29. The Final Decision
The Final Decision
Eliza
E liza's limbs felt heavy, and an annoying beeping sound went off in her ears. Step by step, she returned to wakefulness. She wanted to reach out and shut the noise off, but she couldn’t. Something was holding her arm down; the weight was heavy; she struggled to open her eyes to see a familiar head of brown and sun-kissed curls she’d found herself dreaming about more than what was healthy, leading her eyes to the sleeping face of Malcolm.
Eliza didn’t know whether to wake him up or let him sleep. She looked away from his face to her stomach, where she felt the repeated sensation of something stinging her. Using her free hand, she pushed the blanket down, grabbing the edge of her shirt. She slowly pulled it up just in time to see the last stitch pop from her stomach. She grimaced at the sight of old blood and her stomach’s skin shifting.
The wound was healing itself; she should’ve known this body wouldn’t die from such an injury.
“It healed.” Malcolm’s voice was groggy with sleep as he looked from her stomach to her face. An emotion flickered across his expression she couldn’t quite place. He pushed up, sitting straight in the chair. “You knew you would heal?”
She let her shirt fall back down and rested her head back. “No, but I had a hunch.”
“You put your life on the line for a hunch?” Noticing the strain in his voice, she looked at him. “You broke my heart over a guess?”
“Then what was I supposed to do, watch you die?” she asked in a harsh whisper. “I don’t get it. Why do men always think that if they die, everything’s fine.” She swallowed and closed her eyes in pain. “No one wants to see their loved one die.”
Taking in words, Malcolm felt some of his anger ebb away. “We can debate that another time. Are you still feeling any pain?”
Noticing his tone shift, she nervously continued, “It looks like my ability to heal doesn’t take away the pain.”’
“That’s interesting. Tell me, Eliza, does your healing ability have anything to do with you spending time inside of a tube this past year,” a familiar but unwelcome person asked.
Malcolm jumped up and turned, glaring at Tiller, who stood in the doorway of Eliza’s hospital room. The nine-tailed fox sniffed, giving the room a disdainful look. “I’ve been in plenty of hospitals for the past year, but a human one?” he drew his gold eyes from the room to Malcolm's face. “Never.” He walked deeper into the room. Tiller's presence signaled many things: change and danger.
Tiller’s hands rested inside his trench coat, and he was missing his ears and tail. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, Malcolm. Kidnapping, leaving your duty station, and let’s not forget—lying to me.”
“I never lied to you,” Malcolm retorted defiantly. “I went to the wolf lands and nowhere else as you ordered.”
“Yes,” Tiller said, eyeing Eliza with a strange look. “You did, but you never mentioned taking a friend. Especially such an important friend. One who happens to be the witness we need most. You ran off with her and took her somewhere you knew it would be hard for me to get access.”
“She’s not your anything; she’s my mate. And I have a right to protect her,” Malcolm snapped, his stance defensive.
“Hmm.” Tiller pursed his lips; everything about the man was inhuman. “I would have to argue that, after all, her real owner has been coming to my office searching for her lost little girl.”
Eliza’s pained expression changed into confusion. “What?”
“He’s talking about me.”
Malcolm and Eliza turned sharply towards the woman who’d just stepped from the shadows.
Lanias's eyes nearly glowed with schadenfreude as she looked at them. “I’ve been looking for you, my dear.” She narrowed her eyes. “Call me surprised when I heard one of my witches had been kidnapped and was being held by some mongrel,” she complained sounding indignant.
“Don’t call him that,” Eliza snapped. “And we don’t even have the type of relationship where you can get involved in my private life. Much less insult Malcolm when he’s the one who saved me. Nothing he did was wrong, especially since I was the one who insisted he tell no one about me.”
Lanias's face lost all amusement the minute her eyes landed on Eliza after she finished with her outburst.
Eliza had to fight against instinctively wilting under her stern stare; Lanias wasn’t anything to be played with. Her Magic alone had caused a stronger man to give in to her demands.
“All witches, every single one is my family. I would never abandon any of them, and while I may have let a few slip through the cracks. I wouldn’t knowingly allow one to remain in danger,” Lanias said, her tone hard, and Elizabeth felt like she’d just been lectured. She was a fucking adult, and yet every time she ran into Lanias, she felt like a child being reprimanded. “Do you understand? I know humans raised you, and you believe in different rules. But you’ve also worked at the Shade over these many years. You can’t feign ignorance of our ways and why we are the way we are.”
Looking at Tiller she added, “The council could return to its ways at any time. Hunting us down and stealing our children away.”
“Doubtful,” Tiller rebuffed. “They are only interested in the following right now: sowing dissonance in other realms, stirring up trouble in other lands, and causing the occasional mass death of certain species. For instance…” He turned his attention to Malcolm. “Your friend, I mean, my friend here, was supposed to return and solve the mystery of the disappearing werewolf youth. Instead, he’s taken the role of Alpha, which is a pretty permanent position.”
“Yes,” Malcolm said, not denying the accusation. “The seat was mine to take from the start. If it wasn’t for you or those damn greedy Alderman. I would have gotten it six years ago.”
“Right,” Tiller drawled, rolling his eyes. “Before or after you slaughtered the previous Alpha without a formal challenge?”
Malcolm released a low growl. “Keep testing me, fox, and I’ll show you how I did it.”
“No, thanks.” Tiller waved his threat off. “I can remember the smell of the blood and the sight of his dismembered body well enough.”
Forcing herself to sit up, Eliza glared at him. “I get it. You and Malcolm don’t have the best relationship. Can you…” She glanced at Lanias. “...tell us already why you’re here?”
“We’re here together but for separate reasons,” Lanias said, her black eyes narrowing. “I have come for you.”
“And I,” Tiller said, his lips quirking, “have come for my little disobedient puppy.”
“And what makes you think you can make us leave?” Malcolm demanded, his claws out and his eyes burning with hatred. “I won’t let you take me or her.” He bared his teeth, displaying his Wolfen heritage for all to see.
“Oh, I’m so scared,” Lanias said, pressing her pointer finger to her cheek as she batted her lashes.
“Wait, I lied.” She snapped her fingers, and the shadows ripped themselves from the wall and turned into spikes, all pointed at Malcolm. “I’m sure you, being a monster, will understand if I don’t listen to you. We’re not exactly the friendliest types.”
“You would fight me?” Tiller asked, his grin exposing the demon that he kept hidden. A single tail appeared behind him, quickly followed by eight more. He lifted his hand, his nails long, and pointed. “I’m interested to see how far you’ll get puppy.”
“Enough,” the floor rolled, and a white shield rose between them, Eliza’s hands curled in the blanket in her lap. “No one will be taking anyone away,” her eyes were bright white. She glared ahead. “If you’re here to help, then say it. Otherwise, leave us alone.” The line where her skin had been sewn leaked white light. “I’ve already lost so much, I won’t lose Malcolm, not for anyone,” she declared.
Lanias sneered, “What? Are you in love?”
It was clear what she thought about that. The shadow spikes wilted, falling like liquid before they withdrew to the walls.
“I am so tired of my witches falling in love with your Jackals,” she nearly hissed at Tiller. “I don’t know what it is, the danger, the dick, or the idea of the forbidden. But I am going to ban your men from coming to my place of business; I can’t keep hiring new girls…or boys.” She smirked.
“Are you sure you won’t come with me?” Tiller asked Malcolm.
With a glance at Elisa, he added. “We can give you the protection that you lack now. A werewolf didn’t give that wound." Returning his attention to Malcolm, he frowned. “What are you not telling me?”
“He’s not telling you to protect me,” she said.
Malcolm turned around. “Don’t, Eliza. They don’t need to know.”
Eliza shook her head, meeting his troubled gaze. “Yes, they do; we can’t do this alone. And your family, what about them? They can’t get dragged into our—no. My mess.” She faced Tiller. “The people who are after me, how much do you know about them?”
“We know that they’re attempting to find a Numb witch,” Lanias answered, “They are also trying to create her, just in case she doesn’t exist.”
“And luckily, they haven’t succeeded so far,” Tiller added.
“Well, they did,” she said, her chin down. “I don’t know how they did it, but I am this thing they were trying to make.” She reached up and touched her face. Her cover was melting away, fully exposing the scars that crisscrossed it.
Giving a stark view of the face she’d kept hidden with her magic, the monster that’d been pieced together. Lanias's eyes widened in horror; her lips parted as her fingers curled into a fist at her side. “What did they—” She cut herself off. “They destroyed you,” she finished bleakly.
Tiller averted his eyes; he couldn’t think of what to say.
Malcolm looked at the woman he loved with sorrow, as he’d seen her real face before. The stitch lines that bisected it were also on her shoulders and hips. The skin of her limbs varied in coloring.
“The only thing they left me was my soul,” Eliza said as she closed her eyes. “At least I’m alive. That’s all I have left to be proud of.” When she reopened her eyes, their purple color sharpened on Lanias. “So, again. How much do you know about them?”
Lanias bit her lip before she looked at her with determination. “They will be coming after you if you’re what you say you are.”
“Yes, one of the wolf clans harbored one of their allies. That’s how I got wounded.”
Eliza placed a hand on her stomach.
“They’ve already made it clear they will be back. And to answer the question of the missing youth, they are the ones who took them. I recognized the Magic from the campsite where the teens were last seen.”
Malcolm frowned. “It all connects then; the enemy is the same in both cases.”
“Then we will have to fight them,” Tiller said simply, taking his cell phone out. “The council doesn’t need to know what we’re doing either. I suspect someone far more powerful is pulling the strings behind those puppets. We don’t want to get caught unawares by them.”
“Who are you calling?” Malcolm asked, still clearly suspicious of Tiller.
“Our friends,” Tiller said with condescension. “You’re not the only dog I own. Raijin, do you remember him, or did you forget that we’ve been expanding my collection of blood drinkers and killers?”
“You want to fight without the council’s knowledge.” Lanias crossed her arms. “How naughty of you, fox.” She lifted her right arm and rolled her beringed fingers; they flashed silver twice.
They all tensed as four women appeared. Elizabeth recognized two of them immediately; her eyes widened in surprise.
“Fucking hell, Lanias,” Oye shouted.
In her hands was a spatula, and she was sporting an apron, but that was it.
Tiller and Malcolm quickly averted their eyes as Oye narrowed her quicksilver eyes on Lanias. “I’ve told you about this random summoning shit.”
“Well,” Lanias said, giving her body a long look. “In my defense, you two fuck way too much for a newly engaged couple.”
Oye sneered, tossing her spatula up as her body was enveloped in a bright light of the same color as her eyes. When the light abated, she stood in a silvery short dress. Her hair wasn’t down her back and disheveled but wrapped into a large bun atop her head.
“Oye has a point,” Sabina added as she glared at her sister. One of her hands was pressed to the side of her rounded belly. “I had just asked Raijin to pour some chocolate on the kettle popcorn he’d made. I am not happy about missing out on that.” She looked away from her sister, her eyes meeting Eliza’s.
“Eliza?” she said, her gaze holding surprise. She sent Lanias a grateful look. “You found her.”
Lanias shook her head and pointed at Malcolm, who refused to glance their way since Oye had arrived nude. “He found her. Then he ran with her.”
Sabina made her way to Eliza’s bedside; she reached out only to pause with her hand in the air. “Are you—” She paused at the sight of the hand with a thick scar around it, before she met Eliza’s gaze. “You’re not.”
It had been a long time since Eliza had seen her friend. The two of them were the only witches who joked about the Beings of Veil City, who were ignorant of the human world. Of all the people Eliza had called friends, Sabina had been the most comforting.
“I wasn’t,” she answered, reaching out to catch her friend’s hand mid-air. “But now I am.”
Sabina nodded, and she glanced at Malcolm. “Is he the reason?”
Eliza gave a short nod as she smiled, holding back tears. “Yes.”
“I’m glad,” Sabina said, her eyes red from withholding her tears. “I wish I had been there for you. I’m sorry I wasn’t.”
“Then how would you be the size of a melon?” Eliza joked.
The two of them laughed.
“So, you’ve summoned us. For what?”
This question was asked by one of the two witches who’d been watching the touching scene with twisted lips.
“Lydia, you’re so impatient,” Lanias complained, facing the young woman. “Can’t you be like Coral, she’s so calm.”
Lydia's long nails were neon blue, and her hair was black and electric blue at the tips, matching her nails. She tugged on the end of a long strand she’d left out. Her skin was a dark beige, and her eyes were oddly white. She frowned at Lanias, “I was in the middle of playing a game, and sorry to be that person, but… You’re not exactly the person I want to see, especially after all these years.”
“If she’s called us here, then there must be a reason, babe,” Coral said, dusting the dirt off her jeans. Her hair was close-shaven, with a stylized rose in it. She straightened; her dark oak-colored skin was disrupted by the occasional splash of milky pale coloring. She eyed Lanias with interest, “It’s been a minute. Luckily, I had only just started gardening in my yard. What do you need?”
“I need you two to join a fight,” Lanias said, reaching into her back pocket and pulling out her cell phone. “You two are the only ones without family and with moderate attack power.”
Oye cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, but Sabina and I have kids. What are we doing here?” she demanded.
Lanias didn’t look her way. “Moral support.”
“I hate you,” Oye snapped, the spatula changing into a scythe in her hand. She looked at Lanias as if she was contemplating whether or not to take her head.
“I always heard that you witches were a dysfunctional bunch.” Tiller’s voice immediately garnered everyone’s attention. “It turns out it’s true.”
Lydia appraised him, “Why is there an animal talking? That’s just not natural. " She lifted her fingers, letting blue sparks flicker off her skin. “Should I change that?”
Coral covered her hand, clicking her tongue. “Babe, remember what the therapist said.”
Lydia pursed her lips.
Lanias laughed. “No, he’s just barking at you because he likes you.” She wrinkled her nose. “Just ignore him. He’ll calm down eventually.”
Tiller ignored her insults and focused on his phone call. Once he had finished, he hung up and looked at Malcolm. “They are coming. You should think up a good reason for what you did.” He grinned, his eyes flashing. “Because they aren’t very happy.”
Some part of Malcolm wanted to run when he heard that, but he wouldn’t. He’d put his life on the line to be with Eliza, and he wouldn’t run away from it. He took a seat in the chair that remained by the bedside; he didn’t look to the corner where all the witches, aside from Sabina, were standing. There was an unclear line between them all.
He knew the witches didn’t trust anyone or anything related to the council; he was lucky that he’d not been attacked. If it hadn’t been for Eliza’s power, he’d have been dragged away by Tiller.
The man liked pretending he was weaker than others, but that wasn’t the least bit true. Tiller enjoyed being underestimated and left most of the fighting to the Jackals. But he was a nine-tailed fox who’d kept his existence mostly a secret, often only showing his three tails.
The fact that he’d displayed all nine to Malcolm had been a clear sign he intended to drag Malcolm back kicking or screaming. Tiller wasn’t sentimental; it was clear he’d been ready to put everything on the line to return Malcolm to the Jackal HQ.
“When will they get here?” he asked.
Tiller didn’t look at him. “In probably five minutes, ten at most, but they are using the dark tunnels, so it shouldn’t be long.”
Malcolm sighed and rubbed his hand down his face. “Okay.”
“Castian, in particular, has a few words for you.” Tiller seemed eager to see them clash.
At the tail end of that thought, the door to Eliza’s room opened, and Raijin entered. Immediately his large form and aura filled the room. Those gleaming read eyes immediately zeroed in on Sabina.
“Sabina,” he called her name with relief. Completely ignoring Tiller he hurried over to his wife’s side. “Are you okay?”
Wiping a sentimental tear from her cheek, Sabina turned to face him. “Yeah, just a little nauseous.”
“Good to hear.” Placing both his hands on her shoulder, he leaned down and kissed her cheek. Done with that, he turned a fiery glare on Lanias. “My wife will not be summoned here and there by you anymore.” He warned angrily, as his skin slowly bled red. “I would hate for you to ignore my words.”
Lanias gave a little shake. “Oh, yes, Daddy. I won’t do it ever again.”
Raijin slowly squinted his eyes and kept his gaze steady on her.
Lanias rolled her eyes and raised her hands, “Okay, okay. I won’t do it.”
He gave a short nod, turning his attention back to Sabina.
“I also would like to add to that threat of death if you pull my love from my side again,” Castian’s smooth English accent cut in as he stopped before Oye. His eyes weren’t blue but black, demon black. “It rubs me wrong.” He reached up, brushing his fingers against Oye’s cheek. “I don’t like being rubbed wrong.”
Lanias sighed. “I can’t even call my own family without being threatened. Where is Steve Harvey when you need him?”
A hand landed on her shoulder, and Coral and Lydia took two giant steps back. Alek escaped the red smoke that swirled around him and pressed his nose against her neck. “You can call on me.”
The look on Lanias's face after his solicitously spoken words caused everyone to hold back their laughter. It had become a common scene for some, like Raijin and Tiller.
Lanias, who was barely holding on to her murderous intent, lifted her hand and pressed her fingers against the side of his head.
“You’re too close.” She shoved his head back while taking a step forward. She was the only one who treated Alek like an annoying parasite.
“Well, as much as I love this gathering,” Lanias said, “the humans are getting nervous, so why don’t we move this to a more pleasant place?” She rolled her wrist, and a white glowing ticket appeared between her fingers.
Malcolm frowned. “How did you get that?”
A mischievous smile came to her lips. “Like I get everything else, my dear Malcolm. With power.”
The room was suddenly filled with black shadow when it abated; everyone in the room had disappeared.