Chapter 23

Together at last.




My mind was going through a number of scenarios. There was no way Nathaniel could’ve been dealing with witches directly. What the hell was in the envelope? Why didn’t he want to be seen by anyone?
There was a simple solution. I could ask him what was going on. He wouldn't hide the truth from me. Would he?
I had no idea what to think. We had a pretty solid connection. Yes, he let me down in the past when it came to his own feelings, but he had been protecting me. He hired people to keep an eye on me, and now all of a sudden, he was one of the bad guys? I just didn’t want to believe it. My heart demanded I go and ask for an explanation, but we weren’t together. I had my own problems. My family was falling apart. Nathaniel was an arse sometimes, but he wasn't a traitor.
No, there was nothing I was sure about anymore.
When the witches disappeared, I dialled Kelsie’s number and told her I was waiting for her outside the factory. Ten minutes later she showed up at the main door. She looked tired, wearing only a blouse at the end of November, her high heels pounded loudly against the frozen ground.
“What’s up, party girl?" she asked, hopping inside my car. "I didn’t know you were back already."
"I came back unexpectedly yesterday. We didn’t find the witch. It turned out that Jasper hasn’t changed at all. He used this trip to deal with his own affairs."
Kelsie slapped herself in the face.
"Used you? What the hell do you mean?"
Then I had to tell her everything, starting with Julian, the blood, Carla and the whole tea business. Kelsie was certain that Carla wasn't just some human woman. She poisoned me, knowing who I was. I also told her what happened when Jasper and I went back to the hotel.
"The bastard!" she shouted with white-hot anger in her eyes. "What a—"
"Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if he staged everything, pretending he didn’t know what was going on. My energy went off the rails. I fucked him up and I don’t think he’ll be able to move for the next couple of weeks. I want nothing to do with him. The white witch is somewhere in London, but we’ll never find her. The new coven is more important. There isn’t any other option. These witches are the only ones who can undo the spell."
“You're right, but I have my own theory about this new coven," she said confidently.
I wanted to tell her about Nathaniel and his unexpected meeting with suspicious looking witches, but in the end, I decided to keep it to myself. If he was really working against me, then I wanted to be the first to know.
"What are you talking about?" I asked.
"Drive. We’ll talk about this in your apartment. I have an idea."
Normally it was Kate who had ideas, well, dangerous ones, but she wasn't with us and now Kelsie had taken over. I needed all the help I could get, and my friends always had my back. On the way to my apartment, Kel was trying hard to distract me from gloomy thoughts. She kept talking about her day, moaning about Lucinda and Michael. Apparently, her boyfriend was so busy with work that they hadn't had sex for over a week.
The traffic a few weeks before Christmas was terrible. It took us over two hours to finally get back to Croydon. When we arrived at my apartment, I spotted Ella pacing around outside by the entrance. My best friend looked good. It was chilly out there and I kept wondering why she didn’t call to say she’d been waiting for me.
"How long have you been standing out here?" I asked her.
"Ten minutes. My battery died, but I guessed that you were finishing work, so I took the tube," she replied and smiled when she saw Kelsie. "Hey, Kel."
"Hey, love. Come on, Julia, get the girl inside. She’s going to get the flu standing in this freezing cold weather," Kelsie said, hurrying Ella inside.
I was glad that Ella popped in to see me, but I didn’t want to drag her into any of my plans, especially after what happened with Daniel and Ludwig during the networking event from two years ago.

We all went upstairs, and I made them a cup of tea. Ella was in a good mood, asking me about Dad and Mum. We were discussing what might have happened to Alex and Tron. They were gone, vanished from the face of the earth and I was afraid that other fairies might have found out about Ella’s existence. We needed to be careful. At least Ella’s confidence was back, but everything seemed so unresolved.
"All right, I think we covered the usual chitchat. Let’s get down to business," Kelsie announced, placing her cup on the table.
"Business?" Ella asked, her green eyes studying me closely.
"Kelsie, I'm sorry, but I don’t want to get Ella involved with any of this. These witches are dangerous. Look what happened to Kate!"
"Excuse me, I can speak for myself and I want to get involved. I'm not a child." Ella scowled, folding her arms over her chest.
“I'm fully aware that you aren’t a child, darling, but you don’t have experience in magic. We don’t want to put your life at risk. Remember the other fairies, your “family” that might still be after you? You’re magical, but at the same time your spells could be unpredictable,” I explained, thinking about Alex and Tron. This was when we needed them both but neither of us had any idea where they were or how to reach them.
"What?" she asked, getting up and going red. "I want to help and don’t care how dangerous this is! You shouldn't exclude me just because I'm half human. Now I’m one of you, even if I can’t do all these crazy things like most of you guys.”
I sighed.

"Darling, I love you, and I can’t risk your life. Do you remember Daniel and that bastard McGregor?"
Ella’s face went pale. She chewed on her lip, staring at me, fear in her eyes. Of course, she remembered everything. She hadn't spoken to me for months after she found out that I was paranormal.
“That's the past and now I know what to expect. You guys are going after witches, not vampires, right?"
I couldn't believe she was willing to go with us even after all the crap she had been through. That hopeless feeling in my stomach was making me nauseous.
I looked at Kelsie, who was filing her nails.
“Let's hear the plan first," I said.
"There is something going on with the witches in the factory. Lucinda knows it and I'm sure this has something to do with the coven. I heard there’s a wizard on the production line who acts as a recruiter, possibly for the coven. Normally after their shifts, he talks about the meetings, pretending that he’s interested in dating some of them."
I stared at Kelsie in disbelief, digesting what she said. If she was right, then I finally understood what was happening with the staff, why all the witches were disappearing.
"How long have you known about this?" I asked.
“I've only just found out tonight. I used the toilet downstairs and some vampires were talking about it."
Ella looked baffled, shifting on the sofa next to me. "So, what’s that mean? What are you guys planning to do?" she asked.
"Nothing that you can get involved with. As I said before, even if we go after the witches, it’s way too dangerous."
"Julia, stop telling me what to do."
"Ella, I'm, not—"
"Oh, for Christ’s sake, Julia.” Kel cut me off, raising her voice. “Ella could be useful. We should just get to the factory and see if we can learn the identity of that wizard."
I rubbed my hands together and stared at both of them like they were crazy.
"Something always goes wrong when we do things like that. Remember when we followed Jasper? Some giants, or whatever the hell they were, nearly slashed your throat in that old building," I insisted, flexing my fingers. Energy flew through me. I could feel it in the room, dancing all around us.
Kelsie rolled her eyes like it wasn't a big deal, like every day she was threatened with a knife. I shivered, recalling every single second of that evening. Even then, Jasper attacked me.
"And when do you want to do this?" I asked, hoping that tomorrow she would forget, so I wouldn't have to put her in unnecessary danger.
"Tonight, at twelve. That’s when the main shift is going to end. Besides, things are always freaky after the witching hour."
"All right then. Whose car we are going in?" Ella asked promptly.
"Hold on a minute; we have to discuss this first," I cut her off, annoyed that Kelsie thought bringing Ella was a good idea. Okay, maybe my friend had some magical genes, but she had never exhibited any magical powers. "I really don’t think you should come with us. Think about Kate and my dad. They’re dying. I’ll never forgive myself if anything happened to you."
Ella patted me on the back. “It's my choice. I want to help."

So, it turned out I had nothing to say. Ella insisted on being part of this plan and that was it.
Kelsie mentioned that many paranormals were finishing work at midnight. In the past few weeks the production line had been working for twenty-four hours, but the vampires were covering the night shift. Lucinda was giving them priority. They had their own associations and unions, and they were always complaining that there wasn't enough work for them.
Ella was asking a lot of questions about the coven and the witches; that was worrying me. Nathaniel still hadn’t called. What if someone cast a spell on him and he wasn't even aware of what was happening to him? It was possible. Once Jasper made him forget about me, like I was never part of his life.
"Hey, Julia, wake up. Are you even listening to me?"
Kelsie’s voice brought me back to the room. I shook my head.
"Yes, sorry. I'm here, what’s up?"
She narrowed her eyes.
"I was just telling Ella that we have to be careful. We can’t be seen. They’re necromancy witches, and they use humans and paranormals for their deadly rituals."
I already knew that and that’s why I was worried. What if Ella ended up like Dad or Kate? How would I ever explain something like that to her mother?
We discussed our new plan over a late dinner. I made some quick pasta. I hadn’t eaten anything since early afternoon. The girls were talking, probably trying to distract themselves from everything that was going on and what we had to do tonight. Ella talked about her work in the salon, Kelsie about Michael and her sex life. Thoughts about Jasper floated in my head. It worried me a little that I hadn’t heard from him yet. He should’ve already recovered from his injuries; that was, if I hadn’t killed him. Deep down I was praying that tonight’s plan would bring some sort of results.
"Julia, I think I should drive," Kelsie said, grabbing my keys. My fingers sparkled, and I felt a tingling sensation in my chest. It was strange, for days my power obeyed me and tonight I felt like it wanted to have a mind of its own again.
We left my apartment at half past eleven. I was knackered but awake. Dad had no more than thirteen days to get his soul back, Kate, hmm… maybe a bit less. Tonight, we needed the name of that bitch.
Ella was quiet, and Kelsie looked focused. There was a slim chance that Nathaniel would be inside, but I didn’t want to think about him. He created enough anguish and pain in my life as it was.
Later in the night the traffic eased off. It only took us forty minutes to get to Brunel Industrial Estate. Kelsie drove smoothly through the security gate and we parked in the staff car park.
"And now, we wait," she muttered, giving us an encouraging smile. Twenty minutes later a lot of paranormals started leaving the building. Most of them alone, some in groups. We could all recognise witches from elves or giants from trolls.
I was only paying attention to witches. Kelsie’s plan had a lot of holes. We had no idea who we should follow. After the witching hour the car park was filled with paranormals who were eager to get home.
Kelsie was the only one that sort of knew who to look out for. For about ten minutes she was watching the car park. I spotted a few witches. Most of them had gotten lifts from their husbands, boyfriend or friends.
I didn’t see a group of witches with a man. It looked like tonight was going to be waste of time.
"Right, I think we should come back tomorrow," I said with resignation.
"No, there he is. The prick in the black Porsche." Kelsie pointed out.