Hi!

Another weekend over - way too soon. Hoping to get more writing time next week, finally!!! :-)

Okay, so Anna's in trouble, again. And she doesn't even know how much yet...

Lara

___________________________________________

Chapter 18

The scream worked itself up and out of my throat. It died and withered in mid-air as a blurry whiff of something crashed into the rogue witch from the side. At first I thought it was Fabrice, or some other outcast with fangs.

The flash of red hair. I gasped. It was George. What the hell was Alexander's enforcer doing here?

He tackled the rogue witch to the ground and they went skidding on asphalt. I turned, my eyes crawling around the street in search of Alexander. All I saw was more disturbed air, blurred forms that tore through the air with a swiftness that made my eyeballs hurt from watching. More of Alexander's vamps crowding the street.

Portals opened in quick succession. The rogues, sensing that they were outnumbered, vanished one after the other. As the street cleared of dark shadows I finally saw Andy, facing off with one of the rogue witches at the back. The air around the rogue shivered and changed. He vanished into the depths of a portal. Andy slumped forward. His hand was on his shoulder, and he was... bleeding!

I charged forward. Or tried to.

I bumped into something rock-solid. Hands closed in on my upper arms, steading me. I looked up and stared into George's butterscotch eyes. He was towering over me like a pale monolith come to life, and he didn't look happy. In fact, he looked at me like I was something unpleasant that needed removing.

"Let go of me," I said, trying to see past him to where Andy was.

He didn't move, or budge for that matter. "I have orders to bring you back to Alexander."

I looked up at him defiantly. "I don't care! You can tell him to shove his orders elsewhere. Andy's hurt."

"We got a bunch of rogue witches touring through this city as if it's their own fucking playground," George growled. "Do I look like I have time to babysit you all night?"

I tried to push past him. "Let me go! Can't you see that he's hurt?!"

George turned his head without loosening his hold on me. I leaned forward, finally catching a glimpse of Andy. He was on his knees. I could see his chest rising and falling from where I was. When I looked back up George's butterscotch eyes were on me again.

"George, please. Tell him, tell him I'll go to him. I'll agree to whatever he wants, but let me see Andy to a hospital first!"

The vampire stared back at me for a long moment.

I didn't wait for an answer, but pushed past him with all I had. Surprisingly, he let me.

I had no illusions about me being able to get out of his grasp if he didn't want me to. George might not be as old as Alexander, but he was a vampire. I stumbled through the street, avoiding unconscious and unmoving bodies on the ground, my eyes fixed on Andy. How bad was he hurt?

* * *

I inserted the key into the lock, and pushed the door open for Andy to step in, pretending my arm didn't hurt like hell. It was well past five in the morning, and we'd finally made it back to Andy's apartment. Dawn was just around the corner, first sparks of pale light playing hide and seek with the thick veil of darkness. I would have felt glad about it, if I wasn't so damn exhausted.

My legs were stumps of rubber, threatening to give way whenever I moved too fast. I was feeling the repercussions of the dose of electricity I got back in the street, and my system wasn't happy with the rough rollercoaster ride it went through.

Andy walked in without looking at me, his hand pressed to his shoulder as he passed me. They gave him local anesthesia when they stitched him up, but by the rigid set of his jaw I could tell that he was in pain. He hadn't said a single thing ever since we walked out of the hospital. Not that he'd said much before that.

I watched his back disappear into semi darkness as he walked into the kitchen. He didn't even bother turning on the lights. I shook my head and walked in. The corridor was flooded with light as I flipped the switch.

The kitchen was still crammed with washed-out shadows, a landscape of silence barely disturbed by Andy rummaging in one of the cabinets. I watched him in silence, leaning against the doorframe with my arms crossed underneath my chest. When he slammed what suspiciously looked like a whisky bottle on the kitchen counter, I lost my patience.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Go home Anna." Something about the sound of his voice reminded me of rock-hard granite. Sharp and cold to the touch – the kind that left your skin raw and bloody.

I took a step into the kitchen, arms falling to my sides. "Andy, what's wrong?"

He remained where he was, didn't turn around. I saw his hands tighten on the corner of the kitchen counter, knuckles sharpening and rising like small mountains of flesh.

"Don't you understand? When we got out into the street after our visit at Fabrice, I rushed into the fight without turning back."

"I think you told me to run and get to the motorcycle before you did that," I said.

"I left you standing there, alone." He said it as if he didn't even hear the sarcasm in my voice, or maybe he just ignored it. And yet, what he said irked me. I hated being treated like a defenseless damsel in distress, and if he wasn't hurt I would have long called him out on it.

"You go in together, you stay together – rule number one when the enemy outnumbers you in a fight," he said in a level voice.

"Andy, they outgunned us by ten times in terms of power. I don't-"

"I should have stayed there, should have protected you." His voice ebbed and dipped underneath a blanket of silence. "You could be dead."

I stared at his back, couldn't help but recognize the knot forming in my stomach for what it was. Why did he see me as a liability? As someone who needed protection, above all? Why couldn't he see me as someone equal to him, dammit?!

"Dead? Well, so could you. Andy, it's not your job to protect me. We're both members of the Circle." My eyes got caught on his shoulder, the spot of blood that looked like black oil on his jacket. The anger vanished as fast as it had come, sand sifting, falling through splayed fingers. I let out a long breath. "Well, at least we were – up until three weeks ago."

I saw his shoulders tense, as if someone had forced a tight-meshed fabric, a coat of purpose and steel, over his back.

"I'll go clean up," he finally said. "The painkillers are catching up with my system."

"Fine. Go get some rest. I'll call you later. I'll check on Kenneth before I leave," I said.

There was a slight shift in his shoulder blades, almost as if he wanted to turn around but then decided otherwise.

I turned my back on him and marched towards the living room wordlessly. When was he going to treat me as an equal force member? Seemed everybody else had already decided my opinion and skills weren't worth taking seriously. Now Andy too?

I was angry at him, but he'd been hurt for witch's sake. I shook my head. I wasn't going to have that kind of conversation with him. Not at this point in time.

Not when you still have to pay a call on his undead highness, aka Alexander.

I didn't know if Andy noticed, but I did: A bunch of vamps followed us to and from the hospital and was probably still waiting outside. It was close to dawn. Apparently George was eager to get me delivered to the head vamp asap.

I marched into the living room, seething anger like a biting sting in my veins. Well, the vamps were going to have to wait. I had to talk to Kenneth first, get him up to date.

I expected the sound of nervous typing paired with a monotonous drone of a computer running. What I got instead was silence. Light spilled into the shadow landscape of the room, meeting with the solitary, yellow glow of the lamp on the desk. By the looks of it, the screensaver had winked out a long time ago, a black canvas of nothingness. Kenneth was asleep in front of the computer, glasses in front of him, head stuck on the table like a sacrificial lamb ready for the taking.

I smiled, walking up to the altar-like setup of laptops and hardwire slowly. Waking him up didn't really sound like a good idea. I was probably going to have to explain what happened in detail – not something I was very keen on. Maybe I could get away with an edited, short version. I was just about to rouse him, when my eyes fell on the neat stack of sheets beside the keyboard.

My eyes darted back to Kenneth, pulse speeding up. Had he managed to decode the encrypted data already? I made a grab for the stack of sheets and sat down, edging closer to the ring of light. I might as well have a look at the data at once. This was an absolute no-brainer. The other option was facing George and his undead helpmates, who were just waiting to escort me back to Alexander, and wasn't I dying for that one?

* * *

The sound of water splashing had long faded into the background. I stopped wondering for how long Andy was going to remain in the bathroom what must have been ten minutes ago. It was just me and the papers.

I stared at them again. After what Andy and I learned this night, the one reasonable theory I'd been building up was slowly crumbling at the edges. I thought Marrok was somehow involved in this, that he aligned himself with the rogue witches. Both Alexander and Fabrice had– independently of one another – dismissed the idea as laughable, however.

But, if the mole (or moles) wasn't one of the shape shifters, who was it? And, if it was someone who did not turn furry once in a while, why did Marrok go to the end of lengths and back to get his hands on the information the half-witches handed to us?

Fabrice said it: Marrok, among others, was after something Chris Hayes possessed. It had to be the information he stole from us. It all came down to the information on the drive.

I went through about half of the stack of sheets Kenneth printed out. I had to admit that much: he was good. This looked more like a report, data collected neatly and systematically. I sighed. What was in those files that Marrok could have wanted so badly?

Clothes rustled, the sound like dry paper moaning in a sudden gust of wind. I looked up. Kenneth was awake, his hand outstretched and uncoordinated, making a grab for his glasses.

"You're back."

I nodded. "Yeah, got here about twenty minutes ago." I pointed at the sheet of papers in front of me. "Nice work by the way."

He rubbed his face with his palms, cleaned his glasses with the hem of his shirt. The motion was mechanical and yet uncoordinated, as if it was like a morning ritual for him, something he had to perform in order to function.

"Were damn hard to crack, those files." He put on his glasses, and upon seeing my nonplussed expression, scooted closer to me with his chair. He plucked the papers from my hands and started thumbing through them, stopped at one page and laid it down in front of me.

"I'm talking about the unnamed transactions Andy and you wanted me to have a look at. I tried to trace where the money was going to and who made the withdrawals. I started with the first one."

"And?" I held my breath. Was it Chris Hayes' account?

"No. I don't know for sure whose account the money was coming from, but it's most definitely not Chris Hayes'."

My eyes widened, jaw dropping to the depths of lower realms I didn't even know existed.

"What?"

"Well, basically it's an anonymous account that in truth doesn't have a real person behind it. It's like a shadow company set up by a bigger corporation, so what they're doing can't be traced back to them."

I leaned forward, staring at the paper. "Which means what?"

"This is only a guess, but I've picked up one or the other thing over the years." Kenneth looked at me. Any trace of sleep was gone. "I know the Circle's handwriting when I see it."