Or at least, happy to have moved his relationship with Dylan to a different level.
October 20th, 2000
12:32 P.M.
“Look at all those police cars,” said Jake, his head resting on his office’s window. “We’re in big trouble, aren’t we?”
Dylan sat next to Will on the other side of his desk. Both men had tried to wash off the blood from their clothes, but had only gotten their shirts wet. Outside, the humans had regained all lost memories and were once more in a panic. Somehow, Felicia and Victoria had calmed them down enough to make them wait in Felicia’s office until they figured out a way to get out of the building, but they could feel the anxiety brewing.
As for Daisy, she had not left Evelyn and Carolina’s side. They had moved their bodies to the conference room. Ever since the werewolf had ended Evelyn’s misery and Lily had murdered Carolina, the deleter cried over their still bodies. Daisy had lost all hope, and they knew Victoria was on the brink of despair. Carolina was dead, Evelyn was dead. In the whole United States, only two witches remained, and Daisy - the last deleter - was sentenced to die in a few minutes.
“At least they're evacuating the building,” Dylan said.
“True,” Jake now had both hands on the glass next to his head. It must’ve been a great spectacle watching all those humans running for safety. All except them. “Hold on.” Jake suddenly stood up straighter. “Dylan, come over here. Quick.”
“What is it?” he sighed.
“I think it’s Becca.”
Hearing her name not only alerted Dylan, but Will also. Both hurried to look. Just like Dylan had pictured, the small people below were running to get away from the building. They join the police and firefighters who were there to help and question them.
After searching for a moment, Dylan spotted Rebecca’s black car. He saw his partner get out of it and begin her walk to the Crimson Building. “It is her,” he sounded relieved, and he was. “Wait.” Someone else had gotten out of the car with her and was now walking by her side. Someone who looked younger, her steps faster to catch up. “Is that… a girl?”
“Looks like it,” Will said. “Who is she?”
“I don’t know.”
Jake offered, “Maybe Emilia Black has the ability to age backward?” Both Will and Dylan turned to look at him in disbelief. “What? After all the things we've learned about witches today, I don’t think my theory is that far fetched.”
The door opened, and the knock was just a cordiality.
“The police are coming up the stairs,” Fabian informed. “I think they'll try to come into the eighth floor.”
“Good luck to them,” Dylan said.
“What are we going to do?” asked Fabian.
Jake offered another brilliant idea. “Can we open the door to the stairwell?”
“I don’t know,” Fabian said. “Let's find out.” They all followed him to the stairs’ access door and saw how he couldn’t even touch the doorknob to open it. “It’s outside the magical barrier. I can’t reach it.”
“Maybe they can on the other side,” Jake said.
“Won’t do any good, anyway,” Dylan shrugged. “If we can’t get out, then they probably can’t get in. Or worse, they’ll get in and then they won’t be able to walk back out. That would be bad.”
Jake patted his shoulder. “Always the sunshine, my friend.”
“I’m just stating facts,” Dylan observed.
“Hey, guys?” From the other side of the office, they heard Sean. “I think I know how to communicate with the outside world.”
“Is one of the witches a telepath?” Dylan suggested, although in bad taste.
Sean looked at Dylan with a scowl. “No, but you know how we can call the front desk?” Jake nodded, “Well, that’s a different line. It’s an internal line.”
They all exchanged glances. Jake said, “It’s worth a try. Let’s go.”
Will and Dylan let the lawyers go, staying behind.
“How are you holding up?” Dylan asked Will.
Taking a deep breath, he wondered where this new interest in him was coming from. Was it because he'd killed for him? Or was it something else? “Good, good. I mean, not so psyched about dying today, but good.”
“I doubt we’ll die.”
“Really?” Will’s voice was an octave higher. “You’re, like, our best hope and every time that crazy witch comes she pummels you. I mean, literally. She crushes your bones, man.”
“Not my best moment, I admit.”
Will looked at him in disbelief. “How can you be joking at a time like this? How can you be so relaxed?”
Dylan said, “I don’t know. Things just have a way of working out.”
“Maybe for you,” Will said.
Dylan smiled, turning to survey the scene before him; the lawyers on the phone, the humans crying, the dead bodies. The outcome looked grim. Perhaps worse than he'd ever encountered. Turning back to Will, Dylan wondered if his anxiety would trigger something monstrous in him. He wondered if he was as good at controlling the beast as he claimed.
“Maybe you need a distraction,” Dylan told him. “To pass the time. That will get your mind off things… things like imminent death, for example.”
Will scratched the back of his neck trying to understand what Dylan meant, “Like what?”
“Well, I’ve been meaning to ask you about Becca.”
“What about her?” Will sounded defensive.
“I know you have this bond with her, and-”
“Are you going to tell me to get away from her or-?”
“No,” Dylan corrected him. “I think she needs someone to talk to who isn’t me. I’m not a great conversationalist.” He could see Will agreeing with him. “But, she talks to you and I like that she has someone she can tell everything that happens to her in our world. I'm a loner, I don't need much. She needs more, I can tell.”
Will raised his eyebrows. “She does have a lot to say.”
This interested Dylan. “Really? Like what?”
“Uhm.” Dylan noticed Will grabbed onto his metallic necklace around his neck whenever he was nervous. He was doing it now. “Well, she talks about you most of the time, you know? And about werewolves. I mean, she talks about the missions you guys go to together and how she feels when she’s there - in the middle of the action.”
Dylan was pensive for a moment. Perhaps having Will on his side wasn’t such a bad idea. Perhaps he could persuade him to share a little more about what Rebecca told him in confidence. “So, what about me does she talk about? Give me an example.”
Will laughed. “I don’t know, I-”
“Come on, just one thing,” he said. “Trust me, Becca will be delighted to find out we're getting along.” And it was true.
Still unsure, Will cleared his throat and offered something else, instead. “Well, for example, she talks about her weight a lot.”
Dylan made a face. “Her weight?”
“Yes,” William shrugged. “Something about how she used to be skinny before and now she’s, I don’t know, normal?” Dylan stared at him in disbelief, Rebecca had never talked about this. He had no idea these thoughts occupied his partner’s head. “Don’t look at me that way. You wanted to know, so there it is. Rebecca thinks she’s fat and that bothers her.”
Dylan avoided a burst of laughter; he wanted to get better intel on Rebecca. There had to be something more interesting Will could share. Something juicier. He doubted this was all she talked about, there had to be more than that. Besides, he couldn’t care less about the way she thought she looked. To him, she was perfect, and that’s all that mattered. “Anything else?”
“Well,” Will now looked more at ease as they talked. Maybe more interesting things were coming. “She wished she could get out more and do normal things. Like, to the movies or the mall. Oh, and she wonders why you chose her. That's a big one.”
This caught Dylan off guard. He thought she had left all of that behi
nd. He thought she'd made peace with it. Now he heard it from Will and his pulse quickened. The werewolf noticed this. Knowing he'd struck a nerve, he shifted his weight, bit his lower lip. Dylan pretended it was no big deal, “Well, I needed a partner.”
“She says that,” Will agreed. “But, why her? I mean, she’s right, there wasn’t anything about her that made her a good candidate.”
“No? Well,” Dylan hesitated. He needed to look for the right words. If what Will said was true, he would need to tell her the truth sooner rather than later. “Look, I was told I needed to have someone to connect to. Someone who I could talk to, relate to, care about, etc. I had to look for someone and I found her.”
This didn’t seem to make sense to Will, “Someone ordered you to get a girlfriend?”
“As weird as that sounds… yes?”
“Why?”
Dylan exhaled in frustration, “Because I’m not a people person, that’s why. Have you noticed?”
“Uhm, yes, I have, as a matter of fact.” The werewolf offered a smile.
“So, anyway,” Dylan continued. “I found Becca, and she was perfect for me.”
Once more, Will didn’t look convinced by this version of the story, “Ok, but… how did you find her? Is there some database you can look for candidates or…”
“She didn’t tell you I know the Chief of Police from the town she’s from and he introduced us?”
He'd sounded so confident when he’d said it he couldn’t understand why Will was shaking his head from side to side. “No, that’s not what she says happened.”
“What does she say?”
“That you asked to be invited to a wedding and once there, you sat next to her because you already knew her. Rebecca doesn't think it was a coincidence. She says by then you had already researched everything there was to know about her.”
When put that way, it did sound a bit odd. “Right,” was all he could think to say. “Well, I knew about her. I did because…” Dylan stopped. Looking at Will, he was trying to decide if it was too soon to trust a werewolf with something as important. More than that, how could he tell him first instead of Rebecca?
Dylan prepared to change the subject when Jake walked behind them. The lawyer joined the conversation, “He knew her because he saved her life when she was three years of age.”
Dylan closed his eyes in defeat, “Thank you, Jake.”
The nosy lawyer patted his back twice before saying, “My guess is he recognized her as someone who could be turned into a vampire then and went back for her. Now,” he cleared his throat. “This, I can only guess, but I think he knew she would be an excellent werewolf hunter because once he-”
“Thank you, Jake.” If he didn’t stop talking Dylan would need to get physical. “Is there something you need or…?”
“Yeah,” Jake said with a huge grin on his face, “your chosen one is on the phone.”
“Becca?”
“Who else?”
Before hurrying to answer, he turned to Jake. “I recommend you mind your own business.”
He saw Jake and Will exchange a look before he went to hear what Rebecca Sawyer had been up to while he was trapped in a building with an awkward werewolf and an annoying lawyer.
October 20th, 2000
12:39 P.M.
“There’s a bomb?” was the first thing Rebecca said to the receiver whenever Dylan spoke on the other side of the line.
“We heard it when it was armed a few minutes ago.”
“Really?”
“Even your great friend, Will, heard it.”
Just like everything Dylan had to say about Will, Rebecca ignored.
“Well, while you’ve been having fun with your friends,” she said instead, “I found a little girl.”
“I saw. Who is she?”
The girl in question was a young witch named Crystal Black, who just so happened to be directly related to the nullifier, Emilia Black. “She’s the nullifier’s great-great-granddaughter. Her name is Crystal.”
The first thing Dylan asked after hearing this was, “Is she a witch?”
“Not only is she a witch, as I understand from what she’s telling me, Emilia Black unlocked all of her powers.” Rebecca glanced in Crystal’s direction. They were in the Crimson Building’s lobby. Around them, police officers were actively securing the building, making sure they evacuated everybody who could be evacuated. Crystal had gotten out of the car with Rebecca and was now sitting on the receptionist chair twirling around in circles. They had rushed to the lobby after Rebecca heard there was a call for her using her superhuman sense of hearing. “Whose clever idea was it to call the police, by the way?”
She heard Dylan click his tongue on the other side of the line, “Lily's. She used your phone.”
“That bitch,” Rebecca muttered. She rarely used cursed words and knew Dylan found them amusing when they came out of her mouth. She was right in calling her that since taking her phone was the least of her trespasses. The mean spirited witch was responsible for the death of over a hundred women.
“You’re all right, I gather,” Dylan stated.
“I am now,” Rebecca told him. “She’s a pretty fierce opponent. Very powerful. There was nothing I could do against her. She paralyzed me and then ordered her knife to cut me with her mind. I don’t know how we'll beat her.”
“I know.”
His tone said so much more. “You’ve seen her in action, haven’t you?”
She heard Dylan exhale on the other side. “I have and it wasn’t pretty. In fact, I don’t want to ever talk about it.” She smiled knowing he couldn’t see her. Dylan and his pride. He didn’t dwell on that, instead he wanted to know more, “This girl, how old is she?”
“I don’t know, maybe ten, or eleven-”
Crystal’s voice suddenly resonated in her ears, “I’m going to be thirteen in November.”
“Sounds like a nice little girl,” Dylan teased after having heard her himself. Like all vampires, he had heightened hearing.
“She’s smart, I can tell you that,” Rebecca said, turning to look at the girl in the white dress who grinned back at her. “And she knew I was coming. She knew who I was, and she knows who you are. It seems her grandmother told her a lot of things she could see.”
“See? What do you mean?”
“Like, the future, Dylan. She could see the future,” Rebecca stressed. “She didn’t just know our names, Emilia Black knew the witches would fall, and she prepared herself for their downfall.” Her partner was quiet on the other end of the line. “Crystal told me she took all magical ability from every witch in the country; so technically, it’s just Crystal and Lily.”
“And Daisy and Victoria,” Dylan added.
That didn’t sound right to Rebecca, “What of Caroline and Evelyn?”
“Caroline is Lily’s latest victim and, well… Will had to put Evelyn down.”
“Will?”
“Yeah, Will. He did a good job. Came to my rescue,” Dylan said a little too enthusiastically. After a brief pause, he said, “Wait, did Emilia Black take Victoria and Daisy’s powers? When you say she took the magic from every witch, does that include them, too?”
“I don’t think so,” Rebecca pondered. “I’m talking about those who were too young to be drafted into the Covens. The minors who had been identified and who had their powers regulated. Emilia Black sucked the magic out of all of them.”
“How is that even possible?”
Turning to look at Crystal again, Rebecca covered her mouth as she whispered into the receiver. “That’s what killed her. It took too much from the old woman to shut all the powers from all those witches around the country and it was the effort that killed her. It wasn’t Lily.”
“Wait,” Dylan started. He needed to take a moment to understand the implications of what Rebecca had just revealed. “Lily said she absorbed the magic from the others. In fact, she said she regretted not being able to take the power from the nullifier bec
ause she’d been dead by the time she got there. Do you think Emilia might have given her power to someone else?”
“Like…” With a pause, Rebecca turned to look at Crystal one more time. The girl looked so petite and innocent, like she didn’t have the power to hurt a fly. For a moment, she watched her go in circles from one side to the other on that chair.
“Becca?”
“I think I need to have a talk with-” The peculiar and familiar scent of a werewolf interrupted her thought. “Is Will still with you?” she asked Dylan.
“Uhm, why would that be-?”
“Is he?”
“Yeah, he’s over there with Jake… why are you asking?”
“I need to go,” Rebecca said. Offering no further explanation, she hung up the phone turning to Crystal, who never stopped playing with the chair. “Crys, I need to go out of the building for a little while. Can you stay here?”
“Go where?” the girl asked.
“I need to take care of something,” she said. Turning around, she found an officer walking past them. “Officer, can you keep an eye on her for just a minute? I need to step out.” As she asked, she flashed her FBI badge to the woman.
“We’ll be here,” the officer answered.
One more time, Rebecca turned to Crys - the werewolf was traveling out of the building, Rebecca could almost see it. “Promise me you’ll stay put.”
Crystal cocked her head to one side, taking her time to answer. Finally, she nodded and said, “All right, Ms. Sawyer.”
October 20th, 2000
12:43 P.M.
There was a werewolf in the building.
Rebecca reached for her holster to find her gun, taking it with both hands as she began her pursuit. She followed the scent from the building to a door that led to the back alley where she spotted a man wearing a white overall with the words “Al’s Air Conditioning” stamped on the back. The man - no, the werewolf - was loading a black duffle bag into his van.
The Fall of Witchcraft Page 18