by Rhys Lawless
“Thanks. Pleasure to meet you, Rune,” I said.
The doorbell jingled, and we both turned to the door to look at the new customers. A blur traveled from the door to the back, where Rune’s mom had come from, but no one was standing at the doorway.
I grabbed the hilt out of my belt and retrieved the blade as Rune dropped the bill holder and the cash and ran to the back.
With no time to waste, I ran after him and followed him into the kitchen. He was frozen, staring at the other end where his mom was being held by a vampire that didn’t look a day older than eighteen.
“What do you want?” Rune shouted at him. “Let her go. We have no business with the London coven. Your dispute is with them, not with us.”
The vampire smiled, showing us his fangs. “Our dispute is with all witches,” he hissed.
I scanned Rune’s body and couldn’t locate any spells, so with slow, measured steps I placed myself in front of him and tried to edge in closer to his mom and the vampire holding her hostage.
“Listen to me, you don’t want to do this. All right? You don’t know what he’s capable of,” I said to the vampire and pointed at Rune behind me with my thumb. “He could decimate you before you could say the word.”
The vampire laughed. “I’d like to see him try,” he said, and his hands moved up to the woman’s neck.
“Stop. You’re going to regret this,” I said.
As he tried to snap her neck, Rune’s mom took a deep breath, and as she exhaled thorns came out of her entire body. She screamed as they broke out from underneath her skin, and she curled in pain.
The vampire growled and jumped out of her way. He might have been surprised, but I didn’t let mine stop me. Without thinking or wasting any time, I covered the distance between them and me and cut the vampire’s head off in one clean, swift move. His body writhed and his head flew out into a big pot of boiling soup. The blood sprayed the walls and both Rune’s mom and me.
When the vampire’s body dropped lifeless to the floor, Rune ran to his mom, but he stood a good distance from her as she recovered from the pain and made the thorns recede back into her body.
“Are you okay, Ma?” he asked.
His mom stood up straight again, and instead of reassuring Rune, looked at the pot and wailed.
Rune laughed.
“What happened?” I asked and stepped closer.
He turned around and rolled his eyes, but at least he was smiling.
“Her soup is ruined. She’s pissed,” he said. “Which is her way of saying she’s fine.”
“I thought you said the vampires weren’t after you,” I said.
Rune put his hands on his hips and inspected the blood that had splashed on my shirt.
“I did, didn’t I?” he said and touched my shirt. “And look how that turned out. You got yourself all messed up now.”
He reached for a wet sponge and tried to wipe my shirt clean, but I stopped him.
“I’m used to it. I have a subscription with a clothing store for this particular reason. I’ll be fine. I think you need to look after your mom. She might not want to show it, but I’m sure she’s shaken up,” I said and looked into his brown eyes.
“Thank you. For saving her,” he said.
I stepped back and gasped. “I think she did a lot of saving herself. I just got rid of the pest. You should give her more credit.”
His face turned even grimmer as he turned to watch his mom try and get rid of the head.
“I know,” he said.
“If they’re after you, you need to go into lockdown too. You need to warn your coven.”
“I will. But how can we go on lockdown? We’ve got our lives to live. How long can we stay on lockdown?”
“My boyfriend and I,” I said, “we are looking into this vampire issue. Trust me, with Caleb on the case, it won’t be long before we stop those assholes and it’s safe for everyone again.”
“Where would we even hide? It wouldn’t work. I’ll just have to use my savings to buy more protection spells for the restaurant. I guess we can sleep upstairs for the time being. I can’t afford to protect the house as—” he started, and I could see from his breathing that he was about to have a meltdown.
“Stop. Breathe. Don’t panic,” I said to him and reached for his shoulder.
He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. When he opened his eyes, I saw the Rune I’d met earlier. The confident witch that helped his mom run a restaurant and who was not afraid of no vampires.
“The whispers…they told me a name,” he said. “They said you’d know it.”
“Wh-what is it?”
Was it going to be my father’s name? Did the whispers tell him where he is or what happened to him? Was he sending me a message? Was he alive?
“Christian,” Rune replied. “They’re saying he wants to bring all witches down.”
“Why?” I asked.
“He says…he says they’re responsible for what happened to him,” he said. “The world is a better place without them. Us.”
The same Christian that used to feed on witches? Were we talking about the same monster? Nothing made sense. Surely he needed witches to survive. To feed off them. How would he if all witches died?
“What else can the whispers tell you? Are the vampires feeding him magic somehow?” I asked.
Rune’s forehead creased as he raised his eyebrows. He appeared confused.
“I don’t know. It doesn’t work that way. That’s all they’ve told me. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. If I hadn’t come in here, I wouldn’t even know this much. I’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“I know you will,” he said and smiled at me. “Now, where on earth can I get some strong-ass spells to protect my family and business?”
“I know a witch,” I said.
Once I set Rune on Mother Red Cap’s way, I set off for the training center. As soon as I tried to walk in, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and my vision went pitch black. Screams and nails on chalkboards drummed in my ears.
What had happened here? Had the vampires attacked the training center? Or Winston? My chest tightened. My heartbeat raced. And so did my breath.
And then my mind clicked into place.
“Winston! Stop it. I’m sorry I’m late. I got attacked,” I shouted and waited.
Everything cleared up, and I found Winston standing opposite me with his arms crossed in front of his chest.
“Explain?” he said, raising an eyebrow.
I told him what had happened, and he put his coat on to walk back out with me.
“I don’t know what I should be more upset about. The fact that you still can’t cast any freaking spells or that you went for lunch without me,” he said.
There was no point humoring him. He was right. On both accounts. There was no excuse for either. The least I could have done was to invite him to Rune’s.
“We can swing by the restaurant and I can put some of my most twisted nightmares over his place,” he suggested. “That should keep those bloodsuckers away.”
“Well, he’s gone to Mother Red for some spells now, so let’s see what she comes up with,” I said.
“Okay. But I can sort it out in no time,” he replied and rubbed his wrists. “Anyway, are you ready?”
I nodded.
“Who are we seeing first?” I asked.
“Cora. She had been doing great since we started. She was fantastic at motivating the others when they felt irredeemable. I’m not sure why she would give it all up. If we figure out what’s going on with her, it might help us with the others,” he explained.
Winston stopped at the curb and lifted his hand to hail a cab. The driver took us to North Greenwich, and we sat in relative silence inside the car.
It might have been some time since we’d been released of Christian’s control, but we were still learning how to be in each other’s company. We had a lot of things in common, but that didn’t make convers
ation any easier. At this point, Hew probably knew him better than I did, and the same applied with Caleb knowing me.
“I can’t believe you snorted a spell to try and cast one. You’re such an idiot,” he said when I told him my experiment the other night.
“What else can I try? Caleb has been training me for over a month now and nothing. Other than that goddamn healing spell on the bridge I’ve not been able to cast a single fucking spell.”
Winston shook his head and stared out of the window.
“It’s all in your head. I’m telling you. It was all in your head when you were combustible, it’s all in your head now,” he said.
“I’ve tried everything, brother. Emotions, no emotions, concentration, meditation—nothing is working. And with all those vamps after us, I want to be sure I can protect people, or at the very least myself so no one has to risk their lives to save me.”
It was a constant worry. And as many times as Mother Red Cap would have me, she couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t do what every other witch on the planet naturally could.
She had told me the same thing. It’s all in my head. But what in that fucking head of mine could I push to get the results I needed? No one could tell me.
“I guess, my best advice is…don’t force it. It will come to you, naturally. Until then, you just have to train like there’s no tomorrow to give yourself the best chance of survival. I mean, you defeated that asshole who tried to kill Rune’s mom. You have the skills with the sword,” he said.
“Yeah, when they’re too distracted by being impaled by magical thorns,” I said but let the subject drop.
The vampire back at Rune’s was a lucky shot. The one outside my flat before that, I had luck by the name of Mrs. Weatherby by my side. But luck would run out eventually. Luck could only get you so far.
“So none of them have picked up their phones in the last thirty-six hours?” I asked.
It was safer to talk about the other hunters than my inability to perform any magic.
Winston shook his head.
“They’re all either switched off or go straight to voicemail. I think only Preston answered, but he said he overslept on both days.”
“None of us ever oversleep,” I said.
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
Why did things always have to be weird in pairs? As if the vampire attacks weren’t enough, we had to deal with more strange shit from our friends and colleagues. I just hoped the guys were all okay and nothing had happened to them. Was it possible Christian had gone after them to finish what Ealistair had started?
I shared my fear with him, but he dismissed it. Not without some concern.
“If he had, wouldn’t we find out? One way or the other? I’m sure Christian would be dying to tell us,” he said.
The sun had set when we got to Cora’s house. We rang the bell and she answered straight away.
“Winston! Wade! What are you doing here?” she asked.
While her voice was animated, her shoulders appeared slumped and her face swollen. As if she’d stayed up all night and was nursing a massive hangover.
Winston stepped in and grabbed her arms. “Are you all right? I’ve been calling you all day. Where are the others? Why aren’t they calling me?”
Cora winced and pulled herself away from Winston. When she did, she placed a hand on her head. “Jeez, did you swallow a microphone? What’s up with you?”
“You haven’t shown up for practice two days in a row,” I said.
“And?”
“And neither have the rest of the guys,” I added.
“That’s why you came over?” she asked, looking confused.
Winston took a few steps back and inspected Cora, while she appeared to have no clue why we would be so freaked out about her absence from practice.
We were hunters. We never missed practice.
“I just didn’t hear my alarm, guys. Take a chill pill.”
“Two days in a row? What have you been up to?”
Winston wouldn’t let the subject drop, and considering Cora wasn’t giving us anything to go by, I couldn’t blame him.
“Uhm, I don’t know. Having a life for once. What do you want from me? BLADE is no more. Can’t I enjoy my life without reporting to someone every waking moment?”
“But…” Winston started. “You wanted to keep going. To make something of the remaining blades. I thought you wanted to make up for all the chaos we caused—”
“You mean the murder, right? Am I not allowed to have a day off, then? I still do, Winston, but I haven’t ever stopped in my life to think what I really want to do, have I? It’s always been track, hunt, kill, sleep, repeat. I’ve worked for a monster all my life, and I was none the wiser. The least I’m allowed is a day off,” she said, and her face had turned red.
“Is that how the others feel?” Winston asked.
Cora shrugged. “You’d have to ask them. I haven’t spoken to anyone since last practice.”
My heart pounded in my chest, and I turned around to find what was making me jumpy all of a sudden.
There was nothing. No blurs, no vampires, nothing of danger.
Everything around me slowed down while my insides picked up pace, and it was like I had run a marathon and didn’t know it.
Caleb!
He was in danger.
I knew I should have gone with him to see the wolves, but he’d insisted. If Nolan had hurt a hair on his body, he would pay the price.
My knees buckled, and I collapsed on Cora’s doorstep. Winston leaned over me.
“Wade! Wade! Are you okay?”
“It looks like you have bigger problems to worry about than me not coming to practice, Winston. See you when I see you,” Cora said, and I heard the door shutting with a thud.
As quickly as it had come over me, it disappeared, and all my heightened senses resumed to normal.
I looked up at Winston, whose eyes were creased with worry, making him look older than he was, and took a deep breath.
“What was that all about?”
“I think there’s something I need to tell you.”
It was about time I trusted him with mine and Caleb’s secret. I was sure he could keep my mating with my boyfriend under wraps. What I wasn’t sure about was if I could keep it from him any longer.
But before I did that, I had to call Caleb and make sure he was okay.
Which was how I found out about the Nightcrawlers meeting with the vampires and how bad things come in threes, not in twos. Could this shit get any worse?
Eight
Caleb
“Gah! She’s adorable. Again. But I bet you can’t wait till she’s six again,” Lorelai said, staring at Nora, who she had in her arms and was playing with a stuffed toy.
“Six? I can’t wait till she’s eighteen,” I replied and we both chuckled. “I don’t want to sound ungrateful—I’m not—but I miss her adult self. She always knew what she needed to do. She always knew what I needed to do. Besides, she has a destiny bigger than any one of us. I feel like she’s wasted her time sacrificing herself for me when she could be doing some good in the world. Changing shit. Bringing people hope.”
Lorelai turned from Nora to me and pierced me with her eyes.
“You do know that a lot of witches are looking up to you since the Tower Bridge battle, right? You’ve brought them hope.”
I laughed.
“Me? Hope? How?”
“You’ve shown them things can change. You’ve shown them that the high council can be replaced by better witches. Also, an ancient demon slash Goddess inhabited your body and saved everyone,” she said and looked at Nora again. “I think Daddy doesn’t realize that he’s not so bad himself, Nora, does he?”
I got up to put my cup of coffee in the sink, contemplating Lorelai’s words. I’d never see it the same way as she did. As anyone else did, for that matter. For me, letting Avalis take over had been the only choice we’d had to save everyone. It was
n’t me being noble or a martyr. I was neither of those things.
“I keep thinking about the high council, you know. All my witch life I’d wanted to be one of them. To make a change. Be powerful and influential. And now that I’m given this opportunity, I don’t feel like I deserve it.” I turned around and held on to the kitchen counter while Lorelai lifted Nora and put her in her crib.
“That’s good, Caleb. Remember how the last people that thought they deserved to be on the high council turned out? Yeah, me too. Maybe it’s good that you don’t feel adequate to take the role of a high priest. Because that means you’ll make the best decision for the witches you’re supposed to protect. Even if those decisions don’t benefit yourself.”
Goddess, if anyone heard her, they would have thought she was talking about a saint. I wasn’t. I was hardly human at all.
I was selfish and stubborn and didn’t take no for an answer. I always put myself first until I couldn’t.
“Yeah, I don’t—” I said but was interrupted by my phone ringing.
With two steps, I got it off the coffee table and answered the call.
“Caleb, oh Caleb. It’s terrible. It’s devastating. I need you here.” I heard Graham crying on the other end.
“Slow down, Graham. What are you talking about? What happened?”
Lorelai approached me and stood beside me, and I was certain she was using her sensitive hearing to listen in on my call.
“The vampires. They’ve—they’ve attacked one of the hideouts,” he said. “So many witches. So many of them have…”
He didn’t need to say more. Witches had died tonight from the hands of vampires while I’d been sitting at home enjoying a cup of coffee with my friend as if our world wasn’t crumbling down.
“Where are you?” I asked him.
“Primrose Hill,” he replied, and I nodded.
Of course, he couldn’t see me, but Lorelai could, and as soon as I’d hung up, she spoke. “I’ll stay with Nora. You go.”
“Thank you, sweetheart. I owe you one,” I said and reached for my coat on the hanger.