Destiny of the Witch (The Other Witch #4)

20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

With Jeb dead, we didn’t have anyone in the maintenance role. We needed to recruit someone, I thought dully. For now, I called Ethan and Jacob.

Bastion carefully carried Hannah down the steps to the cremator and laid her body on the metal table next to it. When Jeb had died, we had unceremoniously burned his body as quickly as possible in case the evil Coven decided to reanimate his corpse for one last ‘eff you’. Hannah deserved ceremony: last rites and a funeral.

I would send a Coven-wide email later but for now it was time to come clean about a few horrific facts. There were too many secrets, too many lies. How could I govern a Coven whilst I lied to it? How could I hunt the evil within when I trusted no one?

Now that Hannah’s body was taken care of, stored safely, we locked the huge incineration room and headed back to her flat. Ethan had arrived and was standing in Jacob’s arms; both had obviously been crying. ‘What happened?’ he demanded, stepping back, shoulders squared. ‘Hannah?’

‘Hannah knew some important information,’ I explained evenly. ‘She was tortured to reveal it. When she broke, an oath death took her.’

‘We will not let the records hold her an oath breaker,’ Jacob said fiercely.

‘No,’ I agreed. ‘We will not.’ I waited a beat. ‘Now that Jeb is dead, we need someone else to deal with this—’ I cut myself off before I could say ‘mess’. Hannah wasn’t a mess. ‘Deal with this,’ I said instead.

‘I will see to it,’ Jacob promised.

‘Jay… ’ Ethan started.

‘Hush. It is my choice. I will clean up Hannah’s room – she deserves that. I will pack up her belongings. She has a sister, Jennifer, in Liverpool who will want to look through them.’

Jennifer: I hadn’t even thought of Hannah’s sister. When Hannah had joined us, I’d offered a place to her sister too, but she hadn’t taken it. Hannah had been quietly relieved, ready to strike out on her own. But now I would have to tell Jennifer about her sister’s death. Sometimes being a leader was the worst.

I nodded my approval of Jacob’s kind offer. ‘Thank you, Jacob. I have looked, but there is no sign of Fifi.’

Jacob swore aloud. ‘To take her familiar... ’ He shook his head as tears welled again. ‘These bastards are monsters. She will have to be burned alone.’

‘I know.’ I sighed. ‘I will do everything I can to find Fifi, then we will scatter her ashes with Hannah’s in our garden. They will be together.’

Jacob set his jaw into a grim line. ‘Yes, so mote it be.’

‘So mote it be,’ I responded fiercely. ‘Ethan, we need a meeting in the Coven common room. Everyone is to attend, regardless of their work commitments. We will tell them about Hannah’s death then go immediately to the incinerator room to say goodbye. Can you arrange food and drinks for a wake afterwards? And the Farewell Elixir?’

Ethan nodded briskly. ‘What time?’

‘Four pm for the meet,’ I suggested.

‘Consider it done.’

I touched his arm lightly. ‘I do.’ I gave him a squeeze and then walked away. That was probably the closest I’d managed to come to saying I trusted him. He and I had never gelled, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have faith in him to do what was right. Then again, I had trusted Jeb and been completely wrong about that. Maybe my judgement wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be.

Bastion and I excused ourselves and went up to my flat. Oscar, Benji and David were sitting inside and I raised an eyebrow in question – they were supposed to be finding Edward.

Oscar grimaced and shook his head. ‘He’s gone. His apartment was cleaned out.’

‘Super clean,’ David added. ‘It smelled funny.’

‘Bleach,’ Oscar explained. ‘He didn’t want to leave a stray hair or drop of blood to be used against him. I checked the security footage in the car park. He left at 3am, a bag over his shoulder.’

I scrubbed at my eyes. ‘So there’s no doubt that he wasn’t coerced.’

‘He certainly strolled out alone,’ Benji confirmed.

‘With a certain amount of swagger, too, I should say,’ Benjamin drawled.

Bastion pushed me gently into a seat and went to put the kettle on. He moved soundlessly around the kitchen; the deadliest assassin in the world was bustling around my kitchen making tea. Sometimes life was weird .

We sat in silence, each lost in our own thoughts. I sipped my hot brew out of a cup that said If it was legal to marry food, I’d still choose you over pizza. It made me smile. It was definitely a Bastion mug because mine were all decidedly bitchier. For himself, Bastion had picked one that said Some drink from the fountain of knowledge; you only gargled.

I let my eyes gaze into the middle distance. I was looking towards a painting above the TV, one of Mum’s more chaotic pictures, a black-and-white image of a dark staircase spiralling downwards. Numbers and letters interspersed the steps.

Her words suddenly echoed in my head: ‘ It’s in the painting’. Not in this painting, but the painting. She hadn’t been talking about the painting in her hallway but this one. I was sure of it.

I set my mug down and pushed myself up. Holy heck. Grabbing a pen and paper, I stood in front of the picture and wrote down the sequence of numbers and letters as they went down the staircase, then I ran into my office and booted up my computer. Bastion followed me silently.

I double-clicked on the CD. When the box popped up asking for a password, I put in the series of letters and numbers. Rather than the instant denial we’d been having, the ‘working’ icon appeared. My heart was racing.

Abruptly the icon disappeared and in its place was a folder full of documents.

My hands shook and I clicked to open the first file. It was entitled For Amber.