Page 52

Chapter 52

When I’d been at the evil Coven’s soul auction, they had talked about their familiars and about their sickness. That had sent up a red flag straight away, one I’d been trying to pull back down ever since.

I hadn’t seen Jeb’s familiar, Jessica, around the Coven tower in weeks. Sure, it could be a coincidence, but… Frogmatch had said the necromancer was a male and Jeb had been on the scene incredibly fast after our first ogre attack. And he was the only other person who had known that we were going to meet the Seer High Priestess, Melva, the day that she’d been murdered. Plus, we’d been attacked soon after leaving the venue.

I had tried to deny it because the whole idea made my stomach turn. Not Jeb; surely not Jeb. But the more I thought about it, the more the idea had taken root. Jeb was a mid-level witch, yet he hadn’t looked slightly tired after breaking the ancient clearing on me. And that look on his face when he realised Bastion and I were together? I’d written it off as jealousy in the heat of the moment, but the truth was it had been malevolent.

All I had were my suspicions and my gut instinct. Bastion didn’t ask who my suspect was, but maybe he didn’t need to.

As much as it stuck in my craw, I used Tristan’s trick. I prepared the pentagram in my living room with truth runes, covered them with the rug then I called Jeb to my room to ‘do a handover’ now that I was back from Edinburgh.

I had used truth runes as well as containment runes judiciously in the hidden pentagram. I planned to offer Jeb some refreshments and hold out a mug so he’d have to step across the rug to take it. It wasn’t the most elaborate sting operation, but there’s a reason the adage ‘Keep It Simple Stupid’ exists.

Realising it probably wasn’t wise to keep my suspicions to myself, I blurted abruptly, ‘I think Jeb is evil.’ It sounded strange to say it aloud.

Oscar blanched. ‘Jeb? What makes you think that?’

‘A few things. His familiar has been absent from the tower for weeks. He was too quick to come to the scene after the ogre attack. He was one of the few who knew we were visiting Melva. If I’m wrong, I’ll apologise to him.’ But I was sure that I wasn’t wrong. That flash of fury I’d seen in him had been dark, more than that of a man scorned.

There was a knock at the door: Jeb had arrived. I struggled to keep my face impassive and touched my necklace, not for a solution to a problem but for support. I wanted to be wrong with all my heart. I had trusted Jeb for years; he’d been my right-hand man, my confidant. If he was evil, my judgement had been way off – and I loathe being wrong.

Oscar opened the door as I busied myself making tea for us all. ‘Hi Jeb,’ I called as casually as I could. ‘Come on in.’

‘Is Ethan coming, too?’ he asked as he strolled in.

‘We’re doing a separate handover for him,’ I lied smoothly.

‘Making sure the notes tally?’ he joked.

‘Just to ensure we get your individual impressions about how things are going. Milk no sugar, right?’

‘Yes, please.’

I held out the mug to him and he stepped forward, carefully skirting the rug. I might not have noticed that in a normal meeting, but I noticed it now. Jeb knew I had a permanent pentagram there – heck, he’d helped paint it.

My stomach lurched with dread. If Jeb was innocent, there was no reason to skirt a pentagram, even a hidden one. My face fell, even as he took the mug from me. The mug read: Careful, I’m an evil genius , but he wasn’t looking at the words. Instead he was studying my oh-so-expressive face.

I saw knowledge dawn on his face. ‘Ah,’ he said calmly. ‘The cat is out of the bag, then.’

It turned out that I didn’t need the truth runes after all. ‘Why Jeb? Why?’ I asked, needing desperately to understand. ‘You killed Cindy and took her tail? Arranged Melva’s death? Why? Why turn to necromancy? Help me understand.’

As he set down the mug, his eyes flicked to Bastion, Benji and Oscar. The latter had a lighter in his hands, flame exposed, ready to flambé him. I saw the moment that Jeb accepted that he wasn’t escaping. And that made him even more dangerous.

‘Help you understand? Why? So you can pity me and my choices? I pity you , Amber,’ he said forcefully. ‘Your mind is so closed. If you would open yourself up to the possibility of darker power, you could be great.’

‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘Never.’ Never again.

'Pain is a great resource, Amber,’ he tried again. ‘When I broke that clearing on your mind, the magic didn’t take it’s toll on me, instead, it gifted me with strength from your pain. I was buzzing with power afterwards.’

The thought that he’d used my pain for his own gain made me feel faintly sick. And I wasn’t the only one whose pain he’d used. He’d removed Cindy’s tail and killed her. A familiar! ‘Goddess, Jeb, it’s so wrong. How could you do that to Cindy?’

He shrugged. ‘Something in black-magic use is making our familiars sick. No matter what you think of us, we love our familiars. Madame X is making potions to keep them going. She needs tails and the pain of their removal whilst the familiars are still alive. I was instructed to harvest a tail. Ria had made her about-turn known but there’s no leaving the black Coven, not ever. Ria had to be told that. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a mutilation is worth a million. So ... Cindy.’

‘Why not harm Ria’s familiar, Fido?’ Fido was a small brown mouse that often lived in Ria’s pocket.

‘The death of her mother’s familiar was sufficient punishment. The black Coven demands strength – we wouldn’t willingly make one of our own weak by removing their familiar, even to give them a lesson. Better to kill a family member’s.’ His tone was matter of fact. No doubt it would also have been tricky to separate Ria from Fido.

‘That’s insane,’ I muttered, horrified that anyone could even contemplate harming or killing a familiar as punishment. It was wrong on every level.

‘Letting insubordination go unpunished is insane,’ he countered. ‘I even got to clean up the scene.’ He smirked. ‘I took the blood-soaked carpet from the scene of her death because that held pain that could be used.’ His smirk turned vicious. ‘And it wasn’t even Cindy’s body that we cremated because I’d given it to Madame X for parts. Your oh-so-touching eulogy was for a stuffed toy cat.’

Horror clawed at me; depriving Cindy of her final rites was monstrous. ‘You’re evil,’ I whispered. ‘What other horrors have you committed?’

‘Too many to name,’ he said honestly.

‘Killing Melva – that was you?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, but that was because I was ordered to. Nothing personal.’

Rage flared in me. ‘Why?’

‘To keep you from learning about the prophecy, of course.’

‘And how do you know about that?’

‘Your father knew about its existence but he also knew you mustn’t hear it. Steps had to be taken.’

Unfortunately for them, I had heard it. They’d killed Melva too late, but they didn’t need to know that. ‘And the attacks on my mother, on me? Were those “nothing personal”, too?’

He waved away my words. ‘The attacks on your mum were never serious. They were a distraction for you. She was safe, she had griffin protectors.’ His expression turned a tad wistful. ‘I had a plan, Amber. I was going to woo you, make you fall in love with me. Your father would have seen me as his son-in-law and I could have inherited his whole empire. You don’t know what it’s like Amber, being a male in a matriarchal society. There are no coven fathers, Amber.’

‘Oh boo hoo,’ I snapped. ‘The UK is still a patriarchal society. Men are still paid more than women. There are only 34% of women as directors of top FTSE 100 companies. The glass ceiling is alive and well. Witches may be matriarchal, but our society isn’t. Don’t expect me to cry a river. And besides, there may not be coven fathers, but we have men on the coven council too, just as many as we have women.’

He looked at me with exasperation. ‘But there’s no male Crone, no male equivalent of the Triune. The Leader is going to change all of that. You’ll see.’ He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. ‘You never saw me as anything other than dear, harmless Jeb, did you? I didn’t stand a chance. I waited too long, overdid the kindness routine. I thought I had time, but you had me friend-zoned. If you didn’t come round in a year or two, there are plenty of enchanted artefacts that would have made you fall in love with me, but the Leader was against that. I couldn’t risk his disapproval. If I could just have won you over, he would have been so pleased.’

Jeb huffed out a breath. ‘

You made me fail him.’ He glared at me and gestured towards Bastion. ‘If I’d known you were into bestiality I would have moved faster. Fucking a creature Amber? Really?’

Bastion’s growl was low and threatening and I felt his anger rising. Jeb’s answering smirk was triumphant. Bastion took a step toward him. ‘Stop!’ I ordered. ‘He’s goading you. He wants you to kill him. We saw how the evil Coven deals with those that fail.’

Jeb ignored my jab and smiled as he taunted Bastion. ‘Yes, stop. Like a good little guard dog. Woof-woof.’

‘You attacked my mum,’ I interjected, trying to bring the focus back to the interrogation.

He shrugged. ‘Not seriously, only enough to divert attention. She wasn’t harmed – we just needed her to be moved from the home she was in. The griffins guarding her were more than a match for the vampyrs I sent.’

‘Why did you need her to be moved?’

‘Why? So that we could recover the harkan crystal from her room, of course.’

I felt the room closing in on me. ‘What? Why would Mum have the harkan crystal?’

His smirk was dark, twisted and full of schadenfreude. ‘Because she was its latest creator.’

‘You’re lying,’ I spat.

‘Am I? Your mum isn’t roses and kittens, Amber. Why do you think she went to the Third realm so much?’

‘To be there for me, to raise me.’

He laughed. ‘Poor Amber, so delusional. Do you think your mother is stupid? Why would she risk her sanity for something so inane? No. She was trying to undo her so-called crimes. But some things can’t be undone, no matter how hard you try.’

I looked at Oscar. He was glaring at Jeb but his eyes were resigned. ‘It can’t be true,’ I breathed. ‘Oscar, tell me it isn’t true.’ He said nothing and my heart broke.

While we were distracted, Jeb pulled a knife from his ankle holster. He threw himself at me, the blade raised. But Bastion wasn’t distracted; Bastion is never distracted. Jeb was only two steps from me when Bastion’s talons tore through his throat. Crimson blood sprayed over me as he collapsed inches from me, staining my rug.

So Jeb had got his death by griffin after all, I thought dully. At least this time Bastion had let me question my erstwhile assistant before he’d meted out his own permanent brand of justice.