Chapter 33
Felix
Three things happened as we crossed into the suburban area closest to the city center.
One was that we all felt a pop in our ears, alerting us that we’d passed a ward while driving.
The second thing that happened was that our car and phones stopped working.
The third thing was that we were soon surrounded by hooded figures, all wearing navy robes pulled up over their heads.
We’d decided to drive to where we’d found Astrea, so not in the exact city center, but in the area filled with houses instead.
We knew a fight was inevitable, so we believed there would be less casualties here.
But now that I saw all our cars slowing down before shutting off, I feared we hadn’t processed just how dangerous this would be.
We were the only ones driving a car, the rest had chosen to rent vans so we could stay closer together and not be spread out in too many cars.
We knew they had around five thousand witches, but we’d figured, or rather, hoped, there would be less when we came for Joel.
I couldn’t see how many witches came closer as we all stopped on the road, but I didn’t like the number I could already see nearing us.
We were around two hundred ourselves. A mix of witches and werewolves, with Sev and Peter the only vampires, given it was dinner time that made sense, with the sun and all.
“We will never find Joel in this mess,” Peter muttered. I shared his worry, but we couldn’t stay in the car forever either. We came here and now there was no turning back. Our cars weren’t working, our phones had no signal, and we were surrounded.
Moving out of the car slowly, we found each other as soon as we were out and gathered in the middle. Dina’s coven showed off their necklaces with various crystals, showing the Silver Lock Coven we came prepared this time. And with the potion in everyone’s system, we would hopefully survive this.
It was almost hauntingly eerie the silence as the Silver Lock Coven moved closer, like mindless robots, they moved together on silent feet, almost gliding to where we stood, centered on the road between houses.
I found comfort in the homes being dark, no light in any of them.
That had to mean no casualties, or I hoped it would.
Samantha stood with her werewolves, ready to shift at any second, all of them only wearing their underwear, leaving their clothes in the abandoned vans.
Sev’s hand found mine as we stared the approaching witches down. Some of them moved to the side, making way for someone to pass. Three hooded figures came into view, all wearing a lighter blue than the others. Their coven leaders.
The three of them stopped in front of the other witches, pulled their hoods down, and smirked at us.
“Trespassers,” Calma said, her tone amused, yet still hostile. She was easy to recognize from the photo Reminia had sent us. So were Lirissa and Theodore.
“We only came here because you took someone from us,” Peter answered, his tone loud enough for everyone to hear. We didn’t want the Silver Lock Coven to believe we were in the wrong here. Who knew what their leaders had told them about us.
“Who did we take, if I may ask?” Theodore asked, his tone mocking, like he was speaking to an ill-mannered child.
“Joel,” Dina spat. She was clearly tired of this game of charade.
“Ah, Joel,” Lirissa said, her tone oddly pleased. “Joel, step forward please.”
No.
A hooded figure to their left took one step forward. It couldn’t be Joel. Please, not Joel. He pulled off his hood and met our startled gazes.
Lirissa clapped. “Look! I found him!” Her smile was wide and sadistic.
“No,” Dina whispered, her tone full of disbelief.
Lirissa continued talking. “Now, dear Joel, darling. Did we take you?”
“No,” he replied, not meeting any of our gazes.
“Show them where your loyalties lie,” she ordered.
And he did.
The robe fell down, revealing his chest. A branded tattoo was in the middle, an exact match to the one Giro had on his wrist, this one was just bigger and filled out his entire front. It glowed a bright blue shade.
“No,” Dina choked out, her broken sobs loud in the silence. Cole somehow managed to get over to us, leaving his pack formation to comfort Dina.
I couldn’t believe it.
“Why?” I asked, unable to stop myself.
Calma snorted. “Because poor Joel here had to earn back our respect. Didn’t you, Joel.”
“Yes,” he replied, his tone so devoid of emotion, I felt like I was staring at a complete stranger. Where was the man we’d laughed with? Shared a home with?
I’d never felt more betrayed in my life. He’d listened in on all our conversations, because we trusted him. He knew how much his coven had hurt us, but still he betrayed us.
“Why even do all of this?!” I asked, gesturing around us. “Why did you take my sister, why do you kill innocent people? What’s your goal in all of this?!” I was tired of waiting around for them to casually inform us of why they were destroying lives. Tired of wondering why. Why. Why. Why.
Theodore snarled at me. “We don’t owe you any explanation. You came into our territory and from the crystals you carry, you did so with the intent of war. So, you were the ones declaring war, not us. But fret not. We will make this quick.”
A flash filled the sky and I was too late to realize what it was. A signal. The hooded witches all pulled off their hoods, and in unison, they threw crystals at us.
They’d made the first move. But it still felt weird to fight back when we had no idea if the witches fighting us were forced to fight or not.
Knowing we could die here if we didn’t fight back, was enough to swallow the guilt as I touched my necklace, feeling the roughened edge of the crystal I needed right now.
All of this took seconds, but it felt like an eternity before a ward snapped in place in front of us.
The other witches had done the same as me, just like we’d agreed to, releasing a personal ward around us, and with it, we’d closed our allies in, too.
With the ward in place, their crystals broke on impact, the ward crushing anything that came close.
We weren’t trained to fight, not like they were, and a chilling realization hit me, that they’d already killed hundreds of supernatural species, meaning they had experience killing us.
Theodore stepped forward, sneering at our see-through blue domed ward. They hadn’t expected us to react fast enough to protect ourselves, that was obvious.
I blinked and then a figure stood behind Theodore, a vampire from the looks of it, his hand holding a knife to Theodore’s throat. It all happened so fast. He was there in an instant, cutting into Theodore’s throat, and then he was gone again.
“Did you see that?!” Peter whispered in surprise. I hummed, not able to look away from where Theodore lay slumped on the ground, his neck bleeding out, his eyes vacant. He was clearly dead.
The Silver Lock Coven finally realized what had just happened.
Lirissa and Calma screamed in outrage, and with their reactions, came violence.
They acted on impulse, throwing crystals around frantically, like they hoped to hit whoever it was that killed Theodore, but they only managed to hurt their own in their blind fury.
Witches fell all around them. The screaming. It was something I would never forget.
I felt a presence behind us, like a gentle wind. I shivered, afraid to turn, to see what horrors would wait for me when I did. “Hey, Severin?” a voice whispered.
Sev stiffened. “Alec?” he whispered back, his tone filled with surprise and disbelief.
“The one and only,” the man, Alec, said.
There wasn’t time for pleasantries, because Lirissa and Calma were seething at us now, screaming for their coven to fight us.
It was pure chaos looking out from the safety of our ward.
So many witches were laying around bleeding out.
Their remaining two leaders acting carelessly and with too much emotion.
That had cost them coven members, and precious crystals.
It was our plan to protect ourselves so they would waste crystals fighting the ward.
It was also the reason we’d spent so much time and magic on making it that much stronger.
Our plan was working; they’d wasted enough and soon we would fight back. And with Alec here, a vampire who could somehow turn invisible, it seemed we were changing the game. I just hoped it would be enough to win this thing.
Just when I’d started thinking we might have a shot at winning, the ward around us started to crack.
It was like glass, slowly the cracks would become too much and it would crash and disappear around us.
We huddled together, almost like we knew our time was up, soon we would have to fight.
We would have to kill. I couldn’t think about that right now, I would deal with the horror of taking a life if I survived.
A loud snap reverberated around us, and then, the ward was gone.