Words of Power (Alice Gray Book 3)

42

Everything seems dull and grey and pointless. My great victory over the coven, their feet dancing at the end of the hangman's noose, now empty and stale. My ruse against that vampire bitch such a dry, insignificant thing now that I've seen his majesty.

I hear his words echo in my mind. Raise the boy to continue the line. But I feel myself fade with every passing hour even as I strive to do as he bid me.

I can hardly make myself rise in the mornings. All I can think of in my waking hours is the day when I basked in his light; all I can dream about at night is the day when I might feel that wonder again.

The child sucks the life out of me with the milk that my body makes for it, and I know now. This is all I am, all I was ever meant to be. A vessel for his blood.

I woke still lying on the bed in the Travelodge. It took me a few moments to acclimatise after the dizzying power of Brad's magic, and then the dark, hollow feeling left behind by Jennet Device's despair.

That girl was nothing more than a brittle shell by the time her father, Azazel, had done with her. I couldn't understand her feelings for him, it seemed akin to romantic love. But that couldn't be right, could it?

He was her father.

I shuddered at the implication of that. For some reason, an unnatural relationship between a girl able to condemn her entire family to death, and a fallen angel seemed worse even than it would have been in humans.

I guess one thing that we could all be thankful for was that Jennet's son was Roger Nowell's, witch-hunter extraordinaire, and not the product of an unnatural union with her own father.

Her devotion was so strong for a man that she had spent such a small amount of time with that she had nothing left for her own child. She nurtured her son because Azazel told her to, not because she felt any maternal instinct. From the memory that I'd just lived through, it was fair to say that after meeting Azazel, Jennet had nothing much left in her at all, nothing except a deep all-consuming longing to be with him again.

And this was a woman who had foiled one of the most powerful vampires alive as a young teenager, and got the drop on her entire coven when she was only nine years old. If Jennet Device could be mesmerised by Azazel's glory, then the rest of us had no chance.

But what was even more worrying than that, Azazel had shown himself as a heartless bastard who only valued humans and witches for what they could do for him. He'd thrown Jennet away as soon as he realised that she didn't have what he needed. Jennet's son had fared no better, valued only for his use in continuing Azazel's line.

Continuing his line until it got to me.

That knowledge froze me inside and out, keeping me straight and motionless in the bed until the lump next to me started to stir.

The light was streaming through the slit in the curtain now. It was January, that meant it must be after nine in the morning.

Nine in the morning on the day of the trial.

My trial.

Crap.

I jumped out of bed, pulling the cover off both Evan and Sam, who were wrapped around each other looking very cosy indeed.

I'd take a second to think about that, if I had a second to spare.

"Where the hell is Ralph?" I screeched, not even bothering to let the boys wake up properly.

"What?" Evan mumbled sleepily.

"RALPH," I yelled.

It somehow felt like the louder my voice was, the quicker they'd understand that my time was flushing away like dirty water down a drain.

Evan sat up and rubbed his eyes. "He left after you two had meditated together. He said that you would sleep all night, and I thought that would do you good, what, with the, well, the trial today."

"But he never told me what to do. I don't know the plan!" I said, panic bubbling up from somewhere deep inside and flooding every cell in my body.

"Alice chill," Evan said, trying to take my hand to calm me.

"CHILL," I screeched. "Today might be the day of my fucking execution. Don't you dare tell me to chill."

Evan and Sam looked at me with wide eyes as the adrenaline from my panic started travelling through my system, waking up my magic, alerting it to the very present danger that waited for me only a few short hours in the future.

The pounding in my ears meant that I didn't hear the hotel room door open, but as soon as Lucas placed his hand on my shoulder, my silver life-force found the pack bond magic and my heart-rate began to slow.

"Alice, it's ok," said Evan, "I was trying to tell you. We cracked the charm. Last night, Anne and I, we know what Jennet did to enchant the courtroom during the Pendle Witch Trials."

Thank goodness for the charm! But will it work....