Witch Way Out (Witch Detectives #3) (2 page)

I went through into the café, which had that bright, modern feel that museum cafés everywhere seem to have. There were plenty of people there, because apparently, walking around a gallery was hungry business, but I still spotted the table with the coven councilors easily enough. Part of it was the feel of their shields, an absence where there was emotion coming clearly from the rest of the room. Part of it was that they simply couldn’t have been anyone else, something about their postures and their confidence making it clear that they were people used to being obeyed. More of it was the simple fact that I recognized two of the three women there.

“Councilor Forester, Councilor McCallum, it’s good to see you again.” I sat down at their table without waiting to be asked. That was hard to do, but I knew I needed to project confidence, whatever I felt inside.

Lucille Forester was in her sixties, with steel-gray hair, severe features and a temperament to match. She sat precisely upright in her chair, a paragon of self-control in a plain cardigan; although I noted that one of the café’s muffins, topped with spinach and salmon, lay half-finished in front of her. To outsiders, she probably looked like a slightly stern grandmother. No more than that. At least until they met her eyes and saw the power glinting there. Lucille was one of the most skillful witches in the country, overseeing a lot of the magical education within the coven.

“Ms. Chambers.”

Elizabeth McCallum was younger, at around forty-five, probably only ten years older than me. She was simply, elegantly dressed, her dark hair cut relatively short, her features conveying a sense of perpetual calm atop a slender, Pilates-honed frame. Again, it only needed a look into her eyes to remind myself that she was powerful. That no one made it to the coven’s ruling council without being a dangerously impressive witch.

 She smiled where Lucille didn’t. “Hello, Elle.”

“Can we get on with this?” The last of their number was younger than either of them. Probably not even my age. She had short, spiky red hair that reminded me a little of my own, tough, almost aggressive features, and the kind of muscle definition that said she spent a lot of time working out. She was more casually dressed than the others, too, in a T-shirt and dark jeans. Where with the others it took me a moment to remember how powerful they were, everything about this one screamed it. She was almost certainly a battle witch.

That was enough to make me wonder whether Niall might have been right. On instinct, I reached for the emotion in the room, knowing that I would need to be ready if they tried anything. Of course, that just meant that the young witch opposite me started to gather her own power, half-standing until Elizabeth put a hand on her shoulder.

“Sit down, please, Flora. Perhaps if we could all calm down a little?”

I nodded. Drawing power had been a mistake on my part. I held out a hand to the battle witch. “Hi, I’m Elle.”

“Flora Duggan.” The words came out clipped, and her handshake was firm, albeit brief. Flora? Someone who looked like
that
was called Flora?

“Flora is in charge of battle witches for this region,” Elizabeth explained.

“All of which is very good,” Lucille said from beside her, “but perhaps this is the moment to get down to business?”

That was good. I still wasn’t sure what all this was about.

“Of course,” Elizabeth said. “It’s simple, Elle. The coven wants peace with you.”

I looked at her. “I didn’t know we were at war.”

Councilor Forester took a bite out of her muffin. “Really? So, you aren’t the one who has been instructing her werewolf lawyer to make trouble?”

Well, that was true. Ferguson Black—Fergie—had worked for me as a legal advisor almost since I found out what I really was. Finding ways to irritate the coven seemed to have become almost a hobby for him, whether it was pointing Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs at them, or suggesting to friendly police officers that they might want to take a look at their more dubious activities.

“And there’s the part where you’re threatening to wipe us out,” Flora snapped.

“Because you were trying to kill me at the time,” I pointed out.

Elizabeth held up a hand to stop things before they got out of hand. I remembered that about her. She’d always been the one around my mother who had tried to be reasonable about things. Lucille had been stern, and some of the other coven council members had blustered, but she’d always been the one to stop things from going too far.

“This is the reason we need to sort this out before it goes too far. We’ve been threatening one another, making trouble for one another for too long. We need to make peace, before things get out of hand…before your werewolf points the police at something they shouldn’t see, or someone gets hurt.”

“Peace,” Lucille agreed. “No more of this nonsense.”

“All right,” Flora said, not sounding happy about it. “Peace.”

I stared at them. I hadn’t thought it would be something like this. “I thought we already had an agreement.”

Lucille shook her head. “What we had, young lady, was a threat from your side. A standoff. We don’t appreciate threats.”

“Lucille is right, Elle,” Elizabeth said. “What we have now, it’s too informal. There are too many things that can go wrong. We thought they
had
gone wrong, back when our people started disappearing. If they hadn’t explained what had happened—”

Flora cut in. “I still don’t believe that it was all the work of one crazed vampire. It’s too convenient. How do we know that they weren’t all in it together?”

“We need a real agreement,” Elizabeth went on. “Negotiated and signed, with all the details worked out. What protections each side has, what area you’re claiming as your territory, what responsibilities you would have when it came to coven people in that area…”

I frowned. “I’m sorry?”

“You are claiming Edinburgh as your territory, aren’t you?” Elizabeth asked. “Or were the stories exaggerated about you telling the coven to keep away?”

I shook my head hurriedly. “I don’t want anything like that. I just want to be left alone by the coven. Me and the people around me.”

“And who are the people around you?” Lucille asked. “The other vampire…your warlock? The people who work with you? All the goblins beneath the city?”

“It’s all too informal, Elle,” Elizabeth said. “There are too many things we don’t know. What involvement can the coven have, and with whom? What will you do to ensure that your people don’t endanger us all? What and who falls under your influence?”

This wasn’t at all what I was expecting from this meeting. I wasn’t quite sure what I had expected. A few vague noises about peace and cooperation, perhaps. Maybe a couple of my mother’s old friends reminding me that we all used to get along just fine. Maybe even an assassination attempt. Not them treating me like I was some kind of leader. Not them wanting to produce some kind of treaty with me.

“Obviously, we have a lot of things to discuss,” Elizabeth said. “So, how about this: we’ll send over some details for you and your people to look at, and you can get back to us?”

Lucille took another bite of her food. “I’m sure your werewolf will want to look things over.”

“In the meantime, we’ll all just try to get along,” Elizabeth said.

Flora rolled her eyes. “Like one big, happy family.”

Elizabeth ignored her. “And because we’re interested in getting along, I’d like the three of us to be able to stay in the city for the next couple of weeks. We want to get a feel for how things stand.”

“How badly messed-up things are, you mean,” Flora said. “Between Victoria, the thing with the goblins, and the rest of it—”

“We’ll have a lot to look at,” Lucille finished for her. “A lot to assess. But that doesn’t need to be Ms. Chambers’ concern, Flora.”

They were asking my permission to stay in the city, as though I was another power on a par with the coven. That was too strange to think about. All I could do was nod mutely.

“Well, then,” Elizabeth said, standing. “It has been good seeing you again, Elle.”

I nodded, taking my cue from her. “You, too.” I could have left it there, but I knew I couldn’t. Not if I wanted to live with myself afterward. “Um…there’s one more thing. It’s not really related, but…”

“Just come out and say it, girl,” Lucille said.

“It’s about my mother’s death.”

Elizabeth sighed. “The accident was a tragedy.”

“It’s just…” I forced myself to go on. “When the thing with Victoria happened, I found evidence that pointed to her there. Victoria said things that made it sound like my mother’s death wasn’t the way I was told. I know you knew her, Elizabeth, Lucille. And you’re councilors. I was wondering if you might have heard anything?”

Flora frowned. “What do you think we are? Your informants?”

Lucille nodded and stood. “It was an accident, girl. Now, it looks like this meeting is over.”

“A tragedy,” Elizabeth agreed. “I’m sorry we can’t help, Elle.”

What else had I really expected? I sighed and I watched them leave, trying to take in everything that had just happened. Had the coven really sent three of its most important members to try to make a deal with me? Had they really assumed that I was claiming the whole city for my own? Had I really just agreed to having them in the city for the next couple of weeks?

Niall was going to love that one.

I went out to give Niall the good news about the coven. Rebecca wasn’t by the door to the café, so she’d obviously gone with them to show them the way out or see them back to their hotel, or whatever it was local representatives did while some of the most important witches in the country decided to visit.

How did I feel about them showing up like this? I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t had enough time to process it all yet. The idea that the coven wanted peace was a good one, but all the formalities of it…where had they gotten the idea that I wanted to treat Edinburgh as my own little fiefdom? That I was effectively threatening to kill any of them who stepped in the wrong place?

That thought was enough to give me pause. I wanted to talk with Niall about this, but not before I had some sense of what I felt about it. To distract myself, I got out my phone and called my lawyer. Which was to say that I called Fergie, my werewolf legal assistant. It took him more than a few seconds to pick up. About thirty, actually.

“Hi, Fergie. What’s going on at the office?”

“Who says there was something going on?” It wasn’t like Fergie to hit such an instantly defensive note. Which, of course, made me instantly about twice as suspicious.

“I do.”

Fergie sighed. “You do mindreading through the phone now, too, or did Siobhan call you?”

“Neither of the above.” It was amazing how hard it was, even for those people who knew me well to really get that I didn’t “read minds.” I couldn’t trawl through a brain to find out what they’d been thinking on their tenth birthday. I just felt other people’s emotions. It was, admittedly, the next-best thing a lot of the time, but it wasn’t infallible, and I couldn’t just pluck information from someone’s head, although if you gave me five minutes with them, I could probably persuade them to simply tell me. “It’s just not like you to take your time answering the phone. Now, you mentioned Siobhan, so, what is it?”

“How did things go at—”

“Fergie.”

Fergie paused. “It’s nothing. It’s just that Marie came round to the office to see me, and…well, one thing led to another, and Siobhan needed a couple of reams of paper, and…”

I shook my head. “Is there
anybody
in my life who hasn’t used the office stationery cupboard for sex?”

“Sorry.”

Somehow I doubted that, when Marie was involved. The werewolf had fallen for Niall’s personal assistant in a big way. Of course, his feelings about Siobhan were pretty clear as well.

“So, you and Siobhan argued,” I guessed. Another pause told me all I needed. “Can’t you two at least
try
to get along?”

“She’s just…
insufferable
. And she accused me of being a hypocrite.”

“Because you didn’t like her and Dougie breaking in to have sex, and then you and Marie—”

“But we didn’t break in,” Fergie pointed out, “and Siobhan is a thief.”

I sighed. “An ex-thief. Are you going to apologize to her before I get back, or do I have to sit there with the pair of you staring at one another across the office again?”

“I’ll apologize,” Fergie said, though he didn’t sound happy about it.

“Good, and once you’ve done that, I want you to start looking up agreements the coven has made with other supernatural groups. It seems like they’re proposing some kind of treaty.”

Fergie made a small sound of surprise. “But that’s…”