by Nadia Heaton
Lisette had half a mind to refuse and demand to be taken home, but it was probably best to pretend to keep playing along. At the very least, they should try to figure out what Mirabelle was up to.
Bethany looked ready to dig her heels in, but Fleur whispered something to her, probably along the lines of what Lisette was also thinking, and Beth reluctantly followed.
Tristan took her sisters’ lead, but she wasn’t staring at the surroundings anymore. She was frowning at Mirabelle’s back just like the rest of them.
Mirabelle led them through a tunnel going the opposite way to the one they’d come in from. This one sloped downward, and they walked for a long time before it finally opened up.
Lisette and Fleur both gasped at the new sight. a dark, frigid-looking river ran through a gorge below them, but that wasn’t what held their attention. Bobbing menacingly on the water top was a vehicle that looked something like a submarine.
It was covered in witch runes and markings. Lisette had seen something like it before, when Mirabelle had led an attack on the vampires guarding the volcano that was the source of their power, but she hadn’t realized they had been making more. By the looks of it, they hadn’t just been making more, but they were improving the design.
She had hoped that the failed attack on the volcano would have showed Mirabelle it was unwise to push the vampires on this, but apparently, it had just made her more determined.
“You wouldn’t,” Fleur said quietly, staring at Mirabelle in disbelief. “It’s suicide. You can’t attack that volcano again. You should have learned that from the first time.”
“This time, we will succeed. This submarine is more powerful than ever before. The vampires won’t know what hit them.”
“You hid this from us.” Lisette had known that things between them and Mirabelle were getting tense, but she’d never dreamed her coven leader would lie to her about something of this magnitude.
“Don’t you take that self-righteous tone with me. You know full well I had no choice. Your vampire sympathies have compromised you. I’d have been insane to show you.”
“Then why are you showing us now?” Even Tristan was looking annoyed now as she glared at the submarine.
“You need to know. When we move against the vampires, we’ll need all of our strength. I brought you here to educate you, somewhere where you’d be away from those monsters and their influence. You are finally free of them and the spell they have you under.”
“You’ve got it wrong, Mirabelle.” Bethany’s voice was shaking with quiet anger. “The vampires had us under no spell. If you need any more proof of that, then listen to me now. I still love Jermaine, no matter how far away I am from him. I will always love him, and you can’t change that. You are irrational and unwilling to listen. It is you who is under a spell – the spell of your own hatred. It is a cage of your own devising.”
“You’re not a witch, Bethany, you don’t understand,” Mirabelle snapped. “We know what these creatures are. You’re just going to have to trust that we know more about magic and the supernatural than you do.”
“Oh yeah? Because from where I’m standing, Aunt Mirabelle, I think Bethany’s right.” Tristan gestured to the submarine. “None of this is necessary! You said that you worry about modern technology making it possible for the vampires to guard their own source of power, just like it’s now possible to create a submarine to guard ours. Why not just make the switch? Let them have the flame, and let us have the volcano. Problem solved.”
Lisette’s pride in her little sister was almost instantly eclipsed by anger at Mirabelle’s next words.
“There’s only one way the vampires will give up the volcano. They must all be destroyed.”
21
Lisette, Fleur and Bethany burst into protests, all speaking over each other in their anger at Mirabelle.
“Enough!” Mirabelle threw her hands out, casting a hushing spell. Lisette’s lips kept moving, but no sound came out. If she’d had her powers, she would have been able to break the spell, but as hard as she tried, nothing happened. Mirabelle had been telling the truth about power in this area being limited to coven leaders.
“Let them go. Are you so afraid of their words?” Tristan was usually the quietest and most complacent of the sisters, but even she seemed to have reached her limit. When push came to shove, she would stand with her sisters against anything.
“Now you all listen to me very carefully. Witches are all about the natural way. Our magic is the magic of the Earth, the magic of life itself. Vampires are the epitome of all that is unnatural and wrong. Their existence goes against the very laws of nature.
“You know that to become a vampire, a person has to die. What’s dead should stay dead. They should never have been allowed to come into being at all. They have caused nothing but chaos and death for humans and witches over the long years of their existence. They are a plague to the Earth and must be eliminated.”
Mirabelle took a breath, apparently intending to continue her rant, but Tristan interrupted her.
“The natural way is all about balance, you taught us that, Aunt Mirabelle. Vampires provide that balance for witches. If they didn’t exist, our power would be unchecked. Just because we’re witches doesn’t mean we’re immune to the same corruption humans with power face.
“We need them to check us, and they need us to check them. Together, we can co-exist, but if one species was to eliminate the other, it would be a disaster. It was decided centuries ago that witches and vampires have no business ruling humans, but without the other side to enforce it, some of our kind would quickly grab power for themselves, and you know it. Killing any living creature is wrong.”
Mirabelle gaped at Tristan for a few moments, apparently lost for words. It took her several seconds to find her voice. When she did, she laughed spitefully at Tristan. “Vampires aren’t alive, you silly girl, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
Lisette had given up fighting against the hushing spell. Tristan was doing a good job of expressing all of their thoughts on the matter by herself. “They think and they feel, just as deeply as witches and humans do. They’re alive,” Tristan said flatly.
Unable to protest, both Bethany and Fleur turned and stalked away. Mirabelle didn’t stop them.
“You’ll come to see that I’m right!” she called to their retreating backs. “Talk to the other witches. You will stay here until you are purged of the vampires’ influence.”
Lisette didn’t like the sound of that. Bethany glanced back at her, but Lisette tilted her head, gesturing for Bethany and Fleur to keep going. It wasn’t that she didn’t agree with them – Mirabelle was way out of line – but she wanted to stay to keep an eye on her aunt. She was coming to trust Mirabelle less and less by the moment, and thought it best to be informed of her plans.
Mirabelle gestured for them to follow. “Come, I will show you what we’ve created. Once your sisters have calmed down, you will be able to educate them.”
Lisette and Tristan followed, both listening without commenting much.
“These runes here will protect the submarine from vampire power. It’ll just wash right off like it was never there. Inside, we have a number of safe storage facilities. I’m planning to invest as many crystals with power as I can, so that we’ll have an arsenal ready.”
Such arsenals were dangerous and required special storage to keep them stable. Lisette had no doubt that Mirabelle was up to creating a proper containment field. What she doubted was her aunt’s wisdom in choosing where and when to use that power.
“Now this is some of our best work. Come here, girls.”
Lisette and Tristan stepped reluctantly into the bobbing submarine. The inside looked mostly like a normal boat, except for the flowing runes and stacks of crystals. On one of the seats was a stack of diving suits.
“Take a look.” Mirabelle handed one to Lisette and Tristan. “Can you feel the magic imbued in the fabric? Wearing these, the salt wa
ter won’t hurt us. We’ve tested them, and while there’s still some work to be done, I believe that when we are finished, we can eliminate our weakness entirely.”
Mirabelle beamed at them, but neither Lisette nor Tristan so much as smiled. Lisette’s voice was still cut off, and it seemed Tristan had nothing more to say. She’d already made her case. It was clear that Mirabelle couldn’t be reasoned with. She wouldn’t listen.
Lisette just wondered what the other witches thought about this. That was probably what Bethany and Fleur were doing now – getting the opinions of the others guarding the flame. Was this just Mirabelle’s hatred and prejudice running wild, or had the mindsets of more witches shifted? If the movement to eliminate vampires rather than co-exist with them was widespread, they would have some serious problems.
They kept walking around the submarine, Mirabelle pointing out various features, but Lisette’s thoughts weren’t with her aunt. They were with Nobu. According to Mirabelle, he was now dead and a soulless entity, an empty vessel that bore no resemblance to the man he was.
She wasn’t so sure, though. Lisette remembered how he’d been when he came to see her after being turned. She remembered his eyes. They had been so full emotion – confusion, sadness, excitement, and above all, love. The love in his gaze as he’d looked at her had been impossible to miss.
The point of this trip had been to harden her against vampires, but in fact, it was having the opposite effect. It was making Lisette think, really think. Mirabelle was sure that such introspection would result in a deep hatred of vampires, but in fact, it was the opposite. If she examined the facts and her own motives, Lisette had to come to the conclusion that she was letting her ingrained prejudices override the simple facts that she perceived with her own eyes.
Nobu may have changed, but he still loved her, and in the end, that was really all that mattered. Lisette was a fool. She’d let him go, thinking that she hated him. What had she done?
Suddenly, she couldn’t be here anymore, in the bowels of a ship meant to destroy the man she loved and all of his kind. Lisette turned and fled. Bethany and Fleur would understand. They knew how she felt. They were also in love with vampires.
Mirabelle called after her, and even started a spell that would have stopped Lisette in her tracks, but Tristan shouted an angry protest, putting herself directly in Mirabelle’s line of fire, forcing her to stop the spell and giving Lisette time to escape.
It didn’t take long to find Bethany and Fleur. Lisette went back to the main room that held the eternal flame and asked one of the guard witches were her sisters were. Fortunately, she was far enough away from Mirabelle now that the hushing spell had no more hold on her.
She was directed to yet another tunnel. This one sloped upward, and Lisette started breathing hard as she hiked through it. The warming spell was starting to fade, and she was shivering, despite the exertion. She was just thinking of going back and asking one of the witches who had access to magic to cast another on her when she reached the top of the tunnel.
As she stepped out onto the flat top of the iceberg, the air became warm and pleasant. Obviously, there was a warming charm here, and she could easily see why. The view from up here was stunning. The guard witches probably spent a lot of their free time here, watching the sunlight sparkle off the ice.
Bethany and Fleur were sitting side by side, staring out at the great white expanse of snow and ice. Lisette dropped down next to them. “Hey.”
“Is Mirabelle still going off?” Fleur asked.
“Yep. Tristan had to get in the way to help me escape. I couldn’t stand it anymore.”
“She’s gone completely mental,” Bethany said sadly. “If she keeps carrying on like this, she’s going to start the war that will end the world.”
“I know.” Lisette shuddered at the thought. “What do the others think?”
“No one likes vampires, but Mirabelle seems to be the only one intent on catapulting us into world war four.” Fleur bit her lip, her fingers fidgeting nervously with the hem of her top. “She’s been very persuasive, though. She’s got some of the witches here convinced that her way is the only way. None of them feel strongly about it like she does, but unless she’s stopped, she may well just get them to go along with her.”
It wasn’t what Lisette had been hoping to hear. “There must be others who disagree with her. I mean, none of them would have our reasons not to want vampires killed, but we can’t be the only ones who think that a large scale conflict between vampires and witches is a bad idea.”
“Bethany and I were just talking about that before you got here. We could ask around and find people who would side with us – but I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“What?” Fleur was the most reasonable and level-headed of the four sisters, and Lisette was used to taking her advice on practical matters, but not finding allies just seemed like a bad call.
“Think about it. As soon as we start asking people to pick a side, we’ll have witches all over the globe declaring for one side or the other. You think a war between vampires and witches would be bad? A civil war between witches would be catastrophic!”
She was right, Lisette realized, but that didn’t change the very real danger they were in right now. “We still have to do something.”
“Yes, we do,” Bethany agreed. “Fleur and I were thinking of something more like a tactical strike rather than a widescale attack. If we can neutralize Mirabelle, no one would be willing to act without her.”
“Neutralize her?” Lisette didn’t much like the sound of that. She didn’t want to hurt her aunt, but how else were they going to get her under control? They’ve have to capture Mirabelle and take her prisoner. There was no way that would go down without some sort of violence.
“Obviously, we’ll need to wait until we’re back in an area where we can use magic. If Bethany distracts her, you, Tristan and I can all attack at once and hopefully knock her our before she has a chance to fight back.”
Lisette shook her head. “We’ll need to act sooner than that. She’s not going to let us leave this place until we agree with her on vampires, and I wouldn’t put it past her to test us with a truth spell, so pretending is out.”
“Without magic, we have no chance.” Fleur made a small gesture of frustration. “I have to give it to her, it was a smart plan, bringing us here where she holds all the cards.”
“We can’t do magic because there’s a block on it.” Lisette stared thoughtfully out at the landscape as she spoke. “Such a block wouldn’t be maintained by the guards, though – they need to be at full power in case of an attack. There must be an object invested with the blocking spell. If we find the object, we can destroy it.”
“It would be immune to magical destruction,” Fleur pointed out. “That would be one of the first wards they put on it.”
Lisette glanced at Bethany. “We have other means. Beth, how much weight do you think you could lift?”
“Um… I’m not sure. Quite a lot, probably.” Bethany was an Olympic swimmer, and was crazily strong. Right now, that was just what they needed.
“I bet the source is guarded against magic, but it probably doesn’t have any safeguards against physical force, other than the shield hiding it. Fleur and I can find it through the shields, then point you in the right direction, Beth. I’d like to see the thing survive being smashed with a rock.”
“That… might just work.” Fleur chuckled. “I bet they never thought of a witch and a human teaming up to sabotage their own security measures.”
It was an incredibly simple plan, but it was the best chance they had.
“I can do it.” Bethany nodded slowly. “We’ll need to find a rock heavy enough, but that shouldn’t be a problem – I bet some of those lumps in the snow are submerged rocks or small boulders.”
“We’ll still need a way to fight Mirabelle,” Lisette pointed out. “Even if we can use magic, we may have more raw power than her together, but she’s got alm
ost a lifetime’s experience in leading a the coven. I’m not sure we can match her.”
Fleur grinned, gesturing to the ice at their feet. “I have a solution to that. We’re standing on ice, which can’t hurt us, but if that ice is melted down to salt water…”
It was perfect. They could use magic to melt some of the ice, and use that to disable Mirabelle. Lisette didn’t like the thought of hurting her aunt, but she liked less the idea of letting her start a war that may be impossible to stop once it got going.
“What about the other witches?” Bethany glanced anxiously over her shoulder, as though expecting to find the guards converging on them. “They may not agree with Mirabelle either, but they won’t take well to use attacking her.”
Lisette had already thought of this. “Sleeping spell. I can do it. I should hold as long as we’re quiet while disabling Mirabelle.”
That may be easier said than done, but they were all determined to try. They spent over an hour discussing strategy before beginning. They had a lot of work to do.
22
There were a number of hidden castles dotted around the glacier that contained the eternal flame. Lisette tried to keep a blank face, but she was impressed. Mirabelle explained that witches often came to visit the site, and of course, the guards needed a place to live when not on duty.
Tristan was trailing quietly behind Mirabelle, looking as though she’d been force-fed a mouthful of nails. Lisette reflected that her sister’s scowl may be enough to melt the ice without needing to use magic.
They were taken to the guest quarters by one of the staff and each given their own room. It didn’t escape Lisette’s notice that she and her sisters were all spread out about as widely as possible while still keeping them in the same wing of the castle.
Mirabelle clearly didn’t trust them, and she was right not to. Lisette knew that she would have set spells about the place to notify her if her nieces left their rooms, but there were ways to spot and avoid those spells even without the use of magic.
