Eleanor may not have known how her decision affected both powers, but I had worked it out… with a little help.
“You will need me!” it bleated, rotten teeth chattering, its head thrashing from side to side. “Kai will die. Witches will be burned. The crone’s magic isn’t enough to sustain you”
“Would you shut thefuckup,” I said. “No wonder Hekate booted you to the curb. You’re one annoying little goat.”
Bahmet was certainly less imposing in his animal form. No suit, no gloves, no overbearing demeanour.
Flames dripped from my hands, spreading across every beautiful part of the forest. I conjured winds to spread the flame, sucked the moisture out of plants using my connection to the element of water. I didn’t stop until the fire crept up and over Tomin either. I hoped he was still alive long enough to know how it felt to burn. I wanted him to feel every ounce of pain just so he got a fraction of how he’d made countless people suffer.
“You need me,” Bahmet tried again, hopping from rivers of my fire that spread around him. “You need me for more than just getting out of this place. Kill me, and you will never leave”
“Save yourself the bother,” I said, flicking my hand in dismissal, whilst also making the wind rage wilder, the earth shiver and crack. “It’s over. Really over. No more Bahmet, no more Witch Trials. In fact, when demons die you make a bunch of really beautiful flowers.”
I had promised Arwyn that I would burn the world for him, and I meant it. Although I hadn’t specified, I’d known all along exactly what I meant with those words.
Bahmet’s four little legs smacked the ground, and he charged. I laughed, lifting my hands and gathering the fire into a wall before it. It was effortless magic, magic that felt right and justified.
A dull thud caught my lower stomach, but it was only brief. The once demon lord screamed out as flames engulfed its skin, eating away through its fur. Once it was over, all that was left behind was streams of thistlebane that withered amongst the heat of my magic.
I stepped back, suddenly tired to my bones. My hands fumbled with my lower stomach, wondering why a cold ache was spreading. Looking down, I saw why. Blood oozed from a gash left when Bahmet had charged at me. His horns, short and stump, and yet deadly all the same, had met my stomach as he’d leaped at me.
I lifted my shirt up, recognising the wound was deep and horrid. I tried to plug the gawping hole with my hands, but found that I could no longer feel them.
No. No. Any harm upon me should’ve been shared with Tomin. Except, not now. Not now my fire had burned his body to crisp, alongside the sigil that I’d tricked Tomin into carrying.
Somewhere, where the pain should’ve been, I felt a sense of lightness. When my knees hit the charred earth for a second time, I couldn’t stop myself from smiling.
Bahmet was destroyed, saving the world from that demon.
Tomin was dead, saving Arwyn from ever facing that evil again.
Witch-kind was free.
And I, Hector Briar, would die happily knowing I had done it. I had done it. Me. I had…
48
ARWYN
There was a storm inside of my bones, begging to be released. So, I gave it freedom. As I ran through the streets of London, I painted the symbols of air, water and fire in my mind until the shape of them was as familiar as Hector’s body. I spewed out my intent, gathering dark clouds at my back, singing for rain to lash against the cobbles and lightning to crack against the sides of buildings.
No one would stop me. Not if they wished to live.
By the time I reached the White Tower, the sky rumbled viciously, as if the dark smudges of clouds hid a demon within them. Fog rose around me in a wave, engulfing my body as I cut past the police guards stationed at every entrance and exit.
I was a madman, sprinting through the heart of London with nothing but a hospital nightgown falling off my broad body.
But it was better this way. As long as no one had the chance to get in my way, everyone would survive. At most, they’d come out of this unscathed but very wet.
The White Tower was a maze of corridors, stairs and rooms. It was mostly deserted, as if all evidence that the Coven had ruled here had been stripped away. If it wasn’t for thedemanding, yet far off, chanting of voices, I would’ve believed I was truly alone.
I followed the noise, using the chorus to guide me to where I needed to be.
The deeper I got into the bellows of the White Tower, the more my anxiety grew. The bud of flame inside of me became an inferno when the noise sharpened, and I could make out the words.
“Hekate, Goddess of witchcraft, Queen of magic,
I call upon thee to join us.
