The Frozen Witch Book One (13 page)

“And you won’t. All details of this case
are now locked. You will share them with no one.”

There he went again, silencing me. It was
almost as if he was scared of me.

Though reason told me to turn around and
head right through the door, I didn’t. “Why?”

He didn’t react.

He was obviously giving me one more chance
to leave quietly.

I didn’t take it. “Why shouldn’t I tell
anybody? What exactly are you trying to hide?”

“What I am trying to hide,” he said in an
uncharacteristically calm tone, “is something you are not ready to
hear. Trust me when I say this, Lilly White, this is for your own
good. Now, request another assignment. Your sins remain, and you
must continue to pay for them.” With that, he turned from me,
walked around, sat at his desk, and proceeded to ignore
me.

It took me several seconds to unfreeze my
body and push through the door. As soon as I did, as soon as I was
out in the abandoned corridor, I closed the door and leant against
it. I instantly locked a sweaty hand on my chest, my frown becoming
so pronounced it felt as if my mouth would drop from my face. “What
the hell was that?” I whispered quietly under my breath. “I’m not
ready to know the truth? What does that mean?” My voice shot up,
becoming louder, becoming more desperate.

From within the office, I heard Franklin
clear his throat.

That arrogant move was enough to turn my
fear into anger. A blast of it suddenly surged through my gut, and
I got the distinct urge to kick the door. Do that, however, and
Franklin would just add another so-called sin to my growing list of
misdemeanors. I felt very much like an indentured slave.

Except unlike the slaves of old, I would
never break free of Vali.

I cursed his very existence as I walked
away. I also frowned. I frowned because the mysteries were
mounting, drawing me further into this new world….

They have a saying – no rest for the wicked.
Well, I didn’t exactly fancy I was wicked, but Vali did.

I didn’t get a chance to return to my room
and beat my pillow to let out my frustrations.

Megan marched into view, a scowl marking
her perfect red lips. “With me,” she demanded as she clicked her
fingers and pointed to her side.

I was like a dog expected to heel at its
master’s side, ha?

I controlled the mutinous expression that
threatened to crumple my brow like screwed up paper. With a breath,
I walked up to her.

“It’s time to hand you over to Section
One.”

“Section One?”

Her scowl hardened. “The lowest
detectives.”

Though I seriously wanted to ignore her, I
couldn’t. I controlled my interest as I asked, “Lowest detectives,
what does that mean?”

“Keep up. Vali has an extensive network of
employees.”

“You mean indentured slaves, right?” I
don’t know why I was pushing my luck – one look at her stiff lips
would tell anyone to cork their mouth and run away. But I was
angry, trapped, cornered, and finally fighting back even if the
only weapon I had was my words.

“How dare you. Vali offers final chances.
He pulls the damned back from Hell. So I do not mean indentured
slaves,” she spoke in hisses, “I mean his employees.”

“Fine, his employees.” I controlled my
tone. “Why are they detectives?”

“In order to work off your sins, you must
bring in other sinners. As a lower detective, you complete basic
groundwork, enabling the higher-classed teams to bring in
targets.”

“You mean, we’re like a vigilante police
force?” I spluttered, realizing how frigging strange this was. I’d
stumbled into a crazy nightmare, and now apparently I was going to
become a detective tracking down crims for the god of
revenge….

“No, we are not vigilantes. But yes, we
police the populace of Saint Helios City at the behest of Vali. He
identifies sinners, and we bring them in.”

I snorted. It was a dark, judgmental move.
“Then what? He chucks them off the roof?”

She turned on me, nostrils flaring, gaze
blazing. “Rest assured that I will share your behavior with Vali.
If you continue to obstruct, he will add more sins to your file.
And if he does that—”

I felt my cheeks stiffen. “I’ll be here
for longer,” I managed through a thin crack in my equally thin
lips.

She nodded low, meeting my gaze with all
the implied force of a sword to my throat.

I sighed, releasing the tension that had
crept up my shoulders. Looking at the floor, I asked, “So I join
the lower detectives, then? I’ll be expected to track down
criminals and bring them to justice?”

“No. You will not mete out justice. Only
Vali will do that. As I have already said, you will simply do the
ground work on cases, tracking targets down. Now come.”

With no other choice, I followed.

I listened to Megan’s heels clicking along
the carpet as she led me down the corridor. A second later, we
faced a door. A knot of nerves twisted hard in my gut as I stared
at it. For all intents and purposes, it was nothing more than an
ordinary door. It didn’t have chains strung across it, and there
was no great big keep-out sign. And yet, if you believed my
stomach, this would be the gateway down to Hell.

Surreptitiously, I inched a hand
underneath my shirt and clutched my stomach, willing my nerves to
stay put.

Megan reached around her neck and pulled out
a lanyard. She grabbed a sophisticated-looking keycard and swiped
it close to the door. I couldn’t see a keypad. That, apparently,
didn’t matter. As soon as the keycard swiped over the bold red
paint, something unclicked from within. The door opened
inwards.

Don’t ask me what I was expecting. In my
current mood, I honestly thought this jolly painted door would lead
down to the Devil himself. Instead? It led to an office – large,
open plan, and chock full of people. Apart from a few glaring
differences, it looked exactly like an ordinary open-plan office
from an ordinary workplace. But the glaring differences? In the
corner were two people practicing magic, great glowing discs of
light filtering out from their touches as they selected various
magical weapons before continuing their lesson.

I wasn’t ready for this. Okay, I’d seen a
lot of magic in the past two days. But this? This was worse.
Because this normalized the incredible. There was no longer any
hiding from the awful reality of this world when my officemates
could call on the very power of fire itself.

I clammed up as I stood there. And you
guessed it, my breathing began to get shallower and shallower.

Megan, if she noticed, didn’t appear to
care. She led me forward with a flick of her manicured hand.
“You’ll be stationed over here,” she pointed out as she gestured
towards a desk far along the opposite end of the room. Whilst most
of the other desks were generous, and nearly all of them offered a
relatively splendid view through the plate-glass windows beyond,
this desk was shoved right into a corner and clearly was intended
for the lowest member of the pecking order. Me.

I barely reacted as Megan gestured me
forward and patted the desk. “You’ll be given a caseload just like
everyone else. And just like everyone else,” her voice dipped low,
“you will be expected to finish it on time. Vali does not abide
slackers.”

My stomach
sank at that warning, yet my
curiosity peaked. You’d think, considering all the trouble my
curiosity had gotten me into today, I would have shoved it into a
corner. I didn’t. Couldn’t. A pronounced frown spread across my
face. “Why do you call him that?”

Megan’s lips stiffened. “Call him
what?”

“Vali?” I forced myself to ask, even
though my stomach was starting to sink.

There were plenty of other people in the
office, all of them doing their own thing. Except right now they
all stopped and looked over at us.

The hair along the back of my neck stood
on end, but rather than wave my hands frantically in front of my
face and pretend I’d asked the question by mistake, I stood my
ground. “Isn’t his name Franklin Saunders?” I asked in a much more
careful, wary voice.

Rather than lash out and hit me for asking
what looked like an unforgivable question, Megan’s shoulders
deflated. “So you don’t know, then?”

Carefully, I shook my head. “Don’t know
what?”

“They’re two different people,” she
answered, voice dropping low, but not in warning. It was almost as
if she was terrified Franklin Saunders himself would saunter over
at that exact moment.

I frowned so hard I thought I’d cut my
cheeks in two. “Sorry, two different people? What does that mean?
Does he have a twin or something?” I asked, eyes opening wide as I
realized that must be the case.

Megan simply shook her head. “No, he does
not have a twin. They share the same body. But they are… different
men,” she said quietly. There was something about the way she said
different that sent cold fright shifting hard down my back. It
shook through my legs, and I had to stifle the sensation with a
cough. “Sorry? Different men? What does that mean?”

I was seriously aware of the fact that
everyone in this large office had stopped working, and they were
all staring at me. I was clearly making an ass out of myself, but I
couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop, because the more I questioned
Megan, the more sense it made. When Franklin Saunders had picked me
up last night and cared for my wounds – he’d honestly felt like a
different man to the cold asshole who’d berated me a half hour
ago.

Megan continued to look at me with a wary,
pressured look. “A word of advice. I realize you’re new to this
world, but if I were you, I’d be very careful what kind of
questions I asked. Now, this is your desk,” she pointed out
needlessly as she tapped it. As soon as her hand struck the wood,
it upset a cloud of dust that, at first glance, simply hadn’t been
there.

I backed away, coughing and batting at the
lethal cloud.

Megan simply gave a demure cough and took
a step back. “You’ve already had enough time to settle in. You’ll
get your first case this afternoon. Considering your exploits last
night,” she looked down her nose at me, “I suggest you do a good
job on this. It’s not unheard of for someone to gather more sins
whilst under Vali’s care. And if you do, and those sins are
considered severe enough—” She didn’t finish her sentence. She
didn’t exactly have to. It didn’t take a genius to realize what she
was trying to say here. Gather more sins under Vali’s so-called
care, and I would wind up with a death sentence.

I made no attempt whatsoever to hide my
disgust as I stared at her. In my books, Vali was the worst
criminal of all. Judge, jury, and executioner, he had absolutely no
moral right to do any of this. And if he ever came up in a court of
law, I imagine he would pay for his sins tenfold. But the god would
never submit to human justice. This was all a game to
him.

Megan obviously caught sight of my
less-than-kind expression. She leaned in, locking her gaze on mine,
her lips so stiff her bright red lipstick couldn’t hide how white
they’d just become. “I suggest you check your attitude at the door.
Vali gave you another chance. For that, you should be infinitely
grateful. Because if he hadn’t stepped in—” She didn’t finish her
sentence again, and instead straightened up, carefully patting down
her stunning blouse as she took a step away from the desk. “You’ll
get your first case this afternoon. I’ll be watching you. And I
report directly to Vali,” she warned. With that, she turned, the
sound of her heels clicking over the floor the only thing that
could be heard until she reached the door, opened it, and walked
out.

The office had been bustling when I came
in, but now it was as quiet as a graveyard. Everyone stared at me.
They appeared to come from all walks of life. The guy right across
from me had the face and build of a middle manager, somebody who’d
spent the last 30 years of their life tirelessly pushing pens
around. And the woman behind him? With her angular features and
hard gaze, I could bet she’d been in the police force or the
army.

Though I felt like hiding my head in my
hands to get away from everybody’s direct stares, I hunched down
and sat quietly. Experimentally, I shifted a hand forward and tried
to wipe the dust off my desk. Big mistake. It erupted around me in
a lethal cloud. I patted frantically at it, trying to disperse it
before I gave myself lung disease.

Once I was done ineffectively cleaning the
desk, I tried to figure out what I should do next. Megan had
promised I’d get a case by the afternoon, but it was 11 o’clock,
and it was still several hours away. Just when I began to freak
out, realizing once more how impossibly, frighteningly awful this
situation was, I heard somebody scoot over to me, the wheels of
their chair clattering over the floor.

I looked up to see a woman probably a
couple of years younger than me. “You’ve just become contracted,
ha? What was your crime?” The woman shoved a hand in my face.
“Theft and arson,” she announced, almost proudly. “What are your
powers? My name is Cassidy,” she added as an afterthought, a hand
still hovering before my face.

Considering this situation was so fricking
surreal and kept moving along at a frightening pace, all I could do
was stare from her face to her hand. When I didn’t grab her hand,
she leaned forward, grabbed mine, and shook it like a businessman
about to seal a deal.