Hi!

The questions keep coming, and I've got no idea where to start. Ok, so who guessed right about who Anna's visiting?? Let me know!

Lara

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Chapter 19

I found her where I last met her. That was at a time before she sold me out to Alexander. Like I expected, the old witch hadn't vacated the apartment she used for moonlighting. Contrary to what I expected, she wasn't alone. She had a customer, less than a day after being blackmailed by the head vampire of New York and after betraying me. Like nothing had happened. At all. The witch got guts – I had to give her that.

I waited until the exact moment her 'customer' left, grabbed the door handle and winked at him. See here, just your friendly neighborhood witch asking advice from another co-practitioner. I sauntered into the apartment as if it was my own.

She had her back turned to me as I walked into what looked like a cozy living room. Not the kind you'd expect from a woman in her late sixties. No flower pots, self-knit rugs or scenic paintings. Instead the room was filled with herbs, pans and boxes. To my right a shelf crammed with books. My guess was they were all about magical theory.

The thick plait of gray hair swung like a heavy pendant as she turned, the silver bracelets on her arms clinking like the chime of a bell. Brown eyes, wrinkled face, narrowed eyes. Her long, dark gray skirt complimented the black blouse she was wearing – the only thing that vaguely hinted at her age apart from her wrinkles. Her eyes were alert, hands at her sides.

For a long moment she simply stared at me.

I stared back.

"I was wondering if you would come," she said, picking up a pile of books on the table. "I knew he wasn't going to be able to hold you."

I laughed softly. "Of course you did."

"What do you want?" She said, stuffing one of the books into a shelf to her left.

She treated me like I was another of her run-of-the-mill customers, as if I was asking for a cheap magic trick. She might not know, but cheap parlor tricks weren't going to cut it this time. I needed something more valuable than that, and I wouldn't be leaving with empty pockets either.

I stepped further into the room. "You owe me, big time."

She laughed – a curious sound, more like the hacking of an old lady. I knew she was anything but that.

"Alright. This one is for free, girl. Although I'm not sure I can help you. You are up against the Raven and the head vampire of New York."

I smiled. "Before I tell you what I need, you'll perform a spell that guarantees that nothing of what happens here will leave the room. You'll be bound to secrecy by magic."

She stopped, the last book of the pile gripped in her hand, mid-air, and stared at me.

"Before you think about modifying it, I know the spell," I said. "Technically I can do it myself, but it would be my first. We both know things tend to go wrong the first time," I added, grinning.

A long moment. Assessing eyes and the fleeting conviction she knew just what could go wrong, from personal experience. She nodded.

"I will do it. I will need your blood."

"Of course you do," I said, walking up to her.

Did she know I was using this opportunity to learn and master the spell myself?

She picked up the knife and cut first my finger, then hers.

"Sanguis ad sanguinem. Verbum pro verbo. Vox faucibus haesitat, quis fidem frangit."

Blood to blood. Word for word. The one who breaks his word will not speak.

The translation was loose, but the words burned through my flesh like a living fire. The candle on the table flickered with the invocation, power suction on more than just a physical plane. I sucked in a breath. The invocation not only bound her to silence. It went two ways. I couldn't tell anyone that I went to her as much as she couldn't tell anyone I was there and what I said.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

You messed that one up, Anna. No way of changing it now. Move on. Next.

"I have one or two magical artifacts, and I need to know what they can do, how they were spelled, and how I can activate them."

She smiled. "Girl, this is my specialty. First I need to see the items. It would help if I knew who spelled them, or at least where they came from. Then I will perform a reading."

I drew my hands into my pockets and spilled the magical trinkets onto the table. All this time I'd been carrying them, all concealed by a cloaking spell that was not only complicated as hell, but power-draining. Now I lifted it, releasing a sigh with the extra weight of magic gone from my senses.

I wasn't going to show her the null bombs. I knew how they worked and what they did. No need to advertise the fact that my pockets were far from empty.

The witch took a step closer, staring at the table. Slowly her eyes went to mine.

"Where did you get those?"

The head vampire of New York had mastered the art of showing indifference. In fact he was indifference impersonated, and if he had to walk into an emotional void to do so, I would do it too. I tried in front of the mirror once or twice, just for the heck of it. Keeping your face completely emotionless is damn hard. The barest hint of a thought, of emotion, cuts through your face. A twitch that results in a tell.

When I first met Alexander I thought his face was void of emotion because he lacked feelings. I knew better now. Alexander had perfected his poker face over decades in a world where giving your opponent any tells about your hand could get you killed.

The lines on my face slackened, felt lose and weird. More than the white sheet of paper that gave its observer nothing. But less than a normal human reaction.

"None of your business where they came from," I said. "We have a bargain. Tell me what the artifacts are and what they can do."

She stared at me for what might have been minutes. Whatever time passed, it was lost in the soft rush of blood in my ears. Maybe she was gauging my reaction, searching for cracks in the blankness. I'd withstood the head vampires penetrating gaze. I would meet hers with ease.

Her eyes went back to the artifacts, fingers reaching out to touch the first one gingerly. It was a bronze brooch that, from its looks, could have dated back to the late 1800s. The needle was broken, leaving the flat of a female profile naked and barren.

The real eye catcher was not visible to the human eye. The knot of pulsating power underneath the spell I'd used to mask the object was the real kicker.

The witch shook her head. "I don't need to test this one. I know what it does. The last time I saw it was in the 1980s. Rumors have it that the cloaking spell imbedded can conceal a whole village. Many say the rumors are false." She looked up. "They are wrong."

I stared at her, fighting for that blankness of expression. A whole village concealed. This was like the spell and power the Lumenis used to make their village invisible.

"Who did the spell?" I said.

She shook her head, the gold cuffs on her arm clinked as she drew her hand away. "I'm not sure. Some say it was one of the more powerful witches that went rogue later. Some say it was the Circle's doing."

The brooch looked more like a trinket out of a flea market than an ancient family heirloom, less a powerful weapon. The spell it contained was not illegal. Not per se. But it was damned powerful.

She fumbled through the other trinkets. The nature of the objects pointed to a female witch being the one who spelled them. Apart from that I had not one indicator, not a single hint at the nature of the spells contained within.

The old witch picked up a golden file and turned it over in her hand.

"I know these. You could get a leg and an arm for one if you went to the black market. Well, to the right kind anyway." She shook herself, eyes going back to me.

"What does it do?" The cool calm in my voice belied the true state of my mind. I was beginning to think I was in way over my head.

"It's a vamp killer. Can be used only once. Done by a very powerful fire witch. Ignites itself once its power is released. You could kill someone as old as Alexander with that one. If you got caught with it by one of the vamps, or by Alexander ..."

She stopped mid-air, mid-sentence; pushed both, the ring and the file away from her. "Go, go away. Get rid of those items, girl. And be quick about it. There are enough fools out there that will be stupid enough to try using them and get themselves killed while at it."

I crossed my arms in front of me. "I appreciate your concern, but it's none of your business what I do with them."

She stilled. Her eyes widened. "You're not thinking of using them yourself, are you?" She stepped closer. "Only the witches that spelled the objects will know exactly how to use them. If you evoke the spells, you'll have to channel the power yourself. The magical backlash could kill you."

I didn't answer. No need to.

I nodded towards the table. "There's one more."

She shook her head. "No, I've done enough."

"We have a bargain," I said.

And you owe me. You practically delivered me to the head vamp on a silver platter. I didn't say it out loud.

Her eyes shifted from me to the table.

"One more. One more and you will go and never come back."

I unwrapped the ring from the black cloth. It was the one object that had felt heaviest in my pockets. It was just a gut feeling, the whisper of an intuition I couldn't quite explain to myself. Whatever it was it told me this ring contained serious, deadly magic.

The witch stretched out her hand, reaching for the ring slowly. I'm not sure if her fingers ever made contact with it. All I saw was how she snatched them away, staring at me with horror.

"Are you out of your mind?"

* * *

I closed the door softly, as if silence might dissolve and annihilate any traces of my being here. The corridor opened up in front of me, stretched to my right and left like a tunnel out of a dark dreamland, filled with nightmares. My pockets felt heavy, heavier than when I came to the witch's apartment.

After what she told me, portalling straight out of the building, or the whole of the city, sounded like a pretty good idea. Anyone with a sane mind, a clear head, and enough sense of self-preservation would have done just that.

It was debatable if I lacked most of the former, but I didn't want to draw more attention to my presence than necessary. So I didn't follow the urge to touch the pendant and open a portal right in front of her door. Who knew who else visited the witch's place.

No, I was going to slink away out of existence, vanish into one of the less frequented side alleys at the outer periphery of the black market, cover my tracks and smudge my footsteps with my silent entry into a portal.

My feet carried me out through the door and into the streets. I rounded the corner, diving headlong into the beginnings of the black market. The smell of herbs and grease, the soft click clunk of pottery, the plumes of dust and semi-magical powder; it made me relax, lulled me into a wrong sense of familiarity – easily mistaken for safety.