1 Witchy Business (20 page)

I sat in the converted warehouse that made up Edinburgh’s City Art Centre, admiring Niall’s contribution to their collection while I waited. The Escher woodcut block of the letter A looked pretty good in its new home, even if I did say so myself. Which was just as well, because it was going to be there on loan for the foreseeable future.

I sat, looking at that simple woodcut, the letter A that meant so much to Escher, to de Mesquita, and more recently, to Niall. Would he come here, I wondered, to try to decode more of the symbols carved around the edge? Would he pass that job on to scholars? Did it even matter? When all was said and done, the woodcut had simply been a means to an end for Niall, which wasn’t the way he should have treated something with that history. Escher’s teacher deserved better than that.

So did I. Giving the Escher to the museum had been my price extracted from Niall for my efforts in sparing him from having to confront the insurance company about the claim. My price for having to produce a report that suggested a minor thief had been involved, who had panicked when it became obvious that G&P’s crack investigator was on the case. Although I didn’t put it in quite those terms. So, naturally, a couple of weeks ago, albeit with great reverence for its significance, the Escher woodcut block had been “anonymously” handed over to the museum.

It took much prompting to get Niall to confirm the gift. Sorry, the
loan
. He was quite clear about that part. Just as I was quite clear about the part where he had also generously agreed to allow the public access to some of his collection at the museum, citing the idea that there would be better security to satisfy his insurers.

The claims department was satisfied, even if they weren’t entirely sure about how things had worked out that way. They had even paid me, which was one thing I wasn’t expecting to get out of the situation. £100,000! The only reason I didn’t return the money was because it would have looked suspicious.

Well, that and because I knew I had solved the case of the missing Escher, fair and square, even if no one else did.

 It was enough money to buy me breathing space. To work out what I wanted to do with my skills and talents. Although Niall would have given me money to begin my new life, I wouldn’t have taken it from him. He’d given me enough.

Niall…well, he was at least happy that I was happy, even if it meant that part of his collection had left his private gallery room and moved into a museum. He perked up a bit once I pointed out all of the empty pedestals that left in his home, and the empty wall spots, too, and how much fun we’d had with just one piece of artwork.

Eventually though, I knew that we’d need to sort things out. All of which had left me sitting in the gallery with my back to the rest of the room, waiting. Waiting and enjoying the swirl of the people around me. It was the middle of a working day, so it wasn’t as busy as it could have been, yet there were still plenty of tourists around, the emotions of the crowd shifting and changing as they ran through me. It was certainly a whole new way of appreciating art.

I wasn’t just there for the art though, and when I felt the emotions changing behind me, bringing back a familiar taste, I stood up.

“Hello, Rebecca,” I said, turning around.

She looked different today. She was still just as carefully dressed as ever, still trying to look professional, but there was something less stern about her. Almost…
smaller
. Certainly less confident. I could feel the edge of fear radiating from her as she stood there, obviously not knowing how to start our conversation.

“You’re looking good, really good,” I said, trying for the gentlest smile I could. “Do you want to sit down?”

“You came alone.” She sounded surprised. She actually looked around. “I thought you would bring…
him
.”

“Niall. His name is Niall.” I stopped. It wasn’t early enough in the conversation to bring anger into it. “I said I would come alone, Rebecca. I keep my word.”

I’d come to a public place, although that was as much for Rebecca’s comfort as mine. She had even been the one to suggest it, though I had picked the spot. I guess she didn’t want to risk meeting me in private. I didn’t blame her for being cautious.

She had presumably been the one to deal with Evert’s body, and even two weeks later, I could feel the fragility in her. The weakness where what I had taken from her was only just starting to heal over and regrow. I saw the first sign of a wrinkle that could not be covered by makeup, and under the concealer stick, puffiness under her eyes. She had not been sleeping well.

“Please sit down, Rebecca,” I said, actually moving to sit again myself. “You’re making me nervous, towering over me like that. And it was not necessary to bring a weapon, so just don’t even take it out.”

She sighed. “I thought you were going to—”

“No, I’m not going to make you do anything,” I said with a sigh, looking up at her as I sat there. “You really think I’d do that—hurt you, don’t you?”

She didn’t answer, but she did sit down.
Not quite next to me, she slid down in the next seat, with her defenses buttoned up tight against any possibility that I might be able to get through them. Would it do any good if I really wanted to hurt her? Thankfully, there was no reason to find out.

“You didn’t run,” Rebecca said, sounding surprised.

“Run?”

“Everyone in the coven thought you would run.”

No, we hadn’t run. Niall had suggested it almost as soon as we got back to his house, but I wasn’t going to admit that to Rebecca. He had said we should get on a plane or a boat, not even stopping long enough for me to get my things. He’d said there would be more hunters like Evert coming my way, or worse. That the coven wouldn’t be done with us.

“I’m not going to give up my life that easily,” I said, looking across at her. “This is my life, here, and I have worked for years to build what I have. I’m not about to let what I am change it. I’m not going to spend the rest of my life on the run, just one step ahead of coven hunters. I love Edinburgh. I’m not about to leave it.”

“And you think the coven will just let you keep living here?” Rebecca asked. “You think they’ll leave vampires alone? Let you live so you can kill us?”

I cocked my head to one side. “I didn’t kill
you
.”

Rebecca froze, obviously uncomfortable. Good. Just because I didn’t want to kill her, that didn’t mean we were suddenly best friends. “That isn’t the point.”

“Really? I think it’s exactly the point,” I said. “I had only just learned what I was, I was as emotionally messed up as I’d ever been, I was hungry, and you had just tried to kill me.” I tried to keep my tone calm when it came to that part. I wanted to show Rebecca that I was over it, that we could somehow go on in the same city without stooping to violence. I needed her to believe that part, or this whole meeting was a waste of time. “All of that, and I still didn’t kill you.”

“Even so—”

“You know why not, Rebecca?” I didn’t wait for her answer. “Because I’m still me, and I don’t kill people.”

Rebecca stared at me for several seconds. “You probably think that, Elle, but how can you be sure?”

“How can I be sure?” I shrugged. “How can I know you won’t turn around and start blasting people with magic? I mean, you already have experience when it comes to that kind of thing, right? So, how do I know that one of these tour groups isn’t about to be blasted across the gallery?”

She at least had the grace to look embarrassed.

“So, you’re asking the coven to let you live,” she said, “on the basis that you haven’t killed anyone yet? And I emphasize the word, ‘yet.’”

I laughed. Several people in the gallery turned to look at me disapprovingly, although once they saw me, they seemed happier about it. Most of the men, at least.

“I’m not asking the coven to
let
me do anything,” I said. “Do you know why the coven is so afraid of enchantresses like me, Rebecca? Have you worked out the real reason that they kill us? The reason they hate us so much?”

“Because you hurt people,” Rebecca said. “Because you take them and control them. Because you hunt witches.”

At least she was consistent. I guessed, after how much I’d scared her back at the house, that she had plenty of reasons to be worried. Besides, her being consistent was better somehow. It meant she’d actually believed it when she’d tried to kill me. It hadn’t just been an excuse.

“No,” I said. “We are not just vampires, we are very powerful witches. They hunt us because we are more powerful than them.” I left that to sink in for a second or two. “Because they’re worried that if they don’t hunt us now, there might come a day when they aren’t able to. If I wanted to, I could walk into any coven meeting, and no one would think I was weak.”

“You think you’re your mother?” Rebecca demanded.

I paused. “I love my mother. She protected me, but she could have done more. And no, I don’t think I’m her. I’m more powerful than that.”

“More powerful than your mother?” Rebecca sounded like she wanted to laugh then, but she didn’t dare. “You’re really mad enough to think that you’re even more powerful than the coven?”

I carefully reached out, turning the attention of the crowd away from us, and I moved. Not far. Just into the next seat over, the one Rebecca hadn’t wanted to occupy because it was too close.

“Yes,” I said simply. “I think I am more powerful than my mother. More powerful than the coven. In fact, I know it. I have my mother’s old spell books at home. I have all the spells in my head that I was never able to get working, and now I have the power to go with them.”

Carefully, still keeping anyone from watching, I held out my hand. The witch light that appeared above it wasn’t much, but it felt appropriate. It had been the same spell Niall had used to prove it to me, after all.

Rebecca’s mouth actually fell open in shock.

“I hope your face doesn’t stay like that,” I said. “What? Didn’t they tell you this part of what enchantresses can do?”

Just from her expression, it was obvious that the coven
hadn’t
told Rebecca that part. I snuffed out the witch light in my palm.

“I have my mother’s old books,” I said. “I have the knowledge to work out anything I don’t have from first principles. There are spells that…well, the whole coven could probably cast them, given enough time and effort. You know the kind of thing I’m talking about.”

I waited, letting it sink in. Letting her think of all the possibilities. In coven circles, it was said that the eruption of Vesuvius that swallowed Pompeii was the final act in a war between two of the coven’s precursors. We were sitting on top of a supposedly extinct volcano in Edinburgh and that seemed like a fact worth remembering.

“You cannot possibly become a spell caster. And there is no way that you could match the whole coven.”

“Really? All I would need would be enough emotion,” I said, once I’d given Rebecca a second or two. “A true witch would need a whole coven of friends, and weeks of preparations to cast a spell. Me? Well, how much emotion do you think I’d get if I went over to Glasgow and stood in the stands while Celtic played Rangers in a cup tie?”

It was a bluff, of course. I had no way of knowing what I could do, but I was pretty sure that I didn’t have any easy “kill all the coven” spells hanging around or hiding up my sleeve. I would have noticed. Even if I had, did anyone really think that mass murder was on my agenda?

“You wouldn’t do something like that,” Rebecca said, as though she didn’t feel certain.

“Well, that’s the beautiful part of this, isn’t it?” I smiled as I said it, trying hard to remember not to let out power to make her feel better. I didn’t think she’d appreciate that.

“Either you don’t believe that I would ever do something like that, in which case you’re basically saying that I’m still me and there’s no reason to want me dead, or you think that I might, in which case you really do not want to try anything stupid.”