The Licensed Mage

39 The Puritan Head

        Sirens ringing filled the park as the calamity calmed down. Claire slammed the ambulance door, signaling it to leave. She sighed, crossing her arms with a smile on her lips. Turns out all the guns in the building had rune bullets and the extra protection spell she and Malvina gave everyone were useless, but Henry was only shot in the arm and with Tessa by his side he’ll be just fine, he’ll even have a war wound to show off at the end of this.

        “You did good Claire.”

        She turned to see Raven, already smoking as he watched the thugs being round up, “Thanks. You too.”

        He scoffed, “You did good to keep out of trouble.”

        She thought about telling him about the thug holding the gun at her but decided against it. They talked some more when she excused herself to go check on the girls. They were being looked over by paramedics, asking about their parents with Crystal and Shiya by their sides. Claire looked over each of them, introducing herself to Nony, Nalia, Cat and Baylie as they hugged her. She promised each of them to personally get them home as soon as they were done here. Claire felt her sleeve being pulled and looked down to see Sli trying to pull her aside.

        Claire sat her down on the bench as she sat with her, handing her a bottle water, “What’s up?”

        Sli was silent as she ran the bottle between her hands, “What’s gonna happen to us?”

        Claire pulled a strand of Sli’s hair back, “What’d you mean?”

        Sli looked up into Claire’s eyes, “What’s gonna happen now?”

        Claire smiled, “Well, I’m sure we’ll bore you with a bunch of questions but before that we’ll get you to your parents first.”

        “What about Cat?”

        “Does she not have parents?”

        Sli bowed her head, “I don’t know. She never talked but I get the feeling she’s all alone.”

        Claire looked up and saw Nalia talking Cat’s ear off. She smiled as she pointed it out to Sli, “Doesn’t look like she’s lonely now. As the one who looked out for their daughter I have no doubt Nalia’s parents will help Cat out in any way they can.”

        Sli watched them for a moment then nodded her head. She scooted closer to Claire and whispered, “I need to tell you something.”

        “What?”

        She looked back and forth as if she was revealing a big secret, “Last night, I think it was last night, I heard them talking…those two.”

        She pointed to a tall and fat thug Raven was currently struggling to get in the patrol car. The thugs refused to cooperate and were kicking and screaming as much as they could finally causing Raven to subdue them.

        Claire watched them close, “Ok, what about them?”

        Sli turned back to her speaking carefully, “They said the man, the man Cagla and I saw was the Head, the Head of the Puritans.”

        Claire felt ice cold water wash over her. The sunlight dimmed from her eyes as if a dark cloud blocked it out. She felt vile and dread crawl up her throat, threatening to choke her. She did her best to clear her throat as she carefully placed her hand on Sli’s shoulder.

        “What are you talking about?”

        Sli licked her lips, knowing how serious this was, “Cagla and I were taken to this room, like a fancy parlor and there was a man they called Boss. Last night when they were talking one of them said the Boss was the Head of the Puritans.”