided to be murderers. I looked at who was left.
Ash was still behind me as was Graham. Ash I could expect, but Graham. I’d have thought he’d follow his leaders blindly.
There were another five witches I barely knew who had taken a stance against genocide and mass destruction. It wasn’t anywhere near enough to stop the demons.
“I guess we’ll see you when we kill you.” Christian smiled and lifted his arm in the air.
Flames erupted out of it and engulfed everyone that had taken to his lies. When the flames disappeared, everyone was gone.
“Fuckety, fuck, and holy fuckballs,” Lorelai said.
She could say that again.
Twelve
Wade
“Yes…don’t tell me. I’ll call you when it’s safe,” Caleb was saying over the phone, and I wanted to hold his hand and tell him everything was going to be okay, but I couldn’t bring myself to lie to him, especially when I didn’t believe it, either.
“What did Annabel say?” I asked once he’d hung up.
Caleb sighed.
“She’s scared. She’s going to hide with Nora.”
“Who can blame her? Aren’t we all?” Lorelai said.
“Is there anywhere safe for her to go?” I asked.
Was there any safe space when demons were out on the loose and determined to wreak havoc on the world as we knew it.
“Yes, she’s got connections with other trolls, and if trolls are good at one thing, that’s hiding,” he said, but it didn’t make me feel any less scared for her and baby Nora.
“How do we stop them? What could we possibly do to stop demons?” the man that had taken Caleb’s side earlier asked.
We hadn’t had the chance for introductions, and it was unlikely we would, so I just rolled with it.
“There must be a way. If they were trapped under the ley lines, someone trapped them there. And if they did it once, we can do it again. We need to go to her,” Caleb said, turning to me.
I nodded. If she couldn’t help me with my problem, I didn’t know how she could help with this bigger problem. On the other hand, Mother Red Cap was hundreds of years old and had a library twice as old. She might not know, but she could at least put us on the right track. Or so I hoped.
“Who? I’m coming with you,” Winston said.
“I think we all are. We can’t separate now,” the guy said and looked behind him at the remaining witches for support.
“No,” I said, and he looked at me. “You can’t come with us.”
“Why not?”
Were we going to have a problem? I wasn’t in the mood for a cock fight, but if he wanted to feel like the leader and question me, I’d have to put him in his place.
Caleb stepped in between us and raised his hands.
“Ashton, you can’t come. We have to do this alone. I can’t exactly explain why, but we need to speak to someone and the only way she will is if we go alone.”
Ashton? Where had I heard that name before? There weren’t many people called Ashton, surely. The only one I knew of sprung to mind.
Ashton Beauchamp? The famous author? No, it couldn’t be. If the award-winning thriller writer was a witch, the force would have caught a whiff of it, right? Unless we were absolutely useless at finding any witches without the high council’s aid.
“And what do you expect us to do, Caleb? Sit tight and wait while humans are dying?” Ashton said.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I agree with him,” Winston added.
“There’s something you can do. Something all of you can do,” I said, stepping into the center of the room.
“What?” Ashton asked.
Instead of answering his question, I looked at Winston.
“Call Lloyd. Tell him it’s time to come out of hiding.”
“But, Wade,” Caleb said. “It’s dangerous. He and the others will be helpless against the demons.”
“They don’t have to fight the demons. They only have to face what they’re good at.”
“What exactly are we talking about?” Ashton asked.
Graham spoke for the first time since the demons had left with the high council.
“He wants the witch hunters to get back in business.” The hatred was apparent in his tone.
I shook my head.
“No. I want them to help us take down a national threat before it becomes international.”
“Forget about it.” Graham groaned. “We’re not working with hunters.”
“Why not?” Ashton asked.
He was starting to grow on me. Maybe he wasn’t that bad after all.
“What do you mean why not? They’re witch hunters,” Graham replied.
“If witches can side with genocidal demons, witches can work with hunters.”
“Ash, stay out of this,” Graham said.
“And what? Leave you to deal with it? I think you’ve had your chance, and you screwed it up.” He turned to me. “If we go to them, why would they help us.”
“Because I ask them to,” Winston said. “Because Christian destroyed everything, and they need something to believe in.”
“Guys,” Caleb shouted and all eyes turned to him. “You’re forgetting something important. We’re not facing a couple of kids throwing tantrums. We’re up against highly skilled, highly trained witches. No matter how much training hunters have, they don’t know how to go up against anything like the high council.”
“Then let’s give them an advantage,” I said.
Caleb cocked his head in confusion.
“We used to use swords laced with blood magic, right? Even though we thought they were laced with angel blood. How about we lace their swords with magic?”
“Are you out of your mind? How would you do that? And why? So that once this is all over, they can kill us all?” Graham said.
“Considering we don’t know if we’ll survive any of this, that’s a pretty big theoretical question,” Ash said.
“As for the how,” I added. “I’m sure you can whip something up.”
Graham turned on the spot, looking for the person I was talking to, despite knowing full well I was talking to him.
“No,” he said.
“Yes,” said everyone else.
“Listen, we don’t have much time to lose, so you guys go find the hunters. Wade and I will find answers,” Caleb said and walked out of the room.
“I’ll call you to give you an update,” Winston said as I followed Caleb.
The bloodbath in the corridors shouldn’t have done anything to creep me out. After all, I’d killed enough times to not give blood a second thought.
Yet, somehow, thankfully, I still felt a sadness about the innocent deaths of these people. Had they not been good enough to help Christian, or whoever was in Christian’s body? Did they not deserve to choose a side before they died? Or was Christian purposefully after the strong, powerful witches?
We took the lift, and once the door closed, Caleb leaned on the wall of the elevator.
“Are you okay?” I asked him.
I knew the answer even without touching him.
“It’s not your fault, Caleb. None of this is your fault. Or mine. It’s all Christian and Danielle’s doing. She’s the one you should be pissed at.”
Caleb smiled, even through his sad eyes, and leaned his head on my shoulder.
“How do you even know what I’m thinking?”
“Because I can read you like an open book,” I said, but he didn’t respond.
Silence permeated the lift for a few moments while we recomposed ourselves.
“What if we can’t put an end to this?” he eventually asked.
I turned to face him, and he lifted his head so he could look into my eyes.
“We will,” I whispered, placing my hand to his cheek and caressing it with my thumb. “And even
if we don’t, we’ll die trying.”
It wasn’t the most romantic thing to say to your boyfriend, but as far as pep talks went, it wasn’t the worst.
Ah, who was I kidding. I’d tanked it. That didn’t mean Caleb didn’t let himself feel liberated by my words.
I leaned in to give him a kiss and the doors opened.
“Let’s go find Mother Red Cap,” he said.
And so we did. We took a cab right outside The Shard, and it carried us all the way to Camden. The roads were busy, and every other mile we had to let another ambulance or police car overtake.
London wasn’t sleeping tonight. The radio station in the taxi kept sharing the tally of deaths from the club and the Thames tsunami, as the media had dubbed what had happened on the riverside.
The driver attempted to start up a conversation about the terror attacks, but neither of us had any energy to carry a conversation and pretend we didn’t know what was going on.
When we reached the canal, it felt like a lifetime had passed and like we were still faced with the same troubles.
Caleb sacrificed a spell on the bottom of the river, and unlike my last visit to her, she didn’t take long to answer.
“I presume you’ve seen the news?” Caleb said as soon as he walked through the door.
She was hunched over her desk, deep in concentration. Caleb went and stood beside her, and only then did she lift her gaze and acknowledge us.
“It’s a terrifying night tonight,” she said.
“You ain’t heard nothing yet.” He told her what had happened at the high council hearing.
She was struggling to stand by the time Caleb finished the story.
“You-you’re sure they said Ealistair and Rhafnet.”
Caleb helped her take a seat on her desk chair and reached out for a glass of water on the table to pass to her.
“Yes,” he said.
“Who the fuck are Ealistair and Rhafnet?” I asked.
They’d told us they were the creators, but surely if they were, I’d have heard of them.
“Demons,” Caleb said at the same time as Mother Red said, “Gods.”
“Demons, gods, same difference really,” Mother Red Cap said. “They were deities, some say the first witches. Ealistair, the master of fire, and Rhafnet, the mistress of death, the raven goddess. When they came together, their power surged, and their union made them unstoppable. They gifted magic to the world, and that’s how witches were born.”
