Words of Power (Alice Gray Book 3)

19

I didn't need the loud, brisk knock that signalled Emily's arrival to know who was on the other side of the door. The pack bond felt like a bungee rope that had been extended too far and for too long. It bounced back, drawing us together, making us whole.

"Get dressed, we've got a problem," she said, forgoing any greeting.

The gun drawn at her side told me that if Emily felt the comfort of the bond, it wasn't enough to circumvent whatever peril was coming our way. And whatever it was, it wasn't the conundrum of vamp energy and witch magic that had been on our minds before her arrival.

"What's going on," I asked, finally throwing off my dress and pulling a hoodie and jeans onto my grimy, clammy, pasty limbs. I desperately needed a shower, but it didn't look like my personal hygiene was at the top of the agenda right now.

"The DPA received new intelligence this morning. They know you have magic."

"Shit. How?"

Emily's look of utter incredulity made me lower my eyes.

"What the hell were you thinking sending the pack bond out to me? The offices are warded, you idiot."

"Oh."

"Is that all you have to say? They'll be sending guards over here as we speak. You'll be taken to the inquisitor. We have to get you out of here."

"I can suppress it. The magic, I mean."

They all looked at me with identically doubtful expressions. It didn't matter if they believed me or not because the screech of tires outside said that we were about to have company. And it wasn't the welcome kind.

"Inquisitor?" I asked. It seemed pointless to run, so I might as well prepare myself for whatever ordeal the DPA had in store for me now. "Thought they'd died out centuries ago."

"They did. But some genius at the DPA thought it would be fun to resurrect the practice. After all, who better to judge witches than those who view their magic as heresy," Evan said bitterly.
"But who would..." Even as I spoke the words I could feel my eyes widen and my heart beat faster as fear pushed the blood through my veins. "Vampires."

If witches viewed vampire magic as unnatural and fundamentally wrong, it only stood to reason that vampires held their own prejudice against those who were their antithesis in every way. A cold heavy feeling of dread descended into my gut as I realised what this might mean.

"You don't mean. It couldn't be."

"I do mean, and it is," Emily said, no emotion in her voice at all. "Brother Jerome was a Dominican monk in life, and is one of the oldest vamps in existence. He was a Medieval Inquisitor then, and he has continued that work for over eight hundred years."

The gulp that rose in my throat got lodged there and I started choking as I struggled to get air into my lungs.

"Medieval? Not part of the European Inquisition? They couldn't be as bad, could they?" Evan asked, while simultaneously thumping me on the back to no effect whatsoever.

"Take a history lesson," was all Emily said in response.

Crap. We all really needed time to study the history of witchcraft. All of it. But time was the one thing that we didn't have. The trial was now only thirty-six hours away, if I even survived that long.

Voices and hurried footsteps from somewhere deep in the guesthouse told us that we'd run out of time. The debrief was over. I was going to have to wing it.

"Bloody hell, they've brought him here," Emily hissed, rubbing her temples with her fingers.

Taking the last few seconds to catch my breath from my coughing fit, I passed the written charm back to Anne, who shoved it down her ample cleavage, before looking round the room in defiance at anyone to find a better hiding place.

No one challenged her.

Seconds flew by as I focused inwards, forcing myself to breathe deeply as I looked at my hands. Silver particles floated around my skin, my magic unwilling to be folded away again. But I didn't have a choice, if it wouldn't do what I wanted now, there would be nothing left to host and foster it.

I knew deep in my gut that the DPA would not allow me to live if it were found that my magic could break the binding that Roger Bingham put on me. If I couldn't be subdued and controlled then they'd see me as a threat to humanity, even if I was found not guilty in the trial.

The knock on the door was slow and ominous, like a death knell informing me that it was only a matter of time before my fate caught up with me. My heart seemed to slow to the pace of the deep resounding noise as it pushed the blood sluggishly around my body.

Lucas looked at me as he reached to open the door, his concern flowing over me, but only succeeding in increasing my fear until my brain felt like it was suspended on a rack, tortured just like the witches and heretics that were victims of the inquisitors in human history.

A hysterical giggle bubbled out of me when I saw the rough hessian sack-cloth cassock, a crude rope pulling it together at his waist. The voluminous hood covered the small man's head and most of his face making him look like a Gothic spectre from Matthew Lewis's scandalous 1796 novel, The Monk.

I cursed my teenage love of high Gothic novels as thoughts of perverted friars and the powerless maidens at their mercy flitted in and out of my mind. Authors then focussed on corruption thriving in communities when the Church held ultimate authority.

Now it was the DPA, and I was the maiden.
Without my magic, I was at their mercy like the most persecuted Gothic heroine.

A real Inquisitor! Oh dear, Alice has really done it this time!