Witch Fire (5 page)

‘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 Coven 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.

‘Edie was, of course, a person of interest to the Inquisition pretty much from the moment of her birth. But it was the time she spent as a child with Endor that made her such a potentially valuable asset. Accordingly, the Inquisition chose to keep her under surveillance rather than bringing her in for testing and registration. The strategy paid off. Sixteen years after she and her mother left Endor, Edie Starling was approached by one of their agents in London, and invited to join their cause. Initially, she refused.’

Lucas held his breath. So they were coming to the point at last.

‘By then, the UK had endured three years of Endor terror: witch-hexed assassinations, sabotage, epidemics and banes. In Edie Starling, the Inquisition saw a unique opportunity to infiltrate the organisation. Her history and connections made her a natural convert to Endor’s cause. And so “Operation Swan” was born.’

‘You’re saying Edie agreed to leave home and go undercover among a bunch of terrorists?’ Lucas frowned. ‘Just like that?’

Ashton didn’t lower his eyes or alter his voice. Yet this time there was something effortful about his calm. ‘Edie was . . . persuaded . . . it was in her family’s best interest. The Inquisition had proof of her contact with a terrorist operative and this, in addition to her coven ties, would have been enough to put her away for a good number of years. Her associates at Cooper Street would also be vulnerable. By agreeing to work as a double agent, she was ensuring their continued safety, as well as that of the country at large.’

‘I get it. She was blackmailed.’ Lucas meant to sound impassive too, but the bitterness rose in his throat. ‘And what was your role in this, Dad?’

‘
The Chief Prosecutor tasked me with preparing the legal case against Edie. I did not find out that it had been used to pressure her until later. When I did, I voiced my objections. Edie was an intelligent and capable young woman. But her background was murky, to say the least, and her character wayward. Whatever the ethics, it was a risky gamble.’

‘It was for Edie, yeah.’ His face was hot.

‘Lucas.’ His father’s eyes looked tired, almost grey. ‘I regret I did not object more strongly, and that events turned out as they did. But we were at war. It was a desperate, dangerous time. We all make our decisions without the power of hindsight.’

In those days, Ashton had been an ambitious young inquisitorial lawyer. He was also a widower. Two years prior to Edie Starling being brought into the Witchcrime Directorate, his wife’s mind had been invaded by an Endor witch, and her body bound to a poppet crafted with fae. Camilla Stearne had been forced to drive her own car off the road, to smash it into a twist of metal and flame. Lucas thought, as his father meant him to, of all the other families whose lives were left in ruins by Endor’s campaign.

He swallowed. ‘It was your war too,’ he said to Jack Rawdon. ‘When did you find out about this?’

Rawdon gave a small, apologetic shrug. ‘Only after Glory applied to WICA. During Operation Swan, I was part of an anti-Endor task force that involved all branches of the security services, but communication was not always as . . . open . . . as it could have been. Especially where WICA was involved.’

He glanced quickly at Ashton and Commander Hughes. ‘I suspect the fact that Edie was not a professional agent, and had no establishment or institutional ties, made her, in the Inquisition’s eyes, easier to manage.’

You mean easier to isolate and manipulate
, thought Lucas. Almost as if he had read his mind, Rawdon said, ‘But you should know, Lucas, that in spite of the element of coercion involved, Edie showed a natural aptitude for undercover work. I’ve seen her files. In her contact with her handler she seemed, if anything, to relish the challenge.’

‘A challenge that probably got her killed.’ Edie had left a note to her abandoned family:
I love you, but it’s better if I go. Forgive me.
Lucas remembered Glory’s face when she told him, and his heart lurched.

‘Well. That’s the question,’ said the Commander. She had spent most of the conversation tilting back on her chair, idly
tap-tap
ping a pen against her teeth. Now she snapped upright. ‘Operation Swan was initially a short-term assignment. Edie was asked to gather intelligence on a top-level Endor leader who was trying to enter the country. After this was achieved, she told her handler that she’d heard whispers relating to a potential attack on British interests overseas, and requested permission to follow the lead. She volunteered, in fact. It was only then that she left home.

‘For three months, Edie Starling worked undercover in mainland Europe, from where she supplied the Inquisition with information that was used to prevent several attacks on British businesses and residences. Then she disappeared. It was feared she’d either been discovered and killed by Endor, or turned by them. But Endor was already moving its attention away from the UK. The immediate crisis had passed. One AWOL witch-agent didn’t seem worth the trouble.

‘However, five years ago, a source reported a sighting of Edie in southern Spain. It might not be the same woman, of course. But if there’s a possibility she is still alive, there’s a possibility she’s now working for Endor. That makes her a potential threat – especially if she ever decides to contact her daughter.’

Lucas felt a new unease. ‘It’s been twelve years since she left. If she’d wanted to get in touch, wouldn’t she have done so before?’

‘Ah,’ said the Commander, ‘but Gloriana’s almost grown-up now, and a powerful witch in her own right. If Edie discovers this, she might try to take advantage.’

‘Seems to me she was the one who got taken advantage of. Bullied and blackmailed, then tossed aside – “not worth the trouble” of finding.’ With effort, Lucas moderated his tone.
‘
That’s how Glory would see it, anyway.’

The Commander smiled grimly. ‘And that’s why she can’t be told. Not yet. She’s immature and wilful, with much to learn and even more to prove.’

‘In the meantime,’ said Rawdon, ‘now that Glory is here and part of our team, we’re in a good position to keep an eye on her.
If
Edie is alive, and
if
she decides to contact her daughter, then we’ll know about it.’

‘So Glory’s being used as bait.’

And who were ‘we’, anyhow, Lucas wondered. WICA? The Inquisition? Did that mean him too?

Rawdon put up his hands reassuringly. ‘Glory was recruited to this division for the same reasons you were. She’s an outstandingly gifted witch who has already displayed great courage and resourcefulness in her work against the Paterson conspiracy.

‘Yes, she has a few rough edges. She needs guidance and support. But I believe in her. What’s more, I need her. Soon, I’ll be calling on the two of you to put your talents to work outside the confines of this agency.’

Jack Rawdon gave the warm, frank smile that had made him the poster-boy for Socially Acceptable Witchkind. Lucas felt a spark of excitement in spite of himself. Did his boss have a mission for them at last?

‘Of course, Glory needs to be told the truth one day,’ Rawdon continued. ‘But the likelihood of her mother being alive remains small, and the chance of her trying to get in contact is even smaller. I think we can afford to give Glory some more time to adjust to her new life. For now, the knowledge would be too heavy a burden.’

‘You yourself have no right to that knowledge,’ said Commander Hughes. ‘Only the responsibility to safeguard it.’

‘It’s for Glory’s own good,’ said his father.

Once more, all three of them were leaning towards him, eyes fixed on his, expressions stern yet encouraging. Once more, he had little option but to agree.

In the aftermath of the meeting, Lucas tried to get a handle on Edie Starling and the kind of woman she’d been, but the various accounts he’d heard were too elusive and contradictory. He groped for indisputable facts, for clear judgements, and found none. Perhaps his father was right. It had been a war, and different rules applied.

Glory wouldn’t see it like that, though. If she found out the story of Operation Swan, she’d leave at once and never look back. She would be lost . . . for ever.

He wasn’t sure he believed that Edie had really volunteered to work as a double agent abroad. He wondered too if Rawdon and Hughes knew more about her whereabouts and activities than they were letting on. If so, was Glory in danger of being used in the same way as her mother had been? Either way, Lucas knew he was now part of the cover-up, however little choice he’d had in the matter.

But these concerns were already fading in the light of a new, more pressing question.

What kind of task did Jack Rawdon have in store for them?

Chapter 5

Glory was dreaming of the Burning Court.

Its white-tiled walls sloped up to the mouth of the huge chimney that formed its ceiling. An audience of inquisitors waited behind a viewing pane.

She herself was waiting at the balefire’s stake. Bundles of wood were stacked around her legs; an electric fuse led from under them to the observation room.

Glory stood in stillness and silence. She had no choice. She’d been given a drug to immobilise her body and numb the pain. While her heart hammered fit to burst, her reflection in the glass was perfectly serene.

She knew what was about to happen. She’d had the dream so many times that her subconscious mind could anticipate each step. That didn’t mean she could stop it, though. That didn’t mean she could escape the moment when her reflection changed, so that she was staring at another woman, a wide-eyed blonde, in the mirrored glass. Her mother.