Children of Poseidon: Rann (16 page)

“What’s that got to do with Seawitch?” Rann interrupted.

“She’s been used as a vessel for death magic,” Annis said. “As a familiar. There’s still a residual left.”

“More than a residual.” Rann interrupted again.

Jewel frowned at him. “Let her finish.”

“If we can find a tracker, then we may be able to identify the signature on the magic,” Annis said.

Jewel wrinkled her brow.

“A tracker is a witch or mage who can sense magic and recognise where it came from. It’s a rare talent. If the user is casting frequently, then the tracker can usually find him or her.” Annis frowned. “It’s harder with death magic, because the tracker can be stained by the signature. It can make him ill.”

“So we can’t use it for the seawitch?” Jewel asked.

“I didn’t say that.” Annis massaged her temples. “There’s someone I have in mind. A strong witch. She won’t be much harmed by it.”

“Much?” Rann raised an eyebrow.

“It’s what she does.” Annis shrugged. “She’s well paid for it.”

Jewel shuddered just as the door opened and Connor strolled in. Everyone looked up, then away again. Jewel had to fight the urge to lower her eyes. Something about him screamed of danger. Something feral and untamed. She tried not to stare, but she was puzzled, because he hadn’t given off the same aura in the flat. He pushed Annis sideways along the bench and sat down next to her.

“Have you ordered for me?” he asked.

“I didn’t know whether you were going to make it or not, so that would be no.”

“I’ll have a beer and a large steak.”

“I’m not your servant.” Annis folded her arms.

“I pay you enough.” Connor’s mouth twitched slightly, and Jewel wondered whether it was the prelude to a smile or a snarl.

“You don’t pay me at all,” Annis pointed out. “You made me a partner.” She sighed. “I’m not making a habit of this.” She disappeared to the bar.

Connor leaned back against the padded backrest. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the wildness had retreated. He forced a smile. “It’s been a long morning. I’ve found a few things out, though. I think you’ll find them interesting.” His eyes went to his partner, and he waited until she’d finished at the bar and rejoined them.

“Your father is Fergal Redcar?” he said to Jewel.

“We told you that,” she said.

“Just checking.” Connor loomed over her, inhaling.

Rann’s body tensed as though he sensed a threat, and he edged closer to her.

Connor’s mouth opened, and his nostrils flared in the same way they had when he had checked out the seawitch.

Jewel shifted uncomfortably.

Connor sat back.

“Just taking note of your scent,” he told her, as though his behaviour was completely normal.

“What?”

“I can use it to identify Fergal,” he said. “Through similarities. I think Kara was telling the truth. You have a similar signature scent to Lila.”

“Really?” Jewel couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice.

“He knows what he’s doing.” Annis sounded apologetic. “It looks weird, but it works.”

“Who are you calling weird?” Connor scowled at Annis.

She shrugged.

Everyone quietened as the food arrived, and Connor attacked his huge steak as though starving. Eventually he looked up, to see the rest of the group, with the exception of Annis, staring at him. “I’ve had a busy morning.”

“So what did you find out?” Annis said.

“More than I expected.” He chewed and swallowed.

“What?” Jewel whispered.

“We were right in thinking that Kara didn’t even try to have Fergal killed.”

“You were?” Jewel wished he would get to the point.

“She probably couldn’t have done it without incurring a huge debt in magic,” Connor said. “So she had him removed.”

“I suppose you know who removed him.” A note of reluctant admiration sounded in Rann’s voice.

“Not yet.” Connor smiled, displaying an impressive set of white teeth. “But I will. I have something better than that, though.” He waited, and Jewel decided that he liked the drama of keeping them all on the edge of their seats.

“What did you find?” Annis said impatiently. She elbowed Connor who appeared not to notice.

“I think Fergal’s back in London.” Connor picked up his beer.

Silence. Jewel knew her mouth was hanging open. She tried to speak, couldn’t get the words out, and pressed her lips together.

“I knew London was the place to look.” Annis muttered.

“Since when?” Rann asked.

“A couple of weeks, I think.”

“Are you sure?” Rann’s eyes flared bronze as he assessed Connor. A breeze rippled through the room.

Connor looked completely unfazed. “Not completely, but the evidence is mounting.” He put the last corner of his steak in his mouth and chewed it with appreciation, before continuing. “There’s an old witch who lives rough on the heath. She’s not quite right in the head, but she’s been talking about him. She’d know him. I gather they were students together.”

“Serena,” Jewel interjected. “Everyone knows her. She was there when I lived in London. She sleeps under bushes and refuses to enter anyone’s house.”

Connor paused. “There’s also a mage who keeps a small shop down in Belsize Park. He claims to have seen him. Said Fergal didn’t recognise him, though.”

“Where is he?” Jewel wanted to look for him, or find Maya and Lila and then look for him. She wanted action.

“I’m not sure yet,” Connor said. “But we’ll find him. I don’t think it’s going to be hard. He must be round here somewhere. What state he’ll be in I can’t say, though.”

Jewel turned to Rann. “Maya and Lila should hear all this. It doesn’t seem right that we should know before them.”

Rann rubbed his head. “I had no idea they’d have found out so much in such a short time.” He nodded at Connor and Annis.

“We’re good.” Annis was smug.

“So what do you do now?” Rann asked.

“Two things.” Annis took over the conversation. “I’ll contact our tracker. She can come and see the seawitch, try and work out who cursed her. Secondly, Connor will carry on looking for Fergal.”

Connor nodded and lifted his beer to his lips. “We’ll keep you up to date with what we’re doing. And we’ll carry on trying to find out where your seawitch came from. Anything else?”

“Damnamenos called me back,” Rann said.

Annis’s face screwed up, and Connor snarled. Jewel jumped in alarm. Rann scowled, and a wind blew across the table, tangling in Connor’s already messy hair.

“Stop it.” Annis nudged Connor. “You’re scaring her.”

Jewel nodded at Connor in agreement, and he stopped making the disturbing noise. He didn’t appear to notice that everyone in the bar had turned to stare at him.

“Sorry.” Rann took a deep breath, and the wind disappeared. “But he is the best person to deal with a seawitch. He created them. Anyway, he said he’d get here in the next day or two.”

“You’re not leaving her with that monster.” Annis looked concerned. “He’s a total bastard, and she’s completely helpless.”

“I’m not going to just hand her over.” Rann sounded annoyed. “I know you have issues with him, but he might be the only person who can do anything for her.” He paused while he waited for Annis to respond.

She eventually nodded, but to Jewel’s eyes she didn’t look convinced. “We’ll see.”

Connor stood up. “If that’s all . . .” His mood had darkened. Damnamenos had obviously left a strong impression. And not a good one. Jewel couldn’t wait to meet him.

“One more thing.” Rann held up one hand. “I’ve a few questions about Alberic. Jewel’s mother’s lover.”

Connor sat down again. “What about him?”

“I don’t like him.” Rann played with his glass. “I want to know where he’s come from. And why he left. What happened with his previous coven?”

“I’ll add it to your bill.” Connor glanced at his partner and pushed himself to his feet again. “Come on Annis. There’s work to do.”

Chapter 16

Maya was already back in the flat when Rann and Jewel returned. So were Lila and Lykos. Lila and Maya sat on one of the sofas, deep in conversation, while Lykos stood at the window. He briefly acknowledged Rann and Jewel then turned back to gaze out of the window again. His back radiated annoyance. Jewel pulled a face at Rann, who shrugged in return, his face expressing bafflement. Shrugging off her curiosity, she went into the kitchen. When she returned with coffee, Rann sprawled on the sofa opposite Maya and Lila, while Lykos still hovered, like a black cloud by the window.

Jewel put the coffee on the table and sat down next to Rann. He picked the pot up and filled a cup, handing it to her. Lila poured two cups and carried them over to Lykos.

Maya ignored the coffee. “Where have you two been?” Her eyes had darkened and her mouth set in a straight line.

Her bad temper must have to do with her visit to Kara. Jewel resisted the urge to ask how it had gone. “We had lunch with Annis and Connor. I couldn’t settle to anything while you were out, so we thought we’d go and ask them how they intended to tackle the case. And tell them about Kara.”

“Oh?” Maya raised an eyebrow, and Lila’s attention sharpened.

“They’d done more than I expected.” Jewel nudged Rann. “Do you want to tell them?”

Rann shook his head and gestured for Jewel to carry on.

“They couldn’t find any trace of where Seawitch came from, but there are a lot of rumours about a powerful death magic user. No one knows where, though. ”

“What’s their next move?” Lykos glanced over his shoulder.

“They’re going to bring a tracker to see her,” Jewel said. “To see if they can trace the magic signatures on her.”

“When?” Lykos never used a lot of words if a few would serve his purpose.

“As soon as they can get hold of one,” Jewel said. “Tomorrow?”

“Mmm.” Lykos turned back to the window.

“Anything else?” Maya jumped back into the conversation, and Jewel guessed she wanted to avoid talking about her visit to the coven headquarters.

“They think Fergal is alive and back in London.”

“What?” Lila swung round and paced over to the table, her amber eyes glistening.

Jewel remembered suddenly that she had known her father and lived with him until she was eleven years old.

“How do they know that? Do they know where he is?”

“I’m sorry.” Jewel bit her lip. “Lila, I didn’t mean to tell you like that. Connor’s still looking, but he’s confident he’ll find him.”

“Does he know if he’s all right?”

“No.” Guilt made Jewel’s stomach clench. For years Lila had thought her father had lost his mind to the madness that afflicted some powerful mages, and she’d learned to live with it. Now the wound had split open.

Lykos moved to her side and put his arm round her shoulders. “It’ll be all right, sweetheart.”

Lila’s smile wavered, but she managed to shrug. “It’s not your fault,” she said to Jewel. “If you hadn’t come back to see Kara, we might never have known what had happened.”

Jewel wanted to cry. She believed it
was
her fault. Fergal had been used to create her. Used against his will, taken away from his family. Her eyes stung, and she rubbed her face.

Lila radiated comfort. “Truly, Jewel. No one blames you for your mother. We all knew her, and none of us suspected she was capable of something like this.”

Jewel took a deep breath and managed to smile back.

“I asked them to take a closer look at Alberic.” Rann took over, giving Jewel time to pull herself together.

“We did that nearly a year ago.” Maya narrowed her eyes at him.

“You said you had a report from his last coven, but there are still a couple of years missing between him leaving them and arriving here. What was he doing in that time?”

Maya’s face relaxed. “You’re right. Once we knew he’d a bad reputation with the covens, we didn’t dig any deeper. That was enough for us to want rid of him. I can’t imagine what Kara was thinking. He must have spelled her.”

“What about you?” Jewel looked from Lila to Maya. “What did Kara have to say? Did she admit what she had done?”

“She wasn’t bloody there.” Maya snapped.

“What?”

“The maid said she was out.” Maya frowned at Jewel as though it was her fault.

“Do you think she was lying?”

“Haven’t a clue. We saw Albert. He said she had some teaching duties with some of the talented teenagers. He took a message.” Maya sneered briefly. “Lila? What do you think? Was she hiding from us?”

Lila shrugged. “I wouldn’t believe that creature if he told me the sky was blue. He was”—she paused, searching for the right words—“unpleasant. I can’t see why he would lie, though.”

“So it was a wasted journey?”

Maya sighed. “Not completely. We went down to the coven library while we were there.”

“Alberic let you?”

“I have free use of it,” Maya said. “I’m the head of the junior coven. It’s my right. I’d like to see him try and stop me.”

Lila shuddered. “Don’t tempt fate. My skin’s still crawling from being five feet away from him.” She moved closer to Lykos. “I don’t like to use the word evil, but I can’t think of any other word to describe him.”

“Anyway.” Maya shrugged off the memory of Alberic. “I picked up a couple of manuals on the use of rituals. Sub group, blood and death.”

“I would have thought they’d keep those locked up.” Surely that had been the case all the time Jewel had lived at the coven headquarters.

“They did.” Maya smirked. “But that only works if you can’t figure out the locking spell.”

“I see.” Jewel shook her head at Maya.

“Hey, I’m good.”

“So have you worked out how the fertility ritual worked?”

“Haven’t had time to read it yet,” Maya pointed out. “I thought we’d do it together.”

“I’m not going to be of much use,” Lykos said. “My knowledge of witch magic fits on a post-it note.”

“Same here,” Rann said. “It’s never been on my reading list.”

“Never had the need for it,” Lykos agreed, and Lila elbowed him. “I’m sure we can find something to do, though.”

“Such as?” Lila obviously knew her lover well enough to be suspicious.

“I thought we could go and pick a fight with the mage.” Lykos raised an eyebrow at Rann, who nodded. “I didn’t like him much.”

“Think again.” Maya stepped forward. “He’s a coven problem. Ours to deal with.”

“We’ll see.” Lykos gave her a bland smile. “For now, at least.”

Maya stepped towards Lykos, invading his space. Almost as tall as he was, she scowled into his face. “We will deal with him.” Her teeth clenched. “Lila. Tell him to stay out of coven business.”

“Lykos—”

The ringing of the phone prevented the discussion from escalating into an argument, but Maya gave Lykos another narrow-eyed glare before picking it up. Jewel listened shamelessly, along with everyone else.

“We were out. Jewel told you to call first.” Maya’s voice was dismissive. She tapped one foot on the floor while she listened to the person on the other end.

“We went to see Kara.”

Another pause.

“Yes,” Maya said. “No, she wasn’t at home.”

Jewel heard the tinny tones of a woman’s voice on the other end of the line. She strained her ears but couldn’t tell what she said.

“We’ve got some ideas.” Maya pursed her lips and frowned at the phone.

Another pause.

“There doesn’t seem much point at the moment.” Her voice sharpened. “If you must. But I can’t see what you hope to gain.” She cut the call and put the phone down. Everyone stared at her.

“Maria,” she said.

“What did she want?” Jewel asked.

“To come and talk to us.” Maya rolled her eyes. “It’s time that some of those ineffectual idiots were weeded out.”

“Talk about what?”

“God knows.” Maya picked up the coffee pot, peered at it, and put it down again. “She said they came round this morning, but no one was in.”

Jewel took the pot into the kitchen, glad of something to occupy her. She made fresh coffee and carried it back. Maya poured a cup and gave her a grateful smile.

“When are they coming?” Jewel hoped it was next week.

“In about ten minutes.”

Maria and Charles arrived within fifteen minutes. Maya led them into the sitting room but didn’t invite them to sit down. Their heads swivelled to the far end of the room, where Lykos and Rann sat at the small dining table.

“Who’s that?” Maria’s voice carried an edge of impatience.

“Lykos. My husband.” Lila sat opposite Jewel, in the corner of the sofa, her legs drawn up and tucked under her long skirt.

“I’ve seen him before.” Maria glanced at Charles. “Do you remember him?”

“Nine years ago.” The mage turned to his companion. “They were both there.” He indicated Rann and Lykos. “At the trial of the rogue mage. The one that she . . .” His voice trailed off as he glanced at Jewel.

“Mmm.” Maria raised both eyebrows at Maya. “Do you really want strangers to hear coven business?”

“They’re not strangers.” Maya perched on the arm of the empty sofa and folded her arms. “You asked for this meeting. What do you want to know?”

Maria sniffed and turned her attention to Jewel. “Have you spoken to your mother?”

“Not since yesterday.” Jewel thought of Gwen. The coven had to know what was going on. “She wasn’t in when Maya and Lila went to see her this morning.”

“What did you think?” Charles took a step towards her. “Her mental state?”

“She seemed a little strange.”

“She means she was batshit crazy.” Maya shared her opinion, and despite the awfulness of the situation, Jewel wanted to smile.

Both Charles and Maria glared at Maya.

“Yes. That sounds about right.” Jewel paused. “I met Alberic. I can see why you are concerned.”

“Did you tell her she had to send him away?” Charles glanced at Maria.

“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Jewel said. “I think you’re going to have to take action. She’s under his thumb.” She paused again before dropping her bombshell. “And she’s pregnant.”

Maria’s jaw dropped. Jewel had heard the expression before, but she’d never actually seen the reality. She had to swallow the urge to warn the older witch about catching flies.

“What?” Charles’s voice filled with disbelief.

“Pregnant.” Jewel folded her arms. “She’s with child.”

“She can’t be. You must be mistaken.” Maria pulled herself together, but her voice carried more hope than conviction. “You have to be.”

“I don’t think so. She told me herself. And Alberic confirmed it.”

“But how . . .?” Maria’s face flushed as the implications dawned on her.

“We’re trying to work out which ritual she used.” Maya rose and moved to stand next to Lila. “Lila, Jewel, and I will go through the possibilities. Although that should be your job.”

Lila watched Lykos from her position on the sofa and appeared to pay no attention to the conversation. Her jaw clenched, though, and she nibbled on her smallest finger.

“The only spells she could have used are on the forbidden list.” Charles plunged his hands into his pockets.

“Duh.” Maya raised her eyebrows. “We’ve worked that out. We just need to find out which one it was. And who died to fuel it.”

No one spoke for a long moment.

“When did you see Gwen last?” Jewel asked.

“A couple of weeks ago.” Charles glanced at Maria. “She seemed fine. Pregnant. A little thin, but otherwise—”

“There’s no baby.” Jewel interrupted him. “Not for Gwen.”

The colour drained from Charles’s face.

“She has to be stopped.” Maria’s voice sharpened. “Alberic has to be removed, and the child, if there really is one, destroyed.”

“Destroyed?” Jewel didn’t like the sound of that.

“It is an abomination.” Maria’s cheeks flushed scarlet. Her voice was icy with distaste.

“Unnatural,” Charles added.

“It’s my sister.” Jewel hadn’t meant to say anything of the sort until the words came out. She felt a strong sense of solidarity with any child that had to have Kara as a mother. Even though the thought of its conception or creation or whatever had brought it to life made the hairs rise on the back of her neck.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Maria’s voice was icy enough to make Jewel wince and remember how these coven members used to make her feel totally inadequate.

She was older now, though. “I agree that my mother is out of control and a danger to the coven. She needs to be dealt with. And Alberic as well.” She glanced at Maria and Charles doubtfully. They were incapable of persuading their leader to hold a meeting, so she didn’t have much faith in their ability to sort out the problem.

“So you’ll deal with Kara?” Charles asked.

“Not me,” Jewel said.

“You
are
her blood. It’s your duty to do what needs to be done.”

Jewel stared at him.

He patted her shoulder. “We’ll help in any way we can.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s obviously insane,” Maria said. “It’s the duty of the family to deal with her.”

“Deal with her?” Jewel was in denial. She looked to Maya who shook her head slightly.

“If she’s telling the truth about her pregnancy”—Charles frowned at Jewel—“the consequences are severe.”

“Death or complete removal of her magic.” Maria’s jaw clenched. “And we can decide about the child afterwards, if it bothers you.”

Jewel put her hand to her throat. She had difficulty breathing.

“What about a trial?” Maya’s voice saved her from having to say anything.