Dead Warlock: Arcane Inc. Book 5 Page 12

  “She met a man. They had a fling which resulted in your mother’s conception.”

  “And this man was an evil sorcerer I take it? And you were worried that his evilness would pass down to me and with my ability that made me pretty fucking dangerous to you?” I said quickly, filling in the blanks.

  “Pretty much. Only, your grandfather wasn’t just an evil sorcerer, Eddie. He was an evil warlock. The most evil warlock I have ever met,” her voice was trembling.

  “Fuck. Off,” I whispered, my voice was trembling too. There was no way she was about to say what I thought she was about to say. No way that it could possibly be true.

  “Eddie…”

  “No,” I said firmly. If I didn’t let her say that then it wouldn’t be true. I didn’t have to accept it if she never actually said it.

  “Eddie,” she said less softly this time. “Your grandfather is Nickolas Blackwood.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Clara’s words hit me like a wall of ice. I sat frozen in time as they replayed around and around in my head, bouncing off the walls of my cranium like a ping pong ball. Your grandfather is Nickolas Blackwood. I was descended from the man whose name was used synonymously with the devil. It didn’t make sense. Like an old computer being presented with modern software my mind rejected it.

  “That can’t be true,” my words came out so quietly that even I struggled to hear them. I shook my head slowly, still trying in vain to process this new information.

  Clara grabbed the whiskey and refilled my glass before sliding it across the table towards me. “Drink,” she commanded me. Automatically, I obeyed. I barely even noticed the burn when I gulped the spirit down.

  “Your grandmother new who he was,” Clara said. She stood up and went over to her desk where she found a small brown leather book which she placed carefully in front of me. “That’s her diary. She wrote in it every day for eighteen years. There are more but this is the one with the proof in it. She details how she met him and their entire affair right up until the day he vanished. It wasn’t a long affair, but it was enough to get her pregnant. She didn’t find out about her pregnancy until after he was gone so she never told him. Go ahead. Take a look.” She nodded at the book.

  I looked down at it. I could see the yellowed pages within the battered cover. I knew that she’d kept a diary. My mother had kept one too, tried to pass the habit on to me but diaries were for girls. That’s what my dad said and that’s the belief he passed to me. I reached out and pushed the book away. “I don’t need to,” I said. Nick had been about to tell me something right before Clara had turned up. This was what it was. I remembered when he’d saved me from Veronica. He had looked right into my eyes and said, “It is true.” It all made sense now.

  Something in my face betrayed my thoughts. “You believe me,” Clara said triumphantly.

  I stood up abruptly, almost dropping my glass on the table in my haste to put it down. “I need to leave.” I headed for the door without waiting for a reply.

  “Eddie, I need to know what you’re going to do,” Clara said hurriedly before I could go. “You know that joining him would be a terrible mistake.”

  I turned back to her and saw how scared she was. I wondered what she would do if I told her I was going to join him. Would she kill me right here? Maybe she’d arrest me and throw me in the cells with her other warlock prisoners. She certainly wouldn’t let me leave. “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I replied and then left her office.

  She didn’t come after me and she didn’t send anybody either. I reached the ground floor and reunited with Gabe and Alison. I said nothing to them as we left the building. They were intuitive enough to know not to ask. Some AOC guy gave us a lift back to Maidstone. I sat in the back with Gabe whilst Alison rode up front.

  “Richards has been trying to get hold of you about the mess we left in town,” Gabe said. I knew that he would. The destruction the chase had caused was pretty high on the scale. I wasn’t sure how I was going to smooth things over with him right now. He was already pissed off with me. “That’s just the beginning of the problems. It seems that our chase provided the inspiration for several bursts of bad behaviour around town.”

  I groaned and covered my eyes with my hand. Would this ever end? I didn’t even feel like myself anymore. Life used to be fun and somewhat easy, but now all it was was responsibility and drama, neither of which I needed. “What bad behaviour?” I asked.

  “Well, as you know, factions within our supernatural community have been developing lately. These factions have been… fighting,” Gabe said. “Like gang wars.”

  “Gang wars?” I repeated.

  “They’re fighting over turf,” Alison chipped in.

  “For fuck’s sake,” I cursed and kicked the seat in front of me.

  “Ouch!” the driver said as he jerked forwards.

  “Sorry,” I grumbled. “So, what, they’re dividing up the town among themselves now? My town?”

  “This isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” Gabe said cautiously, aware of my ever-increasing anger. “If they’re all in small factions with their own leaders then you only need to keep control of the leaders. It’s like a feudal system. You now have less people to control but you still have the whole town to rule.”

  “So essentially you’ve got a load of people now helping you rule,” said Alison. I got the distinct impression that this was a planned speech that my two subordinates were giving me.

  “Have you two been putting this idea together already?” I asked, my eyes locking onto Gabe’s.

  “Well,” he squirmed. “It was more Alison’s idea.”

  “And it’s a bloody good one!” she affirmed. “It will make running the town a damn lot easier and should keep Richards off your back.”

  I thought it through. “But if all these faction leaders unite they could easily overpower me,” I pointed out.

  “Well, that’s the beauty of it. They can’t seem to stop fighting,” Gabe said, and it then occurred to me that this could not possibly have all happened in the hours I’d been absent for.

  “So, the two of you have been dividing my town up behind my back?” I asked. Gabe squirmed again.

  “We were trying to make things easier for everyone,” he said awkwardly. “You were so withdrawn, I didn’t want to bother you with it all, not while it was sort of under control.”

  “So how is it that you’ve managed to keep all this faction business from me?”

  “We’ve handled all the faction related problems,” said Alison. She was not at all uneasy unlike Gabe who looked like he was seriously considering throwing himself from the car.

  “Gabe, be honest, have you been helping these faction leaders?” I asked him.

  “No. Definitely not,” he said at once, eager to clear his name. “I have been in support of it. Silently. Since they organised themselves it has made keeping them in order so much easier.”

  “You say that, but we never had gang wars before.”

  “And we won’t again. I’ve taken the steps to get things under control.”

  “How?”

  “I’ve called all the factions to a meeting where I’m going to get them to agree to some rules. A truce sort of thing,” he said, trying to gauge my reaction as he spoke.

  I nodded. “Good. But you won’t be holding this meeting. I will. I’m going to lay down the law once and for all.” I sat back and closed my eyes. “You’ve got a good initiative, Gabe. But next time keep me in the loop.”

  “Absolutely,” he agreed keenly, relieved to have gotten away with it.

  After a second of silence Alison said, “You’re welcome.” I chose not to respond.

  While Gabe and Alison sorted the preparations for the meeting I had Sabrina take me to Ashley’s grave. Sabrina did not have the quiet elegance of Gabe. Gabe knew exactly when to speak and when to stay quiet. He could read my moods well. She had none of these skills. It seemed the only talent she had was an annoying kna
ck for not shutting up.

  “So, I heard you was off with Nick Blackwood?” she asked. Her dark eyes flicking up to the rear-view mirror to look at me.

  “I think everyone’s heard that by now,” I sighed. I looked out my window to show my disinterest in talking to her. It didn’t work.

  “What’s he like?” she asked, her tone was reminiscent of a teenage girl digging for gossip.

  “He likes to talk. Not unlike someone else I know.” Once again, my comment fell on deaf ears.

  “So, what does he want with you? Like, obviously he wants you to join him, but is there anything else? There must be something more to his plan, right? Did he tell you what he’s planning?” The words fell out of her mouth faster than I could process them.

  “Are you planning on writing an article about it?” I snapped. Her eyes widened in alarm. “Keep your mouth shut and your eyes on the road.” I was meaner than I intended to be, but my patience was pretty low. It had been a long day. Hell, it had been a long few weeks.

  We got to the graveyard and I insisted that she stay a good thirty feet away from me. I was confident that her vampiric speed would bring her to me fast enough if need be. I was less confident in her ability to protect me, unless she planned to talk any attackers to death.

  Ashley’s grave was under a willow tree that provided a lovely bit of shade from the warm sun. There was no headstone for her yet, they couldn’t put it in for another few weeks though I couldn’t remember why. I just remember nodding and agreeing with the vicar. Who cares when the stone gets laid. As a substitute a large wooden cross had been stuck in the grass with her name and dates written on it. She hadn’t been a Christian but apparently everyone got a cross regardless. I’m not sure how the vicar would have reacted if I’d told him she was a witch. I don’t think the Bible has a strong opinion of witches.

  I’d never really seen the point in talking to graves, or even visiting them really. You often see people on telly go to graves and stand quietly as if it brings them closer to the one they’ve lost. I always thought it was bollocks because the person wasn’t hanging around the grave. The only thing there was the corpse. Even ghosts don’t hang around their own graves, they stay around the area they died. So, visiting a grave was largely pointless. People use graves like telephone lines to the other side. They think if they talk to the grave the loved one will hear them. Bullshit. But now I found myself wanting to be here. Standing at Ashley’s grave did make me feel closer to her. Of course, I knew she couldn’t hear anything I said, but that was true regardless of where I said it. Still I felt compelled to say something. After all, I didn’t have all the answers to the afterlife. It was possible that she could somehow hear me. I’ve never been on the other side, so I don’t know how it works.

  “I could really do with some advice right now,” I said in a whisper. I felt a little silly talking to a grave. Especially one that didn’t even have a headstone. “Or better yet if you could just tell me what to do like you always had a habit of doing, that would be great.” I laughed to myself. “Do I side with Clara or Nick? I didn’t want to get involved but I don’t think I’m going to have a choice. As always, I’m getting forced into something. I need your morals. Mine aren’t very reliable,” I said sulkily.

  I looked round and saw that Sabrina had crept closer to me. Was she that concerned about my safety or was she just trying to eavesdrop on my conversation with my dead girlfriend. I narrowed my eyes at her and set a spell to fill her ears with buzzing. I saw her shake her head, her black hair flying around her face. I grinned and turned back to Ashley. Or rather I turned back to her grave. Ashley wasn’t there.

  “I don’t think you’d like her. I don’t like her much either.” I said, nodding Sabrina’s way. I sighed and looked up at the leaves above me. The grave would be covered in dead leaves in winter. I wondered if anybody would be along to clean it or if that was my responsibility. Maybe I could send Sabrina to do it. Then I remembered I wasn’t going to be alive. Annabelle had given my death sentence and it was going to happen long before the sun hung up its hat for the season. My death was scheduled for a sunny day. A sunny day soon.

  “Clara seems like the obvious good guy in the scenario. But Nick’s family, apparently. Imagine that. Nickolas Blackwood, my grandfather. It’s tempting to run away. Just pack my bag and go. But no. I’ll never run again. Not from anyone. I need you here.” I could feel the tears filling my eyes. I turned completely away so that Sabrina couldn’t see me. “Nick could bring you back. Then you could help me figure out what to do. He said he can’t do it anymore, but maybe… maybe there is a way. We always found a way to win, didn’t we? We can do it again.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Gabe had booked a conference room at the Hilton Hotel. He said leadership needed to be luxurious at times. A good impression was needed. I wondered how he usually dealt with these people who he had let divide up my town. Did he usually meet them in such fancy venues? Even though I saw the usefulness of his plan I was still a little bitter that he’d done it without my knowledge. Although, I doubted there was much I could’ve done to stop it even if I had known about it. The important thing was that he’d kept on top of the situation.

  I was wearing another new suit which Gabe had provided for the occasion. This one was a charcoal grey with a dark blue shirt. I’d absconded on the tie. Gabe was wearing a suit too as were all the other vampires. Gabe had all of his vampires at the hotel to show a strong front. Seeing them all together reminded me that we’d lost Neil. His life had been wasted since Nick killed Charlotte anyway. We’d hold a memorial for him and lay him to rest properly. Gabe told me that Marty had recovered what he could of Neil’s remains. Marty was standing by the doors of the conference room looking at me with a thinly concealed disgust. He was unhappy that we’d left him at Charlotte’s flat. Maybe if we hadn’t left Marty behind, he would have died instead of Neil. I smiled a little at that. I immediately felt guilty. Marty meant something to Gabe, perhaps as much as Ashley had meant to me. I wouldn’t wish the pain I was living with on Gabe. There were few people I would wish it on.

  “The others are inside,” Marty said pointlessly. I already knew that everyone was inside otherwise I wouldn’t have arrived yet. Marty opened the doors for Gabe and me to walk inside. As Marty had said, Alison, Sabrina, Sharon and Charlene were all inside, each standing in one of the corners of the room, each dressed as smartly as I was. I understood the need to make a good impression, but I really didn’t like the falseness of it all. Everyone knew what I was like and I really didn’t think wearing a suit was going to change many opinions, but Gabe had insisted and for some reason I’d relented.

  There was a long beech conference table with pale blue leather chairs around it in a plain white room. Six unfamiliar faces looked up at me. Nobody stood to greet me. Rude.

  “Lo and behold!” a man said, waving his hand at me in an over the top fashion. “The king has deigned to meet with us himself!” A mixture of amused and bored faces looked over from the table.

  “Eddie, this is Ethan, leader of the Tovil vampires,” Gabe explained.

  “Tovil. That explains it,” I said, nodding my comprehension. Tovil was a grubby area and Ethan looked like the sort of person who would come from a grubby area. He had dark curly hair that he’d tried to straighten with way too much gel. He had a nose long enough to substitute for a snooker cue. He was dressed in dark jeans and a red shirt that was a size or two too big for him. He looked like he was in his thirties but that meant nothing to a vampire. He could be thirty, or he could three-thousand. To be in charge it’s likely he was fairly old.

  “Explains what?” he said testily, jutting his chin out.

  “The accent,” I replied with a tiny smile.

  “This,” Gabe moved to the slight fair-haired lady to his right. “Is Elana. She runs the river witches.”

  “Pleasure to meet you,” she said softly, with a polite nod.

  “Likewise. What do you mean river
witches?” Did they live on the river or did they control it?

  “They’ve all agreed that the town centre is a neutral area with the exception of the area around the river near Whatman Park,” Gabe said.

  “They’ve agreed have they?” My attitude was peeking out and I saw the worry on Gabe’s face. Of all the things that could blow this meeting up, my attitude was not supposed to be it.

  “With your blessing,” Gabe added, his tone pleading me to let it go.

  “And this is?” I pointed at the older lady next to Elana. She adjusted the locket around her neck and extended one wrinkled hand to me. I took it firmly in my own.

  “I’m Cheryl of the Penenden Heath witches,” she said, her voice old and cracked.

  Gabe moved to the other side of the table where the remaining three leaders sat. He gestured to a fairly normal looking chap. He was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt. If he could dress down I didn’t see why I had to wear a suit. “This is Paul of the Ringlestone werewolves.” I sniggered.

  “What?” Paul demanded hotly, his brow furrowing.

  “Paul the werewolf,” I said mirthfully. “It’s such an ordinary name. I wasn’t expecting it.”

  Gabe gave me a reprimanding look and Paul shook his head. Next up was a thin Japanese man with side parted greying hair. He was Goku of the Mote Park witches. He was an incredibly posh man in a dinner jacket and cravat. His light brown hair was brushed neatly in a high quiff. He’s stood up with his lips pursed together and extended his hand incredibly daintily. When he spoke, his voice was high and as you’d expect, pretty snooty.

  “I am Tarquin of the vampires of Fant,” he told me. Once again I was unable to hold back a laugh.

  “Tarquin the vampire?” I said through my chuckles.

  “You are the most uncouth ruler,” Tarquin said, stepping away from me in disgust. “Have you come to laugh at us or to arrange some sort of agreement between us all?” he said petulantly.