by Zandria West
‘Dravia, thank you. I can take them from here.’
‘If you’re sure, Councillor –?’ The guard who’d brought us there looks at him uncertainly for a moment.
‘I hope you’re not questioning me, guard.’
She blinks. ‘Oh, well, no, of course not. I just thought –’
‘Leave the thinking to others. I’ll let you know if I need anything else.’
She nods her head, narrows her eyes, and backs away a few steps.
‘Well, come in then you two,’ Darian says, and I follow Lawrence through the doorway.
6
LANA
He closes the door behind us and gestures us through. I stop, my thoughts racing.
What the hell?
Before us, a table is set for dinner with crystal glassware, shining silver cutlery, and pristine white plates and bowls.
‘Please, take a seat.’
The room smells wonderful.
Lawrence’s eyes meet mine. His expression perfectly matches the way I feel right now: confusion and distrust mingled with some serious fucking hunger.
‘You’d never know it,’ our host continues conversationally, ‘but one of the prison’s kitchen-hands was trained in a top restaurant in Straasvia. The man can cook. Unfortunately, he occasionally liked to eat a guest or two when he wasn’t watched. His gastronomic delights included one of my former colleagues on the Council, so he ended up here. Still, with the correct supervision, he’ll create a culinary experience that you’ll never forget…’
My mouth starts watering wildly. I don’t think I’ve had a proper meal since the werewolf meat-sticks and since then I’ve walked up and down a mountain, been captured and survived days in prison. All that makes a girl hungry.
Lawrence sits down quickly. I stay standing. I force myself to try to think rationally, despite the demands my stomach is making. Why would he do this?
‘You’re thinking it’s poisoned?’ Darian raises an eyebrow at me, like he’s reading my thoughts. ‘Child, if I wanted to hurt you, I could strap you to a table, torture you, drug you, kill you if I wished. In case you’d failed to notice, you are entirely at my mercy. I wouldn’t go to the trouble of setting a table. Sit, please.’
I sit down across from Lawrence. Neither of us say a word.
Darian sits beside Lawrence at the table and lets out a sigh. ‘The guards here are sometimes lacking in imagination. They’d torture you endlessly and wonder why they didn’t get any information from you. I, however, managed to convince them a different approach was worth trying. I find that the best conversations are often had over a decent meal, don’t you? So. No more torture.’
My heart skips a beat.
‘No more torture?’ I say, my voice wavering. I hope it sounds like I’m so relieved I can hardly speak.
No more torture means no more Grayson.
In all the awful scenarios I’d considered, this is one that had never crossed my mind. As terrible as it was, the time with him in that white room was still time with him. No more torture means I might never see him again. I’m really on my own. I feel a pressure in my chest like my heart is being squeezed so tightly it can’t beat. I swallow. I don’t want to start crying.
I see a spark in the demon’s eye. Does he know about Grayson and me? Did he find out somehow? Is that why the torture is ending?
A sudden sharp fear grips me. Please let Grayson be okay. I knew he took a risk coming to me, but if anything happened to him because of it…
‘Ah, and here’s the food now,’ Darian smiles.
A black-coated demon with purple skin and cactus-style spines sticking out of his head approaches, carrying three bowls. He places my bowl before me with more delicacy and grace than I would expect from someone of his appearance. The aromas wafting up from it fill my nostrils and, despite everything, my head spins from hunger.
‘The soup course. Please, don’t wait,’ Darian purrs.
Opposite me, Lawrence doesn’t need a second invitation. He looks warily at the cutlery on the table, then picks the bowl up and pours the soup directly into his mouth.
I hesitate for a moment, then take a tentative spoonful. The soup is good. Rich, creamy sweet tomato and basil flavours fill my palate, setting off fireworks of pleasure on my tongue. I don’t know if anything has ever tasted this good before. I sure as hell hope Darian’s not about to tell us that it’s made with a genuine human-baby stock or contains essence of fried dog testicles, because even that wouldn’t be enough to stop me from eating it right now.
I finish the soup in record time then sit back and look at the empty bowl. I want more.
‘So, while we wait for the second course, we may as well have a little chat.’
I sit back in the chair and cross my arms over my chest. This is what we’re really here for.
Darian smiles.
‘I’ve decided to tell you what I’m thinking, Lana. If you are in fact the Key – and we’re going to work on the assumption that you are – then there are two possibilities. Either you know how your powers are activated and you’re refusing to tell. Or, more worryingly, the truth is that you have no idea how your own powers work.’
He studies me closely as he speaks, and I try my best to keep my expression neutral.
He continues. ‘Perhaps that was the Great Witch’s plan all along? That the Key be as much in the dark as the rest of us about how the Barrier be re-made?’
Darian stands and begins pacing the room. I feel myself sinking back into my seat as he does, trying to make myself smaller. I have the sense that his veneer of civility and friendliness masks a power that is crueller and more brutal than any I’ve yet encountered. ‘So, how do we prevent the enchantment from doing its work? Do we kill you? Do we keep you alive and incarcerated? Might there be some other way of defusing your power, as it were? A counter spell, for instance. And as much as my colleagues love a good torture session, I suspect that torturing you won’t answer any of those questions.’
As he talks and paces, I try to take in the surrounding room as surreptitiously as possible. We’re in the top level of the prison and a large window gives a glimpse of the city beyond. The security here isn’t as strong as in the cells. Is there any way we could overpower him and escape?
I look across to where Lawrence is taking it all in with big, scared eyes. A clueless human and a frightened werewolf child? We don’t stand a chance.
Suddenly Darian directs a brilliant smile my way, as if he’s just remembered that I’m still there. ‘I’ve invited a guest along to share the main course with us. Witch business is best conducted by witches I always think, don’t you?’
In time with his pronouncement, there’s a knock at the door. Darian walks over, then opens it wide.
‘Ah, Garenda, so lovely to see you.’
It takes my brain an instant to compute what is happening. Terror grips me.
Fuck.
Fuck fuck fuck! The last time I saw Garenda, the witch who I once called Clarissa from my acquaintance with her in the human world, I was bleeding out on the floor at her feet, my brother dead by my side.
She killed my brother. She almost killed me. She tried to tear the signs from my body to destroy the magic that joined me to my men.
I watch now as Darian and Garenda greet one another warmly. Garenda’s long hair is flowing and silky-dark like something off a television commercial for shampoo. She’s dressed in a pale lilac pant suit and crocodile-skin stilettos, and she carries a small matching crocodile-skin handbag under one arm. Seeing her again now, hatred, fury and terror war for first place inside me.
I had hoped she was dead. Instead she looks, not only alive, but like someone’s recently taken her out on a shopping spree with a no-limits credit card to freshen her style and improve her mood.
The pair return to the table and Garenda sits beside Darian, facing me.
‘I’m so sorry you couldn’t make it for the soup, it was spectacular,’ Darian says.
‘That’s fine,’ Garenda responds, smiling. ‘I’m touched that you’d invite me at all.’
‘A purely informal invitation, of course. You know that the Demon Council policy doesn’t allow for the involvement of witches in this kind of thing. A hangover from the bad old days and all that...’
‘I absolutely understand. And I must say, taking the back entrance always gives you a different feel for a place doesn’t it? The guard you assigned me was so helpful.’
‘I believe you have met Lana,’ Darian says politely, a subtle smile curving his lips.
Garenda looks across at me coolly and I meet her gaze as steadily as I can. It’s all I can do not to vomit all that delicious soup back up over the pristine white tablecloth.
‘I thought you were dead,’ I say.
She smiles. ‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ she purrs. ‘Though young Gabriel took his best shot. How is he, anyway?’
I wince. Just hearing his name on her lips causes me physical pain. Knowing that he is far away, that he can’t reach me here, that there’s nothing he can do to help me now, is a special kind of agony. I grit my teeth and don’t respond.
‘I see the signs have returned,’ Garenda frowns, studying my forearms where the dark tracings of my Bondmarks are visible. It took time for them to reappear after what she did to me, but I was so glad when they showed on my skin again. I’m also glad the shirt I put on after the bath covers my chest. I’d hate for Garenda to see the new sign. I have an uncomfortable feeling that she’d know exactly what it means.
‘The Great Witch’s magic is not so easily broken,’ I smile as sweetly as I’m able.
‘Well, I see you two have plenty to discuss,’ Darian’s voice is ripe with eagerness. ‘But the main course is about to be served. If I may suggest you give the food your full attention, there will be plenty of time for conversation after…’
I bite the inside of my cheek so hard I taste the salty metal of blood in my mouth. I wish that Garenda was dead. I’ve never before wished with such intensity that another being’s life be ended. Right now, it’s all I want.
She looks across at me, a small smile playing on her lips, her forehead creasing as though she’s trying to figure out a complicated puzzle.
The long silence is broken by the plates being set down in front of us. Carved leg of lamb, at least I hope it’s lamb, with tiny roasted vegetables – baby beetroots, baby potatoes, baby carrots, and sauce that’s fragrant with herbs and spices.
Damn my traitor of a stomach. As much as I feel like my hatred and rage are so great that everything else should stop out of respect for them, my stomach disagrees.
‘Wow…’ Lawrence says, his voice low with wonder.
‘Not bad for prison food, huh?’ Darian says jovially. ‘Don’t tell anyone though, or they’ll all be wanting to come here,’ and then he lets off a hearty guffaw. ‘So, what do the witches think about all this Key business? You must feel a little silly, Garenda, to have missed it for all those years. As I hear it, the girl was right in front of you the whole time…’
I take a tiny bit of pleasure in the way the muscles running down either side of Garenda’s neck harden at Darian’s words as she pauses with a spoonful of food just an inch or two from her mouth.
‘Still, at least you know now. I’m sure between us we can figure out what it all means…’
‘I have a few ideas,’ she says.
I glance down at the cutlery setting, spot the long, sharp serrated carving knife. I imagine picking it up and driving it into the soft hollow of Garenda’s neck.
‘Waiter,’ Darian calls, and gestures to the demon serving us. I watch as he picks the knife up and places it on the meat platter and carries it all away.
‘I meant to tell you, Lana, your brother sends his greetings. In a round about kind of a way,’ Clarissa smiles at me.
I go blank. ‘What?’
‘You know? Your twin brother. Jamie. The handsome one.’
My brother is dead. Alex told me he was dead. Jamie’s heart stopped. Garenda killed him.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, didn’t you realise?’ she says, taking a sip of wine as she looks across at me, candlelight reflecting a shifting glow in her dark eyes. ‘Your demon-friends hurt him terribly, but he is recovering well enough now. As well as could be expected, I should say.’
My grip tightens around the fork I’m holding.
For a moment, I doubt my own memories, but only for a moment. I was there. I saw what Garenda did to him; what she did to all of us. Jamie invited her in, and she wreaked her own, special, brutal brand of havoc. Despite his betrayal of them, Alex and Reuben would never have hurt my brother. They couldn’t have, they were captured by Garenda’s magic, unable to even blink.
Garenda smiles again, this time more confident. ‘Human minds are so fragile, don’t you find Darian? I’m constantly surprised how easily they can be twisted and moulded. Your father, Lana, for instance….’
I stand up, knocking my plate to the ground with a crash.
‘Don’t you dare say his name,’ I whisper. I swear to god, I will tear her tongue out of her throat with my bare hands before I listen to her talk about my family for another moment.
‘Well, this is all very invigorating,’ Darian smiles. ‘But please, Lana, do sit down. Strong emotions are bad for the digestion.’
As I look across, I see that Darian has Lawrence in a head lock, and a knife at the edge of his throat. Lawrence’s eyes are wide and wild, but he isn’t moving a muscle.
I swallow and slowly lower myself back down into the seat. There’s nothing I can do. Not without endangering both myself and Lawrence. I’d never forgive myself if I got him hurt. Darian releases his hold on Lawrence and steps back. Lawrence collapses back into his chair, spluttering quietly and rubbing his neck.
‘Well, a terrific dinner, don’t you agree? Now, what say we adjoin to the smoking room for something to round the night out?’
Darian rubs his hands together. Garenda stands too, not taking her eyes off me.
Darian turns to where Lawrence is shivering with fear.
‘Lawrence, I think perhaps this might be an opportune time for you to get some rest,’ he says jovially, as though he hadn’t just been holding a knife to his throat a moment ago. ‘Who knows what tomorrow holds, hey?’
A guard takes Lawrence’s arm and directs him to the door. I watch them go with a sinking feeling. Not that Lawrence could do anything to help get us out of here. He’s as powerless as I am. But it did feel better just having him sitting here with me. There’s something very different about being alone in a room full of enemies who wish you harm, without even a single friend nearby.
I have no choice though. I follow Darian and Garenda down a step and through a wide archway into a smaller room, furnished with low leather chairs and a small dark coffee table. Against one wall, on a mahogany cabinet rests a carafe and set of crystal tumblers.
‘A drink, shall we?’ Darian says, then takes down three glasses without waiting for a reply. ‘Ah, tonight I think a toast is in order. To cooperation and friendship,’ he smiles, passing a glass to me.
‘And don’t forget, Lana, if you aren’t friendly and cooperative, your little werewolf pal might just happen to have a very… uncomfortable night.’
Anger rises in me. As I take the glass, I have an almost overwhelming urge to smash it. Garenda watches me like I’m some bug she’s taking notes on for a test and trying to decide if she’s going to finish the experiment by squashing it. My hand is shaking. I can’t risk disobeying. I have no doubt that Darian would be happy to carry through with his threat. I raise the glass to my lips and take a sip.
Darian smiles. Garenda smiles. The drink is sweet and spicy and syrupy on my tongue.
‘How long will it take to work?’ Garenda asks, looking at Darian.
I try to say something but find that I can’t speak. I actually can’t speak. I try to raise a hand to my throat. I feel a burning sensation, like someone is pouri
ng molten metal down my throat. I hear a crash and realise that I have dropped the glass I was holding.
‘Just a moment now, I’d say,’ Darian takes my elbow and supports me as I lower down to sitting in one of the chairs.
I try to speak again but nothing comes out.
‘I knew you’d come up with the goods,’ Darian says from very far away. ‘So much more effective than that brute with a knife they’ve been letting loose on her. Now, she’s all yours.’ He smiles at Garenda.
I see her taking a step towards me as black descends over my vision and everything fades.
7
REUBEN
Bang. Bang. Bang.
I sit bolt upright and look around, my heart pounding. For a second, I have no idea where I am or what’s going on. Then I see the dismal surroundings of the cheap boarding room and it all comes back to me.
I’m up in a moment. I walk over to the door, waiting and listening.
‘We know you’re fucking in there, just open up will you.’
I don’t know if I’m more relieved or irritated to hear Alex’s voice. I dislodge the chair from where I’d wedged it and let the door swing wide.
Gabriel and Alex stand shoulder to shoulder in the doorway.
‘You look bloody awful,’ Alex says, stepping in and glancing around the room. ‘How did you manage to find this flea-ridden hellhole?’
I try not to growl. I haven’t had enough sleep, which means my wolf is still near the surface and cranky as hell. ‘I was tired. I needed a bed.’
‘Sure you were tired after your efforts last night.’ Alex raises an eyebrow. ‘We found what was left of your drinking buddy. Messy, Reuben. Messy.’
Gabriel closes the door behind himself and turns. ‘I used a tracking spell to locate you once we arrived in the city. There was a bit of a lag, apparently. By the time we made it to the place where I thought you’d be, all we found was a dead demon.’
‘He was a prison guard,’ I say. ‘I was trying to get information.’