Chapter 134 Nico
NICO
Helping us push back the anti-shifters, protecting as many of us as she could, and whatever she did to lift the protection spell around the pack lands had drained Sinthy completely.
She’d been on the verge of death when she still managed to find a way to save Sebastian’s life, and she collapsed into Maxwell’s arms not long after Sebastian had come back to us.
My friend was beaten and unable to stand and walk on his own. Diego and Mateo had picked him up to carry him to my house—Luis and Felipe were too emotionally exhausted to help. They were still crying tears of joy as they followed my brothers and Sebastian up the hill to my house.
I knelt and scooped Sinthy up. She was almost totally insubstantial, like a dried-out husk that still had the shape but no longer the mass of what it had been.
Her head lolled on my shoulder, and I couldn’t believe how pale she was.
Her skin was almost translucent, and her eyes looked like she’d accidentally used red food coloring instead of eye drops.
The blood-red sclera made her look much more intimidating than usual.
“Did he make it?” she murmured as I carried her.
I nodded, a lump forming in my throat. “He did. He’s alive. I think he’s gonna be fine.” I pulled her close, hugging her like she was my daughter. “Thank you, Sinthy. Thank you so much. I can’t even begin to tell you how much it means to me. To all of us. Everything you did.”
She gave a tired sigh and closed her eyes again. “That’s what you do for family.”
The lump in my throat grew harder. More tears leaked from my eyes. This girl, who was barely old enough to drink, was braver than almost anyone I’d ever met. Never in my life had I been so proud to know someone. Proud to have them be a part of my pack.
Abi helped my brothers get Sebastian settled in the guest room where she’d stayed until a few weeks ago. Maddy and my mom helped me get Sinthy into bed to sleep off everything she’d done. I left so they could undress her and get her into something comfortable.
Out in the living room, my happiness at Sebastian being alive and my heartache for what Sinthy had put herself through evaporated as I saw what was playing on the television.
Live footage of the aftermath of the attack.
I hadn’t even given myself time to check and see how many of our own people had been injured or killed.
Instead of worrying about the innocent dead, there was only one thing the reporters were focused on. Sinthy.
I clicked through multiple channels. Every broadcast showed the same thing.
Clips of Sinthy as she fired balls of fire from her hands, erected defensive bubbles around shifters, and the god-like performance she’d put on to rebuild the surrounding barriers.
Witches. That was the only word anyone wanted to talk about.
It ran across the ticker on the bottom of the screen; history scholars were brought in, and more than one angry voice talked about how dangerous it was that a shifter clan had a witch in their pack.
Gritting my teeth, I clicked on one channel to hear the entire exchange.
“With us in the studio, we have a professor emeritus from Southern Coast College, Doctor Eli Horowitz. Doctor, what does this mean? Witches were thought to have died out after the trials of the sixteen-hundreds,” the anchor said.
The professor was a small, chubby man with thinning hair.
He smiled at her and shook his head. “The Salem Witch Trials were, as we all know, brought about by hysteria and fear of real witches. In my book, Where Are They: The Truth About Witches, I go into more detail about this distinct era in history. It was my theory that the Spanish Inquisition, which took place from the mid-fourteen-hundreds until the early eighteen-hundreds, was the true driving force that pushed witches into hiding. The Witch Trials and other anti-metaphysical hatred stemmed in part from the terror and fear of heresy that the Inquisition instilled in many people.”
The anchor leaned forward. “So, you’re saying that they’ve always been here? Hiding in the shadows?”
The professor chuckled. “Well, that’s a bit grim.
Sounds like some conspiracy. Like they’ve been pulling strings and working behind the scenes.
No, not exactly. I think that with them going underground, it became very difficult for them to find like-minded people who shared their distinct power and skill set.
As we know, not anyone can become a witch.
History tells us that ninety percent of witches are born with the power, and the other ten percent had Wiccan ancestry and could tap into the latent power with study and practice.
Any witches alive today are few and far between and probably do their best to hide. ”
The anchor pointed at him with a pen. “And why would they hide? What is their goal?”
The professor shook his head again, seemingly annoyed with the line of questioning.
“What is their goal? To survive, of course. What else? They probably live in abject fear that something like the Inquisition is going to roll around again and truly end them. No one wants to be burned at the stake, drowned, or crushed with rocks. Surely you understand that?”
The anchor appeared to either not understand or not want to understand.
“Well, Doctor…” He pointed at a computer screen.
“What we’ve seen today shows that, perhaps, we did have something to worry about.
This witch, who has somehow aligned herself with the Lorenzo pack, has incredible power.
It was like nothing I’ve seen. All this time, we thought that maybe, the Lorenzo wolves had some kind of advanced technology that was protecting them.
Now, it seems that it was, in fact, a witch. ”
Doctor Horowitz leaned on the table and interlaced his fingers, and it was obvious he was glaring at the other man.
“Chuck, I have a very bad feeling that you may be veering away from what should truly be the story. Witches aren’t gone.
That’s miraculous and amazing. Also, these people—if one can call them that—attacked innocent shifters who’d done nothing wrong.
These terrorists need to be rounded up, arrested, and made to face the full strength of the law. ”
The anchor was getting worked up. He slammed a hand on the table.
“These shifters are dangerous. You’ve seen what Viola Monroe has said about Maddison Sutton.
She is a descendant of the werewolf king Edemas.
She is the one who needs to be arrested and brought in before she can do more damage.
The people who attacked that compound are patriots doing what needed to be done.
” He was red-faced and sweating. There was so much anger in his eyes that the professor leaned away from him. Fear and confusion showed in his eyes.
Horowitz glanced off camera. “Doug? Jamie? What the hell? Is this guy for real?”
There was murmuring from behind the anchor, who spun to address the people talking to him. “No, goddamn it. It needs to be said. Everyone is too damned afraid to talk about it.”
I stared in abject shock as two security guards stepped onto the sound stage and grabbed the anchor by his arms, dragging him, screaming, off the set. The professor looked shocked and saddened as the video cut away to a commercial.
Anger boiled inside me like an inferno. It appeared we’d been right when we thought some of Viola’s followers were in higher places. A famous reporter was probably the lowest of her devotees. People everywhere who already hated us would start to believe every pack had a witch.
As I tried to calm down, I stomped to the busted-out windows and looked out on the battlefield.
My breath caught in my throat at the disaster that reigned over my lands.
I’d hoped to limit the bloodshed, and we’d even trained to do our best to hurt but not kill during our simulated training.
That had gone out the window when our lives were on the line.
At least a dozen dead bodies littered the field and streets of the pack neighborhood.
Our own people were collecting the casualties from our side.
In the distance, I could hear the wails and screams of grief as family members found their loved ones who had been cut down by psychotic bigots.
The ambulances were sitting outside the gates, tending to the humans who’d retreated.
We hadn’t allowed any of them in to help us.
They couldn’t be trusted, plus we had no clue how to let them in with Sinthy down for the count.
It had been necessary, but the blood was still on our hands.
There was no going back. And I was sure by tonight, some sympathetic TV channel would be showing the faces of the dead humans.
There would be stories of all the good things they’d done in their lives.
The charities they volunteered for, the houses they built for the poor, and the churches they attended.
Yet that didn’t change what they’d come here to do.
I was sure there had been Nazis who’d done nice things and gone to church and taken care of people. That didn’t change or erase all the terrible things they’d done to an entire race they didn’t like. Soulless evil could lurk in the prettiest and most esteemed of costumes.
The time for Viola to be the only voice the world heard was over.
We needed to send a message of our own. Chills ran down my spine at the thought.
Out in the field, I saw Donatello, smeared with blood and dirt, lift a body into his arms. Even from this distance, I could see the grief in his eyes.
If anyone could help me get the word out, it was him.
Especially now that he’d seen first-hand what Viola was capable of.