Chapter 60
BEA
‘She needs to lead with the violence,’ says Sandra’s Head of Comms, as my hands fly over my computer keyboard summarizing the discussion for Sandra to read.
I’ve gotten good at this lately, knowing exactly what to note down and what to leave off the record altogether.
‘Let’s clip a reel of all the craziest moments from the livestream.
The fact that psycho Frey is packing explosives.
The terror of the staff. Those poor patients in their hospital gowns’
‘Trial participants,’ corrects a junior staffer, earning a withering look.
‘Patients. The building in flames. The rubble. She needs to lean into the fact there are no confirmed fatalities, with the emphasis on confirmed like there might be a few in hospital waiting to die. And talk about how only Delacourt’s swift action limited extensive casualties.
The target outcome is for Redhaven to be declared a terror outfit. ’
‘I disagree. There’ll be plenty of others saying all of that,’ counters Michael Whitman. ‘Sandra’s brand is witchcraft – curbing its abuses, holding witches accountable, highlighting its inherent lawlessness. We need to lean into the magical angle specifically.’
‘We’ll get Okoye to say the Moot has been taken over by extremists,’ chimes in a third voice.
‘He’s not been answering my calls,’ grumbles the Head of Comms. ‘And now Barr is compromised. Besides, this is about Redhaven. The Moot has been an ally up till now, or at least not a vigorous opponent. Dragging it into this muddles our message.’
‘No it doesn’t,’ says Whitman. ‘Our message is about witches. If Okoye’s lost the Moot, then there’s no need to go easy on it anymore.
After all, it was supposed to have bound Frey’s magic beyond his recovery, so they’ve either lied or been proven horrifically incompetent.
Our point is that whether they’re playing nice, like the Moot, or nasty, like Frey, all witches are inherently unstable, anti-science, anti-progress and dangerously out of control. ’
‘Sandra’s on the line,’ someone says, connecting the call to a speaker in the centre of the table, and we all lean in.
Sandra thinks both angles will play well.
She says to include them both in a statement, but separate them up for social media and monitor which performs better.
She’s worried about how Frey’s hysterics over Harper are playing online, and sounds relieved when the media analyst explains that while there’s sympathy, the principal reaction is shock and fear at his aggression.
Delacourt has asked her to make a public statement in support of her research, but Sandra thinks this needs to be handled with care.
Nothing too gushing. Something along the lines of having every confidence in Dr Delacourt’s integrity as a clinician and her abilities as a researcher.
If the Fenn girl starts claiming she never gave consent, we push it all onto Barr in the first instance, she says.
Delacourt only takes the rap if blaming Barr isn’t enough to make it stick.
We protect Delacourt, until it gets to a point when we can’t, and then we cut her loose.
Honestly, the woman is a Politics masterclass.
The entire room is nodding along. Frey jumped on his motorbike right after his little performance, she tells us, and her contacts in law enforcement have confirmed he’s not been located yet.
The cop, Knight, followed the witches back to Moot HQ in Salem.
So that’s her last shred of credibility gone.
‘Maybe that’ll be enough to get Harper Fenn’s killing of my son reopened,’ Michael Whitman says. ‘Given that Knight, now a proven sympathiser, was the one who said there was nothing magical about Dan’s death.’
‘Perhaps,’ says Sandra, and in that one word we all hear her shutting him down. ‘But Michael, Sanctuary was where this wave of lawless witch madness began. Our focus now needs to be on how we end it.’
With that, and an estimated arrival time back in Sanctuary, she ends the call.
I leave the team in the meeting room to thrash out the details of the statement, and slip into Sandra’s personal office to get on with some of the routine admin that won’t stop because Harper’s witch dad has broken the internet outing himself as a psycho supremacist. I’m in the flow when there’s a soft click of the door opening behind me, and hairs rise on the back of my neck.
Slowly, I swivel the office chair.
It’s Luka. The boy who tried to kill me – to sacrifice me in some crazed ritual.
How much of that was Luka, and how much the influence of Lachlan Frey?
I’ve no idea. I can’t take any chances. Bridget called me to explain he’d been brought to her house yesterday, and I should stay in a hotel or guesthouse for a couple nights and she’d pay for it, and she was really, really sorry and he’d be gone as soon as possible.
Sandra obviously wasn’t thinking of me when she arranged that.
‘Your mom keeps a gun in this desk,’ I tell Luka. ‘I’m not afraid to use it.’
But even as I look at him, I can tell he’s no threat. If it weren’t for that horrific night at Bittershore, I could almost pity him. He looks … hollowed out. Dead behind the eyes. A body with its soul cut away. I laugh, self-conscious at such drama-queen phrasing, and yet …
Has his mom even seen him since it happened? Seen the shadow in his eyes, where that arrogant brightness used to be? Does she know what she’s done to her own son, murderer though he is?
‘Your face,’ he says. ‘Do I really look that different? Because I feel different. I feel like a stranger slipped into my skin, and yet I’m him.
Even when I hated my magic, it never felt like this.
Dios!’ He grinds the heels of his fists into his eyes.
‘How could I ever have hated it? I was so stupid.’
‘Luka?’ I say, uncertain what to do. I can’t give him sympathy, but privileging my pain doesn’t make his less awful to witness.
‘I didn’t consent,’ he says. ‘I’m telling you. I’ll tell everyone. I never consented and they did it anyway.’
‘I know,’ I say. ‘But you deserved it. All of you do.’
Except as I look into his lifeless eyes, I no longer know if that’s true. All of you. It was Sarah Fenn’s magic that saved me from Luka. Does Sarah also deserve to have her magic stripped away?
‘I can’t be here with you,’ I tell him. And because he’s showing no sign of leaving, I get up to leave.
My spine thrills with fear as we move past each other, remembering all the ways his body touched mine – to kiss, to pleasure, to choke, to bind, to cut.
But he’s not even looking at me. Perhaps the sight of himself through my eyes is too much to bear.
Pausing in the doorway, I see him go over to his mother’s desk. Sit down at her computer. Should I demand to know what he’s doing? Say something?
Say what?
I don’t know how to feel about the Ortizes anymore. I close the door and walk away.