The Veil: Corruption (HASEA CHRONICLES BOOK 2)

by Stuart Meczes

  “Huntmaster, are you okay?” asked Grey, concern on his face.

  “Water,” I managed to say. Scarlett rushed to the kitchens and came back with a full glass. I downed it at once, feeling a little better. When Alex had touched me, it was like he was drawing all of the moisture out of me. My hands were trembling as I set the glass sown on the table.

  Sage Etorre was trying to control the uproar. “Guardians, I know you have questions, but please allow us some time. I will let you know everything as soon as I do.”

  One by one, the Guardians left the room until only Sage Etorre and Orion were left, plus a few kitchen staff who were tiding up the mess of smashed plates and glasses.

  The Sage walked over to me and tried to place a hand on my shoulder. I shied away from it. “Gabriella, I’m sorry. I can’t imagine what you must be going through right now.”

  “You shot him,” I accused.

  “I had no choice.”

  “You let them take him.”

  “What was I supposed to do? He is accused of being a traitor. They had proof. He attacked them and several other Guardians. Jesus, Ella, he almost snapped Vidar’s spine.”

  I opened my mouth to reply, but I had nothing to say. From an outside perspective, the view was bad. My stomach felt like a washing machine, churning with emotion.

  “I want to be in the interrogations,” I said.

  He shook his head sadly. “You know I can’t allow that. As much as it pains me to say this, I am forbidding any of you to enter into that room. Alexander is with the interrogators, and we must let them do their job.”

  “I’ve seen the way they do their job. It’s torture!” I shouted.

  “Gabriella. This has to be done.”

  I stared down at my hands and said nothing.

  “I must speak with Vidar,” said Sage Etorre. He moved to the threshold of the room. “I’m sorry,” he said and then disappeared.

  Grey rubbed a hand across his eyes. “A traitor? I can’t get my head around it. I mean, I know he was going through some stuff, but I didn’t expect this.”

  Del shook his head. “Not the time, bud.”

  Grey stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Yeah, you’re right. Sorry.”

  “Gabriella, is there anything we can do?” said Danny.

  “No. I need some time to myself. Just go and try to salvage something from the evening if you can.” I turned to Scarlett. “Go and be with Mikey. But don’t mention any of this to him. I don’t want to affect his recovery.”

  She squeezed my hand. “Okay, Ella.”

  Soon I was the only one in the room. All traces of the struggle had been removed. The only reminder was the slowly swinging chandelier above, which had since shed most of its crystals. I closed my eyes and tried to hold onto a good memory, something that could ease the churning feeling of dread and misery I felt. But only Alex’s dark, twisted face appeared in my mind. A tear rolled down my cheek.

  How did it come to this?

  I got up and left the room. For hours I wandered aimlessly around the base, killing time. Even the Sanctuary couldn’t do anything to ease my mind. Isiodore seemed to sense something was wrong; he kept pushing his muzzle into my face and making strange, whinnying sounds.

  I ended up at Alex’s apartment. There were still a few flecks of blood on the doorframe where the bullet had taken Sam’s life. I tried the door and found it unlocked. It was dark inside, every curtain drawn.

  Moving automatically through the lounge, I let myself into Alex’s room. His bedsheets were screwed up into a ball and the sheet had pulled away from the mattress. I made the bed and lay down on it, pulling his pillow close to me. Amongst the smell of sweat, the faint scent of his aftershave lingered on it. I buried my face into it and let myself cry.

  *

  A buzzing sound woke me. Searching around in the dark room, I saw that it was my Biomote making the noise. It had fallen from my pocket onto the floor, and it was juddering on the floorboards. Scooping it up, I saw that it was a link from Moon’s Edge. I pressed a button, and Claudine’s voice filled my ear.

  “Gabriella, is that you?” Her voice sounded frantic.

  I sat up. “Yes it’s me.”

  “Dieu Merci, Gabriella you need to come here now.”

  I wiped a hand across my eyes and glanced at the clock. “Claudine, it’s almost one the morning. Can it wait until later?”

  “No, this cannot wait. You have to come here now.”

  I slipped out of Alex’s bed. “Okay, I’m coming.”

  She hung up.

  I could feel the unease spreading. What’s happened now? I didn’t think I could take much more bad news. Pacing from the apartment, I made my way down the empty corridor and into the entrance hall. Calling the Nexus, I stared around me. All of the decorations had been taken down. The celebrations were well and truly over.

  At Moon’s Edge, I grabbed one of the flaming torches from the wall and worked my way forward until I was in the main chamber. Every Witch in the Coven was there, standing in a circle and talking all at once. I set the torch into one of the holders and stepped into the area. Claudine saw me and broke away from the group. She took my hand.

  “Gabriella, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know she still had ingredients.”

  An invisible rope snagged at my insides. No. Claudine walked me towards the middle of the room.

  Selene was nearby. She shook her head. “I can’t believe this.” Staring at me, she added, “You must try not to shout or get angry. It could make things worse.”

  My panic was growing. The rest of the Witches moved out of my way so that I could see what they were all staring at. At first my mind couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing or what it meant.

  I had expected to see the reanimated form of Midnight. Instead, standing in the middle of the crowd was a beautiful girl of about twenty. She was naked, apart from a frayed shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Her blonde hair ran down her back, and her cheeks were flushed red. It wasn’t until she looked at me and I saw one blue eye and one green that I knew who she was. I gasped and covered my mouth.

  “Hello, Gabriella,” said Sophia.

  I couldn’t process what was happening. My mind refused to comprehend what I was seeing. It took some time before I was able to even form words.

  “Will someone please explain to me what is going on?” I said, staring at the young woman who had been a little girl just a few hours ago. Not to mention the fact that she was speaking again.

  “At midnight this evening, Sophia and Thomas used forbidden magic to unnaturally age Sophia,” said Selene. “But the poor souls got the spell wrong.”

  “I wouldn’t have got the spell wrong if you hadn’t destroyed the ritual guide,” she hissed, narrowing her eyes in my direction.

  I couldn’t get a handle on things. “I-I thought you were trying to raise Midnight from the dead.”

  Sophia paced forward until she cut into my personal space. “I tried to explain to you, and you wouldn’t listen to me! I would never do that to him! Never!”

  “But…the Mortomis IV. It’s a necromancy spellbook, you wrote that’s where you found it. In the back of that book!” I protested.

  “Yes, in the back of the book. It was on a separate piece of parchment. Someone had stuck it in there. Now it’s all gone wrong, and it’s your fault!”

  Claudine placed an arm around Sophia’s shoulder and eased her away from me. “Please, mon amore, try to remain calm.”

  “Why does everyone keep trying to remain calm?” I shouted, not doing a good job myself. “She’s used illegal magic to age herself ten years!”

  Selene made a placating gesture. “Because as I said, they got the spell wrong.” She shook her head sadly. “She can’t stop aging.”

  “What?”

  “She was about seventeen straight after the spell. As you can see now, she’s older than that. It seems to be linked to intense physical and emotional stress.”

  I placed a hand o
ver my mouth. I took the spell from her, so she had to do it from memory. I made this happen. “Oh sweet lord,” I moaned. “Sophia, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.”

  She whirled around. “Yeah, you didn’t know and you didn’t stop to ask me. You just bowled in here and took everything away from me.”

  “But why…why did you do it?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? This was my way of making things right for Midnight’s sacrifice. I was going to come with you through the Veil to help bring a father and his child back together. But you two wouldn’t let me, all because I was too young.” Tears brimmed in her eyes. “This was the only way.”

  I walked over to her, but she turned away. “Just get away from me.”

  My hand lingered in the air a few centimetres from her shoulder. I withdrew it. Staring down, I could feel something change inside. Like a wave of uncontrollable fear pouring over me. For the first time in years, I could feel myself losing control.

  I ran from the chamber and into the caverns.

  “Gabriella, where are you going?” asked Claudine.

  My chest felt like it was going to explode. I ran to the elevator and waited until the doors had closed.

  “FUUUUCCCK!”I screamed as loud as I could. Before I knew what I was doing, I was punching the mirrored walls. The glass shattered, slicing the skin from my knuckles. The pain didn’t register; I just kept punching and punching, crying and screaming. I screamed for Alex. I screamed for Mikey. For Sophia. For all the mistakes I had made that had cost lives and led us to this point.

  I didn’t stop until every reflection of me was reduced to a pile of shards. Hunching over, I struggled to breathe as a full panic attack rolled through me. When it had passed, I sank down onto the floor and pressed the back of my head against the recently exposed metal and wires.

  How did it all go so wrong? I closed my eyes against the stinging tears.

  The doors rolled open, and I could feel the heat of a torch being held nearby.

  “Mon dieu, Gabriella! What have you done?”

  I let my eyes open as Claudine set down her torch and rushed to my side, stepping over the piles of smashed glass. She held me in her arms and stroked my hair whilst I rested my forehead on her shoulder.

  “Oh look at your hands! They are bleeding everywhere.”

  “It’s fine,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Hold on. I’ll be right back.”

  She returned a minute later with a bowl of water and bandages. Carefully, she cleaned and dressed my wounds. “There, that should help until you get hold of a booster shot.”

  She helped me back to my feet. I immediately put my hands in my jacket pockets. “Please don’t say anything about this.”

  Claudine gave a wan smile. “You know, Gabriella, it is okay to show that you are suffering sometimes.”

  “Maybe, but not today.”

  We made our way back into the main chamber. Most of the Witches had gone, including Sophia. Only a few were still there, including Selene, who was sat on one of the wooden benches, wrinkled hands knotted together.

  I sat down on the bench opposite.

  “Where’s Sophia?”

  “She is in her room. I thought it would be a good idea if she rested.”

  I nodded. “Okay. I’m still trying to get my head around what happened here. I need to ask some questions.”

  Her face cracked into a smile. “Of course you can, my dear.”

  “How is she speaking?”

  “We don’t know, but we have two theories. Either the shock of the spell on her body removed whatever emotional block it was that had rendered her mute, or perhaps because this spell actually condenses genuine aging – body and mind – into a short space of time. There is the possibility that her speech would have come back naturally given long enough. We can’t be sure on either.”

  I breathed out. “Okay. And she’s aging prematurely. How…how long does she have?”

  “Witches live twice as long as humans. But Sophia is only half Witch. So I’d say if she keeps spellcasting to a minimum and doesn’t get too emotionally worked up, then I would guess she will live for probably ten more years. At the most.”

  I took a sharp breath. Ten years? She’ll be dead while I’m still in my twenties.

  “Can’t you do anything? Is there no way to reverse the spell?”

  Selene gave a sad shake of her head. “I am afraid not. Most demonic magic is irreversible. That’s one of the reasons it’s forbidden.”

  “What happens now?”

  Selene traced the contours of the wooden knots on the bench table. “Sage Faru will have to be made aware upon his return. This is something we cannot hide from him, even if we wanted to.”

  I bit my lip. “You’re right.”

  “What he does with that information is not something I could say.” Selene’s voice cracked, and I could tell she was trying not to get upset. “That poor, sweet girl. We love her with all of our hearts, but the moment she cast that spell she sealed her own fate. There is nothing we can do to protect her now.”

  “Then I will. I’ll do everything I can to make sure that she doesn’t get punished for this. What has happened to her is punishment enough…and it’s my fault.”

  Selene cupped a hand on my face. “My sweet Ella, you did absolutely the right thing by taking those books from her. You couldn’t have known she had memorised the spell – or so she thought. Please don’t blame yourself.”

  Her words were kind, but they felt hollow. Maybe I could excuse myself for Mikey, but the fact was that had it not been for my impulsive actions, she wouldn’t be dying. I should have listened to her; she was trying to explain. All I wanted to do was see her, to apologise and tell her everything was going to be okay. But it wasn’t. And she had made it clear I was the last person she wanted to see. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had lost her for good.

  I tried to keep my voice from wavering. “Thank you, Selene. I have to go, but please tell Sophia that if she wants to speak to me I’ll come straight away. And also, for what’s it’s worth, please tell her I’m sorry.”

  “I will.”

  I kissed her cheek and stood up.

  “One more thing, Ella,” said Selene. “I sensed Sophia’s power after the change. Her levels are very high. One of the highest I’ve ever felt before. Maybe it’s because of her being Chosen – that the advancement of her age has increased everything.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that she now has a very strong link with the Ether. Which translates into her being likely able to master any spell, regardless of its difficulty. Plus she will be very susceptible to precognition.” She sighed. “It’s a shame that we must now try to prevent her from using these gifts.”

  “Thank you for telling me, Selene.”

  I walked slowly back into the caverns. Only when I was out of sight did I remove my hands from my pockets. My hands stung as I picked up a torch and used its flickering light to guide me back through the rocky tunnels.

  As I neared the Nexus elevator, I heard a sniffing sound coming from one of the side passages that led to the food stores. Frowning, I split off onto the side tunnel. The narrow route opened up into a large circular room filled with sacks of rice, potatoes, and boxes of bread. My light hit a small figure and I jumped.

  “Tommy, what are you doing out of bed still? It’s late.”

  He was sitting cross-legged on a large box of oats, one-eared bunny resting in his lap. Vincent was in the form of a Gecko, padding slowly across one of the brown rock walls.

  “Can’t sleep.”

  I sat down next to him and placed an arm around his shoulders. “Is it because of what happened to Sophia?”

  He nodded and stared down at his bunny.

  “You know that you both did a bad thing don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” he said in a sad voice.

  Suddenly he started crying and pressed his face against my side. I wrapped my arm tighter arou
nd him.

  “It’s my fault,” he wailed.

  “No, bambina, you didn’t know this would happen.”

  He pulled away. “No, you don’t understand, it is my fault. I got it wrong.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean, Tommy?”

  “All the witches think that she got the spell wrong. But she didn’t. She’s so clever, she memorised it all. The amounts, the ingredients and stuff. Everything.”

  “So what happened?”

  “She asked me to put in a pinch of sulphur, but my hands were shaking so badly I spilled loads into the mixture. She didn’t notice, and we were so far through the spell, I didn’t want her to have to start over.” He sniffed. “I thought it would be fine!”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Quantities were crucial in spellmaking. Even as a Chosen I knew that. Getting the measurements wrong had potentially devastating consequences. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, it was his fault.

  “Please don’t tell her,” he said, pushing his face even deeper into my jacket and muffling his voice. “I love her. I don’t want her to hate me.”

  I took a deep breath. “Is that why you helped her?”

  He nodded. “I would do anything for her.”

  I know that feeling.

  “Please, please promise me that you won’t tell her.”

  If I tell her the truth then she will potentially forgive me but hate him. If I keep it a secret, she will always blame me for what happened to her. She may never forgive me.

  I looked down at Tommy’s swollen, miserable face.

  “I promise.”

  26

  Alex

  Cold water splashed onto my face, and I came around, coughing as it dripped from my lips and chin. It was difficult to breathe. My chest felt like a dozen elephants had been stamping on it all day. The room was dark apart from a single, burning bulb that was aimed right at me. It was too bright and hurt my eyes.