Witch Fire Page 3

  Before going to meet Troy, Glory slipped an elusion amulet into her shoe. It was crafted from a printout of a street map, on which she’d drawn a crazy maze in ink and spit, then bound it up in a tangle of thread. She always kept one ready-made and taped to the underside of the communal stairs, because it was the to and fro of passing feet that sealed the witchwork. If anyone tried to follow her, they would find themselves disorientated, then lost.

  Would it be enough? An elusion only lasted for the duration of a single journey; WICA probably had all sorts of methods for monitoring her. Glory decided she didn’t care. She had the right to see whoever she pleased.

  Troy was busy typing on his laptop when Glory joined him in a café off Talbot Road. He looked, as ever, like a successful young executive in his expensive but sombre suit, briefcase by his side. All the Morgan males had reddish hair, but Troy’s colouring was the darkest. He was auburn and angular, with narrow green eyes. Right now, they were frowning in concentration.

  ‘With you in a moment, cuz,’ he said. ‘Go ahead and order.’

  Excellent. Glory might prize her independence, but she had no problem with getting other people to pay her way. She scanned the menu for the most expensive pastry she could find. Troy could afford it. Hell, he could afford to buy the whole shop, if he was minded to.

  He raised an eyebrow as she wolfed down the first of a trio of chocolate eclairs. ‘I gather table manners don’t feature on your new curriculum.’

  ‘I’m a growing girl. Gotta keep my strength up,’ she said through a mouthful of cream. ‘Come to that, green tea don’t exactly scream macho.’

  ‘You’d prefer me to swig bourbon in between polishing my knuckledusters, I suppose.’ Troy took a sip from his cup. ‘You need to move with the times, Glory. Even Dad insists on organic muesli these days.’

  ‘How is the old sod?’

  ‘Grouchy. He’s going to be bed-bound for a good while, yet he’s still trying to hold meetings and take calls. Mum’s run ragged, even with the nurses we’ve brought in. She hasn’t been able to get any proper work done for weeks.’ Absently, Troy helped himself to a wodge of eclair. ‘Oh, and get this – Candice broke out of her fancy rehab centre last week and has run off with some loser she met there. Nobody’s told Dad, of course. It’ll send him over the edge.’

  Charlie’s wife Kezia was head-witch of the Wednesday Coven, and so responsible for the management of all witchwork activities. Her eldest daughter Candice was a witch too, and in the normal course of things would be her apprentice. But Candice’s only career aspiration was to be a professional party-girl.

  ‘Do you know where Candy is now?’

  ‘San Jerico, would you believe! She’s refusing to come home.’

  San Jerico was the capital of Cordoba, otherwise known as the Costa-del-Witchcrime. It also happened to be the party centre of South America.

  Glory pulled a sympathetic face. ‘Are the uncles any help?’

  ‘Uncle Frank’s been supportive. Vince . . . well. I’m not sure how happy he is taking direction from me.’

  This wasn’t surprising. Frank looked after the coven’s financial affairs, while Vince was the enforcer. Of the three Morgan brothers, he was the most volatile. ‘You don’t think he’d make a bid for power, do you?’ she asked.

  Troy looked at her warily. Coven politics was dangerous ground, especially when family was involved. ‘He wouldn’t have the support – too much of a loose cannon. But I still need him onside. He’s leading the investigation into Dad’s car-bomb.’

  ‘It were Paterson, I thought. Trying to start a coven blood feud by fixing it on the Wednesday’s rivals.’

  ‘Paterson was behind it, yeah. But he didn’t get his hands dirty. We think he hired a couple of Russian freelancers – Vince has been talking to a contact of his in the Volkov Coven. So when it comes to payback, it’ll be Vince who leads the charge.’

  Glory grimaced. The Wednesday Coven had come a long way from its origins, when the Starling Twins had London enthralled by their outrageous heists, daring scams and razzle-dazzle charm.

  ‘This isn’t just about avenging Dad,’ Troy told her. ‘If I don’t ensure the guilty parties are punished, I’ll be seen not just as soft, but irresponsible. Governments do the same; they’re just sneakier about it.’

  She knew he was right. Witches made good assassins. Who knew what WICA might ask her to do one day, for Queen and Country?

  ‘Anyway, enough about me,’ Troy said. ‘How’s it going with the witch-spooks? You must be disarming nuclear warheads on a regular basis by now.’

  ‘Huh. I should be so lucky. All I’m doing at the moment is learning lists. Boring facts about boring countries and the boring people in charge of them. As bad as school, it is. Can’t even go for a piss without asking permission.’

  ‘And how’s the Stearne boy?’

  This, and ‘the witch-pricker’s kid’, was how Troy usually referred to Lucas. His tone was amused as well as patronising.

  ‘He’s . . . OK, I guess. We’ve got different schedules most of the time – I reckon management think I’m a bad influence on him.’

  Troy smiled. ‘Oh, I do hope so.’

  Sometimes Glory felt that she and Troy understood each other in a way that she and Lucas never could. Troy wasn’t a witch, but they shared family and history, and an enemy too, for Glory’s hostility to the Inquisition hadn’t changed. She’d cooperate with them if and when the occasion demanded, but she’d never trust them. Not as long as they continued to pierce witches with needles, half drown them in tanks and burn them alive. Yet even after what had happened to Lucas, his faith in the institution held firm. It was one of the many incomprehensible things about him.

  The fae was a mysterious and elemental force, and Glory had felt it spark between her and Lucas the first time they’d met. They had been through a great deal together in a very short space of time. As a result, they had a shared loyalty as well as rivalry, and a mutual, unadmitted need. Yet somehow their work together at WICA hadn’t brought them closer. Aware that somebody was always listening and watching, a new formality had grown between them.

  Troy heard her sigh. ‘Never mind, princess. If you get fed up, there’s always a place for you at the firm. You know that.’

  Ever since Glory had discovered that the Morgans planned for her to marry Troy, consolidating the family alliance and enlisting her fae, talk of this kind made her uncomfortable. Now she was blushing, and Troy’s green eyes had an amused glint. He always enjoyed making her squirm.

  So she poked her tongue out at him. ‘Or maybe I should sign you up to WICA. With all this admin experience you’re getting, I reckon you’d make me a fine PA.’

  Glory returned to the flat in a much better mood than when she’d left it, but the evil hour couldn’t be put off for ever. She sat down at the kitchen table and got out her books. When her dad came in through the door, it looked as if she’d been studying for hours.

  ‘You are good, Glory,’ Patrick said admiringly. ‘I must say, I didn’t know you had it in you.’

  ‘You and me both. Been stretching your legs?’

  ‘Ah . . . ahem. Thought I’d, er, have a wander down to the old neighbourhood. See how they all were.’

  ‘Cooper Street! Dad. You know we’re supposed to be staying away.’

  She’d heard from Troy that her former coven was going downhill. The boss was a drunk, his son a waster, and the elderly head-witch, Glory’s Great-aunt Angeline, was increasingly frail.

  Patrick sat down opposite her. ‘Auntie Angel’s still covering for us. All she’s said to the others is that the two of you had a bust-up and she threw you out. There’s been no mention of that business with Lucas Stearne, or your involvement with WICA.’

  Angeline was the elder sister of the Starling Twins, and had raised Glory in their image. Yet Angeline had betrayed her sister Cora to the Inquisition, and lied about her niece Edie’s disappearance. Glory knew her great-aunt wasn’t protecting he
r out of loyalty; if Angeline grassed on Glory, then her own dealings with the Inquisition would be exposed.

  Patrick didn’t know this. It was one of the many things Glory protected him from. He still didn’t know the full details of how and why Lucas had come to Cooper Street, and she had never told him her belief that Charlie Morgan had murdered her mother. When she realised this was one of Angeline’s lies, her decision seemed justified. Patrick thought his wife was lost to them for ever. Now Glory wasn’t so sure. But either way, it would be unbearably cruel to raise his hopes.

  ‘Earl said that Angeline’s got herself a new apprentice,’ he told her. ‘A witch from up north. Kelly-Anne, she’s called. Twenty-something ex-hairdresser.’

  So some other girl was being invited into the pink-striped sitting room, to drink cups of over-sweet tea and practise witchwork under the Starling Girls’ shrine . . .

  Patrick gave his daughter’s hand a consoling pat. ‘Word is, she’s not up to much. But the old lady needs a project. You know how it is.’

  ‘Yeah. Good luck to her.’ The memory of their final confrontation still made her guts clench. Glory turned back to her essay, The Changing Face of Witch-Terror: Endor and Extremism. In spite of herself, the words blurred on the page.

  Chapter 4

  Across London, Lucas was staring at the same essay title. He supposed the distraction was a good thing. The more time he spent on work, the less time he had to fixate on his father’s cryptic remarks.

  Endor, the subject of his essay, was not a dry academic problem. The organisation took its name from a witch in the Bible, whom King Saul consulted in his hour of need. It was founded in the seventies, in America’s Deep South, and, like the covens, its original purpose was to protect witches from persecution. Later, its ideology became radicalised: its members believed witches to be a separate and superior race, and were intent on making them dominant. Endor’s activities in the West peaked with a bloody terrorist campaign in the 1990s, but a concerted effort by the United Council of Inquisitors had managed to break up the network. It was now reduced to a variety of disconnected regional movements, mostly active in the developing world. However, the UK couldn’t be complacent. Endor, the bogeyman of Lucas’s childhood, still lurked in the shadows.

  Over the next few days, Lucas finished his essay, but heard nothing more from his father on the subject of Edie Starling. On Wednesday, however, there was some good news: Ashton informed the family that he had been offered the post of Chief Witchkind Advisor to the government. He would be the consultant on witchkind-related policies to the Prime Minister and the Cabinet.

  Apparently, Lucas’s condition wasn’t going to be a problem. The PM told Ashton he welcomed his first-hand experience of the issues facing the UK’s witch population. Ashton still supported the Inquisition’s ban on people with witch-relatives from joining the service. ‘It’s a necessary safeguard,’ he said to his son. ‘But the easing of some anti-witch restrictions is a sign of the times. We live in a more tolerant, less paranoid age. Your generation of witchkind has much to be thankful for.’

  Lucas thought of the white-tiled Burning Court, of the interrogation suites beneath the Inquisition’s lawns and courtyards. But he nodded all the same.

  The following afternoon, a witch-consultant from one of London’s general hospitals came to WICA to give Lucas and Glory a fae-healing session. They were practising staunching wounds and cooling fever through the laying-on of hands. It was difficult, messy work, for which neither showed much aptitude. Fae-healing was one of the few aspects of witchwork that didn’t depend on a witch’s overall power.

  It didn’t help that they were being supervised by their witch wardens, Officers Jonah Branning and Carmel Wilks. A warden’s job was something between a social worker, a parole officer and a security guard. Lucas got on well with his, but it was a different story between Glory and Carmel.

  Big, awkward Jonah, whose mild expression belied his intelligence, was watching their activities from a corner. Carmel, however, hovered by Glory’s side, beady eyes narrowed in suspicion. ‘Gather yourself, Gloriana,’ she said as Glory, scowling and perspiring, struggled to stop the blood flowing from a self-inflicted cut to her arm. ‘You know that when you lose your temper, you lose focus.’

  ‘Maybe we should try cutting chunks outta you then,’ Glory snapped. ‘See how you like it.’

  Carmel pursed her lips, and made a note in her little book. As soon as the session ended, Glory charged out of the room, trailing bloody bandages in her wake.

  Lucas and Jonah exchanged looks. Once they were alone, Jonah said, ‘By the way, the Director wants a word with you. He’s in the Dee Room.’

  ‘Sounds ominous.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s fine.’ Jonah pulled on his coat. ‘But your dad’s there too.’

  The two men were sitting at the table in silence. The contrast between them was striking: Ashton was tall, pale and aristocratic, whereas Jack Rawdon was burly and rugged, with a mop of grizzled hair.

  In spite of his rough and ready appearance, Rawdon was a savvy political operator. He was one of the UK’s most high-profile witches, due in part to his work against Endor when he was a young WICA agent, but also because of his outspoken media appearances. Over the last few weeks, he had seized the opportunity offered by the Paterson conspiracy to campaign for many of the restrictions on his agency to be lifted.

  Even so, most of the WICA offices were monitored by CCTV, the phone lines were wiretapped and inquisitorial guards patrolled the building. WICA agents weren’t even allowed to run their own operations. Instead, they were assigned to assist their colleagues in MI5 and MI6 on a case by case basis.

  As it happened, the Dee Room was one of the few areas where the live feed going to the Inquisition surveillance team could be switched off. Lucas saw from the red light blinking on the communications panel that this had already been done.

  ‘Have a seat,’ Ashton said. He gave Lucas a small smile of encouragement, but only when Rawdon wasn’t looking. Lucas understood. This meeting couldn’t be a family affair.

  Rawdon was the more senior figure. But as a former High Inquisitor, Ashton Stearne would always outrank even the most top-level witch. He was the one to sit at the head of the table. He was the one to say ‘come in’ to the next knock at the door.

  A middle-aged woman entered the room. She was small and upright, wearing a sprightly red suit with a lacquered helmet of greying blonde hair. Her bright lipstick made her mouth look lacquered too. Lucas sat up a little straighter. This was Dorcas Hughes, the new Commander-in-Chief of the Inquisition’s Witchcrime Directorate.

  ‘So this is your son,’ she said, as she joined Ashton at the head of the table. She examined Lucas with professional curiosity. ‘Chip off the old block, by the looks of it. And yet he’s a witch. Extraordinary.’ She put her head on one side, as if to regard the specimen from a fresh angle, and pursed her shiny lips. ‘Do you know why you’re here, young man?’

  ‘Because . . . because I’ve been asking about Edie Starling.’

  ‘And we’re here to give you some answers,’ Rawdon said. ‘However, there are conditions attached. What we’re about to discuss is highly confidential. As one of my agents, I need to know I can depend on your silence when I ask for it.’

  ‘The Inquisition deals severely with unauthorised disclosures.’ Commander Hughes’s tone was brisk rather than threatening. ‘You will certainly be bridled and returned to civilian life. You might even be at risk of prosecution.’

  His father leaned towards him. ‘Lucas understands, don’t you?’

  Of course Lucas had no choice but to agree.

  ‘All right,’ said the Commander. ‘Let’s get on with it. Ashton, I think you should take it from here. After all, you’re the only one of us to have been personally involved in the case.’

  Ashton knitted his brows. ‘In a minor capacity, it must be said. However, I’ll begin with Cora Starling who, as we all know, founded the Wednesday Cov
en with her twin Lily. I don’t need to tell anyone here that they were a pair of ruthless crooks who used celebrity and personal charm to, quite literally, get away with murder.

  ‘Cora was the more reckless of the sisters. She had many affairs, several with prominent establishment figures, and there were rumours of alcohol and drug dependency. At any rate, in 1979 she quarrelled violently with Lily and disappeared, taking her daughter Edie with her. At that time, Edie was eight, her father unknown. Nobody heard from them for five years.’

  Lucas nodded, trying to hide his impatience. He knew this already.

  ‘By all accounts, they spent the next few years living a vagabond existence across Europe, using Cora’s underworld contacts to evade the authorities. However, in 1983 Cora travelled to the United States, where she joined a New Age commune in Texas known as the Sisterhood of Divine Light. It was here she was recruited to Endor. She and her daughter spent three months in an Endor cell that was operating in Atlanta before Cora decided to return home. She may have been sent on a mission by Endor; she may have got bored, and left the organisation on a whim. She was, as I said, notoriously unreliable.

  ‘Cora was immediately apprehended by the Inquisition on her return to England. Unfortunately, the officers in charge of her interrogation were overzealous in their efforts. She drowned in the course of a witch-ducking, before any significant information could be learned.’

  Lucas had always been irritated by Glory’s starry-eyed view of the Starling myth. Now, in spite of himself, he felt a sadness for the girl Glory’s grandmother had once been. Cora the bad, Cora the beautiful. The half-crazy witch-girl who went dancing in stolen diamonds, and rinsed her hair in champagne to make it shine . . .

  His father talked on, as placidly as if he was reading the weather forecast. ‘After Cora’s death, Edie was adopted by Lily Starling and brought up inside the Wednesday Coven. It was Lily’s intention to make Edie her heir, since none of her own children had the fae. But after Lily died, her three sons – led by Charlie Morgan and his wife Kezia – threw Edie out. She found refuge with her Aunt Angeline at the Cooper Street Coven. Though Angeline had hopes of using her niece’s witchwork to restore the coven’s fortunes, it appears Edie wanted to live an ordinary domestic life. She married and had a child: Gloriana.