by D. N. Hoxa
Eighteen. My knees shook. All those people…
“Let’s get you healed first. You need to rest,” Amelia said, as if she could feel exactly what I was feeling. As if she knew that my chest was on fire. Only, instead of burning me, those bright flames turned my insides into ice. Unable to say even a single word anymore, I let them do with me as they pleased.
Twenty six
Two weeks later, I was driving Turtle to Bloomsburg. This was the first time I could drive since the battle with the Hedge witches. I couldn’t move my arm for eight days at all. Jane had really done a number on me with that spell, and really had broken every bone in my arm. Even with the spells, Amelia’s herbs and my natural fairy healing abilities, I still couldn’t move my fingers as I used to. I was thankful anyway because I could have lost my hand completely.
It turned out, calling the ECU and having them there to inspect the stone room did have its benefit. For example, they were able to put Jane, David and the other Hedge witches into their system, and guess what? Jane and David Dunham were siblings, born in the 1940s. You’d argue with me because they looked so young and powerful, but that was where the dead Bone witches came in. That was where the kidnapped Green witches came in, too.
Trevor Ammic discovered that the rituals they’d performed were made of magic darker than the night. First, they’d killed those pack wolves, then used their bodies to enchant items to mimic them to perfection. The magic they’d used sucked the life out of a victim and spread it to others, as the performer dictated. The Bone witches ten years ago weren’t killed by blasts of magic like everybody had initially thought. Life had simply left them, and it had transferred into the six Hedge witches, keeping them alive and young when they should have been eighty years old by now. When we got to them in that room carved in stone—which had ensured that nobody would ever be able to track them, by the way—the ritual was completed only halfway. The kidnapped Green witches had lost years of their lives in the process, but there was still life left in them. Their parents were happy. They were happy to be alive. Everything else came second.
The Bone coven was coming back together, at last. It wasn’t going nearly as well as they’d hoped. Bone families were spread all over the states now, and the call for them to join our fight, and then for them to register with the coven and make their vows to belong to it and live by its rules had had less than satisfactory returns. But they were working on it. They had trust to build from the beginning. People wanted the leaders to prove themselves once again, and nobody could blame them.
And the last good news: Blood, Green and Bone leaders had decided to design an Agreement of Cooperation. I wasn’t sure about the details, but as far as Amelia could tell me, the leaders were going to meet once every quarter to discuss the major issues of their covens.
When I first heard, I thought, would you look at that? The goddamn fairy was right. Even now, when I think of it, I can’t help the grin.
“Are you up yet?” I said to my aunt when she picked up the phone.
“Of course,” she said, as if she were offended. She was considering joining the leaders, she said. Deep down, I already knew she’d say yes to their invitation. After all, only a Wayne could take the last seat at the leadership table. But she sure as hell was going to take her sweet time.
“Come out with that tea of yours. I have a guest with me.”
“You do?” Amelia was surprised.
“Yep. And you’re going to love her.”
When I hung up the phone, Ms. Riley smiled brightly from the passenger seat. She’d come down to the office with a cup full of fresh coffee for me, just as I was about to leave. Seeing her face, I thought, why the hell not? She’d agreed to share the costs of the damage the ECU had done to my office. She always looked for ways to take care of me, even if it was simply bringing me a cookie. I could give her a good time on a nice Sunday.
Amelia waited for us by the gate of her fence, a cup of tea in her hand. I really didn’t want my landlady to fall on her face because of the spelled flowers. Better to prevent it beforehand.
As expected, Ms. Riley was ecstatic to meet my aunt. I was sure they’d hit it right off the bat. But my aunt had a surprise for me, too. On the porch, right by the door stood Bender, a large cup of probably black coffee in his hands. His grin was huge, his right leg completely healed. Jane had squashed his bones, too, but the damage hadn’t been as great as on my arm. Good thing, too. He was a pain in the ass when he couldn’t move.
I grinned and watched my aunt and my landlady walk up to the house, arms linked together.
That wasn’t the only thing that made me happy. It was the neighborhood. People were actually walking down the street, and they were talking to each other. I realized it was going to take some time for Bone families to trust each other—and their coven leaders—again, but the process had already started. And I was in the middle of it, right where I was supposed to be.
Everything would have been perfect, at least for a sunny February Sunday, but there was still something in my chest that refused to let me breathe easy and turned my smile into a sad one. In my mind, that something looked an awful lot like the face of Julian Walker.
Wherever he was, I hoped with all my heart that he thought of me sometimes. Because I, apparently, would never stop thinking of him.
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Also by D.N. Hoxa
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Morta Fox Trilogy
Heartbeat
Reclaimed
Unchanged
Starlight Saga
Assassin
Villain
Sinner
Savior
Chronicles of the Demon Hunter
A Soul's Worth
Book Two (Coming Soon)
Book Three (Coming Soon)
Water Wielders
Trapped
Book Two (Coming Soon)
Book Three (Coming Soon)