Hi,

Anna and Alexander will have to cooperate and overcome upcoming obstacles together, if they want to have a chance at stopping the Raven. From the looks of it, the odds are against them... And then there's the thing Anna finds out. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Read on and find out! I hope you like this one!

Lara

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Chapter 58

Alexander led me into the upper floors of the building. I followed, silently and without protest, for once. I was angry at him before, but now, after I saw what Medici did to the building, after having replayed what could have happened, the anger deflated and died inside of me.

I stopped in the middle of the third staircase we climbed. The trace of auras, of black magic dissipated up there. The space above us hovered in the air, the sudden absence of magic like a white cloud of static noise.

I tore my eyes open, blinking as the impact of reality set in. "It ends here. Someone probably opened a portal here."

Alexander was looking at me, arms crossed in front of his chest. "Explain."

"I'm not sure, but since a portal is a tear in time and space, it nullifies whatever magic existed in that space. Maybe it only sucks it in, or maybe the magic is consumed by the portal itself – I don't know. But I can tell that some of the rogues used a portal here. Maybe all of them, maybe not. But there had to have been enough to nullify all the dark magic I felt before."

"You cannot follow, even if you use a portal from the same spot?"

I shook my head.

"I was told you went to the Devotio Correctional Facility yesterday."

The question startled me, caught me off-guard in the worst way possible. For a long moment I stared at him. Of course he knew about it. His vamps had been following me around like silent dogs during the night - as much as his human flunkies during daylight. I knew that when I went to the prison.

"You said you wanted information on the half-witches," I said. "I'm using all the resources I have at my disposal."

"I assume you talked with Chris Hayes. You were going to disclose the information to me, I take it?" There was motion, a slow shiver in his eyes that gave me pause.

I shook my head. "She didn't give me anything I didn't know already. She said the Raven was going to choose abandoned buildings as hiding places and keep moving around. Not much we can work with."

He stared at me for a long moment. I expected him to argue the point, convinced that he'd think there were things I left unsaid. Then, when I expected it the least, he switched topics again – addressing the last thing I wanted to talk about.

"Why did you run, little witch?"

"I..." I shook my head, frowning. Run? Why run? "What? I didn't run."

He stepped forward. Less than a second and he was so close that our toes were almost touching.

"You ran. What I saw in your head, it was real."

I stilled. He was talking about what happened in my past – the death of my parents he saw when he forced himself into my mind.

"You were running a long time before we met," he said.

He cocked his head, and raised his hand until his palm touched my cheek. I sucked in a breath, couldn't move. Physical contact was the worst when it came to him. Intense. Vivid.

It reminded me of visions in my head I wished I'd never had. That twisting knife in my heart that wouldn't stop until he'd let go. Until I was in a place he couldn't see or reach, because each time he looked at me with those blue piercing eyes it was as if he could see me. The real me that was buried under layers that were made of more than flesh and skin.

"Don't touch me," I said in a low voice.

He smiled. It was unsettling, mocking, and yet there was more to it. Like an ingredient I couldn't read or name.

"Do not try to lie to me, little witch. I was in your mind. I learned enough to know that you have been hurting inside for a long time."

I sucked in a breath. Acres and acres of open space underneath my feet. Nothing to hold on to. Nothing left, but that one thing that hurt. Truth.

I looked away. "You're right. I have. More than you can imagine."

I felt more than saw him breathe – motion in that cold electric current he drew around him like a second skin. For a small, fleeting moment I imagined how it would feel like to step right into it. To trust; confide in him, despite everything he did and who he was.

It frightened me beyond words.

I stepped away from him, raised my eyes. "But that's none of your business. I'm merely a tool, remember? As long as your tool works and fulfils its purpose everything should be fine." The words came out softly, flat slabs of speech without an ounce of speculation or emotion. Mere fact.

Something in his eyes darkened – a flash of motion before his expression vanished behind a wall of blandness. "Then we should go. You have a lot of work ahead, little witch. I want details about the Raven's whereabouts. And I want them within the end of the week."

* * *

I flipped open my laptop and searched for the latest news. Not being part of the TF3 meant being cut off from the flow of information I usually got handed on a silver plate. What was more, I needed to figure out what the world knew about my abduction, or learn more about my current status in the witch community. If I expected headlines with my name in bold letters, I was disappointed. The articles I found were mostly about the Raven's sensational escape and speculations about his whereabouts. Nothing I didn't know already.

I saved checking my mailbox for last. Once I opened my account I wished I hadn't. I had more unread e-mails than I could count. I spent the next half hour working my way through the endless number of messages, starting with the ones received on the day of my 'abduction.'

I was in the middle of the current week, when a message from an unknown sender caught my eye. It was at the very top, sent a few hours earlier. I scrolled up and opened it.

'Welcome home. I heard you had a heart to heart with Chris Hayes. Did you figure it out already? R.'

The blood drained from my face. Thoughts aligned, slowly, as if dragged through muddy terrain. Words shaped and molded into something else. A perfect understanding.

There was no doubt in my mind. The message was from Raphael Medici.

Apart from the head vampire, I hadn't told anyone about my visit to the Devotio prison and my chat with Chris. Looked like Alexander wasn't the only one keeping tabs on me.

I stared at the screen. 'Did you already figure it out?'

What the hell was that supposed to mean? Was it another mind game I was supposed to fall for and play? What did the Raven want me to figure out? And how did he get his hands on my e-mail address?

The moment the thought surfaced, I felt the instant urge to snort. Medici managed to infiltrate and hack into the Circle's own system. One measly firewall on a private computer wouldn't stop him. Cyberwar or real-life attack, I wasn't safe from him.

The thought made me pause in my tracks. I stared at the laptop for a long moment. Things that were once real and accepted facts turned out to be something else altogether. The world was closing in on me. Wall for wall, layer for layer. And it didn't stop.

If I wanted to find out what Chris meant and why the information in the file was worth going to prison for, I needed to dig deeper, investigate further. Too many things happened in Italy. Enough had happened to – if even for a little while – make me forget why I went to Italy to begin with. It wasn't over. Medici was still out there, and if I hoped he'd lost interest in me, I was proven wrong.

Good. Wasn't that what I wanted, what I'd promised I'd do? Present myself as a target and seize the Raven with a carefully laid out trap? If I wanted to stay ahead in whatever game he was playing, I had to figure out what this was about, and I had to do it fast.

It was pretty clear that this was a trap, pre-packaged and wrapped somewhere in this message. But the words he once said to me stuck in my mind. The seeds of doubt he'd placed about the fate of all Pentagrams had blossomed and metastasized. What I shrugged off as another stealth attack, a weak attempt at messing with my sense of judgment, was more than I initially thought. After what I learned in Italy, what he said back then made sense.

Pentagrams were witches that were able to wield all of the elements. Including Spirit, which in a nutshell was dark magic. If the Circle hunted down rogues, what would stop them from hunting down the more powerful equal – the Pentagrams? Was the Circle really what I thought it was?

I blinked, turned over the words in my mind, then read the e-mail again.

I had to focus on the information on the drive. Whatever Chris Hayes, or Raphael Medici found out, it was important enough to use it as bait. Something in there was important enough for Chris Hayes to go to prison and keep her mouth closed about it. A gut feeling told me it would give me more than one answer, that everything hinged on the information on the device. I needed to find out what exactly was worth all the trouble. And there was only one other channel I had.

I called Kenneth. He answered on the third ring with a voice thick and slurred with sleep.

"Hi." My voice sounded detached and alien. As if it was coming from a remote place outside of my head.

"Hi Anna!" All traces of sleep were gone from his voice. "Are you okay? Since when are you back in the city?"

I shook my head, then realized he couldn't see it. "I'm fine, thanks. I arrived two nights ago."

"We were worried about you. Andy was-"

I cut him off before he could elaborate. Hearing Andy's name alone was enough. The uncomfortable feeling of telling a lie slipped back into my bones. The acid taste of it prominent on my tongue. I had told too many lies to too many people in the past weeks and months. Who was I kidding? Without even realizing. I'd been telling half-truths and lies for years.

I swallowed. "I know, and I'm really sorry for that. I ran into trouble. Listen, Kenneth. You remember the files you went through before I left New York?"

"Yeah." He said it tentatively, almost as if admitting that he remembered made him uncomfortable.

"Did you get anything out of it, after I left, I mean?"

A long pause. I pressed the phone to my ear, frowning. "Kenneth? You still there?"

"Yeah." A deep breath. "You know, after you were gone, Andy said you'd both decided to drop the investigation. That there was another lead."

My eyebrows shot up. "He did?"

Andy knew what was in the file, he saw the transactions and back then he was as puzzled as I was. So why would he suddenly drop the only lead we had?

"What else did he say?" I said.

"Haven't really talked to him after that."

Of course.

"What did you do with the files?" I finally said. "Do you still have them?"

"Um, actually I do. And I ah..."

I pressed the phone closer. "What?"

"Swear you're not going to tell Andy."

I sighed. "I'll swear by the three great witches, if you want me to. Dammit, spill Kenneth."

"Well, I had a lot of free time on my hands, so I played around a bit."

I held my breath. "And?"

"I found something."