“Just squeeze gently. Every five seconds.” Ellis nods and concentrates on her job.
“Thea, go to the garage. Bring me the grey bottle next to the fridge. Fletcher bring me some bandages.”
She makes a poultice and keeps it in place with the bandages. Then she takes the grey bottle off Thea and spoons the liquid into Talia’s mouth, before telling Ellis to carry on with the drops. She stands back and watches her niece. They are all silent. All holding their breath. All hoping she’ll be okay.
They have lost too much already.
The seconds tick by and the only movement is Ellis dripping the medicine into Talia’s mouth. Ember looks at her sister, her expression frantic, panicked. Elodie holds a hand up. Watching, waiting.
Talia opens her eyes. Ember sobs and so does Thea. They are all crying a little bit. She sits up, her colour back to normal, her movements back to normal. She touches a hand to her forehead, feels the bandage and frowns. “What’s wrong with me?”
Elodie takes her hand and kisses it. “Nothing, lovely. You’re okay.”
Relief fills the room and they are all smiling. Elodie takes the pipette off Ellis and empties it into the sink.
“Okay. I’m going to phone Vann, tell him to bring Zeta here. We’ll put her upstairs and then decide what we’re going to do tomorrow. Yeah?” She looks around the room for approval.
Everyone is nodding except for Ellis, who looks panicked and a little green.
Ellis
Elodie is looking at me like she’s not sure if I’m okay. I’m not okay. “Vann?” My voice is a weird squeak, because I haven’t spoken since my stupid argument with stupid Fletcher, but also because I have just remembered my suspicions about Vann.
“What about Vann, lovely?”
She is always so nice to me. How she ended up with such a dumb-ass son, I’ll never know. Imagine being jealous of a vampire. Imagine never forgiving anybody anything because you’re so damn perfect.
I can’t speak and Thea actually helps me out. Probably not to be nice, probably just because she thinks my idea that Vann might not be trustworthy is a stupid one.
“Ellis thinks Vann isn’t to be trusted.”
She says it ridiculously theatrical, like an announcement on a reality TV show about who’s won.
Ember actually laughs and gives me a pitying look, like I’m so thick. “Vann? Vann is amazing. There’s no way he’s done anything wrong.”
“What made you suspect Vann of anything?” Elodie asks me.
“What do you suspect him of?” Ember asks.
Fletcher humphs, actually humphs and says: “Well, I’m sure nobody is as wonderful or trustworthy as John.”
This makes Sally and Thea laugh. Sally is looking between us, eyebrows arched, like some master villain coming up with a dastardly plan, and I can see that she smells trouble. Urgh, I hate her.
And him.
My voice is hard. “This is nothing to do with John. I just happened to mention to the girls, that when we left your house and Vann hid us in his virtual room, he was the only one who could have told Zeta that we had gone to the safe house. And it’s true.”
They are all silent for a minute, processing what I’ve said and trying to figure out if I’m right or not.
I am.
“They surrounded our house. We fled. Then half of us went to the safe house and half of you went to Zeta’s house. How could she have known we were at the safe house if nobody told her?”
“Maybe she had someone watching the safe house?” Fletcher says, determined to contradict me.
“Maybe.” I stare at him. “There’s one way to know for sure.”
Elodie frowns at me.
“Ring him. Tell him to bring Zeta here. I bet he doesn’t answer you.”
The silence is not comfortable but I know I’m right. Head witchness? Stubbornness? Bloody mindedness? All of the above.
Elodie shakes her head. “No answer.”
Ember tuts and pulls out her phone. “He’ll answer me.” She even puts it on speaker so we can hear the ring, ring, ringing. She hangs up and tries again. Same result. She looks so sad; I feel a bit sorry for her. Like you might feel sorry for a snake who gets eaten by a lion. Actually, if she is in love with Vann, and I turn out to be right, then I feel super sorry for her.
I’m feeling so stung by Fletcher and the way he spoke to me; I’m torn between wanting to punch him in his stupid face and beg for his forgiveness. But I know I’ve done nothing wrong. I believe John. Fletcher doesn’t. That doesn’t give him the right to be a dick about it.
“We need to go to the safe house,” Ember says, clutching at some pretty pathetic straws. “Maybe Zeta has hurt Vann.”
“Ember, she’s bound. She can’t do anything. She couldn’t hurt him if she wanted to.”
“Maybe someone else came there, someone to help her, and they hurt him. Elodie, I can’t believe he’d betray us. Not Vann.”
I don’t know what happened to the twin’s dad. I don’t think he’s on the scene – I haven’t seen him or heard them talk about him. I don’t know if he’s dead or alive, or just so charmed with the lovely Ember that he had to run for the hills, but this might be the first time she’s been in love since then, and if that’s true and if he is a traitor then that is pretty sad. I daren’t look at her with even the tiniest bit of sympathy though; she’d happily swing for me if I did. I avert my gaze from everybody actually.
I do not want to look at Fletcher. I’m still too angry with him, but also worried that he might not even care. I don’t want to see Sally’s smug face, gleefully hunting for any trouble between us. The twins are as bad as she is and, truth be told, I want to go home.
I’m fed up of the lot of them. This is their fight, not mine. Me being head witch is their mistake, not mine. Zeta is their family, not mine. All of these problems are theirs and not mine.
All of this is theirs. Witches, vampires, shifters, fairies, demons. None of this was even on my radar last week.
I’d happily go right back to being a sad loner by myself again at this moment.
I’m sick of the lot of them.
“We’ll all go,” Elodie says. “I’m not splitting up again. Come on.”
We follow her outside and before Fletcher can turn to me and reluctantly hold on to me, as if I’m such a massive burden, I turn to his mother, refusing to look his way. “Will you fly me please?”
She looks a little shocked at being asked; we’ve been so inseparable Fletcher and I, but she nods. Now isn’t the time to be asking questions.
I can feel his gaze burning into my back, almost hear him calling me to turn around and look at him, but I don’t. I can even hear Miss Sally Big Boobs giggle from behind me, no doubt as she sidles up to Fletcher to fly beside him, and I still don’t look. It’s painful not to. My whole body wants to turn, just quickly, just a quick glance, but I don’t. I know if I see him, I’ll either crumble or cry.
We fly off and I miss being in his arms; it’s quickly become my favourite place to be, and I know why he’s angry, but I’m not choosing John and his apologies over Fletcher. I can hate all that he’s done and still feel sorry for him. That doesn’t make what he’s done any less bad, or if he was anything to do with Fletcher’s dad getting killed, any less horrific.
Or does it make me a rubbish girlfriend for not automatically coming down on the same side as my boyfriend? I feel so confused and I’m glad when we land and head into the safe house.
I don’t wait for Fletcher to ignore me, just tuck in at the back of the line and follow everyone in.
“They’re not here,” Elodie says, sounding both angry and sad at the same time.
I usually like being right. Put me in any situation with my family where there’s a differing of opinion, and I will fight my corner like a pro, and gloat excessively if and when I’m proved right. I’m not always right, but I love it when I am.
And now I’m right.
Or wrong.
“
Maybe you’re right,” I say. “Maybe someone came to rescue Zeta and took Vann and hurt him and...” I’ll trail off because every single person is looking at me like they want to hit me.
Okay.
Just trying to make it a little bit better.
“Ring him again, Ember. Just to check.”
Ember shakes her head at her sister. “I can’t. I won’t.”
Elodie nods, empathy written all over her face. She will know how long Ember has been alone for and how much she really liked Vann.
The phone just rings and rings and rings, and as head witch, I know, I just know, Vann is safe, alive, and chose to leave this room. There was no duress, no struggle; no suggestion crap from a vampire. He walked out of here, happily.
Then I feel funny and I get a weird sort of vision – it’s not a memory, it’s a...
I feel someone grab hold of me, because I’m falling, I don’t like what I’m seeing, I cry out and then a wave of calm washes over me. “It’s okay, it’s okay. I’m okay.”
“What did you see?” Elodie asks me, crouching next to me. It’s Fletcher who caught me; his arms are still around me.
“I saw you, Ember, Sally’s parents, Fletcher. Dead. I saw Zeta and Vann looking down on your dead bodies.”
I hear a few gasps. “It’s okay – I think I saw their plan, I think if Fletcher hadn’t come after us, come to rescue us from John, this is what would have happened.”
I feel a kiss on the top of my head. Fletcher. By coming to save us, he had saved all of them. When they rushed out of the safe house, Vann didn’t have the time or the calm he needed to put his nasty plan into action. He would have killed them all, and Zeta would have watched, cackling away.
The relief rushes through me and I feel weak again. Tears fill my eyes. Fletcher’s love for me kept him safe. I turn around and I’m in his arms, sobbing and sobbing and sobbing.
16
Ember rushes to the fridge and grabs a carton of orange juice. She takes a mouthful, swishes it around her mouth, and then spits it into the sink, and then she does it again and again and again. “Sorry, but I feel sick.” She shakes her head, hating to feel weak. “I was falling in love with him, Vann. I can still taste his kisses.” She retches and then swishes her mouth out again, gargling the juice and then eventually throwing up into the sink.
They all move to the seating area to give her some privacy.
Fletcher looks grim. He’s taken hold of Ellis’s hand and he hasn’t let it go. “We need to go to Margam Park – with as much back up, as many witches as we have on our side and we need to end this.”
“It won’t work,” Ellis says, sending an apologetic look Fletcher’s way. “Vann knew you were coming to rescue us from John, I bet Zeta’s already at his house. John might already be dead.”
“You’re right. Of course, they’d have gone from the safe house straight to John’s.”
“They’d have gathered their troops first. It’s why we didn’t see them there. Poor John.”
Fletcher says nothing, but he does pat Ellis on the shoulder.
Ember joins them from the sink, magically freshened up. “They won’t even go to the park now; they know the girls won’t be there. If they know John’s let the girls go free, John’s dead already. The question is, what’s their next step? Where will this final battle take place?”
“We need to be one step ahead of them and we aren’t. We know from John that the plan is to kill Ellis and then make Efa head witch. And a witch can’t kill her, so it will have to be Efa.”
“Can a half witch kill her?”
“If she can’t, then Peri or Layland will do it. They have enough people that someone will do it. The question is where. Now they know that John betrayed them, what will they do next?”
“Ellis? Can you see anything?”
Ellis shrugs. “I can try.”
She closes her eyes and then shudders. “Zeta definitely wants to kill me. But John is alive.”
“He’s alive? Does that mean he lied to you?”
“No. They don’t know that he planned to free us. He told Zeta the truth – that you all came to rescue us. He was powerless against your magic. She believes him. She wants to believe him.”
“So, he’s with them, but where are they? What are they going to do?”
Ellis grabs her head, wincing. “I think she knows I’m trying to find out stuff from her. She’s blocking me, pushing me away. It hurts.”
“Stop then. Stop for a minute.”
“She’s so angry with me. She wants me dead.”
“Okay, so we go to her. We take the fight to her. Instead of waiting to be attacked, and always on the defensive, we go right now. Ellis, you can find Efa, even if Zeta is blocking you. We go now, we take everybody with us, and we finish them off.”
They are all nodding. They cannot think of a better option.
A shiver runs through the group. “How many can we gather?”
“A few hundred,” Elodie says. “They can blast the demons down and leave us to deal with the others.”
It takes a little bit of time to get in contact with the other witches but then they are ready to go. They are visibly scared.
Fletcher takes Ellis in his arms. “I’m so sorry that I was angry with you.”
“I’m sorry I defended John. I wasn’t choosing him over you. I just felt sorry for him, that’s all. When he took us, I was sure that was the end, we were dead. When I realised that he meant us no harm I was relieved. It made me soppy, I guess.”
“I love that about you. I love that you’re kind and forgiving. If we survive this, if John survives this, I’ll talk to him.”
“Thank you.”
They hug.
“Ready?” Elodie says, smiling grimly.
They all nod, although it’s a lie. None of them really want to face Zeta, the rebels and a whole host of angry supernatural creatures and demons set on killing them, but they don’t want to wait around to be attacked again, either.
They each have a role within this battle, and they all know what they need to do; they also know that they might not make it back alive. Plenty of others haven’t.
They hug, kiss, and finally huddle altogether one last time, before flying off. As soon as they have a tangible location for Zeta, Elodie will inform the other witches.
Elodie plans to confront Zeta. Jane and David will take on Peri and Layland. Ember and Fletcher will take on Efa. The twins and Sally are charged with keeping Ellis safe, surrounding her and warding off attacks with any magic they can think of. The other witches will blast the demons – fire usually works well, if you have a lot of manpower. They have it.
Fletcher holds onto Ellis as though it’s the last time she will ever be in his arms. Maybe it is. He wishes he knew. He wishes they were just in college, holding hands in the common room, kissing before heading off to their different lessons, eating lunch together, laughing, going on dates – to the cinema, or bowling, or for a Joe’s ice cream. Falling in love in the middle of this war, isn’t what he planned. Falling in love isn’t what he planned – and they might not survive the next few hours.
He feels Ellis stiffen in his arms, and then she tucks her head up close to his. The wind steals her words, but he hears her, and he communicates the location to his mother, and they all change track and fly to Mumbles Pier.
They land by the big apple kiosk, shut now, so quiet enough for a bunch of witches to land without causing a commotion.
“They are down on the pier, not inside the cafe; I saw them as we came down.”
“What are they doing?”
“Hiding in plain sight.”
There is something so ominous about those words.
“We can’t fight in the middle of the pier, there are too many people. It’s broad daylight.”
“We’ll cordon it off. They’ll never be expecting it. Ember; use your magic to lure anybody off the pier who isn’t a supernatural creature. Any sign of the demons?”
&n
bsp; “Could be in the water.”
“Let’s go. Let’s get closer.”
The pier is busy, as always. The café is a favourite – they have all been there, under happier circumstances. There’s an old fashioned arcade and a sweet little bowling alley. They split into two groups and bypass this. As they turn the corner, they see people moving away from the pier. There isn’t a sense of any real panic, they are all just coming towards them, the pier at their backs.
The witches slip onto the pier proper, and Ember turns to face the entranceway, putting up a magical barricade which will repel anybody else from heading their way. They do not want to be interrupted.
The pier is long – over eight hundred feet, and Zeta and her cronies are far enough away that they might not have realised who’s joined them yet.
“Ready?”
They all nod.
“Stick to your target, unless you see that somebody else needs your help. We all want to get off this pier alive. Yes?”
“Ellis, head to the entrance way, keep the twins and Sally in front of you.”
The girls all nod and head to the corner of the pier. Ellis stands with her back against one of those stands with holes for your heads, and a silly picture on the front. The three girls stand in front of her, ready. And the three of them look formidable. For all that they don’t really like Ellis, they will not allow anybody to hurt her, if they can help it.
The others stand in a line, a battle line, an invisible line.
Fletcher. Elodie. Ember. Jane. David.
There’s a change in the air, and they see the other witches swarm down, breaking easily through the protections meant to deter humans, and standing behind the original line up.
The change is noticed by Zeta too. The band of figures that has been too far away to make out clearly, have started to move back to the start of the pier, towards the witches.
They have the numbers. They have the magic.
Can they win this battle?
Ellis
I cannot breathe.
I have been to the pier a million times with my family. We have eaten breakfast here, lunch here and tea here. We have played in the arcade and bought stupid things with the little tickets you win. Isaac’s favourite thing is to come here for breakfast and find yourself here for the day. There are steps down to the beach and after food there’s nothing nicer than a walk on the sand. This place holds so many memories for me – childhood memories, happy memories of being safe and protected by my parents.
The Accidental Invitation (The Chronicles of the Accidental Witch Book 2) Page 15