The Grasp of Nighttide (33 page)

 The Queen took a seat on her chair and signaled the others to be seated. She placed her scepter -also an antique- on a tray held by the butler and cleared her throat before beginning. “My sincere apologies for being late. There are many 
matters 
especially attending to all your assignments as you are now here.” she paused and looked around. She gave few of the trouble makers a look. The 
chosen
 ones suddenly turned pale upon meeting the eyes of the Queen, “Anyway, I hope all of you are present here.” She remarked while waiting for her butler to serve her favorite red tea. Her piercing gaze fell on the vacant seat beside Diane. Raising her eyebrow, her eyes burnt into Diane’s.

Diane felt a little embarrassed over the sudden attention hovered on her. Gulping, she tried to maintain her composure while thinking over the questions the Queen might pose. 

“Where is Andy?” the Queen spoke in her thunderous voice.

“I…err…Andy…he uh,” Diane stammered. Apart from the Queen’s taste in antiques, Diane disliked the way the Queen spoke to her too. She trusted Diane more, assigned her most important missions, but the attention wasn’t in any way pleasing or advantageous rather it scared Diane at times. Perhaps it was just the Queen’s random behavior or as Patrick Lorne said, the Queen had a sort of affection for Diane.
Gross
. She looked up at the Queen. As expected, the Queen was still looking at her.

She finally took a deep breath and concluded her words “I don’t know, Your Majesty.”

“Huh peculiar, I thought you would have known.” The Queen sniggered. Placing her cup of tea back on the saucer, she placed her elbows on the table and locked her fingers. Her eyes roamed around the room again, halting at a few Grasp members before stopping at Diane again. She was about to pose another question on Diane when the doors opened.

 A figure stormed into the room and dashed straight at the chair beside Diane. Huffing and puffing, the man said “Sorry folks. I am late. I missed the train, had to catch the next.” He pretended not to meet the glowers from other Grasp members and grinned at himself.

“Andy!” Diane exclaimed looking at the younger and more handsome man- now teen- she hadn’t seen since a long time. Andy turned towards her and gave her a big hug.

“Hi, love.” He winked. “Sorry, I actually stopped for a concert nearby; had to abandon it to get some space to reel in the magic. Boy, wasn’t it intense? I wish I would’ve got the magic before getting to the concert. It would help me blend in soon, youngsters there eye old men with disgust. Can you believe that?” 

 Diane’s throat went dry. Though Andy’s voice was lower than a whisper, the room was dead silent and all had most probably heard every word of his. Especially the lady, staring angrily- the queen. 

 The Queen finally gave up her anger and rolled her eyes in annoyance. Andy always ended up gate crashing in the middle of discussion with his antics. A warning has been given to Andy but well, Andy didn’t really care about rules and stuff. Even the Queen was not able to talk him down about that and she tried as much as possible to ignore his behavior.

 “Well, Andy. I am glad you have finally reached here in 
one piece
. I suppose we shall begin.” before the Queen was able to complete her words, Andy cut in. “I must say, Your Majesty. You look gorgeous in that dress. It captures your body with elegance and grace.” He smirked at the Queen with a playful grin.

The Queen pulled a scowl. “Don’t try to flatter me with your words, Monsieur Andy. However, I do accept your praise.” She snapped.

 Realizing the Queen’s anger had raised, Diane immediately held Andy’s hand and gave him a tight squeeze. Andy glanced at her questioningly. She shook her head and gave him a don’t-you-dare glare.

Andy was a care free being that always did and said what he felt like, even when the Queen was furious with him. He’d always say- ‘Being a Summoner has its advantages with the queen.’ Diane glanced at the Queen’s dress. Andy was right. The Queen’s dress looked way much better than all of the Grasp’s outfits. Even Harriet Le Bon’s bright flamingo pink dress was incomparable to the Queen’s. 

 It wasn’t because of the Grasp’s horrible sense of fashion. Each of them tried their best to dress up as simple as possible to ensure none of them was as pretty as the Queen. Diane could remember a certain incident where a Grasp member was punished by the Queen, Veltigo Stone, after she showed up prettier. Veltigo was so scared after her punishment- which no one knew for sure but expected she had spent some time in the tomb- that she never ever presented herself properly again. The most beautiful girl among the Grasp was now in an old beat-up pair of Ts and baggy jeans. Though the queen never openly declared it, she hated competition and wanted to be number one in everything. Some of the fashionista Grasp members had no choice but to snip off the tags from their branded clothes to prevent the Queen from knowing their high taste in fashion. It was of course a nightmare to those fashionista but it was for survival.

 “Of course, Your Majesty! That dress blew me away!” Andy grinned wider. His sweet talk had earned him disgusts from both Patrick Lorne and Harriet Le Bon. Diane could sense Flavia Hatcher trying her best to control her urge of killing the Queen who had just stolen Andy’s attention.

 The Queen snorted. “Merci, Monsieur Andy. However, it would have made me happier if you just give us a piece of silence for today’s meeting.” She eyed Andy with her piercing eyes. Andy whistled to himself and fell back on his seat with a slight ashamed look. However, it did not deter him from his usual happy go lucky attitude. 

 The Queen was formerly the Queen of France in the 18
th
 century. With her wits and charms, she was able to woo the king and lived in the palace for five years before disappearing with most of the treasure from the place. It was a well-planned scheme that even the King had no say about it. There was a life size painting of the Queen in her French royalty dress along the halls. It then clicked to Diane that the dress was almost similar to what the Queen was wearing at the moment. She at times still flaunted the French accent- especially during group meets like today. Diane could see no reason behind her doing that, but she was the queen. And being the queen meant she needed no reason or time to do what she wanted.

“Now, back to our discussion.” The Queen smiled in victory. “You might have sensed the intensity of tonight’s magic.” She said and held her left hand out. Sparks of bluish light intertwined along the Queen’s long slender fingers. 

“Yes, it felt different than before. To lower everyone’s age at once to such an extent; could it be?”
 
Diane whispered to herself as she stared at her reflection on the screen of her phone again.

“Did the miracle happen, Your Majesty?”

“Precisely, Diane” the Queen smirked. 

“What miracle?” Zebiar blurted out. He had totally forgotten of the Queen’s dislike of people to interrupt her conversation with another being. 

“Did you not read the book? Did you decide to skip on the last pages just because they are legendary facts?” the Queen snapped disapprovingly causing Zebiar to shut his mouth in horror.

Andy quickly distracted her from leashing more wraths on Zebiar by asking her another question. “Who shadowed the assignment tonight?”

“Dayton.”

Dayton? It was surprising how Diane missed to notice that the Summoner- Dayton Cougar- was absent. If the others had noticed, they must have hardly cared. He never mingled with any of the others anyway. For the world he was a gangster, a biker, a man that got bad girls easy, but amongst the Grasp, Dayton stayed aloof.

“So, Your Majesty, what should we do now?” 

“I want you, Diane to close in since you have some experience with the place and people. And you can take Andy with you, if you like,” the Queen smirked. The blush along Diane’s cheeks crept. “Andy, keep in close range with her and keep me updated on progress. By then, I shall figure out on what is to be done. I think we might have to bring the miracle here. I’ll have to think about some stuff first...” the Queen continued. “We’ll discuss about that later.” 

To Diane and Andy, it was the second time to have been assigned together. During their first, Diane was a fresher and it was the first time for her handling an assignment. At that time Andy had been sent along to help her. They both fell in love, and that was only during the last days of their assignment leaving them only two days together afterward. They tried to meet each other at least once or twice in a year, but because of other reasons they never got a lot of time to spend though being in close range even at those times. But now things were going to be different- for a while at least. 

 Diane turned towards Andy with a bright face. So did Andy, who could no longer contain his excitement. “When do we start?” Andy squealed.

“The sooner, the better. We don’t have great control over the subject’s family. You must find out on what is going on and befriend them. Diane you must make sure that that… Rave or her husband doesn’t recognize you. Take your kid too.” The Queen sighed as she grew tired of the subject. 

Diane blinked in surprise. “Kid?”

“Take Tory away,” the Queen stated. 

“You mean….you want us to take him with us?” Diane said in confusion. She looked at Andy for confirmation that it wasn’t a dream. Andy nodded with a smile. 

“Is there any problem with that Diane? Or perhaps, you would like me to change my mind on it?” the Queen’s tone turned an octave higher.

Andy quickly leapt in front of Diane. “Oh, no, no Your Majesty. Diane is just…surprised. We have no problem in taking our kid,” he laughed nervously. “Right, Diane?” Andy nudged Diane’s elbow. Diane could still not believe in the sudden turn of event. She nodded weakly while both of her eyes were fixed at the Queen. 

“Excellent. I hope both of you understand the objectives of my decision. It is for gaining their trust. The chances that you get their trust without the kid is less, but on the other hand if Tory is with you, you will have no problem in getting there- we can’t alert them. Is that clear?” the Queen commanded.

 Yes, Your Majesty” both Andy and Diane simultaneously replied.

“Alright then. Both of you are dismissed. But if you want to spend a night here…”

“That won’t be necessary,” Diane quickly added and just then realized that the queen was taken aback by her sudden response. “I mean the sooner we get back, we can start with our work.” 

Diane signaled Andy to bow at the Queen. With their final sentence- “The Grasp will prevail”, the two immediately rushed out from the room with grins on their faces. They couldn’t wait to see their kid again. 

Grasp parents were supposed to hand over their kids when they turned a month old. The next time they would ever get to see them was when they turned sixteen. During the dreadfully long sixteen years, the kids were given harsh training by Marco Draver, another fellow Grasp member with reputation as great as Mag Baguette. On rare occasions, the Queen would step down into the field and take charge of training the kids.

Andy and Diane sat patiently on the stairs at the end of the halls while waiting for Marco to get Tory out from his dorm. The large doors of the conference room had been shut and they could barely hear the discussion between the Queen and the other Grasp members. Diane rushed her fingers along the thick red carpet on the floor and drew a circle. Her heart was beating rapidly as she was too excited to meet her child. But a feeling of fear grasped her too.

The moonlight from the French windows shone on them, casting a dark shadow beneath them. Three portraits- two were of men and one woman- along the hallway faced them. The Queen had personally ordered Marco to paint the portraits of those great Grasp, who were the leaders and founders of the Grasp, as a memory of their work. 

Diane wondered whether the ‘Grasp’ were comfortable once when there was a ‘Grasp administration board’ comprising of the two great men and the woman. Surely she had known that some witches killed the board members too along with the other Grasp population, but were they as fierce as the queen? Mag said from her research that the Grasp all helped each other and looked out for each other, with minimal dictatorship and loads of mutual understanding. When the queen had escaped the witches, she was the only full-fledged Grasp member, as all others were little. She then and there decided to take on the role of the queen and
that was that
. She then cast some Grasp stuff on chosen members-Mag and Marco so that they could grow older and help her put things in order for what had become
her kingdom.

“So, what do you think our kid looks like?” Andy asked pulling her back to the reason why they were seated there.

“Like you.” Diane smiled half-heartedly. Each time they discussed about their kids, Diane remembered those painful experiences she had with her other kids. Her first child, Katherine was a stubborn one that refused to continue her Grasp training when she was ten. Diane tried her very best to make it clear with Katherine about her training. However, Katherine was against taking lives. She hated being a killer. On the very day of the Grasp ritual, Katherine had enough of it and tried to escape. That was the last straw from the Queen. The Queen ordered Katherine to be sent to the tomb and the demon guards reeled her away. 

 Katherine was begging them to stop and writhing in pain as the demons haunted her mind, dragging her from right in front of helpless Andy and Diane. A month after continuously begging the queen to at least kill Katherine if not release her; she agreed to let Katherine die. Diane and Andy were given the opportunity to see one of the guards enter in with an axe and Katherine’s screams ended with one last loud one. They hadn’t been let to see Katherine’s body though; Diane and Andy even through the misery of witnessing their daughter’s murder thanked the queen for honoring their plea. But still how could that be a relief for any parent. Katherine’s cries for help were still ringing in Diane’s ears every other night and it had been haunting Diane for years. Katherine’s betrayed gaze on Diane before her final breath that was heart-breaking. She knew her first child-wherever Katherine was right now- would never forgive both Andy and her for not standing up to help her.