Undercity: Manifest

Chapter Nine

It had been almost three weeks since Sadie's life was blown apart in the interview room. She was due to start at the police academy in three days. She still worked her shifts at the bar. Tony was shocked when she handed in her notice and even more so when she revealed her sudden acceptance into the force. Sadie didn't question how her application, which missed the deadline, had been accepted within days. Why would she question that after she watched a man shoot fire from his bare hands?

Alongside her bar work, Sadie reported each day to the Coven building for her training. It overwhelmed her even after attending everyday for the past two and a half weeks. The building looked just like all of the other high-rise structures in the area from the outside, but inside was unlike anything she had ever experienced. What should have been office floors were open spaces filled with technology she hadn't even seen in films. Hundreds of people, Mystics, as she now understood them to be, worked there carrying out various duties for the Coven. The structure of the Coven itself was still somewhat of a mystery to her.

Beyond her brutal sessions with Dante, who, true to form, had barley spoken to her past criticising her every move and 'useless' ability to fight, she hadn't interacted with anyone else, other than Zach, a handful of times. His role within the Coven was also unclear.

Her lessons with Payden were due to start today and she was hoping to learn more about what was going on, and she was naively hopeful that she would find answers to the unanswered questions she had surrounding the world of the Mystics, which only seemed to be growing as each day passed.

Emilie had moved out, and whilst Sadie missed having her sister at home, she was relieved that she did not need to lie to her every day about what she had learned. It was also a blessing that she could keep her sister's existence a secret from Zach and the rest of the Coven. Her decision not to mention Emilie held firm even after all that she was told. She did not want her dragging into this, especially now Emilie was pregnant, and her life was playing out exactly as she had planned.

Sadie knew that Emile hadn't manifested and that her suppression stone, mounted in the engagement ring she never took off, was there to prevent any other Mystic detecting her supressed magic. It gave her some comfort, but despite that understanding, she knew at some point she would have to come clean. She only hoped that when that time came, she would know enough to convince the Coven to leave Emile to live in peace, and away from all the mayhem, Sadie knew she herself was about to be thrown into. This information was exactly what she planned to extract from Payden today.

Sadie waited for the warlock sitting behind the lobby's reception desk to manually lower the shielding barrier before she entered. After bouncing off it and onto her ass on the first day, she was not keen to re-live that embarrassment anytime soon. He greeted her by name, and she returned the favour as she made her way to the lift, pressed the button, and waited for it to arrive. She twirled her necklace as she waited. She was under strict instructions to always keep it on, due to not having learnt how to control her power yet, and she wasn't in any rush to argue with that demand. The concept of having magic had not settled within her yet, she doubted it every fully would.

The piercing ding from the lift's bell thrust her mind back to the present. The doors opened to reveal both Zach and Dante standing side by side. This was only the second time she had seen them together in the whole time she had known them. It was clear for anyone to see that the two of them did not get along. She had no idea why, but got the sense there was a history between them that neither one of them was ready to deal with.

It was Dante who spoke first, which threw her off guard completely. She tried not to show it, but he knew. He always knew.

'How's the face half-pint?' His question was about the face plant she landed in yesterday's training session when practicing an evasion manoeuvre Dante had attempted to teach her. 'Half-pint', that was a new one.