Chapter 12
Danu instinctively looked around the café again before answering.
“Okay,” she said. “There are four stages of activation for a Veil Walker. It’s not a switch that flips. It’s more like a gradual turning on.”
Rowan nodded, listening intently, knowing that every word of this was for her benefit more than the coven’s.
“First contact is proximity to a witch. And by proximity, I don’t just mean talking.
I mean an exchange of energy. It starts as a low hum.
The Veil Walker themselves won’t feel anything.
And some Veil Walkers don’t even know they’re Veil Walkers.
Neither does the next generation, or the one after that. ”
“How can that be?” Rowan asked.
“That’s a long story,” Danu said, sitting back.
“But needless to say, there have been two breaches of the Veil over the last few hundred years. The last one, as you know, was in the 1960s. Veil Walkers came through then. But Veil Walkers also came through in the 1700s. There’ll be generations from the 1700s crossing who’ve been living here for centuries, and generations from the 1960s, although we contained that as much as possible.
So, there won’t be as many from the sixties.
But we don’t know the exact numbers from either. ”
Rowan kept her face still.
“What the witch feels,” Danu continued, “is that there’s something slightly off about the person. They can’t read their energy. Can’t feel them. Something’s just not right. That’s how a Veil Walker is identified.”
“Okay,” Rowan said. “Well, we’ve never come across that.”
She lied without blinking.
“Stage One has been simmering for days now,” Danu said. “We’ve recognised it. We can pinpoint it to this area. We’ve recognised something within the Veil itself.”
Rowan nodded. “As have we. Like I told you.”
“Stage Two is physical contact. Touch. Skin to skin. When you touch a Veil Walker, the energy recognises itself and starts to wake. It’s like a handshake, in the technical sense. The signal starts to build. From Stage One to Stage Two, there’s a gradual increase and the pulse gets stronger.”
“And Stage Three?” Rowan asked.
“Emotional intimacy,” Danu said. “A kiss. Lying together. Anything where the connection deepens and the energy exchange deepens with it. Any prolonged intimate contact with a Veil Walker will send up a flare.” She held Rowan’s gaze. “And we felt it last night. You felt it. We felt it.”
“And Stage Four?”
Danu took a deep breath and was careful with her words.
“Full union. Physical, emotional, complete.” She paused. “Nobody knows what happens at Stage Four. No witch in recorded Council history has ever let it get that far.”
She let that settle in the air between them.
“Jean broke it off at Stage Three.”
“Jean?” Rowan said, acting surprised, half-wondering if Danu was trying to catch her out.
Danu narrowed her eyes. “Yes. Jean was involved with a Veil Walker. Got to Stage Three. Quite deeply into Stage Three, actually. And broke it off.”
“Why did she break it off?”
“Because we were going to bind her if she didn’t.”
Rowan frowned. “I don’t get it. We know what happens when the Veil rips or tears. Veil Walkers come through. But so what? A couple of Veil Walkers living among us – why does that matter so much?”
Danu screwed up her face and shook her head slightly. She leaned forward and lowered her voice.
“That’s like saying, ‘What does it matter if there are a couple of aliens living in our world?’ Imagine if the press, the media, the entire world, found out that there were actual beings from another plane of existence living among us.
How do you think everybody would feel? How do you think that would disrupt the world? ”
Rowan sat back and nodded. “I hear you. I know exactly what you’re saying.” She paused. “But if you don’t know what happens at Stage Four?—”
Danu stared at her for a few seconds.
“And we don’t want to find out what happens at Stage Four.
This is not an experiment. This is survival.
” She set her cup down. “And make no mistake – when we find out which witch it was from your coven, or any of the other covens in this area, we will bind them. They will no longer have any magickal powers. And anybody seen to be covering for them will also be bound.”
“You can’t threaten that,” Rowan said, knowing she was losing the upper hand.
“Yes, we can. And yes, we will.”
“And what if we decide to bind you?” Rowan said. “Or kill you?”
Danu laughed. Hard. The two waiters on the floor looked over. Rowan turned back to her, frowning.
Danu leaned forward. “Rowan. I am under no illusion of my place in this …” she looked around the café and sneered slightly, “… world. You can kill me, and there are another hundred members here to take my place.”
That was what hit home.
This woman didn’t care if she died. She’d made peace with her own expendability and was still sitting here delivering the threat with a steady hand. You can’t bluff someone who isn’t afraid of losing.
“Okay,” Rowan said. “If we find out anything, we’ll let you know. How do we contact you?”
Danu stood and pulled on her cream coat. She picked up her gloves from the table.
“You don’t,” she said. “When you find out something, we’ll already know.”
She walked out of the café without looking back.
Rowan sat alone at the table, her coffee cold, the sigil on her arm burning steadily, and the full weight of what she’d just heard pressing down on her like stone.
Then a name came to her.
Lorna.
She could call Lorna. She trusted her. Lorna was an ex-Council member who’d helped them when everything had kicked off with Jean. She’d given Rowan her number when they’d last met, and Rowan had put it somewhere safe.
She pulled on her jacket, paid the bill at the counter, and rushed home.
Back in the flat, she rifled through the drawers of the console table in the living room, knowing she’d placed the number in one of them. Top left. No. Top right. Last drawer.
She took a deep breath before dialling.
Can I trust her? she thought. How much do I tell her? How much will she tell me?
Just call her. You’re in deep enough shit as it is.
The number picked up after one ring.
“Lorna speaking.”
“Lorna, it’s Rowan Kerr. We spoke a few months ago.”
“Rowan. Yes. How can I help you? Has something happened?”
“No, no. I just need to run something by you.”
“Okay. Let me get to a quieter place. One second.”
Rowan sat down in the armchair, elbows resting on her knees, and waited. Through the sash windows, the afternoon light was fading over Clarence Drive. She could hear a bus pulling away from the stop on Hyndland Road, the hiss of its brakes carrying through the still air.
“Okay,” Lorna said. “It’s safe enough here. Tell me what’s happened.”
Rowan chose her words carefully. “The coven felt something last night. Like a flare of electric energy in the air. Everybody felt it. And we’ve been feeling a dent in the Veil for a few days now.
We don’t quite know what it is.” She paused.
“And I’ve just had a visit from one of the Council members. ”
“Who was it?”
“Danu.”
“Oh, yeah. I know Danu. Was she as prickly as ever?”
Rowan let out a weary laugh. “Yeah. She was.”
“And what did she say? Let me guess – all that stuff about binding, and if they found out which witch it was, they’d strip her powers?”
“That’s exactly what she said.”
“So, what do you want from me, Rowan?”
“I want to know what we’re actually dealing with. Danu told me about the four stages of activation for a Veil Walker.”
“The four stages,” Lorna said. “Right. And I’d assume she told you she doesn’t know what happens at Stage Four?”
“Yeah. She said it’s never happened in recorded history.”
Lorna laughed. Not unkindly. But knowingly. “That’s the spiel they give to all the witches. It has happened. Three times.”
Rowan’s grip tightened on the phone.
“Have you heard of someone called Alicia Collins?” Lorna asked.
“Alicia Collins.” Rowan knew the name but couldn’t quite place it. Then it came to her. “Was she not that billionaire from America? The one that disappeared last year?”
“The very one. I’m presuming you know she was a powerful witch. One of the most powerful witches in the world. And the reason she became that powerful was because of a Veil Walker. She had a full relationship with one. Stage Four. And it enhanced her powers immeasurably.”
Rowan sat back in the chair. “What?”
“Now you can understand why the Council wouldn’t want this information to get out.”
“What kind of powers?”
“Almost anything you can think of, magickally.”
“You mean literally everything?”
“All the magickal powers a witch could want, she would essentially have. When the energies mingle fully – and I’ll be blunt here, when they have sex – there’s a rising passion which increases the energy signature, which increases the intermingling of energies.
The witch unlocks the key that the Veil Walker holds. And he – or she – is a Pandora’s box.”
Rowan was speechless for a moment.
“So, what happens to the Veil Walker?” she asked.
“They die.”
“They die,” Rowan repeated.
“Yes. They’re a conduit. And when the key is fully turned, a tear happens in the Veil. Not a dent. Not a thinning. A tear. And that tear releases hundreds, if not thousands, of other Veil Walkers.”
“Oh my God.”
“Yeah,” Lorna said. “Exactly.”
Rowan pressed her free hand against her forehead. “So, why wouldn’t a witch just get with a Veil Walker to gain those powers?”
“Because of the tear,” Lorna said. “Imagine hundreds of Veil Walkers around the world, and witches start getting together with them to unlock the powers. And then there are children from those unions. More powers. More tears. More Veil Walkers crossing through. It compounds. Could you imagine the chaos?”
“Danu said it would be like the world finding out aliens were living among us.”
“Exactly,” Lorna said. “This is a dangerous game for whoever this witch is. And I would tell them strongly, Rowan, that this should be dropped immediately. Whatever’s going on.”
“I’ll pass it on,” Rowan said.
There was a pause on the line.
“Can I call you again if we need help?” Rowan asked.
“Of course. I’m here for you. But from here on in, Rowan, you and your coven have to be really careful.”
“One thing before you go. Danu told me she didn’t care what happened to her. That there were a hundred more Council members ready to take her place. What did she mean by that?”
“Exactly that. There are thousands of Council members around the world. So, she meant what she said.”
“Thanks, Lorna. I really appreciate it. That’s really put my mind at – well, actually it hasn’t. But I appreciate the help.”
Lorna laughed. “No bother. Any time. Give me a call.”
The line went dead.
Rowan sat on the edge of the armchair, the phone still in her hand. The light through the sash windows had shifted to a pale grey, and the flat was quiet except for the kitchen clock ticking softly on the wall.
Callum would die. If she let this go all the way, Callum would die. He would be a conduit, a key turned too far, and then he’d be gone. And the Veil would tear open, and everything the coven had fought to protect would be undone.
She was going to have to tell the group. All of it. She couldn’t hold this back.