Authors: Camilla Chafer
“What if we had outside help?” I asked.
Daniel thought about that for a moment. “There’s a coven that’s been keeping an eye on the place. I sense them sometimes.”
I nodded. “I’ve met them, and one of my friends who came with me met them too. They know who your dad is, what he does.” It occurred to me then that Daniel had never reported them, even though he knew they were there, and that gave me a little more hope.
“I thought as much. Even if we get away, my dad will know I’ve helped you and he’ll still be able to come after us. Maybe we can turn him over to the police? If they know he’s responsible for all those deaths, they’ll arrest him, right?”
“You got any evidence?”
“No.” Daniel leant against the wall, his arms crossed. “I’m just as guilty as he anyway. I didn’t know what he was doing at first, I swear. Then I saw the news one day, and I knew. I knew he was killing all those people. I didn’t want to help him.”
“Daniel, he forced you. It wasn’t your fault.”
“I should have stopped him earlier.”
“You couldn’t have. He’s got an army of goons killing for him. My friends say they’ve tried reporting him to the police but they don’t do anything. Someone’s protecting him,” I explained. “Look, can we talk about this later? Let’s just get out of here first.” I thought for a moment. There had to be some benefit to my being here. If I could find out the Brotherhood’s next moves, I’d have something to take back to the Council, something that might help other witches. Maybe it would help contribute towards a time when we wouldn’t have to worry about being hunted. “Do you know what he wants me to do, aside from hunting witches for him? You said he needed a stronger witch to do stuff you can’t do.”
“I’m not sure, but I think it involves money. I’ve tried various schemes for him, messing with computers and stuff to create money, but I can’t do it. I’m good with growing plants and herbs, but not technical stuff like that.”
“I don’t understand. I thought he was all about getting rid of witches?”
“Yeah, it started like that, but he knows what they can do. He can be rich and powerful in his own right if he has a powerful witch serving him. He can annihilate anyone who stands in his path. He could even rule the world. Who would ever stand up to him?”
“And that’s what he wants me for, so he can be rich and powerful?” I waved my hand around the room. The house wasn’t exactly in disrepair. If anything, it was warm and comfortable. Plenty of people seemed to live here and that had to cost a lot. “Isn’t he rich enough?”
“Is anyone?” Daniel countered.
I thought about that, about what Auberon would be able to achieve if he had unlimited power and money. It wasn’t a comforting thought. “We are definitely getting out of here.”
“I’m coming with you. You can’t leave me here, Stella. For years, I’ve been wondering if this will be the day when he kills me, when he realises I’m useless.”
I watched Daniel, the morose, slumped way he sat, the hopelessly sad eyes and thought about everything he’d had to deal with, how even though he was afraid, he still hid the knowledge of Anders’ coven from his father. Not to mention, how he’d helped me so far. He was right, I couldn’t leave him behind. “Okay, you help us get out of here, Annalise too, and we’ll take you with us. Deal?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Deal.”
“And if we die, no hard feelings, okay?”
Daniel pulled a face, for the first time, showing a spark. “There might be some hard feelings.”
“Fair enough. Here’s what I want you to do. First, we need to get a message to my friends and for that, I need the barriers to be down long enough that I can send one without anyone noticing. Can you do that?”
“I think so, yes.”
“You also need to explore that other tunnel, find out if we can definitely get out that way, too. Can you try it?”
“Maybe. No one’s expecting me for a while. What about the wolf-girl?”
“Annalise,” I reminded him, because it seemed important that he saw her for what she was: a person with a name, not just an animal. “Are there any secret tunnels to the cellar?”
Daniel searched the map, then shook his head. “None that go directly to where she, sorry, Annalise, is kept.” He pointed, tapping the map. “There’s another stairwell that goes from the kitchen here to the storage cellar. It’s not used often because we don’t store much there anymore and it’s not really as direct as the other staircase.”
“How do we get past all the guards?”
“I don’t think I could take them all with magic. They’re built like brick shithouses.”
“I get the picture. How many of them are there?”
“At least twenty at any one time, though there will probably be just over thirty, maybe forty, when all the patrols come back in. Easily double that tomorrow.”
“Too many to be certain that we can knock them all out together,” I mused.
“Yeah, plus they are all on alert. They know you have friends, so I guess they’re expecting an attack. That’s what was going on earlier. Something tripped the perimeter alarm. It might have been an animal though. We have foxes and deer pass through occasionally, especially now, when it’s cold and they’re looking for food,” Daniel explained.
“There were only two guards covering Annalise and me when we were in the cell and I didn’t see anyone else in the cellar on my way out.”
“They’ve been taking turns. Shift changes every two hours. I listen in from the secret passageways sometimes.”
“If we can get into the cellar unnoticed, we could deal with those two guards. No one will notice for two hours, right?”
Daniel nodded. “So long as no one goes down there between shifts, no one will notice. I could knock them both out, I think, if I gave them sedatives.”
Getting us out of here wasn’t going to be as easy as it looked. If we could even get to the cellar to get Annalise, there was no guarantee that we’d be able to get out again. If we left without her, we might not be able to get back before she was killed. Even if we all got out together, the chances of us being picked up close to the house were high. With a maximum of three of us, two wounded, though I was already feeling better, against thirty-plus heavily armed men, our odds of escape were depressingly low.
Another idea popped into my head, and it seemed almost ludicrous. “What if we had more witches in the house?” I asked.
Daniel looked confused. “There’s only us.”
“But what if we can get the local coven in? That would give us a fighting chance, right?”
“I guess, and they won’t expect an attack from the inside.”
“Exactly. They’re prepared for someone to storm the house, an explosion, not an implosion. If something lured them outside, it would reduce the numbers in the house.”
“If I can disable the traps around the stable yard for a few minutes, that might be long enough to get them in that way and bring them here.” Daniel looked excited. “If we could get Annalise up here, we could all leave the same way.”
“What are the chances of getting noticed?”
“Still high. What’s going to happen to my dad?”
“I don’t know. He’s dangerous, Daniel, really dangerous and... Have I mentioned this? He wants to kill us, all of us, and I don’t know if any witch is going to let him go scot free.”
“Yeah, figured you’d say that.”
“Are you okay?”
“You know, I am. Dad, he wasn’t always like this, but I can’t accept what he does. I’ve had a long time to think about this.”
“But you’re worried about killing him?”
Daniel stared at the carpet, picking at bits of it. “Yeah. I’ve done a lot of bad stuff, but I’m not a killer, and I don’t think I get the right to pick and choose. I don’t want to kill because that will make me like him, and I’m not. I’m nothing like him.”
“Let’s just get out of here first, Daniel, okay? We’ll work the rest out later.”
“I have to go. I’ll come back later, okay? I have to show my face a few times just so that they don’t notice something is up. If I don’t come back in time, send a message to your friends at midnight. I’ll make sure the barriers are down for a couple of minutes. Do you think that will be long enough?”
“Yes.” It would be enough to send a message anyway. “Can you meet them, let them in through the tunnel?”
Daniel grimaced. “If the magic drops for too long, an alarm triggers and someone will come looking for me. I can stop the alarm briefly; but I won’t be able to hold it for long. If they can make a diversion, that would help.” Daniel got to his feet, turning to slip behind the tapestry.
“I’ll try. Uh, Daniel?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you bring me some clothes next time you come? Something practical?”
He gave me a tight smile and nodded. “See you later.” And I was alone again.
I literally watched time pass by on the small electric clock on the nightstand, willing the numbers to click over faster and faster, formulating a plan on how I’d get a message to Étoile. I hoped she was with Evan and Gage, and some of the Hawksley coven members. My telepathy was weak and unpractised, and I’d only ever tried it once, so that wasn’t going to fly. Finally, I remembered the spell I’d seen in the borrowed spell book that I had for a short while. It was the last spell I’d read before the book disappeared. It was a simple one, perfect for sending messages. I scrabbled through the drawers of the nightstand, then the chest, and came up with some pieces of notepaper and a short, stubby pencil.
I tried to keep my note brief and to the point:
I’m alive. Annalise is being held in the cellar. She’s been hurt, but alive too. Thirty-plus guards and leader here. Go to stable yard wall, secret tunnel to inside. Daniel Morgan coming to help you. Diversion needed for front.
I cursed when my pencil snapped, leaving a dull end too blunt to even scratch out a few more words. Around me, I could feel the magic protecting the house. Daniel hadn’t let down the barriers yet so I folded the paper into small squares and concentrated on the power, waiting for it to fade.
A minute to midnight, it suddenly ebbed and gave out, and my magic surged. Holding the paper in one hand, I focused on it, closed my eyes, whispering the spell as I imagined it in Étoile’s hand, wherever she was. I didn’t feel it disappear, but opening my eyes, my hand was empty. I waited, rooted to the spot for any sign that she had received it and I wasn’t disappointed. The air in front of me thickened into a white smoke, arranging itself into words:
We’re coming.
As suddenly as the barriers went down, they were back up again and my magic was shoved deep back inside me. I had a scant minute to send and receive. If it had been more, I could have shimmered to the dungeon and grabbed Annalise, whipping us out of there to deal with the fallout from Auberon later. But every fibre of my being told me that attacking from the inside, with help, was the best course of action.
Yawning, I pressed a hand to my mouth and curled up in the big window seat, the curtains parted. I could see two-man patrols walking the grounds, closer to the house now, occasionally lit by flashes of torchlight, and dogs; big, ferocious, mean-looking dogs, straining on their leashes beneath the moonlight.
Sleep was pushing on my tired eyelids. I’d been unconscious in the cellar so that didn’t count, and I’d dozed slightly earlier, but not enough to really refresh me. Now, so close to escape, knowing my friends were coming, the best thing I could do would be to grab some shuteye, so I’d have enough energy to run when I needed it.
Somehow, I dozed on the window seat, tucked in amongst the pillows. When I heard footsteps in the room, I thought I was dreaming at first, then almost tumbled from the seat in my haste to throw myself at Evan.
“Thank God you’re okay,” he mumbled into my hair, embracing me fiercely. He looked tired and drawn, with days-old stubble. A quick glance at the clock told me it was one-fifty in the morning.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, looking past him. Daniel was standing awkwardly by the secret entrance and Étoile and Gage were stepping past him, then Anders and Bree.
“Saving you,” Evan said, and I thought I might have heard him mutter
again
.
Gage hugged me, just a brief squeeze about the shoulders and stepped away quickly, but not before whispering against my ear, “Glad you’re okay. I was worried about you.”
I put my finger to my lips, signalling to them to be quiet, then to come as far away from the door as possible. Just in case anyone was looking up, I pulled the curtains together.
“There are two guards at the door,” I told them in a soft voice as they huddled around.
“We got your message. Obviously,” said Étoile. She seemed to be dressed in some sort of “fatigue chic” – black turtleneck, tight black pants and boots. “How’d you do that? The shields haven’t dropped once all the time we’ve been watching.”
“Daniel lowered the house’s protection so I could send it.”
“Can he be trusted?” Étoile asked bluntly, looking at him. He shifted uncomfortably.
I shrugged my shoulders. I wanted to say yes, but truthfully, I didn’t know. “He’s helped me this far,” I said, which was fair. I hoped he wasn’t double-crossing us, that this wasn’t some elaborate scheme of Morgan’s to show me how little hope I should have of ever leaving. Something nagged at me when I thought that, but just as the idea was about to form, it went again. “Were both tunnels clear?” I asked him.
“The one to the stable yard was clear, but it’s not all that stable anymore, excuse the pun. I didn’t have a chance to try the second one. Sorry.”
“You find out what the Brotherhood wanted with you?” Evan kept his arm around me, but I could see him assessing Daniel, probably wondering if he should take him out.
I nodded. “A more powerful witch. Daniel is untrained and can’t do everything the Brotherhood wants him to do.” I thought it might be easier for Daniel if I kept his parentage out of it for now. I wasn’t even sure how I was going to break my heritage to my friends. There was more, of course, but all that could wait until later. “They gave me the choice to stay and work for them or die.”