55. Chapter 55
Chapter 55
We met Voltaire in Greenwoods café; he was already sitting at a table when we entered. I ordered a cappuccino and a blueberry muffin before joining him. To my surprise, he stood as I approached and gave both Bastion and I a respectful bow. ‘Crone,’ he greeted me. ‘Bastion.’
‘Voltaire.’ I kept my voice level, like his greeting hadn’t wrongfooted me. Whoever had heard of a Red Guard being friendly with a witch? I remembered his comment about Abigay; maybe it wasn’t me he respected but my mantle. My whole job now was to weed out evil witches and his role was much the same. I supposed that once again our interests were aligning.
I surreptitiously painted a couple of runes onto the table to prevent our conversation from being overheard.
‘Thank you for meeting with me,’ he started, when the runes were complete. All this respect coming out of his mouth felt plain wrong, like any second he was going to pull out a camera and reveal it was all a big prank. I resisted the urge to look around for cameras.
‘Of course,’ I said brusquely. ‘What can I assist you with?’
‘I am grateful for the phone call that alerted us to the events that transpired at the manor. I understand a significant blow has been dealt to the evil Coven.’
I nodded, keeping my face blank. ‘Indeed.’ If he was here to ferret out further information from me, that made a little more sense. He needed to play nice.
‘I also understand that a necromancer was recently discovered within your own Coven.’
That was technically incorrect because there were actually two necromancers: Jeb and my father. Ria had been an apprentice of sorts. She hadn’t yet attained the skills to call herself a necromancer, though her confessions under Annabelle’s guidance had shown she was well on her way to doing so.
‘Indeed.’
‘And that they were dealt with appropriately?’
‘I killed him,’ Bastion said with a shrug.
Voltaire beamed. ‘Wonderful.’
‘I’m glad you called me here because another issue needs to be discussed,’ I started.
‘Of course,’ he said expansively. ‘Go on.’
‘You must have a significant number of vampyrs missing because they keep attacking me.’ I didn’t censor my annoyance.
Voltaire grimaced. ‘We do not have vampyrs missing officially . As such, we’re conducting internal investigations. The obvious conclusion is that someone is turning vampyrs on an unauthorised basis.’
‘The Connection is going to lambast you,’ I noted.
‘The Connection isn’t going to find out, is it?’ For the first time in our little tête-à-tête his voice was hard.
‘What about the vampyrs at the evil witches mansion?’ I asked.
‘Unregistered with any clans.’ He kept his face blank. ‘They also disappeared from their cells before they could be taken into Connection custody.’
‘You phased them out?’
‘Of course not,’ he said lightly. ‘I had nothing to do with their extraction.’
Uh-huh, sure. I rubbed my face. However Voltaire had gotten the vampyrs out, it didn’t really matter. I wasn’t a tattletale and, frankly, I didn’t want the Connection in my business any more than he did. ‘The Connection won’t hear about the rogue vampyrs from me,’ I said.
Voltaire relaxed and smiled again. ‘Good. Do you have any more information or leads you wish to share with us at this time?’
I wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the fangs. ‘We believe there are still five evil witches operating within the UK,’ I told him.
He leaned forward, eyes gleaming. ‘Any leads on their identities?’
‘None of the dead from the recent skirmish were rune masters,’ I admitted. ‘And I witnessed a black witch killing someone remotely using complex rune spreads. They could have studied in secret—’
‘But it’s likely one of your rune masters is an evil witch.’ He paused. ‘Nice re-brand by the way. Entirely appropriate.’
‘I thought so. And yes, it is likely that one of the rune masters is one of the evil witches.’
‘Excellent. We’ll get right on that.’
‘Excellent,’ I echoed. ‘And Voltaire?’
‘Yes?’
‘I have started our new working relationship in the spirit of co-operation. If you do not share information in the same vein, a conversation like this will never happen again.’
He met my eyes before giving another bow. ‘Understood, Crone. I will be in touch.’ He walked away, leaving me to finally eat my blueberry muffin in peace.
Bastion watched him leave. ‘You don’t trust him, do you?’
I smiled faintly as I sipped my cappuccino. ‘Not in the slightest. Can your hacker friend Incognito get a tap on Voltaire’s phone?’
Bastion grinned. ‘That right there is why I love you.’
‘Because I’m cynical?’
‘Because you’re sneaky. People love to underestimate you and it has become one of my greatest joys in life to watch you sucker punch them when they don’t expect it.’
I smiled. ‘You say the nicest things.’
Bastion pulled out his phone and tapped a message. ‘Inc’s on it.’
Perfect.