Eddie Lancaster Box Set 2, page 33
part #4 of Eddie Lancaster Series
‘I couldn’t figure out a way to kill him so that seemed like the next best thing. I would like to say that it wasn’t just me who did that. The entire town fought together to throw him in the ocean. He’d made an enemy of everyone,’ she said.
‘What’s the story between you two? Why all the hate?’
She let out a long breath of air and then refilled her glass yet again. The bottle had less than half left now, and I considered taking it from her. It wasn’t really my place to moderate her drinking.
‘A long time ago this town was cursed. The sorcerers were anyway. They had no magic. My dad was, still is the dynast for the Cedarstone coven. He tried everything to break the curse and when it all failed he turned to the last resort. He found Nick, who was imprisoned and under a curse of his own and released him. They made a deal. Nick would help break the curse in exchange for my dad’s help getting revenge on the person who trapped him.’ She looked awkwardly into her drink, chewing on her lip. She didn’t want to tell me the next part. I sat silently and waited. ‘Nick upheld his end of the bargain…’
‘Your dad didn’t,’ I finished for her. She shook her head slowly.
‘By that point he’d realised what he’d gotten involved in. He wanted to back out.’ She gulped her drink down and then slammed her glass down on the coffee table. ‘Nick threw him off a balcony. He landed right in front of me. It was…’ She looked into my eyes and silently conveyed the horror she’d witnessed on those moments. I’d experienced an incredibly similar thing not so long ago when I watched Ashley get crushed to death in a traffic accident.
‘So that began your feud.’
‘It did. I fell in love with a man who turned out to be one of Nick’s spies. He died. Nick murdered people all over town until we all came together to stop him. Not that it lasted. So, now he’s back. What for, Eddie? What’s his plan?’ she asked, just a hint of desperation was in her tone.
I thought about what he’d said. He might be the villain in Clara’s story, but she was in someone else’s. Neither one of them looked like a hero to me, or anything resembling one. If I was totally honest though, I’d say that Nick came out looking better than Clara. She was forcing people to accept her rule. She was going after warlocks and relieving them of their magic. Nick was simply standing up to her. But then, that magic had been gained through murder. Still, why did Clara have the right to police things?
‘He wanted me to join him,’ I said simply. ‘He wants to take you down. Your whole alliance.’
‘How?’ This time the desperation was more than obvious.
I shrugged. ‘You turned up before he could tell me,’ I answered. She huffed and looked away. ‘I’ve answered your questions. Now it’s your turn. Tell me what you want with me. The truth.’
She ran a hand through her hair and looked up at the ceiling. She was really quite beautiful. Her bitchy demeanour always hid that from me. For the first time I was seeing the human side of her. I was seeing what Dean saw.
‘You are the only person in the world who can take magic from a person without killing them. I want you to help us de-magic the warlocks. Then we need only release them back into the world and nobody needs to die,’ she told me.
‘They’d just get more magic.’
She nodded. ‘We’ll put some sort of spell on them to stop them from getting more. You did it to Rachel. We can perfect that so they won’t find a loophole like she did.’
‘Destroy their athames. All the magic is inside them so that would achieve the same thing. No athame, no magic, no killing. No need for me’
‘They could hide them. It would be too difficult to find them. Too time consuming. You are the most efficient option.’
‘Ha! I have never been called efficient before,’ I said, grinning like an idiot.
‘There’s a first time for everything,’ she smiled and I saw a little twinkle in her eye. I’d never seen anything like it in her before.
‘But more warlocks will always be created. You can’t rid the world of them all and I don’t want to work for you forever. Hell, I don’t want to work for you at all. No offence,’ I said honestly.
‘None taken.’ Once again, she looked away ponderously. ‘There is something else. Another reason I want to keep you close. The reason I first took an interest in you. The same reason I think Nick has taken an interest in you too.’
I downed the remainder of my drink and put my glass down firmly, not taking my eyes from Clara once. ‘Go on,’ I prompted.
‘I’ve always been worried that you would turn… dark. Because of your lineage,’ she said.
‘My lineage?’ I said, confused. My family had no history of darkness. Well, my cousin was an arsehole, but I wouldn’t say he was dark. I’d been put under a dark curse by Rachel, but that was all cured now.
‘What do you know about your grandparents?’
‘Well,’ I said, thinking. ‘Both sets were dead before I was old enough to remember. The magic came from my dad’s side of the family, although it skipped him, and I suppose me too…’ I stopped when I saw that she was shaking her head.
‘There was magic on your mother’s side. She just never knew it. When I heard about you, a warlock who could siphon magic with just a touch, I was intrigued. I looked you up and what I found disturbed me more than anything has in years.’ I said nothing. I sat totally still waiting to hear what was so disturbing about me. ‘In 1958 your grandmother, Denise Holloway…’
‘I know her name,’ I said sharply. I just wanted her to get to the point. I’d never met her, but my parents had told me who she was. It was my grandfather who’d always been a mystery. Grandma had never wanted to spill the secret on that titbit. She used to tell my mum it was a drunken night and she couldn’t remember.
‘She met a man. They had a fling which resulted in your mother’s conception.’
‘And this man was an evil sorcerer I take it? And you were worried that his evilness would pass down to me and with my ability that made me pretty fucking dangerous to you?’ I said quickly, filling in the blanks.
‘Pretty much. Only, your grandfather wasn’t just an evil sorcerer, Eddie. He was an evil warlock. The most evil warlock I have ever met,’ her voice was trembling.
‘Fuck. Off,’ I whispered, my voice was trembling too. There was no way she was about to say what I thought she was about to say. No way that it could possibly be true.
‘Eddie…’
‘No,’ I said firmly. If I didn’t let her say that then it wouldn’t be true. I didn’t have to accept it if she never actually said it.
‘Eddie,’ she said less softly this time. ‘Your grandfather is Nickolas Blackwood.’
Chapter Seventeen
Clara’s words hit me like a wall of ice. I sat frozen in time as they replayed around and around in my head, bouncing off the walls of my cranium like a ping pong ball. Your grandfather is Nickolas Blackwood. I was descended from the man whose name was used synonymously with the devil. It didn’t make sense. Like an old computer being presented with modern software my mind rejected it.
‘That can’t be true,’ my words came out so quietly that even I struggled to hear them. I shook my head slowly, still trying in vain to process this new information.
Clara grabbed the whiskey and refilled my glass before sliding it across the table towards me. ‘Drink,’ she commanded me. Automatically, I obeyed. I barely even noticed the burn when I gulped the spirit down.
‘Your grandmother knew who he was,’ Clara said. She stood up and went over to her desk where she found a small brown leather book which she placed carefully in front of me. ‘That’s her diary. She wrote in it every day for eighteen years. There are more but this is the one with the proof in it. She details how she met him and their entire affair right up until the day he vanished. It wasn’t a long affair, but it was enough to get her pregnant. She didn’t find out about her pregnancy until after he was gone so she never told him. Go ahead. Take a look.’ She nodded at the book.
I looked down at it. I could see the yellowed pages within the battered cover. I knew that she’d kept a diary. My mother had kept one too, tried to pass the habit on to me but diaries were for girls. That’s what my dad said and that’s the belief he passed to me. I reached out and pushed the book away. ‘I don’t need to,’ I said. Nick had been about to tell me something right before Clara had turned up. This was what it was. I remembered when he’d saved me from Veronica. He had looked right into my eyes and said, ‘It is true.’ It all made sense now.
Something in my face betrayed my thoughts. ‘You believe me,’ Clara said triumphantly.
I stood up abruptly, almost dropping my glass on the table in my haste to put it down. ‘I need to leave.’ I headed for the door without waiting for a reply.
‘Eddie, I need to know what you’re going to do,’ Clara said hurriedly before I could go. ‘You know that joining him would be a terrible mistake.’
I turned back to her and saw how scared she was. I wondered what she would do if I told her I was going to join him. Would she kill me right here? Maybe she’d arrest me and throw me in the cells with her other warlock prisoners. She certainly wouldn’t let me leave. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do,’ I replied and then left her office.
She didn’t come after me and she didn’t send anybody either. I reached the ground floor and reunited with Gabe and Alison. I said nothing to them as we left the building. They were intuitive enough to know not to ask. Some AOC guy gave us a lift back to Maidstone. I sat in the back with Gabe whilst Alison rode up front.
‘Richards has been trying to get hold of you about the mess we left in town,’ Gabe said. I knew that he would. The destruction the chase had caused was pretty high on the scale. I wasn’t sure how I was going to smooth things over with him right now. He was already pissed off with me. ‘That’s just the beginning of the problems. It seems that our chase provided the inspiration for several bursts of bad behaviour around town.’
I groaned and covered my eyes with my hand. Would this ever end? I didn’t even feel like myself anymore. Life used to be fun and somewhat easy, but now all it was was responsibility and drama, neither of which I needed. ‘What bad behaviour?’ I asked.
‘Well, as you know, factions within our supernatural community have been developing lately. These factions have been… fighting,’ Gabe said. ‘Like gang wars.’
‘Gang wars?’ I repeated.
‘They’re fighting over turf,’ Alison chipped in.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ I cursed and kicked the seat in front of me.
‘Ouch!’ the driver said as he jerked forwards.
‘Sorry,’ I grumbled. ‘So, what, they’re dividing up the town among themselves now? My town?’
‘This isn’t necessarily a bad thing,’ Gabe said cautiously, aware of my ever-increasing anger. ‘If they’re all in small factions with their own leaders then you only need to keep control of the leaders. It’s like a feudal system. You now have less people to control but you still have the whole town to rule.’
‘So essentially you’ve got a load of people now helping you rule,’ said Alison. I got the distinct impression that this was a planned speech that my two subordinates were giving me.
‘Have you two been putting this idea together already?’ I asked, my eyes locking onto Gabe’s.
‘Well,’ he squirmed. ‘It was more Alison’s idea.’
‘And it’s a bloody good one!’ she affirmed. ‘It will make running the town a damn lot easier and should keep Richards off your back.’
I thought it through. ‘But if all these faction leaders unite they could easily overpower me,’ I pointed out.
‘Well, that’s the beauty of it. They can’t seem to stop fighting,’ Gabe said, and it then occurred to me that this could not possibly have all happened in the hours I’d been absent for.
‘So, the two of you have been dividing my town up behind my back?’ I asked. Gabe squirmed again.
‘We were trying to make things easier for everyone,’ he said awkwardly. ‘You were so withdrawn, I didn’t want to bother you with it all, not while it was sort of under control.’
‘So how is it that you’ve managed to keep all this faction business from me?’
‘We’ve handled all the faction related problems,’ said Alison. She was not at all uneasy unlike Gabe who looked like he was seriously considering throwing himself from the car.
‘Gabe, be honest, have you been helping these faction leaders?’ I asked him.
‘No. Definitely not,’ he said at once, eager to clear his name. ‘I have been in support of it. Silently. Since they organised themselves it has made keeping them in order so much easier.’
‘You say that, but we never had gang wars before.’
‘And we won’t again. I’ve taken the steps to get things under control.’
‘How?’
‘I’ve called all the factions to a meeting where I’m going to get them to agree to some rules. A truce sort of thing,’ he said, trying to gauge my reaction as he spoke.
I nodded. ‘Good. But you won’t be holding this meeting. I will. I’m going to lay down the law once and for all.’ I sat back and closed my eyes. ‘You’ve got a good initiative, Gabe. But next time keep me in the loop.’
‘Absolutely,’ he agreed keenly, relieved to have gotten away with it.
After a second of silence Alison said, ‘You’re welcome.’ I chose not to respond.
While Gabe and Alison sorted the preparations for the meeting I had Sabrina take me to Ashley’s grave. Sabrina did not have the quiet elegance of Gabe. Gabe knew exactly when to speak and when to stay quiet. He could read my moods well. She had none of these skills. It seemed the only talent she had was an annoying knack for not shutting up.
‘So, I heard you was off with Nick Blackwood?’ she asked. Her dark eyes flicking up to the rear-view mirror to look at me.
‘I think everyone’s heard that by now,’ I sighed. I looked out my window to show my disinterest in talking to her. It didn’t work.
‘What’s he like?’ she asked, her tone was reminiscent of a teenage girl digging for gossip.
‘He likes to talk. Not unlike someone else I know.’ Once again, my comment fell on deaf ears.
‘So, what does he want with you? Like, obviously he wants you to join him, but is there anything else? There must be something more to his plan, right? Did he tell you what he’s planning?’ The words fell out of her mouth faster than I could process them.
‘Are you planning on writing an article about it?’ I snapped. Her eyes widened in alarm. ‘Keep your mouth shut and your eyes on the road.’ I was meaner than I intended to be, but my patience was pretty low. It had been a long day. Hell, it had been a long few weeks.
We got to the graveyard and I insisted that she stay a good thirty feet away from me. I was confident that her vampiric speed would bring her to me fast enough if need be. I was less confident in her ability to protect me, unless she planned to talk any attackers to death.
Ashley’s grave was under a willow tree that provided a lovely bit of shade from the warm sun. There was no headstone for her yet, they couldn’t put it in for another few weeks though I couldn’t remember why. I just remember nodding and agreeing with the vicar. Who cares when the stone gets laid. As a substitute a large wooden cross had been stuck in the grass with her name and dates written on it. She hadn’t been a Christian but apparently everyone got a cross regardless. I’m not sure how the vicar would have reacted if I’d told him she was a witch. I don’t think the Bible has a strong opinion of witches.
I’d never really seen the point in talking to graves, or even visiting them really. You often see people on telly go to graves and stand quietly as if it brings them closer to the one they’ve lost. I always thought it was bollocks because the person wasn’t hanging around the grave. The only thing there was the corpse. Even ghosts don’t hang around their own graves, they stay around the area they died. So, visiting a grave was largely pointless. People use graves like telephone lines to the other side. They think if they talk to the grave the loved one will hear them. Bullshit. But now I found myself wanting to be here. Standing at Ashley’s grave did make me feel closer to her. Of course, I knew she couldn’t hear anything I said, but that was true regardless of where I said it. Still I felt compelled to say something. After all, I didn’t have all the answers to the afterlife. It was possible that she could somehow hear me. I’ve never been on the other side, so I don’t know how it works.
‘I could really do with some advice right now,’ I said in a whisper. I felt a little silly talking to a grave. Especially one that didn’t even have a headstone. ‘Or better yet if you could just tell me what to do like you always had a habit of doing, that would be great.’ I laughed to myself. ‘Do I side with Clara or Nick? I didn’t want to get involved but I don’t think I’m going to have a choice. As always, I’m getting forced into something. I need your morals. Mine aren’t very reliable,’ I said sulkily.
I looked round and saw that Sabrina had crept closer to me. Was she that concerned about my safety or was she just trying to eavesdrop on my conversation with my dead girlfriend. I narrowed my eyes at her and set a spell to fill her ears with buzzing. I saw her shake her head, her black hair flying around her face. I grinned and turned back to Ashley. Or rather I turned back to her grave. Ashley wasn’t there.
‘I don’t think you’d like her. I don’t like her much either.’ I said, nodding Sabrina’s way. I sighed and looked up at the leaves above me. The grave would be covered in dead leaves in winter. I wondered if anybody would be along to clean it or if that was my responsibility. Maybe I could send Sabrina to do it. Then I remembered I wasn’t going to be alive. Annabelle had given my death sentence and it was going to happen long before the sun hung up its hat for the season. My death was scheduled for a sunny day. A sunny day soon.
‘Clara seems like the obvious good guy in the scenario. But Nick’s family, apparently. Imagine that. Nickolas Blackwood, my grandfather. It’s tempting to run away. Just pack my bag and go. But no. I’ll never run again. Not from anyone. I need you here.’ I could feel the tears filling my eyes. I turned completely away so that Sabrina couldn’t see me. ‘Nick could bring you back. Then you could help me figure out what to do. He said he can’t do it anymore, but maybe… maybe there is a way. We always found a way to win, didn’t we? We can do it again.’
