Witchcraft (#2 Witchblood Series) (25 page)

‘
Luke you can’t cut…’ I started to
say, but apparently he could, because the sword shone brightly
before plunging deep into the solid stone. A few swift thrusts and
sweeps and Luke had managed to enlarge the window opening, so the
stones tumbled down at our feet, and created a doorway.

‘
We have to help them… Daniel…
Eva,’ I shouted desperately, as Luke pulled me into his side,
spread his wings and we shot out into the night sky.

The night was black and the cool, fresh
air whipped my hair around my face, as we shot like a firework into
the sky. When we cleared the treeline I heard another dull boom, a
little like thunder, without the storm. Luke stopped, hanging in
mid-air as he’d done once before, which he knew I wasn’t keen on,
and we both peered down.

I could vaguely make out a transparent,
flickering, yellow dome covering the entire church and attached
building, like the great greenhouse domes of the Eden Project.
Around the far-side of the church, groups of young clubbers hung
around, hoping to see what was happening. I expected to see
emergency vehicles screaming towards us, but the streets were
silent, the immediate area being semi-industrial or closed
down.

‘
Luke, what’s going on?’ I
asked.

‘
It’s a magical nullbomb,’ he
said. ‘They’re cleansing the area. When they found out what had
happened, and where it happened, it was decided that the best
course of action would be to eradicate all evidence of magical
activity from the vicinity,’ he said with a shrug.

‘
Magic? So Daniel will be fine
then?’ I asked.

‘
Yes, Jess. I’m sure he got out.
Eva & Daniel both knew of the Council’s plans to cleanse the
area. They will have got out, I’m sure,’ he said, frowning slightly
and glancing away.

‘
But why would they need to?
They’re not magical,’ I said. ‘And what about all the innocent
humans, you can’t cleanse them, they’ve seen
everything.’

‘
They’ve seen nothing, there was
nothing untoward in the club, they think it’s a fire drill, that’s
all, and if there are any humans left inside the perimeters, it
won’t affect them…unless they have a magical gene, like you,’ he
added quietly.

‘
But what will they see? And
vampire’s - you said they’ll be alright?’

‘
They’ll see everything non-human
turned to dust, everything magic touched will be turned to dust,
and finally the last twelve hours of their memory will be wiped,
and they’ll suffer mild amnesia for a couple of days.’

‘
Everything non-human?’ I said, as
I comprehended finally what I was being told.

‘
Yes, everything that is
non-human, which is why I couldn’t have gone after you, if you had
run after Daniel. It would have annihilated us both.’

‘
But Daniel, Eva, you let them go.
We have to find them. Let me down,’ I said, panic filling my throat
and constricting my chest.

‘
No, I can’t. Not yet. We can’t go
near for another ten minutes or so,’ he said.

‘
You could still put me down, we
could search the area outside the club, find them.’

‘
No Jess, I can’t,’

‘
Why? You don’t want me to find
him, do you?’

‘
Of course I do, don’t be silly,
but I don’t trust you not to go charging in there, as then all this
would be for nothing,’ he said. ‘There’s no point in you seeing
what you don’t need to see, and I don’t want to witness the insides
of that church turning to dust. We’re better up here.’

‘
You think he’s in there, don’t
you?’ I said.

‘
No, like I said, you vampires can
run really fast and they both knew about the warning bell. It’s the
other vampires that didn’t know...’

‘
What Daniel said was right Luke.
Why do you only act like you care when I’m in danger? We don’t get
on anymore,’ I said, as I watched him shrug and look away. ‘Why did
you save me; I don’t understand.’

‘
I told you, I wasn’t going to let
you die in that place,’ he said, not meeting my eyes.

‘
Oh, so if it had been somewhere
else, it would have been okay?’ I said, with a smile.

‘
No, well maybe. I don’t know. I
do regret saving you the first time. If I could turn back time, I
wouldn’t have left you to Daniel, I would have waited while you
died and saw you across to the next plane, knowing you were safe
and where you should be, but I didn’t did I? So now you’re here,
you’re going to be this amazing witch and you’ve proved to me how
you’re not just one of them, and that you don’t feed from humans
like they do. You’re different, Jess. So yes, there was no-way I
could let you die in there.’ He paused and I knew I had to tell him
the truth.

‘
Luke, I have fed from humans,
well
a
human,’ I said,
watching his face fall and then fill with anger.

‘
But you said you didn’t! You said
you could eat real food,
and
you drank that tea in the cafe. You don’t even have their
eyes anymore,’ he said, staring at me in disbelief.

‘
Are they still green then?’ I
asked, wondering whether my recent meal had changed
things.

‘
Yes, they are, but Jess how could
you? Why did you lie to me?’

‘
I didn’t lie… well maybe just a
bit about the tea thing. It was disgusting, but you were being such
a dick.’ I faltered, unwilling to continue, but he just stared at
me, waiting for an answer.

‘
Look, I didn’t bite anyone until
today. Cole had drained me. I couldn’t even sit up, let alone
stand, so when Brittany came to rescue me she went to find me a
blood pack, but there were none, so she brought a guy she knew from
the club. He was willing; he was a feeder Luke.’

‘
That doesn’t make it acceptable,’
he said.

‘
Why? If they want it, and we need
it, what is so wrong,’ I said, trying not to think about how Cole’s
vampire buddy had tossed him to the floor, broken, like
trash.

‘
It’s not wrong, it’s not
unlawful, at least under The Council’s rule, but that doesn’t make
it right either. I suppose though, under those circumstances, there
wasn’t another option for you. I shall try to understand and
forgive you,’ he said. ‘What matters is that you didn’t want
to.’

I sighed and wished things could return
to how they’d been a year ago. Life had been simple, I’d believed
that Luke was nothing more than a college boy, a boy I’d lived next
door to and had a school girl crush on, but now… now I was
constantly ending up wanting to shake him, or kick him.

‘
Luke I don’t want your
forgiveness, or your understanding. I did what I had to do to
survive, and yes it was the first time, but I seriously doubt it
will be the last time. I
am
a
vampire Luke, and before this whole drama began I had just been
telling Eva and Daniel how I had come to realise that I couldn’t
survive on bagged blood forever. I can’t eat real food Luke, it
makes me vomit! I need to understand who I am, and then try to be
the best that I can be.’

Luke didn’t say anything. I expected his
eyes to fill with regret and pity, but they didn’t. There was a
quick flicker of something else, amusement maybe. He looked
away.

‘
You sounded like the old Jess
then, the girl who became my best friend and told me I had terrible
fashion sense; the girl who had no compunction about telling me my
room stank.’ He turned back and smiled at me. ‘I’m sorry, I need to
get over my vampire hatred.’

I shrugged and smiled a little. ‘It
would help me to avoid wanting to kill you all the time!’

‘
Hmm, so I guess we can go down
and have a look around now, but Jessie you need to stay well away
from the humans,’ he said.

‘
Luke, what do you think I am?
Just because I’ve had my first human meal doesn’t mean I’m going to
turn into a deadly, bloodsucking machine,’ I replied, somewhat
miffed.

‘
Duh! I meant to stay away from
them because of what you look like, airhead. Have you seen
yourself?’ he said, grinning like the old Luke I knew.

‘
Oh!’ I looked down and saw that
even though my skin was all shiny and new, the same did not apply
to my clothes. What remained of my sweatshirt was burnt black, with
more singed holes than actual cloth. An occasional blue thread
peeped out through the black and greys, and streaks of
rust-coloured clotted blood stained the top in a not very charming
tie-dye effect, only dampened by the smudges of smoke and
dirt.

My jeans were thankfully intact,
although the button was still open, so I quickly closed it and
frowned, as memories of Cole poured back into my head.

‘
Did he hurt you Jess?’ Luke said
quietly.

‘
Well, apart from punching me in
the face several times, throwing me across the cell into the bars,
draining me, and later biting me in various places… No he
didn’t.’

‘
You know what I mean, did he…?’
He paused and glanced at my jeans button.

‘
No, he didn’t. His witch actually
helped me by paralysing me so completely that he actually couldn’t
get my legs apart or my jeans past my hips.’ I let out a short
laugh, but it sounded more like a bark.

‘
Good. I would have killed him,
and I still will kill him, when we find him,’ he said.

‘
Luke, I killed him… Well, I
nearly killed him, and your friend Caoimhe finished the job,’ I
said with a smile.

‘
What? He was one of those burning
vampires in your cell?’ Luke said, shock showing across his face. I
nodded.

‘
But, Cole is hundreds of years
old. He’s clever, cunning. He would never risk being found in those
cells when we came, and he knew we were coming. He must
have.’

‘
Cole may have been hundreds of
years old, but inside he was just a teenage boy, with a very big
ego. He thought he was unstoppable, but he was careless. He
did
know you were coming, but he
thought he had enough time to play with me one last time, and then
he was going to murder me and vanish.’

‘
So what happened?’ he asked.
‘You’re going to need to testify if we’ve killed Cole, it will go
through the courts. He’s vampire royalty.’

‘
Not anymore,’ I said.

‘
Go on.’

‘
Look, I want to find Daniel. I’ll
tell you everything later, but basically he came back with several
others. I had enough magic left to turn one into a fireball, and
jam another one’s head through the bars of the cage. Cole couldn’t
leave me alone though. The cell was burning around him, and he
could have escaped easily, but he wanted me. He jumped on top of me
and I torched him… which also torched me. He was still burning when
you and your friend came in. I watched her decapitate him.’ I
shrugged again; there wasn’t much else I could say, or wanted to
say. I just wanted to find Daniel and Eva.

‘
But Jess, you are going to need
to remember every detail of this night, because there
will
be a trial. We’ll all be held
accountable,’ he said.

‘
What, for protecting ourselves?’
I said.

‘
It will be fine, I’m sure, but
Jess, just make sure you remember everything, okay?’

I nodded. ‘What about Alex? She could
testify. He hurt her, and he held her here.’

‘
Alex is a mess. I’ll tell you
about her later and we will of course get her story, but as a human
she has no part in this,’ he said.

‘
That’s bull-shit, and I want to
see her, as soon as we’ve found Daniel and Eva, right?’

‘
No, it’s not bull-shit. The
Council will listen to a statement taken from her and a medical
report listing what was done to her, but she will not be allowed in
court, and her memory will be corrected, if it hasn’t been
already.’

‘
You can’t do that to her,’ I
said. ‘You can’t just take away someone’s memory.’

‘
So you’d rather she remembered
what happened to her here? You’d rather she remembered what Cole
and his vampires did to her? I don’t know exactly what they did,
but I bet she didn’t cope as well as you did,’ he said, staring at
me.

I felt so small. I had jumped in
thinking I was right, but of course I was wrong, totally wrong.
They weren’t correcting her memory to protect the supernatural
community… well maybe a bit, but they were doing it for her, so she
didn’t have to live a life filled with nightmares. I nodded and met
Luke’s eyes.

‘
You’re right. I still want to see
her though,’ I said.

‘
We’ll see, but I take it you
didn’t manage to bump off his sister as well did you? That would
make things easier.’

‘
His sister?’

‘
Yes, both him and his older
sister were turned at the same time. His sister, Mary has the same
brown hair as him, but usually pulled back into a high ponytail.
She likes to wear violet contact lenses. Did you see
her?’

‘
Yes, she came back with Cole that
first time, but he sent her off, back into the club to start
clearing the humans out, when I started the vampire
pyre.’