Anya Bast - Witch Fury

Thomas Monahan paced away from the elemental witches gathered around his desk, his face pensive.

“We don’t know yet what’s going on,” said Claire in her quiet and strong voice. “However, the Duskoff have proven time and again they aren’t to be trusted, isn’t that right? Therefore, the Coven would be well within our rights to raid them. Anyway, it’s not like they’d call the non-magickal police force in to combat us.” Thomas Monahan never did anything the rash way — well, not normally, anyway — but all the signs lately were pointing to something afoot, something dark and bloody. With the Duskoff that was usually the case. And there was ample evidence to suspect the Duskoff, a cabal of warlocks, were behind it. Warlocks were witches gone bad, who’d betrayed the Coven’s rede of harm ye none and used their supernatural abilities for their own gain — for money and power.

Lately, there had been a rash of witches outside the Coven who’d gone missing — weaker, younger ones and more powerful ones who’d been alienated from their birthright somehow and were easy pickings.

They’d managed to take an air witch, too. Emily Parker, a witch of low ability, had been snatched from her home near Boston about three months ago and hadn’t been heard from since. All Emily could do was send and receive faint messages via the air. She had no real power to call, couldn’t pick objects up or send her consciousness out to travel from her body.

Hell, she was so low level the Duskoff probably wouldn’t even want to sacrifice her in a demon circle. That’s how the warlocks brought Atrika through from Eudae. The strength of the sacrificed witches mattered, and poor Emily had only a breath of power. No one could guess why they’d snatched her.

The Duskoff didn’t only count on greed alone to fill their ranks. Kidnapping was how the Duskoff recruited some of their members; they got them young and seduced them to their side. If seduction didn’t work, they broke them, twisted them, molded them. They were like the military at times, breaking down a witch completely and stripping away all that was, building them back up in the image of a warlock.

Theo knew the process all too well.

Judging from the recent frenzy of kidnappings and inductions, it seemed as if the Duskoff were preparing for something and were becoming desperate, like they were building an army and were running out of time. These days the warlocks were taking risky chances, kidnapping witches who were older and would be hard to break and remold.

The Coven had a lead on a house about an hour’s drive from Chicago where the Duskoff were holding some of the unfortunate witches. Raiding it might yield some answers.

Theo turned and stared at Thomas’s back. The head witch stood at the end of the room, staring out the huge picture window that looked out over part of the Coven grounds. “Thomas, it’s time. Claire has taught us how to more effectively wield our magick. This will provide us with a great chance to show the dirty warlocks everything we’ve learned.” Claire was a different breed of witch. Raised on Eudae. By a trick of fate, she’d spent most of her life as handmaiden to a Ytrayi demon who’d twisted her magick little by little. She’d been born to the power of earth, but now she was the only witch anyone knew of who could draw on all four elements whenever she chose.

A year and a half ago, he, Claire, and Adam Tyrell had battled two Atrika demons — not to be confused with the other three demon breeds who were like fluffy bunnies in comparison — for her freedom. They’d won the battle and Adam had won the girl. These days Claire and Adam were deeply in love, and Claire served as the Coven’s professor of elemental magick.

Thomas said nothing for a moment, then turned toward them. “We raid the farmhouse tomorrow morning. We’ll take them by surprise and retrieve anyone they’ve got captive.” Theo’s fists curled involuntarily. Getting out anyone who’d been taken; yeah , he wanted that job.

Thomas nodded at him, as if he knew exactly what was on his mind. “Theo, you’ll be charge of taking back the kidnapped. Mira will head up a team to try and glean any additional information.” That meant securing warlocks and making them talk. Also a good job.

“What will you be doing?” Jack asked.

“Once we break the wards, Micah and I will have an errand of our own.” Thomas looked at them each in turn and it was clear he had no plans to elaborate. “That’s it. You got what you wanted. Claire, I need to talk to you. Everyone else can leave.” Dismissed. Claire had to stay after school. Adam gave her a wink and filed out of the room with the rest of them.

Theo headed to his apartment. He’d lived at the Coven since he’d been eighteen, when he’d gone to work here, and had one of the bigger quarters in the house. It was part of his compensation package. Really, he probably didn’t get paid enough, considering he’d risked his life in the line of duty on more than one occasion, but Theo couldn’t imagine living any other way.

He entered his living room, which was strewn with the detritus of bachelorhood — jeans slung over the back of his couch, shoes lying by the coffee table. Dishes stacked on the counter in the spacious kitchen, tumbled together with cooking equipment.

The kitchen was why he’d wanted this particular apartment. Earth witches had to cook up their spells and charms. They were a breed apart from the other elements that way, having no power seat in the center of them like air, fire, and water witches. Earth witches deliberately placed and stored power on their bodies. Some of them, like Theo, did it via magickally infused tattoos. He also stored it in his hair, which fell below his shoulders.

Theo inked other earth witches in the Coven, too. His equipment lay on a card table in a corner of the living room. He glanced at the clutter and rubbed his chin. Yeah, he really needed to hire someone to come in and clean.

He pulled his shirt off, let it land beside his discarded jeans, and headed to his workout room. The impending raid had his blood pressure and anticipation up. It coursed through his body, making him tingle with energy. He needed to burn some of it off.

The punching bag hung in the center of the large room, weights and workout equipment scattered around the edges. Not having much of a social life, work was Theo’s primary focus. To do what he did — hunt down warlocks and bring them into Gribben, the prison on the Coven grounds — he needed to be in excellent shape. His workout room was where Theo spent most of his time, maybe rivaled by the kitchen.

Theo was all about giving the Duskoff payback. He lived for it.

After taping up his hands, he went straight for the bag and started in, hitting it with satisfying thuds that reverberated up his arms and through his shoulders. Punch, punch, roundhouse kick. Soon his whole world became the impact of his body against the bag, drowning out the clamor in his mind and bleaching the memories that haunted him to a shadow of their former selves. Working out was his meditation, bringing him to a place outside his head, clearing his mind and giving him peace just for a little while.

When he’d been seventeen, he’d been kidnapped by the Duskoff. He was a run-of-the-mill earth witch, a dime a dozen, but he was strong — stronger than average. The Duskoff had viewed him as vulnerable because of his youth and because his family situation had been bad. His status as an at-risk earth witch had earned him a one-way ticket into the bowels of Duskoff International. When seduction hadn’t worked, they’d gone for physical torture.

Perhaps if Theo had been weaker of mind, emotion, or spirit, it might have worked. He’d been young enough to be broken down and remolded into an image of their choosing. After all, he’d been looking for a home, a family, somewhere to belong. But Theo had known he didn’t belong to the Duskoff, known it down to his very fiber.