by Sean Stone
“I’m here to try to fix our friendship.”
“Don’t. Lie. Even a moron could see there’s no fixing this. You’ve got me chained up with these fancy iron chains so I’m no threat to you. You could easily leave me down here to rot. You’re here because you want something. What is it?”
Arthur nodded. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out an old athame, holding it in the light for Adam to see. At its sight Adam begun to chuckle maliciously.
“Oh, Arthur. Really?” he said, still laughing. “You’ve figured out you can’t destroy it and now you actually think I’ll tell you why?”
“I was planning to trick you into letting something slip, but since you saw through me I guess I’ll try appealing to your better nature,” he confessed.
“Appealing to my better nature,” he repeated quietly. “This is my only nature, but I will tell you how to destroy it. You can’t. Only I can. Henry made it so only its master can break it and I promise you now I never will. You will not take anything more from me.”
Arthur had never felt so much pity for a person. The man sitting before him was pathetic and there was a part of Arthur that wanted to put him out of his misery. Of course, he never would. “Nicole and Tommy would be ashamed if they could see you now,” he said quietly. Adam lunged at him, his face twisted in rage, his hands out in claws ready to attack like a savage. The chains caught him a few inches from Arthur and held him firm.
“How dare you say their names! You got them killed!” he screamed. “You better kill me, Arthur because I am going to kill you. Oh, yes I am.”
Arthur shook his head sorrowfully, not taking his eyes from Adam’s face. “I didn’t kill them. And I won’t kill you. I will find another way to get that vile magic out of you, though. Then maybe I’ll get to see my friend again.” Arthur turned and headed back to the stairs.
“You think you’re so safe, but I’m not the only one who wants you dead,” Adam said and Arthur stopped. “Keep me down here as long as you like. Apophis will come for you and I doubt you’ll be able to detain him in this basement.”
Arthur turned back. “Who’s Apophis?” he asked. Adam smiled broadly and turned and sat back down. He would say no more.
Chapter 14
“We need to leave this damned town before they find a way to do us some real harm. You already nearly got caught by that bigoted old bitch. Don’t give her a second chance,” Kristen said. Her demands for him to leave town grew more insistent every day.
“She won’t get a second chance. I was overconfident last time. I won’t make the same mistake again,” he assured her.
“Yes you will because you’re a cocky shit and what you’ve basically just said is that you plan on getting involved in this war again.”
“I’m not saying that at all,” he said. He went to put his hands on her shoulders, but she jerked away.
“This is not our fight, James,” she snapped.
“Yes it is. I’ve lived here my whole life. I started a family here and planned on raising my son here too.”
“Until you lost your family because of this town. Because of the work you was doing for the council. For Eloise Cultrum. James, don’t let her take another family from you,” she said. It was the closest James had ever seen to pleading from her.
“Kris, we have nothing to fear. We’re immortal. We’re two of the most powerful warlocks in the world. Nothing is going to happen to either of us, but something might happen to my son if I’m not there to protect him and he won’t leave town until this is over. I spent too long away from my son. I’m not going to lose him again.”
“The first time I held my son in my arms I thought nothing would ever tear me from him. I looked down on him and knew that he was my whole world. All my plans for my life were gone. He was my life,” Kristen said, her eyes distant as she recalled the most painful part of her life.
“Kristen, I’m sorry,” said James, though he wasn’t sure what he was apologising for.
“When he died… You lost your family once, but you never really lost them. Not properly. I don’t want you to know how that feels. And I don’t want to know how that feels again either. We are immortal, but we can still die, James. I’m not scared for myself, James. I’ve learned enough to look after myself, but you haven’t. You don’t have my experience. You have power in abundance, but you don’t know how to use it. Not properly.”
“I understand what you’re saying, but I’m not going to abandon Dean,” he reiterated. “I’m never going to do that.”
“I don’t expect you to.” She turned and looked at herself in the mirror, her face sullen. “Even though the little dick hates me — don’t deny it,” she added quickly, seeing that James was about to protest. “He does.”
James nodded. “Yeah, he does,” he admitted.
“Despite that, I do care about him, if only because I care about you. I want us out of here so if he won’t leave willingly…” she turned back and stared at James, eyebrows raised.
“What? Wait… no!” he said as he figured what she meant. “We are not kidnapping my son. That would only end in him leaving me anyway.”
“I’m starting to feel like you’re more devoted to him than you are to me.” She said in a jovial way, but James could see that there was a note of seriousness lurking beneath the humour.
“Don’t.”
“Seriously though, if you had to choose…” she asked, smiling coyly, eyebrows raised. James did not smile back.
“If you really care about me you’ll never ask me to choose,” he said firmly. They stared into one another’s eyes and James knew that she saw the unspoken answer to her question. Then she was gone.
James considered going after her but someone knocked on the front door. People rarely called at James’ house under normal circumstances and in a town under quarantine it was even stranger. He went out to the hall and opened the door only to see the least likely person to have been on his doorstep: Arthur Winters.
“Are you here to have it out with me then before the town gets burned to ashes?” James asked.
“Maybe I should. You did murder my father after all,” Arthur said bitterly. It was the response James expected. He sighed.
“I am sorry about that. I know you don’t believe me, but I truly am. Everything I did back then… There’s no excuse that will ever redeem me. I just wanted to make the town safe enough to bring my family home. I went about it the wrong way,” he said, too ashamed to look Arthur in the eye.
“Don’t give me that shit, Tenson. If you wanted to be with your family so badly you would have just left with them. You chose this town over your family. At least have the decency to admit it.”
“I stayed because of what I was. I got turned into a werewolf. I couldn’t be with my family because I was dangerous. So I stayed here, hoping to find a cure,” explained James emphatically. If Arthur could just understand his motives then maybe he could at least try to forgive his actions.
“And what a cure you found,” Arthur said with mock admiration. “You’re now more supernatural than most of the people in this town. A werewolf-warlock-immortal hybrid. Are you seriously happy with how that turned out?”
James slumped against the door frame and sighed. “Of course not. I wanted to be human again. But this is what I am now. I’ve learned to accept it.” What James would never admit to Arthur, or most other people, was that he hadn’t just accepted what he was, he loved what he was. There was no greater high than feeling the rush of magic flowing through his veins. Some nights it was tempting to sacrifice another sorcerer just to relive the feeling of getting new magic. The truth was, he would never give up what he was now. “Being supernatural isn’t as bad as I always thought,” he said, and that was the most he would admit.
“I’m glad you’ve finally come to that realisation,” said Arthur genuinely. “If you really want to redeem yourself then take the first step and help me.”
“You want me to help fight Eloise?”
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“No. I want you to help me protect my Coven. You owe us that, don’t you think?”
James nodded. “Yeah, I guess I do. What do you need?”
“I just need a ride. I need to meet a warlock in Maidstone. Can you get me there and back again?”
“Sure. Come inside,” James said and opened the door. He never thought he’d see it happen, but right then Arthur nodded politely and stepped in to James’ house.
Nobody had been to the basement of Montford Manor yet. Nick had been watching the room vigilantly and the only thing he’d seen was a rather large rat. Several in fact. Olivia wanted Nick to abandon the plan and just rescue Kayla, but Nick would not budge. He knew that there was more to it than learning the identity of the kidnapper. Nick had kept from Olivia the fact that the easiest way to find out would be to uncurse Kayla and ask her, he did not want Olivia to know that Kayla was aware of everything going on around her. She had enough to hold against him.
Nick walked over to the drinks cabinet and poured himself a very generous whiskey. He’d been drinking a lot more since Olivia’s return. He didn’t want to think about how bad a sign that was. A small popping sound made him aware that somebody had just teleported right behind him. He turned and saw Kristen standing in the centre of his study.
“I haven’t seen you since the ritual,” he muttered. “I was starting to think you’d abandoned me just like the rest.” He fell into the arm chair nearest him and took a gulp his drink. He hadn’t voiced his feelings about how all his surviving disciples had left without any contact. After centuries together he’d expected at least a postcard.
“Nobody’s abandoned you, Nick. Least of all me,” she said, crossing the room to pour herself a drink.
“You should probably knock now you don’t live here. Liv wouldn’t like you teleporting in like this,” he said.
“I’ll take it under advisement.” She sat down next to Nick and took a hearty swig of her whiskey. “You always keep the good stuff.”
“No time for second best.”
“The others haven’t abandoned you, but when have any of us been known for small talk? We were all together for so long. We could all do with a little space,” she said. Despite her justifications he still felt a little abandoned. “They’ll be in touch soon enough and you know that they are right there if you need them. You only need to call on them and they’ll come back.”
“So why did you stay? I expected you to be long gone by now. I can’t imagine Cedarstone has much to interest you,” said Nick.
She sighed. “James. He won’t leave without his son,” she grumbled.
“Ah, that explains it. I have a similar dilemma. Olivia won’t leave until I’ve atoned for my sins.” He took another sip of his drink and tried to ignore the look of mirth on Kristen’s face.
“Looks like you’re stuck here for the long haul then,” she said and laughed. Her laughter faded away and he saw the uncertainty in her eyes. She’d been with him longer than any living person. She was his second chosen disciple and they’d learned to read each other nearly perfectly.
“Come on then, out with it. What’s the real reason you’re here?” he said.
“Love,” she said bluntly.
“Oh. Well, in that case,” Nick said and with a flick of his wrist their glasses refilled. “I hope you’re not going to confess your undying love for me.” She shot him a look of disdain which he smiled at.
“I’ve never been in love,” she elaborated. “Even the duke who got me with child, I didn’t love him. All the men I’ve had over my life have never come close to making me love them. How could I when they were all so pathetic? All so weak, cowardly and broken.” She tipped the entire contents of her glass down her throat without so much as a shudder and then slammed the glass down on the table where it promptly refilled.
“Do I need to point out the irony in what you’re saying?” Nick asked.
“No. I’m fully aware of it. James is the weakest, most cowardly and certainly the most broken man I have ever met and yet he’s the one who won my affections. And I don’t understand it.”
“I’ve spent centuries learning as much of everything as I can and I confess that I know no more about love than I did when I was a teenager. It’s the most irrational emotion of them all. It’s different for everyone. Some see it as a blessing, others a curse. It can bring immense joy, or the deepest pain,” he said as he swirled the whiskey in his glass, looking at the liquid swirling a part of him wanted to fall right in and not come out again.
“Is it worth it, though?” she said, asking the question that Nick did not want to consider. He smiled.
“Look at us. Two of the most feared people in the world sitting here harping on about love and the agonies it causes,” he said quietly.
“So I’m not alone in my confusion.”
“Oh no. You have me as a companion. We’re both being held in this forsaken town by the people who hold our hearts. If only Olivia would stop looking at things in the black and white way Kayla taught her. She thinks everyone should be spared and given a second chance. She refuses to accept that here in the real world things aren’t the same as they were on that bloody island,” he threw the words out furiously, finally having a person to vent to.
“James is the same. He won’t see that staying here is the wrong choice. He refuses to to leave his son and he refuses to force his son to come with us,” Kristen said. She finished her drink and then slammed her glass down once more. “Maybe, we need to show them they’re wrong,” she said, gesturing a little drunkenly with one hand.
“What do you mean?” asked Nick slowly, worrying where she was going with this.
“We could engineer an act of such violent atrocity that James would be frightened into leaving and Olivia would finally see that some people aren’t worth sparing,” she suggested, leaning in close.
Nick took a moment to process what she’d said. Then he placed both hands on her petite shoulders and gently pushed her away from him. “That is the worst plan you could have come up with. It would only take one wrong step to show them who was really behind it and then they’d never forgive us. Is that something you’re willing to risk?”
Kristen snatched up her glass and launched it across the room where it smashed against the wall. Nick did not react to this. He sat calmly and let her release her frustration.
“I just want to leave,” she growled.
“If you don’t want to leave on your own then you have to be patient and wait for James to want to leave too. It’s the only way to be sure you won’t lose him,” said Nick. He grabbed her arm and gave it a reassuring squeeze. It was nice to have someone on his level even in this. It was nice to be suffering alone.
“You didn’t answer my question,” she said. “Is it worth it? Love, I mean. Is it worth all the aggravation?”
Nick looked down into this drink and then downed the rest. “For six-hundred-years I pursued love. Everything I did was in the name of love. Is it worth it? I’m not so sure.”
Kristen left via the front door. She wanted to respect Olivia’s wishes, plus she thought the walk might do her good. Nick had warned her that there might be soldiers watching the house outside, but none tried to apprehend her. That was lucky for them. She walked to the bottom of the road where she realised why there were no soldiers. Several soldiers lay dead on the ground and standing in the middle of the carnage was a man who would not stop staring at her. He was fairly tall and muscular with dark hair and a square jaw. His eyes were yellow.
“Something they said?” she asked, slurring drunkenly.
“I didn’t much care for the way they looked at me,” the man replied nonchalantly.
“I don’t much care for the way you’re looking at me,” she said haughtily. “Keep it up and I might just have to rip your freaky yellow eyes right out of your head.”
“You are as feisty as your reputation decreed,” he said crisply.
“You’ve heard of me then?”
“Listen, mate, I don’t care what you’ve heard or why, but if you’ve come to pick a fight you’ve picked the wrong day to do it!” she conjured a fire ball and got ready to throw it. The man barely even reacted. One eyebrow moved up ever so slightly.
“I’m not here for a fight. I’m here to help,” he said gently. His eyes had turned bright blue now. “My name is Apophis, perhaps you’ve heard of me?”
“No,” she replied, with a derisive shake of her head.
“You guard your mind well, but your emotional state makes it somewhat vulnerable.”
“What?” She took a hesitant step back.
“I’ve seen what troubles you. You want… James to leave town with you, but he will not leave without his son,” said the stranger. “A woman as resourceful as you can surely think of a solution?”
“I get the feeling you’ve got one in mind?” she said. She didn’t like this man one bit, but something about what he was saying was stopping her from turning him into a pile of ashes. It was almost like his words were compelling her.
“As a matter of fact I do. Why not just kill his son?” he said brazenly.
“I could never deprive a parent of their child. Obviously, my mind isn’t as vulnerable as you think,” she snapped and turned away, resuming her walk down the street.
“Then, perhaps a second proposal. Figure out what is keeping him here and remove it.”
“I don’t know what’s keeping him…” she trailed off as she realised how obvious the answer was. She’d been talking about feelings all this time when it was quite clear. Dean was a young single guy. He liked Clara. That’s why he was so keen to work with her. “Clara. He fancies Clara.”