Chapter 9
Norrell
“You can’t be serious,” Niven challenges into his phone.
From the staircase, I cannot hear exactly what he is being told, but the caller sounds agitated.
“I’ll be right there.” My eyebrows rise as I enter the kitchen.
Niven seems caught off guard by the call.
He smirks to himself, shaking his head as he stares out the glass doors at the back garden.
“Did trouble find you already this morning?” I ask wryly.
“Wouldn’t you know, it did. But things just got a lot more interesting,” he confirms, his gaze flashing to mine.
“Sometimes they surprise me, especially when I haven’t even finished my first cup of coffee.
Norman Weatherby turned up just now at the gas station outside the wards in a stolen automobile.
He claims he’s defected from the other warlocks. Wants to turn himself in.”
“Sounds like a break in the case,” I reply, cautiously optimistic.
“It is even if turns out to be some sort of elaborate setup by the warlocks,” he answers. “We can’t be too careful until I have him under compulsion. You can block magick, right? That’s what you yetis do?”
“Something like that. I sense the source of magick and draw it away from the wielder or the spell they cast,” I answer hesitantly.
“And you’re good at it?” he questions with a gleam in his eye.
“Very,” I confirm, curious where this is heading.
“Excellent. You’ll be my backup. I’ll finish my coffee and we’ll hit the road,” Niven says with a broad grin. Like he is anticipating having some fun.
We get into Niven’s borrowed automobile to drive to the gas station outside the ward, where members of the Monstera Bluff coven and some of Niven’s colleagues wait for us.
Security is tight. Travel through the sealed ward is now granted manually, as the enchantments within community members’ travel amulets are no longer compatible with it.
Witches stationed just within the ward open a section momentarily to grant us passage.
We park near the building’s front door. There are several other automobiles in the parking lot.
It seems like a crowd has already arrived.
I am not sure how I will react to seeing one of the perpetrators of this violence against Ada.
For his sake, he better hope I keep a level head.
As we step into the disguised building, several witches dressed in uniform eject one by one from the travel portal.
Niven greets them along with his team who I saw at Ada’s interview.
They surround an old, graying, human-looking male with a bloated, ruddy face who sits slouched in a chair, his hands in magickal cuffs behind him.
He hardly looks like a threat, but sometimes the most dangerous are skilled at concealing it.
My hands feel fidgety, ready to slash his throat if the opportunity arises.
“Well, someone decided to grow a conscience. You were only a few weeks too late to make it meaningful,” Niven chides the male, whose hunched posture looks guilt-ridden. “It looks more like you got sick of roughing it.”
“I never thought they’d take it so far. The plan was just to get seats on town council. Then everything spiraled.” He sounds as pathetic as he looks.
“You’re not in a position to inspire any trust in your words, so you’re going to submit to my questioning now,” Niven commands through clenched teeth. The male has the intelligence to look frightened. Though as soon as that expression crosses his face, it slackens as Niven’s compulsion takes hold.
“Where are Dalton Atticus and Ralston Samuels?” Niven asks, not wasting any time.
Empty of expression, the male answers, “When I fled, they were staying in an abandoned fishing shack only a few miles down the coast. They seek out weaknesses in the ward every day.”
Niven’s brows knit in anger, though his hold on the warlock’s mind does not falter. “What is their plan if they find a weakness?”
“Ralston wants his revenge on everyone who wronged him. Cara, Clancy, Ada, the rest of town council. They’re trying to summon a Malefic to help them through and exact their revenge.
They’re practicing invisibility spells to help them go undetected while they ambush their perceived enemies.
They brought a collection of their enchanted weapons with them,” the warlock responds ominously.
Weapons? This sounds like they have been planning something for a while, way before the human female showed up. “Then what will they do?” Niven presses.
“Try to leave the town in ruins. And then they’ll go somewhere they can take over a human’s land, use their magick to get anything they want. Everything they deserved from this town.” The warlock’s lifeless words send a chill down my spine.
“Did any of you tell the fae to target Ada’s magick?” He pushes the warlock even further, based on the beads of sweat now collecting on the male’s ugly face.
“No, Ralston told it to dispose of Cara and anyone who got in its way. Spare no one,” he confesses.
After several more questions trying to get a better idea where the two remaining warlocks are holed up, Niven releases Norman Weatherby from his mind control.
“I want to apologize to Ada and Cara. Could I tell them before I go?” the warlock begs. The nerve of this insufferable male. Even I can tell he is not that sorry. Ada is staying protected and safe behind the ward. Niven scoffs, making it evident he agrees.
He levels a look of indignation toward the idiotic warlock.
Gesturing at the guards, he bites out, “Take him away. Put him in solitary until I have time to question him further.” As the guards pull the warlock to his feet, Niven turns to me.
“Can you drain his magick so he can’t put up a fight?
I want him nice and docile for my friends at the prison. ”
“Gladly,” I confirm. It takes little concentration to find his source of magick where it concentrates deep in his chest. I do not see it so much as feel it when I use my abilities, like I become a magnet that attracts magick.
I pull it from him slowly at first, and then in one big tug.
The warlock’s body spasms as I do so. When the last of it is gone, he gasps for air as he crumples, though he is caught by the guards’ firm grip on his arms before hitting the floor.
Unwilling to display any more of my abilities to the group, I let it dissipate into the wild magick that flows naturally in the atmosphere.
As the contingent that just arrived from New York shuffle the warlock through the travel portal, one of Niven’s assistants sniffs derisively in their direction. “They’ve really joined the dark side.”
The other one barks a mirthless laugh. “No Whispered Folk community will let them in. They’ve basically turned into Malefic themselves.”
Once they have gone, Niven lets out a long sigh and scrubs his hands up and down his face. “That was too easy. The male barely put up a mental fight. He was so weak-minded. No wonder he was so easily swayed by them. He can barely think for himself.”
“Those plans sound dangerous. We must treat them like a serious threat,” I warn him, anger toward the warlocks seeping into my words.
“We are. Those warlocks can’t stoop too low.
I don’t want to give them any opportunity to deal more damage to the town or to Ada,” he assures me.
He pulls out his phone, and after a motion asking me to hold on for a moment, turns away from me.
“He’s just through the portal. We need eyes on the nearby rivers and the edges of the ward for the other two.
Abandoned fishing shack about three or four miles south. Bring in the flyers.”
I huff a laugh at the description. They must be a special team of winged Whispered Folk.
“Apologies, just wanted to get the ball rolling on this search. They’ll be through the portal within the hour,” Niven explains. “Why don’t I drop you back at Ada’s before I head to the constabulary to fill them in. We need to be ready for any possibility.”
As we get into the automobile, he pauses before starting it.
“So it’s really that easy. You just took his magick?
” He shakes his head in disbelief. “It’s rumored your people are capable of it, but ashes, who could have known it was so effortless.
It looked like you knocked the wind out of him without lifting a finger. ”
I nod. “I am one of the most skilled in my clan, mayhap among all the yetis as well. His magick was not particularly complicated, nor was he trying to defend himself. But, yes, it is easy as you say. And I did not take his magick, just released it.”
“But you can take it?” he detects astutely.
I grunt in the affirmative. “I do not absorb it myself or gain anything from it. But it is harnessable in other ways.”
“You store it somehow, I’m assuming? It makes more sense now that your clan chose to live in that frozen tundra where the Malefic like to go,” he observes.
I hold out my wrist, where a leather tie with several clear quartz beads wraps around it. He hums in understanding.
“The Malefic amass deep wells of magick even while approaching the North Pole where it is so highly concentrated. Clear quartz absorbs it well when we draw from them. It holds an immense amount of magick and remains stable, more so than other materials. It is also easy to procure,” I reply, carefully choosing my words.
“I wonder if the fae is doing something similar to Ada. Continually draining her magick. But what for? Does it feed its own?” His voice is not accusing, just contemplative.
It mirrors my own thoughts when I learned what happened to her.
His dark green eyes narrow at me. “What does your clan do with all that magick it acquires from the Malefic?”