I closed the space between me and the gate so quickly, even my father jolted backwards. The Witch Hunters reacted, lifting guns and pointing barrels at me.
“What have you done, Father?” I shouted, no control over my reaction.
He smiled, a wide, cat-like grin that split his ugly face in two parts. “It has nothing to do with whatIhave done, but what you have achieved. Our little experiments will get their first chance to prove themselves tomorrow, and I hope that they come back to us victorious. Maybe seeing what we can achieve with Bahmet will finally motivate you to use the demon again.”
Every inhale scorched my throat, the pressure expanding in my lungs until I was sure they were going to explode. All I could think about was Hector. Where he was and if he was safe. I could see the desire for violence in my father’s eyes because, once again, he had come alive as if the mention of tomorrow’s plan was the only thing keeping his heart beating.
“Acting against witch-kind before I gain control of Bahmet will only lead to the downfall of your plans. Surely you can see that? If we go against the witches, we will not be prepared to face their retaliation.”
Tomin threw his head back and laughed. The sound was agonising and sick, like hyenas unleashed upon a carcass of meat, delighting in the feast they were about to enjoy. “Dear, dear, Arwyn. We’re not going to need to worry about the witches. As of tomorrow they shall destroy themselves.”
“You seem confident.”
Tomin nodded once. “I am. Regardless if you can use Bahmet or not, I’m under good authority that the witches, since the end of the Witch Trials, have begun losing their grips on theirGifts. Without Bahmet being manipulated by their Grand High, all connections to his given powers are fading. The Coven is in chaos, leaderless and broken, they are far too distracted with themselves to even expect us. Don’t worry yourself with anything but mastering that demon. And do it soon, Arwyn.”
“Why?” I asked, wanting to grip the bars, tear them from their hinges and get to my father. “If me simply hosting Bahmet is enough to make the witches powerless, then what is the need for me to master the very demonic power that our kind have hunted for thousands of years?”
I delighted in the very moment my words hit their mark. Father could not deny that what he wanted me to do went directly against everything the Witch Hunters’ codex taught. Wewere trained to remove demons from the world, and here we were now trying to harness the Prince of them for our own gain.
“Because a storm is coming,” my father replied, “and we must be ready to ride on the winds to our victory.”
It took great effort not to claw at my skin and rid myself of the feeling his promise had laid upon me. Before I could utter another word, my father left. One of my guards, without taking their distrusting eyes off me, reached for my bedroom door through the bars of my prison, and closed it.
Once again, I was shut away, left to drown in my thoughts.
Except there was no time now. Barely seconds had passed since they left me and I was already running. Not that there was far to go. Beneath my bed was a flask of dark brown whiskey. I snatched it, practically tearing the cap off the bottle before taking a long drink.
It was not that I needed to get drunk and bury everything that had just been revealed. No. I needed to get the thistlebane out of my system, immediately. Without access to Bahmet and his Gifts, I had no way of contacting Hector Briar.
The last time we spoke was at the end of the Witch Trials after he drove an athame into my chest and then begged a demon to resurrect me. I’d contemplated reaching out to him before, just as Bahmet whispered into my inner ear, telling me I had the possibility to do so if only I harnessed him—acceptedhim.
But nothing was as burning as my need to warn Hector about the threat that my father had revealed.
I had to tell Hector about the plans. Whether he believed me or not. I couldn’t sit by and allow Hector to be under threat.
Why? Because I needed Hector alive, considering he was the only person alive with the power to destroy Bahmet, once and for all.
3
HECTOR
Itook no pleasure in being the Coven’s most wanted criminal. Not Father Tomin, head of the very organisation that had hunted our kind for generations, but little old me. All because I killed Jonathan Bailey, whose poison had sunk so deep into the foundations of the Coven that his memory was a weed—one that required tearing out at the root.
My predicament made navigating my days difficult, which was why the place I called home was possibly the one place they’d never check for me.
I cut through London’s streets, keeping clear of the underground due to the network of cameras monitored by the Coven. Walking in the open was preferred because I could go to running really quick if the moment required it. You see, if I was stuck on one of the tubes beneath the ground there really weren’t many places I could hide. It had happened once already, and I wasn’t about to let it happen again.
It was close to six in the morning when I finally spotted Tower Bridge in the distance. Set before it like a jewel of brown was the Tower of London, the heart being the epicentre for the witches. No doubt the White Tower was bustling with leaderless witches trying to regain composure in the wake of losing accessto their greatest power. Bahmet, a power now in the hands of the Witch Hunters. Witch-kind was left without a spearhead to guide them through the turmoil of conflict. Although, from the insight I’d received, I know they were giving it a good go.
Luckily for me orthem, it wasn’t the White Tower which I was heading for, but the top-floor apartment that Jonathan Bailey’s inheritance had bought out for Romy. Whilst the Coven sent out their numbers to look for me, they would never notice that this entire time I’d been camping out beneath their very nose.
Romy’s apartment crowned the top of a five-star hotel. In reality it wasn’t a hotel, but to the public it was. So elite and well-requested that the rooms werealwaysbooked up and the wait list for the supposed restaurant was over a year long. It was all one grand illusion to humans, hiding a darker truth beneath polished glass walls, marble floors and elaborate chandeliers.
Much like my theory regarding the London Tube, I took the stairs all the way up to the twenty-fifth floor. Standing in an elevator, especially in a witch-owned establishment, wouldn’t be the wisest decision made on my part. Not to mention my clothes smelled of dried alcohol, terrible sex and the burned flesh from my last victim.
I hadn’t checked my phone yet but no doubt the murder had already been reported on. If I expected guilt to flood through me, it didn’t. It hadn’t in a long time. Instead, I was glad that the reported murder would draw many investigative witches away from this location.
I was Hansel without a Gretel, leaving breadcrumbs for them to followawayfrom me.
