A soft meowing sounded from beneath the bed. Romy let out a sharp gasp, just as a black kitten pawed from beneath the sheets, used my leg as a tree and climbed up into Kai’s lap. Kai didn’t act surprised by his familiar’s presence, as he laid a hand on his head and began to stroke.
“He’s like some evil genius silently plotting our demise,” I said, nose twitching at the kitten’s presence. Was it possible to be allergic to demons? I supposed time would tell. For a momentI wondered about Emon, wondering where he’d gotten himself to. “What’s your grand plan then, Kai?”
“It starts how all good stories start,” Kai said, smugly.
“Which is?” Romy nudged him, making room on the bed for her to squirrel next to him.
“Once upon a time…”
“Here we bloody go,” Hector mocked, enjoying every moment of this.
“Once upon a time,” Kai repeated, shooting Hector a ‘don’t you dare interrupt me again, you swine’ kind of look. “There was a great and powerful coven of witches. A whole coven. A family. And in the face of struggle, they didn’t shy away. They never cowered. ‘Why?’ I hear you ask. Well, because they had each other. And so, this is how they toppled the big bad and witch-hating system…”
I’ve never been one to spoil a story, but I will give you the plot twist just to speed up the process. It was a bloody good idea. Kai’s plan had holes in it, ones we would fill together as a coven. But it could work. It was time the world changed for the better. Put hate aside and stood up to injustice. Action was required, voices just as powerful tools as magic, we just simply needed to uplift them. The ingredients of Kai’s plan were simple enough. We needed time, patience and, as he said multiple times through his speech, the most important ingredient of all was each other.
Our coven. Our family.
So mote it be.
52
HECTOR
ONE YEAR LATER
Ihadn’t been back to Club Energy in what felt like a lifetime. Perhaps, because I’d been through more than a normal person would ever face in the span of their existence. I got to the bar, plopped myself on a stool and signalled the bartender to come over.
“What can I get you?” His eyes lifted and met mine, the colour practically draining out of his face. “Omg, you’re that witch, right? Hector Briar… I can’t believe it.”
I waved my hand, signalling for him to keep his voice down. “Perhaps we keep to our inside voices, so we don’t get the entire club too excited.”
“Yes,” he stammered, hardly blinking. “Yes, of course. I can do that.” He was still shouting, so I winced. “Sorry, I can do that,” the barman whispered this time, a little too quietly beneath the thumping bass of music. “I just can’t believe you’ve come to our little old bar.”
“It’s Alex, right?” I said, leaning over the sticky counter.
His eyes widened a fraction. “How do you know my name?”
I liked doing this, testing our spell. By our, I meant witch-kind as a whole. Of course I’d recognised the barman the moment I’d walked in. Whereas I’d been through two Witch Trials, killed my kin, destroyed a demon-goat-man-in-a-suit, found the love of my life, killed his father, died and came back to life again,andworked with my coven to save witch-kind from hate and scrutiny… Alex was still pouring drinks in Energy.
I admired a man with dedication.
“It’s on your name tag,” I said, pointing down to his unbuttoned shirt. It was, in fact, on his button, but the truth was I’d slept with Alex many moons ago, forgot his name and thought I’d dubbed him not-Jon for a while.
“My bad,” Alex said, flustered from the brief moment of panic. “What can I get you, Hector Briar?”
Mortals had a funny way of using my full name whenever they saw me in public. It was an automatic thing they did, like they were trying to be respectful or something. “Vodka and cranberry, light ice. Please.”
“On it,” Alex said, rushing off to make the drink.
I turned the seat around and faced the swaying or gyrating bodies on the dance floor. Kai and Romy were there, practically grinding against one another as fake smoke swirled around their feet, and laser light flashed overhead. I didn’t blame them either. The second my dance partner turned up, I’d be grinding on him publicly too.
My gaze drifted to the door, wondering if Arwyn had arrived yet. He’d promised to get on an earlier train from London after his long week of appointments in Parliament. I’d not seen him since last weekend, and my loins were suffering for it.
Blue balls so bad it deserved a place in the Guinness book of records.
“Here you go,” Alex announced. “This is on the house. You know… for all your hard work.”
I mock saluted, not wanting to argue with a free drink. “Ta, mate. Appreciate it.”
