by Rhys Lawless
Darius had fucked up and sided with the devil and so did a lot of the vampires. Numerous lives had been lost. The Nightcrawlers had turned their backs on the witches. Everything had got fucked. The world had changed, and I had no idea how to fix it.
“A talk?” I asked.
She grinned. “Well, it’s more of a challenge, really,” she said.
A challenge? This woman was willing to challenge the clan master even though it could mean her death?
“Wait a minute. You’re going to fight him?” I asked.
She stood up and I mimicked her.
“Someone’s got to take the shit down and replace him with someone who has two brain cells. If that means I become the new clan master, so be it,” she said.
Her determination made me instantly like her. I didn’t know where she’d come from or how she’d sided with us. All I knew was Wade had introduced her to me briefly after killing Christian, and now she was ready to make a change in her world even if that came with the risk of losing her life.
“Well,” I said, “I know a thing or two about Darius, and if you’re only half as good as you look, then I know you’ll be fine.”
She raised her eyebrow and smiled.
“Damn right,” she said and exited the office just as Ash entered it.
He stood at the door and inspected every movement. He watched Troy heal Easton and help him off the floor. Wade and another witch helped Wilder off the floor. And then he looked at me standing next to Selim.
“Who is this?” he asked when he saw Selim sitting on the floor lamenting his lost legs.
“Ash, this is Selim. Selim helped set up a meeting with Darius even though it was a trap. He also tried to rally the vampires against Christian—” I said as Ash walked toward us.
“Unsuccessfully, if I may add.” Selim sighed.
“Well, it’s more than can be said for some of those vampires out there,” Ash commented and crouched down to shake Selim’s hand. “You’ve got some serious injuries.”
Selim turned from Ash to his legs and gasped as if it was the first time and let a cry out.
“All right, Meryl Streep, I get it,” Ash laughed. “I might know someone who can help with these.”
Selim touched his thigh before tightening his fist around the fabric of his jeans.
“Are they a healer? Can they get my legs back?” he asked.
“No, but they specialize in magical prosthetics,” Ash answered and patted Selim’s back. “We’ll arrange a meeting when we clear all this mess.”
Selim whispered a thank you, and Ash walked to Easton. Wade was no longer in the room. If I concentrated, I could feel him in the foyer next door, but I couldn’t leave Selim on his own.
Thankfully, Alyssa walked in with another vampire who took Selim in his arms, and I followed all three of them out of the office.
“We’re going to take him somewhere safe,” Alyssa told me.
“Look at me. I’m such a princess,” Selim said with way too much enthusiasm and hugged the vampire who was holding him tighter.
I looked around and couldn’t locate any other vampires in the vicinity. They were starting to retreat. I couldn’t blame them. I would be doing the same thing if I were in their position.
“Keep in touch, Selim,” I said, and he responded with a captain’s salute. “Oh, and Alyssa. When you beat Darius, come and find me, okay? We’ll need to talk.”
“You got it, sweet-cheeks,” she said, and all three of them blurred out of the hallway, leaving just the witches behind.
Wade was standing over Wilder, who was sitting in an armchair, and stared at his father’s head. I wanted to reach out to him, but I knew what he was going through wasn’t easy. The reunion with his dad wasn’t supposed to be like this. Not with Christian threatening our lives, and certainly not with Wilder being in a catatonic state. I didn’t even need to use my empathy to tell how Wade felt. It was exactly how I would have if I’d ever found my parents and they couldn’t even recognize me or talk to me.
I walked over to Wade and put my hand on his back.
“Hey,” I said.
“One of the witches who’s studying psychology is saying he’s physically fine, but his head is all kinds of messed up,” he said as if I’d been there the whole time.
“He must have been through a lot,” I said.
Wade scoffed. “You don’t know the half of it,” he said.
“Well, if I know a person that knows how to help people, that’s Kathleen. Do you want to take him to her?” I asked.
He looked at Wilder and nodded.
“I’ll call us a cab,” he said.
I put my hand on his shoulder, and he turned around.
“You do that. But I can’t come with you—”
“Why not?”
“Because you need to do this with your brother,” I said. “This is your father. The one you’ve never met. You need to do this together. As a family.”
“You’re family too,” he said, and my heart melted.
I wanted to tell him I’d go with him. That I’d do anything for him. And I would. But I knew if he didn’t do this alone with his brother, they both might regret it in the future.
“I know I am,” I said. “But this is different. I’ll be here when you’re done.”
He seemed reluctant to leave. He loosened his grip on my waist, but his fingers lingered as if waiting for me to change my mind.
“Go, baby. I’ll be fine. Besides, I’ve got to talk to Ash about something,” I said.
Talking with Alyssa had given me an idea. And it was an idea I needed to discuss with Ash before I changed my mind or talked myself out of it.
It was time for the high council to change.
“Okay,” Wade said and let me go, the skin under where his touch used to be left cold and empty. “But text me as soon as you get home.”
In response, I gave him a kiss. Then he went to get Winston, and together they helped Wilder off the chair and to the lift. Wade’s eyes never wavered from me until the lift doors closed in front of him. I could feel his lifeline again. And I could feel him walking away from me.
Damn! Going to a place that didn’t have Wade in it wasn’t really a home anymore. It was time to figure out the logistics of moving in together. I’d have to talk to Annabel first, and we’d have to all sit down together and discuss. But it was time.
“Is Wade gone?” Ash came up to me and rested his hand on my shoulder.
“Just the man I was looking for,” I said. “We need to talk.”
“Yeah, we do. I was hoping you can tell me what the hell happened here,” he said.
I pulled him aside, away from the commotion and through the door that led to the stairs.
“I can write up the report for it when I get home. What we need to talk about is the high council membership,” I said.
Ash took a sigh of relief and put his hands on his hips. “I thought you’d never get back to me on that. Are you finally ready to join the higher ranks?”
Oh, he made it sound so fucking tempting. Why did he have to do that? It had been a dream for so long. Why did the previous council have to go and fuck it all up and make this decision so much more complicated?
“No,” I said.
But we needed to change. If the war with the Nightcrawlers was to be appeased, we had to be willing to change. To listen to them. To address their problems. We needed to be united.
“What? I thought you wanted to be part of the new order,” he said.
“I do. I really do. But after tonight? What I really want is to be…normal. I want to take things slow. Do you realize I’ve died and almost died three times in the last few months?”
“Well, let’s just hope things slow down—”
“They won’t. Not until we do something drastic. If we’re going to nip the war that’s brewing from the bud, then we need to change. Which is why I need you to be one hundred percent onboard with this,” I said.
“Onboard with what?” Ash a
sked.
“The new council needs to equally be consisted of witches and Nightcrawlers. We are going to offer Nolan, the new clan master, and every individual leader a position. We can change the witch problems, but unless we give a voice to the very people that are giving so much of themselves for the coven, then nothing will ever change. That’s why I can’t be in the high council. I don’t know how to fix the familiars’ problems or what the vampires need to start behaving again. I have no clue what problems the incubi and succubi are facing as a result of everything that’s happened since the Tower Bridge night and even long before that.
“The people who have the answers are the very people living those lives. I know it’s drastic and it’s never been done before, but I believe if we offer that to them, if we give them the chance to lead by example and have a say in how things are run, we will find some unity again, as a community,” I said.
Ash stared at me without saying a word. I took a few breaths to give him time to process my suggestion and my reasoning behind it, but when it was getting too much, I opened my mouth to urge a response out of him.
“I like it,” he cut in before I could get a word out. “No. I don’t like it. I love it. This is exactly what we need. You’re right.”
A sigh escaped me, and I felt a little less worried about everything. If I had Ash behind me on that, then there was a chance this plan would work.
“Come find me tomorrow morning. We’ll go and convince the others.”
Nineteen
Wade
Once again that night, I’d had to make a tough choice. Leave my dad to suffer until some witch or other could find something that could help make him feel better or leave my boyfriend after he’d almost been killed.
I knew that whatever choice I made, it wasn’t going to be easy, but god-fucking-dammit if I knew how cruel it would feel making either.
I wanted to be there for Caleb. To hold him and to make sure I told him I would always be there for him to protect him and to love him endlessly. Maybe he knew that. Of course he knew that. But after what had just happened, I wanted to make sure he heard it again and again until there was no doubt in either one of our minds.
Our love had beat the odds time and time again. And we were only becoming stronger. To think how close we came to never seeing each other again. Again. As much as I loved what I did, I couldn’t picture going through anything like that again.
I knew what I had to do. For the both of us. Because fuck it! After putting everyone and everything else before us, it was high time we did something for ourselves. And with Christian out of the picture for good this time, it was possible now more than ever.
“Hey,” Winston said bringing me out of my daze and back to reality. “What are you thinking about?”
I watched Wilder’s unmoving, unchanging face as the city night lights brushed the cab window. What was his story? Dion had given us her savior version of the story, if that, but what did he think? Was there even any Wilder left in there? And was that Wilder even anyone remotely close to my father?
“Family. Where I go from here,” I said. “That kind of stuff.”
“I don’t know about family, but I think I know what I’m going to do next,” Winston said. “I just have to talk to Ash about it, but I think it’s time we had some proper witch guard. We can’t be scraping about every time there’s a threat like douchebag Christian to find eligible witches.”
He was right. For such a highly organized coven, the council was overwhelmingly underprepared to deal with threats.
“So what? No more bodyguard services?” I asked.
“Of course. Anyone who ever needs protecting, we’ll look after them. Anytime, anywhere,” he said.
“Angels,” Wilder said from the opposite seat, and both Win and I looked up at him.
He was staring at Winston and smiling.
“What? Are you okay? D—dad?” I asked him, but he didn’t flinch. “Wilder?” I tried again, maybe he could still recognize his actual name. Maybe dad was not something he was used to and in his dazed state wouldn’t work any favors.
At the mention of his name, his eyes glazed again and he went back to mumbling Dion’s name. I called out to him one more time, but whatever clarity he seemed to have gotten was now gone.
“I really do hope Mother Red can heal him,” I said.
“Angels,” Winston repeated. “He’s right.”
“About what?” I asked.
Winston used his hands animatedly to explain.
“All these years we thought we were doing God’s work, right? We thought we were doing the work of the angels. Well, maybe it’s time to own up to that past and do the actual angel work we always thought we did.”
“But we don’t even know if angels exist. And with our luck, if they do, they’re probably flesh-eating monsters or something,” I said.
Winston tapped my knee. “Of course they do, big bro. In here,” he said and pointed to his head.
I also put my finger on his other temple. “You’re wrong, little bro. This place is empty.”
Winston batted my hand away from his face and continued.
“I mean, even if they’re not real, they exist in the collective mind as something that’s pure and good. And that’s what I want my team to represent. The Angel Guard. What do you think?”
“Nah, sounds too much like Charlie’s Angels, mate,” I said.
“Fuck you,” he said.
“Uhm...I’d rather not, bro. I’m not feeling very incestuous toward you. No offense.”
“None taken. Trust me,” Winston replied with a gruff tone that told me he was done with my messing around.
It was so strange joking around with my brother in front of our father like we were a normal family or something. Perhaps we could still be a normal family. Maybe there was still a chance.
“That’s twenty quid,” the driver said as he came to a stop at Camden High Street.
“Twenty?” Winston protested. “Dude, we were just around the corner.”
“Yeah, dude, with all the emergency services and sirens going about, you’re lucky I’m not charging you triple.”
Winston leaned forward and tapped his card on the card machine with a tad too much force that ensured a glare from the taxi driver.
“You’re an ass,” Winston told him as we came out of the cab, carrying Wilder between us.
We carried him across the canal and further down then the usual entrance that Caleb and I had used before Mother Red had come out of the figurative and literal cave.
I knocked on a door that should have belonged to one of the blocks of flats in front of the water, but which instead led us down to her den via a different route.
“Put him down in that room,” Kathleen said as soon as we walked into the clearing that I was becoming too familiar with. “Caleb messaged to tell me you were coming.”
Winston and I dragged our dad into the room Mother Red pointed out to us and laid him down on a comfy-looking crimson couch, then came back out to where she was standing with her hands crossed in front of her stomach.
“He also told me what happened with Christian. Are you okay?” she asked.
Winston looked at me, and I felt the pressure of both their stares on me.
“I’m fine now that he’s dead. I hope it stays that way,” I said. After everything, I wouldn’t be surprised if that asshole found a way to come back.
“You managed to cast a spell!” she said like she was talking to a baby.
Had it been that bad that everyone was concerned about me?
“I did,” I said. “It’s not a big deal.”
Winston chuckled.
“Not a big deal? You managed to cast a spell after a month and in a magically sealed room, no less. I’d say that is quite a big deal,” Mother Red said.
“What does that mean?”
“Caleb said the whole room had been painted with a blood spell. You shouldn’t have been able to cast any spells in there. Yet y
ou did. I’d say we have quite a powerful witch in our midst,” she said.
“I still don’t know if I can continue to do spells like that or if it was a one-of,” I said.
Mother Red started walking toward the room where our dad was, and as she passed between Winston and me, she touched my chest.
“I’ve known you for a little while now, my darling. If I had to take a bet...I think you were scared of hurting anyone by casting spells because of what happened before. You just need to get over that fear and know you’re in control of your magic. Not the other way round,” she said and removed her hand. “Anyway, I should tend to your father. Please don’t disturb me.”
And with that, she retreated to the room and closed the door behind her.
“Now what?” Winston asked, putting his hands in his pockets.
I walked away from him and to the middle where the fire pit burned bright as always. Winston followed behind me, and we both sat down on the cushions.
“How are you?” I asked him.
“What do you mean?”
“Everyone keeps asking me, but I don’t know if anyone has asked you. You didn’t want to find Dad, yet you helped save him. How are you feeling now? Are you ready to have a dad in your life?”
He looked away from me and into the fire, the warmth of its light making his blue eyes a hue of indigo and purple.
“I don’t know if we’ll ever have a dad, Wade. You’ve seen how he is. Being Dion’s slave for so long has destroyed his soul—”
“You don’t know that. Maybe Kathleen will—”
He turned to me again. “Let’s be honest, big brother. Magic can do a lot of things, but it can’t give you a soul back. You saw what happened with Christian,” he said.
I didn’t believe dad’s soul had been sucked clean by Christian and Dion, but it was very likely that we wouldn’t get the same Wilder we could have had if he’d never been a prisoner. But until I heard what Mother Red had to say, I wasn’t going to give up hope.
We stayed quiet for a while. Neither of us knew what to say. Our lives were surreal on the best of days, even when they didn’t involve a long-lost family member. It was like we were on tenterhooks, waiting for Mother Red’s verdict to allow ourselves to breathe or to grieve.