“Upstairs,” Pete surprised me by answering, his footsteps echoing with mine.
Behind me, I heard Annalise whimpering, then Pete pushed me on, hurriedly. The second man limped behind him, cursing, as we walked on into the unknown.
Twelve
On our way up from the cellar, we passed through a series of other rooms, each with barely enough clearance for me to be able to walk through without ducking my head. I took some perverse pleasure in how annoying it must have been for my two attackers to have to keep bending down. With the speed of the walking, and the constant pressure on my back from the man named Pete, I didn’t see much as we passed through each room. Finally, we stepped into a room larger than all the others. It seemed to be some kind of storage area. Shelves ran across the walls, each one packed with boxes, lids taped down, like it was some kind of archive.
If I hoped that was it, I was wrong. From there, we changed direction, passing through another series of other rooms, each getting increasingly larger, the air slightly clearer. They were cluttered with large pieces of furniture; chairs, tables, consoles from all different eras, and dozens of boxes, thickly taped again. Passing through another corridor, we arrived at a set of steps.
Pete, the prison guard, gave me a rough shove forward, simultaneously releasing my wrists. Momentarily unbalanced, I slipped, throwing my hands forward, and scraping the heels of my palms on the steps. I bit the inside of my cheek to stop me from wincing because there was no way I was going to give them the satisfaction of seeing me in pain before I scrambled back up. I grazed some of the skin. Blood was already beading on the surface and it stung like a bitch as I started to ascend.
At the top of the staircase, Pete took my arm again, half pushing, half pulling me into a small room. Just inside, I bent over, resting my hands on my knees to catch my breath as if I were recovering from the fast walk.
“I’m going to let go of you. If you try to run, you’ll regret it,” said Pete. “All I have to do is yell and there will be twenty men in here.”
I looked up at him, then over to the second, still nameless, man who lumbered up behind us. He grinned again; his lips peeled back to show his missing teeth. Nameless took one last look at me, winked, and slid out of the room.
“He’ll be first in the door,” Pete warned in a low voice.
Yuck. “You win,” I sniffed, straightening up. I took a moment to take in some air and regulate my breathing after the power walk. It wasn’t that I was out of breath; I just wanted it to look that way. Months of running almost every day had paid off; I was fit and healthy, but feigning a stitch meant I could take my time in looking around the room. It was windowless and seemed to serve as some sort of large catchall closet for household things like brooms, mops and other cleaning equipment. I guessed this was where they stored stuff ready for transport below ground and brought things back up again. Like prisoners, I thought ominously. Unfortunately, it looked like this room was the only way out of the cellar and, as we stepped out into what looked like the foyer, I realised that was a problem. It would be almost impossible to return unnoticed, or to leave.
Pete didn’t give me much time to look around, but I saw that the ceiling must have been twenty feet high, a huge glass chandelier twinkling under it. The walls were painted a rich, dark red and there were dozens of portraits of men and women in period dress in huge frames. The furniture looked old and heavy and the wood gleamed from decades of polish.
“Let’s go.” Pete nudged me forwards, but not before I scanned the room quickly, making a count. Four men flanked the tall double doors, the front doors I assumed; two more, sat at a table pressed up against the far wall, playing cards. Another man walked past, entering the foyer from one corridor and exiting by another. He didn’t even glance in my direction, though some of the others did. That made eight including Pete and this was a big house; Pete had already intimated twenty men were in earshot. It was best to assume he wasn’t lying.
The chances of me being able to get past all these guards and into the cellar, breaking out Annalise, then leaving the cellar by the same route and exiting the house, without getting caught, was looking decidedly sketchy. My heart plummeted and stopped somewhere around my toes.
“Through here,” Pete snapped, reaching for me again.
“Get off,” I hissed. For a moment, he stood there, staring down at me, like he was having some kind of internal struggle about whether he should take hold of me again or not. He must have concluded there were enough guards about that I wasn’t going to cause trouble because he just shrugged, pointing towards a set of double doors across the foyer, saying, “That way.” Where else could I go? If I attacked him, I’d have eight men pummelling me in an instant. If I ran, I’d get five feet before the same thing happened.
“Who’s there?” I asked, after a moment of staring up at the man. With his bland, emotionless face, I couldn’t fathom why, or how, he had gotten involved in this. Was he just a brutal killer or had he been sucked in by the lure of a cause intent on “defeating evil”? Was he a bad man doing bad things because he enjoyed it? Or a good man doing bad things for what he felt were good reasons? It was impossible to tell. Perhaps the lines had been drawn too closely together.
“You’ll find out, won’t you?” Pete was expressionless. For the first time, I got a good look at him. He was bald with a pale white face, probably somewhere in his early forties. He was well built, broad and muscular without an inch of fat. I wondered if he had been one of the witch hunters that chased me through the streets back when I was alone and afraid. I might have been alone and afraid now, staring up at him almost defiantly, but it was a different sort of fear. I had friends now, not to mention, hope. All I had to do was stay alive, which sounds so simple until you have to do it.
Call me crazy, but I was pretty certain that behind the doors now facing me, there wasn’t going to be anyone I liked or wanted to see. I thought about shimmering, but although I could feel my magic within me, I knew it wouldn’t do what I wanted while something else was suppressing it. Without my magic, I didn’t have a choice. If I were going to get Annalise and me out of here, I’d have to go forwards.
By the time I realised that, and made my decision, we had crossed the floor, coming to a stop outside the closed doors. Pete knocked and dipped his head towards the door, listening momentarily for something I didn’t hear. Then, he twisted the knob and opened the door, signalling for me to enter. When I passed through, Pete stepped back. The door closed behind me lightly and, for a moment, I was too surprised to do anything but stand still and wait.
At first, I thought I was alone. I was in a library, a very beautiful library. The ceiling was as high as the foyer, which was split in the middle by a narrow mezzanine floor, just room enough for one person. A matching pair of slim, spiral staircases stood at each end so that you could walk the entire circuit and exit without having to retrace your steps. Three walls of the library were covered in dark wood shelves, each one stuffed with books from floor to ceiling. The only exception was the door interrupting the shelving behind me. The fourth wall, facing me, had a large fireplace, probably just tall enough for me to stand in upright. Right now, it was blazing, the wood crackling in the grate and kicking heat out across the room.
Two leather wingchairs sat a little way back from the fireplace and between them was a low table, scattered with an open book, reading glasses and a notepad. All fairly innocuous things until I wondered whom they belonged to. To my right, there was a couch, set at a diagonal so people could move around it easily and access the books. A small table was parked in front of it and it also had a shallow stack of books, all very old volumes in excellent condition. Someone really took care of their books.
“Pleasant isn’t it?” said a voice. “I haven’t quite read every book, but I plan on doing so during my lifetime.”
I looked around, trying to locate the voice when I saw an arm reach out from the recesses of one wingchair and point to the other. “Sit down, M
iss Mayweather. I insist.”
I skirted around the table and chair, keeping my distance from the arm that rested on the side of the chair, as well as the body attached to it. The man didn’t move at all until I was facing him, the empty wingchair between the two of us, giving me several feet of distance in which to appraise him.
He was sitting ramrod straight, legs crossed, a book open and face down over one leg. He was a solid looking man, not fat or particularly broad, just well kept with a neat beard. I guessed he was somewhere in his late fifties or early sixties. He wore a dark grey three-piece suit with a tie in muted stripes, giving him the air of a university professor or a businessman. I was sure I’d seen him before, but I couldn’t place him.
“Sit down,” he said again.
I walked slowly around the chair, keeping my eyes on him while he turned his attention to the fire as if I were of no consequence to him whatsoever. I sat uneasily waiting for him to speak, but he stared at the flames for a while. Just when I was starting to fidget, he looked at me and smiled. It was a cold sort of smile, the sort that didn’t reach his eyes, or make me feel that he was in any way happy.
“Wouldn’t our meeting have been so much more pleasant if you had simply accepted my invitation? Oh, that’s a rhetorical question.” He slipped a leather marker into the book he was holding, closed it and leaned forward to drop it lightly on the table between us. “I’ve looked forward to meeting you, Stella. May I call you Stella?”
“No.”
He ignored me. “I’ve known about you your whole life, of course, but you’ve been hidden such a long time. When you finally surfaced, I sent my men to find you as soon as I realised you had come into your powers. Such a shame. Magic is an abomination. Blights so many lives, you know.”
A year ago, my life was changed in the course of just a few hours. I had a dull job, a dull life, but it had been all mine. Like every other woman, I was well aware of the witch hunter murderers. One night, I was chased by a group of men who were intent on killing me. I narrowly escaped them twice; the second time with Étoile’s help.
It came to me then. That was why the man looked so familiar.
I’d seen him once before on television. It had been that same night that Étoile rescued me. A broadcast went out across all stations simultaneously, announcing that the Brotherhood claimed responsibility for the killings of witches throughout Europe.
The common feeling amongst the media, since that broadcast, was that this Brotherhood was comprised of mad, deluded serial killers, though it did add extra drama to their reports. Only a small faction knew the truth about what they were and that they really were assassinating witches. The killings had spread briefly from Europe to the United States, and further afield. Then they stopped, just as abruptly. Things had been quiet for a while, not that any witch dared to take a relieved breath and think it was all over.
No, everyone I knew had been waiting tentatively for the Brotherhood’s next move.
Strangely enough, I hadn’t seen them on television since then, but their one and only broadcast had been enough to fuel the hysterical websites that I spent so much time picking through on my quest for information. It also added some weight to Anders’ suggestion that this man was somewhat untouchable. He was able to broadcast his responsibility for murder, and yet, here he sat, in the comfort of his home. Someone was protecting him. The Brotherhood went further than this.
“You’re the Brotherhood’s leader,” I said, concealing my thoughts. “Your men didn’t come to find me. They firebombed my flat.”
“Some of them are quite enthusiastic.” The man shrugged, like it wasn’t anything of consequence. “They were reprimanded, of course.”
Like that made me feel any better. If anything, I felt more nervous than ever. Suppose those men were here tonight? After having been punished, who knew what kind of grudge they held against me now? I had the uncomfortable thought that, aside from the cellar prison, this room was probably the safest room in the whole house for me right now. Thinking of the cellar reminded me of Annalise, alone in the dark, and I concentrated on my breathing, instead of flying into a screaming rage, which was tempting.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked, because simple questions are sometimes the best ones.
“To rid the world of something that should have never been in it. No one should have such power, no person should be able to teleport, or use telekinesis, or all the evil things you do.” If he’d been thirty years younger, I would have expected him to add well, duh!
“We’re not evil. We don’t kill people!” I fought to keep my composure. I didn’t have much choice. Arguing might have been a foolish move, but it went against my nature to meekly take what this man was dishing out.
“We’re a necessary evil, like executioners, politicians and taxes. We do the dirty jobs no one wants to think about.” The man leaned forward, his eyes boring into me. “We keep the world safe without them ever having to lift a finger.”
My voice was cool and calm, icy even, when I said, “You’re ruthless murderers.”
He smiled unexpectedly, but it was such a cold expression. “Such a pejorative term, don’t you think?” he asked.
“Who are you anyway?”
“I didn’t introduce myself? Do forgive my manners. My name is Auberon Morgan. You can call me Uncle, if you prefer.”
“Why would I do that?” I frowned.
“It’s a polite way to address one’s relative,” he answered succinctly, before dropping the bombshell. “Your mother was my sister.”
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“Do I look like someone who... kids?” He looked at me like I just said something completely absurd. I suppose I had.
Auberon Morgan rose and walked around the wingchair to a table nestled in one of the large windows. When he returned, he had a large silver picture frame in his hands, which he passed to me. I had no choice but to take it and study the photograph it contained. There was a couple, aged around forty or so, with two children, a boy in his teens and a slightly younger girl, probably around nine years old in a pale blue dress, her hair in bunches. All four of them were sitting with their backs against an ancient oak tree, parents behind, children in front. A check blanket was spread out in front of them with the remains of a picnic and an open wicker basket. There was something content and lovely about the faded scene.
“Isadore was eleven then. She was four years younger than me. This was taken when I was home from boarding school for the summer.” Auberon returned to the window and was looking out as he raised one hand, waving it off to the left. “You can just see the tree from this window if you crane your head a bit.”
“So, you’re a witch too? A warlock?”
“Oh no, only your mother was unlucky enough to inherit that curse, but she loved it, loved the things she could do. She wasn’t the type who taunted, or did anything cruel, but it was unnatural the way she could be there one moment, disappearing the next.” Auberon turned back to me but his eyes were far away, somewhere in the past. “I always felt sorry for her, tried to help her stop but she couldn’t, she insisted it was part of her. Then she married your idiot father and he was just as bad, whispering spells. She brought you here once, when you were a baby, and I begged her to stop with the magic, for you, but they wouldn’t listen.”
“They’re dead.”
“I know, and I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead, but perhaps it’s for the best.” Auberon slid back into his chair, resting his head against the back, closing his eyes for a moment like he was so weary of the world that he couldn’t keep looking at it.
I was still struggling to take in what he told me. I couldn’t fathom how this awful man could possibly by my mother’s brother, and my uncle. My only living relation was the man who masterminded dozens of murders? Who for the past year had made me live in fear? Anger bubbled inside me, and I felt my magic agitate.
“You tried to kill me once, why not just do it now?” I hop
ed I wasn’t having a too-stupid-to-live moment, but the question just begged to be asked. He hated witches; he wanted us all dead, so why keep me alive?
“I don’t have much family, I’d hate to destroy what’s left,” said Auberon, ruining the warm, fuzzy, family-bonding moment when he added, “so I’m giving you a choice.”
“What kind of choice?”
“Work with me.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Seriously?”
Auberon seemed to have expected that because he was ready with his answer. “You can’t be enjoying the life you have, Stella. Parents dead, attacked by witches – yes, I’ve done my homework – the strange little town you live in, under a constant threat. And what’s the common theme here? Oh, yes! Magic!” Auberon shook his head like he couldn’t quite believe the predicament I’d gotten myself into. One hand reached up to smooth his beard. “Help me get rid of the witches and I’ll help you bind your magic. You’ll be able to live a nice normal life without fear and I can give you everything in return: a family, safety, money. You’ll never have to worry again.”
I couldn’t lie to myself. There was a part of me that thought if he’d found me in my teens, and asked me then if I wanted my magic bound, in exchange for a family, I might have said yes. But I had a family now, my very own, and powers that I controlled. I couldn’t ask for a normal life in return for betraying everyone I now held dear. What he was asking was untenable.
“What’s the alternative?” I asked.
Auberon turned sad eyes on me. “Death, Stella. That’s the only alternative.”
We stopped talking then because the door was opening, letting in a little rush of cool air. Auberon leaned back in his chair again, not bothered by trivialities, while I craned my head around to see. Two men entered. One carried a tray with a teapot and cups with saucers. The other stood with his back against the door, like I was even going to bother trying to escape.
Devious Magic (#3 Stella Mayweather Paranormal Series) Page 17