The Council, A Witch's Memory

by J. C. Isabella

  I slapped his face with every ounce of strength I possessed.

  “Venna, I don’t want to kill you,” Cal screamed wildly, eyes illuminating from within, crazy with rage as he tried to subdue me. His hands flew to my throat, squeezing enough to make me gag.

  I hit and kicked him, trying to wriggle away, and the feeling that I was fighting a losing battle swept over me. But I wasn’t going to make this easy, or go with Cal quietly. He’d see me as his worst nightmare, and if he did kill me, I’d haunt him until the day he died.

  I grabbed a chunk of his long hair and yanked hard, my knee went up to connect with whatever part of his body I could reach.

  He anticipated it.

  My feet left the ground and I flew backwards, slamming into the tree.

  The bark dug into the skin on my bare shoulder and pain radiated through me instantly, unbearably. A rush of hot tears clouded my vision.

  I fell to the ground and rolled onto my back, thinking I’d play possum and lunge for his throat when he least expected it.

  He knelt next to my head, brushing rough fingers through the stream of tears running down the side of my face. “Maybe I will kill you. I’m sure we can find someone else,” he muttered darkly, eyes alight with pleasure. “But how? Which way would be most fun?”

  I flailed, hitting him as he wrapped his hands back around my throat. At first I tried to push him away, dig for his menacing eyes, but other things started happening.

  Blood trickled from his nose, a large gash appeared on his forehead, and then I heard a stomach-turning crack.

  I gasped in horror.

  His right leg jutted out, stuck at an unnatural angle.

  “Damn you!” Cal howled in agony and raised his fists high over my head. I held my breath, bracing myself for more pain.

  In a blur he flew back, crashing into a tree so hard the ground shook. The roots ripped free of the earth. I looked up to see Zane standing over him with his arms crossed. His blond hair was mussed and windblown, chest heaving.

  Cal raised his hands and bright white bolts of light shot from his fingers. I couldn’t do anything to protect my brother and watched helplessly.

  Zane disappeared right before my eyes. He was just gone! The white lights hit the tree next to me, crackling like lightning.

  It snapped in half. I kicked my legs, crawling backwards as fast as I could to avoid being crushed. But the tree hit never the ground.

  Hazarding a glance up, I saw that several large branches were floating in the air above me, along with the top half of the tree.

  The sight transfixed me.

  How was this possible?

  “Zane, move!” Henry bellowed. I tore my gaze away from the amazing sight above me to look for Henry. The rage in his voice would no doubt flame in his eyes like a green inferno.

  Zane shot past me, his figure blurring. The top half of the tree rocketed through the air, heading straight for Cal. Not wanting to see what was left of the evil man I closed my eyes, trembling.

  He wailed an awful, skin tingling sound.

  Keeping my eyes shut tight, I went to crawl away. I wanted to get as far from this horrible place as possible. But the next thing I knew, someone crouched beside me.

  “Where do you think you’re going? You’re hurt.”

  “Henry?” Feeling his warm hand on my arm, I gave in to the pain knowing I was safe, slipping into a welcoming darkness.

  Chapter 13

  Henry

  “I told you to stay with Flora.” I settled Venna in Zane’s arms and kept an eye on Cal’s unconscious form. There still might be others in the woods too.

  “Good thing I don’t listen.” He hugged his sister close and nodded toward Cal. “What happens to that creep?”

  “He dies.” I pulled out my phone and called Captain Fulk. “This is Henry, I need you to pick up a soulless warlock.”

  Zane eyed me warily as I hung up. “I’m sorry, did you say warlock?”

  I nodded. “It’s what we are.”

  “This is insane.”

  “No, there are a lot of us.” I snapped a picture of the surrounding woods with my phone and sent it to Fulk so his men would know where to phase.

  “Okay, let’s say I believe you. Let’s say you’re a big bad warlock…”

  “I’m not bad.” I said firmly.

  He floundered, leaning against a tree. “At first I thought I was some sort of freak.”

  “You’re not a freak. Do your eyes glow?”

  “Only if I let them.”

  I nodded. “You’re very powerful for your age. I’m impressed.”

  “What about Venna?” He seemed anxious and looked down at his sister.

  “Men are warlocks and women are witches.” I smiled, hoping to ease his distress. She was going to be fine. “Venna is a witch.”

  “I can’t imagine my sister riding a broom or cackling over a bubbling caldron. She’s not going to get warts and turn green is she?”

  I laughed. “No, but I’m going to tell her about you, about me.”

  “Hey, good luck, you’re going to need it.”

  “Thanks for your support, it’s touching, really.”

  “I try. I also think it’d be more fun to see her get pissed and turn you into a toad.”

  “Funny.” I rolled my eyes, though I was grateful for the stereotype. They were one of our best forms of protection.

  A white light filled the woods around us, and three men appeared. They bowed.

  “Have his identity confirmed and execute him.” I said, satisfied I would never lay eyes on Cal again. I could kill him. Execute him here and now. I would be doing my duty. My father would expect it of me. But I couldn’t, not with Venna and Zane present. And I certainly didn’t want Zane to see me as a monster like the man unconscious at our feet.

  One of the men stepped forward with a nod, “Sir, the king wishes to know on what grounds.”

  “Tell the king, attempted murder and treason. This man works for the Resistance.”

  The men bowed again, and in another flash of light, they were gone.

  “Shit.” Zane whistled. “That was frickin’ awesome.”

  I fought a smile, “I’ll teach you, don’t worry. But first, lets go back to my house and get Venna settled.”

  I placed my hand on his shoulder and closed my eyes, picturing my bedroom. It was a little presumptuous of me to put Venna in one of the guestrooms, but I didn’t want her waking up in an unfamiliar place. The flash of emerald light engulfed us, and when I opened my eyes Zane was staring at me in amazement.

  “Dude, my mind is blown.”

  “Just keep your cool until I get the doctor here.” Shaking my head, I helped Zane settle Venna on the bed.

  “Okay,” he paced, rubbing the back of his neck. “She looks awful.”

  “She fainted. She wasn’t knocked unconscious.” I wasn’t going to deny that she looked bad. Pale. She was covered in scrapes and bruises. I had Zane sit at the foot of the bed and sent a text to Mari, asking her to come as soon as possible.

  Davy’s mate appeared, though without the light show, as was normal for vampires. Zane was still getting used to phasing though, and jumped in shock. The look on his face made me wonder if the next time he would fall over in a dead faint.

  “How long has she been unconscious?” Mari went strait to Venna and began looking her over.

  “About five minutes,” I said.

  She nodded and set her doctor’s bag on the bedside table. “Send Flora up to help me.”

  Mari shooed us out of the room. Zane went to fetch Flora, and once she was with Mari I sat with him on the floor outside of the bedroom.

  “So you gonna tell me why that freak attacked my sister?” Zane strove for a little composure, smoothing his hair out of his eyes. At least he’d quit pacing.

  “My mum said Venna could be in danger. “Someone will want her, and possibly you, dead.”

  “Why? What’d we ever do to that asshole?” he was
refereeing to Cal, but Cal hadn’t been our biggest problem.

  I leaned back against the wall and told him everything. And I mean, everything. He simply stared at me, his eyes going round as saucers. At one point I waved my hand in front of his face to see if he was still with me.

  “If a war breaks out, we’ll leave Capeside and go to France to stay with my grandparents.”

  “You could have said something sooner.” He shook his head. “My father is Mr. Evil who has a thing for demons, and my mother…she’s really dead?”

  I nodded, “I’m sorry, Zane. I wanted to tell you, but I had no choice.”

  He shocked me by letting his eyes glow blue with energy. “That bastard better hope you catch him before I do.”

  The bedroom door opened and Flora motioned for us to come in.

  “Hey,” Mari glanced up from Venna’s, feet, where she was just finishing up a few stitches. She didn’t look like the pale, sickly vampires people often thought of. She was tan with brown hair and bright blue eyes.

  I hadn’t known anyone else to call that I trusted completely. She was the best pediatrician in Virginia. Though she only treated magical children. “You guys can breathe now. She’s going to be fine when she wakes up.”

  I wanted to collapse with relief. “Thanks, Mari.”

  “No problem.” She smiled. “I’ve cleaned her up and patched her back as well. She’ll heal fast. Oh, and your mother has given you the all clear.”

  I frowned. “What?”

  “She said you can tell Venna now.”

  How did Mari know about this? “Why are you telling me?”

  She sighed, shaking her head. “Aunt Irena knew you would call me. She knew all of this was going to happen.”

  “Great,” Zane hopped up on the bed next to his sister. “Does she know when Venna will wake up?”

  Mari cleaned up her things and packed them into her doctor’s bag. “She’ll wake up when the time is right. Call me if you need anything.”

  And she was gone.

  Chapter 14

  Henry

  “How do you have kids if you’re immortal?” Zane asked as he dug into the sandwich I’d made him. Flora sat beside him at the island counter in the kitchen, cutting the crust off of hers.

  “Are you sure you want me to explain this?” I really didn’t want to go into explicit detail. I was relatively certain Zane knew the mechanics of having children.

  “Like, if a couple just kept poppin’ those suckers out, one right after the other…wouldn’t it get a little crowded?”

  “You’re so immature.” Flora sighed.

  I shook my head, trying not to laugh. “Good to know I don’t have to give you an explanation on reproduction.”

  “Dude, I know how the bun gets in the oven.”

  I tried not to smile at that. “Because our aging is slow, other things are, uh, different.” I decided an example was the best way to explain. “It took Davy’s parents almost fifty years after he was born to have Flora.”

  “H-how old is Davy?”

  “Old enough to be your grandfather.” Flora picked the tomatoes off her sandwich and took a bite. “Don’t look so shocked.”

  “Sixty-five,” I said obviously he wasn’t in the mood to do the math, not that I could blame him. “Most couples have one or two kids, three or more are rare.”

  “Huh, so two is the limit.” In a flash he was up, and seconds later he stood on the other side of the kitchen. Then he was back in his seat eating. “Pretty cool isn’t it?”

  I nodded, glad for the change of subject. “No wonder you don’t get caught.”

  “Yep, I’m too fast for the law.” He snickered, and quickly quieted as I gave him a stern gaze.

  “Venna's worried that your pranks are going to morph into illegal stunts.”

  “Really?” Flora asked. “And here I thought you were a saint.”

  Zane stole the tomatoes off her plate. “At least I’m not going to turn in to a hag two-hundred years from now.”

  “At least I won’t have a record.” Flora looked ready to throttle him.

  “We’ll be back in a few minutes.” I grabbed Zane and hauled him with me down the hall. “I need you to do something for me.”

  The door to my father’s office opened and shut behind us. I didn’t have to raise a hand to make it move. I’d grown powerful enough to do it with a thought.

  “I’m guessing this is command central.”

  “Yes. I have a proposition for you.” I said, sitting in a black leather chair at the desk, “and I want you to know that whatever your decision is, I respect it.”

  I motioned for him to sit and he locked his knees. “I’m fine.”

  I pulled a piece of paper from a leather bound book and set a pen next to it. “I want to knight you, Zane.” I slid the pen and paper toward him. “By signing this you accept your duty as a knight and will answer to me alone. If we are attacked you have the power to fight for yourself and others. To make decisions if I am not around.”

  His head bobbed up and down reflexively. “Sure. Right. Me a knight…why?”

  “In order for you to remain on my property you must be a member of the royal family by birth, marriage, or knighthood.” I’d almost said binding, but I didn’t want to launch into a discussion about how two souls fused together for eternity. “More importantly, if we were ever attacked and you hurt or killed another out of self-defense, you would have immunity.”

  Earlier tonight was a perfect example. I’d told Venna to run. What I hadn’t told her was that there were three soulless warlocks chasing us. I’d killed them thinking they’d come for her.

  It hadn’t crossed my mind they’d been decoys.

  I certainly didn’t anticipate Zane coming back for his sister, but I couldn’t blame him. I’d have done the same for any of my family.

  “I’m James Bond now, like a spy or something? Do I get to go on secret missions?” Zane snapped me back to the present.

  “I don’t want you anywhere near that kind of action.” He was practically bursting. “I’m not going to give you any royal duties or send you on missions like a secret agent. This is so Venna will have peace of mind. It would destroy her if anything happened to you.”

  “You like to cover all the bases.” He grabbed the pen.

  “One more thing, Zane.” I placed my hand on the paper before he could sign. “Once your signature is on the paper, a mark will appear on your arm.”

  “My get-out-of-jail-free-card?” he guessed.

  “If you don’t want to do this I understand.”

  “Do you think it’s necessary?” he met my gaze, not looking like the troublemaker he pretended to be, but a fourteen-year-old boy, scared and unsure.

  “I sincerely hope it isn’t. I find having a security net a smart move. Insurance, if you will.”

  He pulled the paper out from under my hand and signed on the line at the bottom.

  Setting the pen on the desktop, he stared at both of his arms. Seconds later he hissed, clutching his right arm.

  A blue mark appeared on the inside of his forearm below the joint of his elbow. A crescent moon and three stars surrounding it stood out in a stark contrast against his tanned skin. He touched the quarter size mark with the tip of his finger.

  “It looks like a tattoo.”

  I lifted my arm, in the exact same spot I bore a similar mark, except mine was black and the stars were blue.

  I received mine on my eighteenth birthday. It was customary to wait until a person had come fully into their powers, but Zane was an exception.

  “How come yours is a different color?” he asked.

  “You can know a persons rank by the color. If the moon is black they are royalty. A blue moon, like yours, signifies a knighted witch or a warlock. Red belongs to the vampires, and green to the werewolves. Anyone with a mark, no matter what color, can be trusted.”

  “Could a vampire or a werewolf have a black mark?”

  “Yes.”
I was about to explain when the door opened.

  Flora flitted in, “I went up to check on Venna. She’s mumbling in her sleep.”

  I stood. “I’ll go to her. Thanks.”

  Flora didn’t acknowledge me. She was busy staring at Zane’s arm.

  “That is a very high honor.” She smirked. “Don’t screw up it up or you’ll be exiled.”

  Zane headed out the door. “Thanks for your support, next time something exciting happens to you, I’ll be sure to reciprocate.”

  “Oh, Zane,” I said before I phased up to my room. “You can take one of the guestrooms on the second floor.”

  Flora smiled sweetly. “I could show him for you.”

  Zane shook his head. “Forget it, you’ll probably shove me in the broom closet.”

  I left them to bicker, which, I thought was just to mask their like of each other, to check on Venna.

  The need to tell her who she really was had grown into desperation. There were so many things that could go wrong if I made a mistake.

  Venna needed my undivided attention. I would face one of my greatest fears: Confess an enormous secret with the potential to tear us apart.

  I’ve been leading a double life since the day I met her, always making up excuses for my strange behavior and lifestyle. For most people the odd occurrences would have been too much. Their dislike for such frequent incidents would have ended the relationship long before. But she never judged me. I knew she was aware of my lies. Sometimes she doubted me. I could see it. And every time I think she would tell me to confess or never come around again, she let it go, trusting me.

  The kind of betrayal she would feel once I told her the truth was incomprehensible. I felt we were cheated, our future happiness jeopardized because of my parents’ decision.

  I could protect her, fight for her, lie for her, to her, and I had more power than most people dreamt of. But I couldn’t make her want to be with me.