Page 48

Chapter 48

I painted perthro , the revelation rune, on the door just to be sure all the wards at the entrance had been broken. Not that I didn’t trust Bastion, but he had blundered into black wards before and I wasn’t leaving anything to chance. I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing him broken and exhausted like that again. Of course this time I’d be a damned sight quicker about lifting any curses, but getting the blood of the witch that had painted black runes always made things tricky.

We couldn’t be sure that it was Tristan who had painted them – it could have been his acolyte or another lackey. It was important never to assume anything about runes and I hadn’t checked the magical signature before Bastion had ripped them down, an oversight I was annoyed about.

When nothing lit up on the perthro, I nodded. ‘All clear,’ I said to Bastion. I tried to turn the door handle but the office door was locked, albeit with a good old-fashioned key this time. ‘Locked.’ I frowned. ‘Can you open it?’

Jinx had a set of lockpicks and the skills to use it, but I had no such skill. Doubtless Bastion did. ‘I’ve got a key,’ he said calmly. Without changing expression, he reared back and kicked a heavy foot against the lock. The door flung open.

I felt a small surge of desire. Okay, kicking down doors was a little impressive. Stupid cavewoman hormones. I battened down the flare of desire; now was definitely not the time to get distracted. Bastion sent me a smirk and a wink. He’d felt it. Dammit.

As I swept past him into the room, horror slammed into me. The room was lined with cages and rank with the stench of faeces, blood and death.

‘Ellie!’ Frogmatch coughed, doubled over in his small prison. ‘Tristan is a black witch!’ He was coughing and his red skin was already turning pink, a sure sign that he was ill.

I smiled at my little imp. ‘We figured. Let’s get you out of here,’ I glanced around the room. ‘All of you.’

I opened my tote and grabbed a jar of revelation potion and a paintbrush. I painted perthro but no runes showed up; the imp was locked away with nothing but the metal bars on his prison. Iron, no doubt.

‘I have something to tell you, Ellie,’ Frogmatch said. ‘I should have told you earlier. When I was snooping in your Coven, I heard a man talking about controlling vampyrs.’

I froze. ‘A necromancer?’ Was it the one that had killed Melva?

‘That’s what I’m figuring.’ He gave a little cough. ‘I couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation. He must have been on the phone.’

‘It was definitely a man?’ I yanked on the cage door with all my might. It shuddered but didn’t give way; another pull should do it.

‘Yes, definitely a man.’

‘Did you see him? Can you identify him?’ I braced one hand against the cage and pulled the door again. This time it gave way and I reached in and gently lifted Frogmatch out of confinement. His body was terrifyingly cool to the touch. I cradled him close.

He coughed again. ‘No, but if I heard his voice again, I’m sure I could.’

‘Okay, this is good. Thank you, Frogmatch.’

‘I should have told you earlier but we were flying to Edinburgh against the clock.’ He took a shuddering breath. ‘ If I’d died, you wouldn’t have known you had a necromancer in your midst.’

‘I’ve had a pretty good idea for a while,’ I admitted. ‘But I didn’t know that they were male. Thank you, that narrows the suspect pool a lot.’ And in my head it confirmed who the necromancer was. ‘Let’s get you healed up,’ I said firmly.

‘Help the others,’ he argued faintly. I grimaced but, looking around, I could see he wasn’t the worst off, not by a long shot. I set Frogmatch down carefully and turned to the rest of the cages. There were all sorts of small creatures in them: imps, cats, fairies, mice, all of them missing parts of their bodies.

I felt sick. I didn’t know whether their limbs had been cut off to be used in potions or if they’d been hurt for their pain to power black runework, but either way it was horrific.

‘Benji, David,’ I called desperately. ‘A little help.’

When the golems walked in and saw the imprisoned creatures, they let out a roar of outrage. ‘This is not right,’ David snarled.

‘It is not,’ Benji agreed. ‘We will help them.’

We searched the room for keys but found none. I patiently painted a perthro on each of the other cages but found no runes on them – utter laziness on Tristan’s part. Bastion, Benji and David started ripping them open with brute force.

A lot of the creatures were malnourished and could barely lift their heads even when they were gently cradled out of their confinement. The cats and mice appeared to be ordinary creatures; there was no familiar magic that I could sense.

The imps and fairies were as ashen as Frogmatch, and many of them weren’t moving. I had no idea how long they had been caged for but I was betting it was a long while. Too long. I felt a wave of fury. Most of them were too far gone to help but we had to try – we might save one or two, but not many more. The imps’ tails had been removed, their red skin was washed out, barely a faint pink. Next to them, Frogmatch looked the picture of health.

The fairies stared at us, unmoving; their wings had been torn off. They had retreated into the safety of their own minds. I had no idea if I could regrow the wings until I examined them properly; for now, we had to get the fairies to safety and give them food and water. Sometimes potions are no replacement for the basics like food and rest.

Benji had the cats and mice cradled in his arms. Even though they were half-starved, none of the cats twitched so much as a hair at being so close to the mice, their natural prey. They were lethargic and unmoving. So many living beings harmed – and for what?

David gently got the fairies out, carrying their tiny bodies effortlessly in his huge hands. Bastion did the same to the imps. ‘Take them to the awakening room,’ I suggested. ‘It’s closer and there will be plenty of healing potions there.’

Bastion hesitated at the threshold. ‘Go!’ I barked. ‘They need healing! Hurry! I’ll be just behind you.’

He felt the truth of the words and left. I painted the revelation rune perthro again and lit up the remaining runes in the office. This time, I studied the magical signature; it was probably Tristan’s, but I wanted to know if it wasn’t.

Bastion had melted away most of the runes but some still remained, and those were far too dangerous to leave unattended. The runes in the lounge had been hidden but the dark runes in the office were there to be seen – and activated. If someone stumbled in here and activated them by accident, I’d have never forgiven myself. Tristan wanted there to be dire consequences to interlopers. Bastion had ripped open a path for us but several live bombs remained. It would take a few minutes to cancel them all but it was worth the effort .

When I had subdued the worst of the black runes, I looked around. The office was filled with cages, knives and other implements of torture and the carpet was covered in suspiciously dark stains.

Horrified, I shook my head. I would stop practices like this; I had given the Goddess my word but now I swore it again to myself. I would stop at nothing to end this. Nothing.