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ON MONDAY IT WAS TIME for the meeting. It was at the Rosslers’ house, as usual. The meeting would start at six o’clock, so Ciara made sure she was early.
Ciara made it to the Rosslers’ place at half past five. Mrs Rossler nearly crushed her in a hug, so excited to see her. “It is so wonderful to have you back from America.”
Ciara smiled. “It is wonderful to be back, Mrs Rossler.”
“Oh, it’s Mary to you, dear.” Mrs Rossler—Mary—smiled at Ciara.
Ciara smiled back and nodded. “Alright, Mary.”
Ciara caught a glimpse of the younger Rosslers before their parents forced them to go upstairs. They were too young to be involved with the group—too young to deal with the horrors of the world.
Doherty arrived early, too, only a little later than Ciara. “You ready?” was the first thing he asked, not bothering with greetings.
“Of course.” Ciara nodded. “It’s just a meeting.”
“Oh, it’ll be an exhausting one.” Doherty sighed and headed to the living room.
Little by little, the house filled with witches and wizards. Mr Rossler introduced them to Ciara, but she forgot most names. There were too many to learn so fast.
It was only five minutes to six. Everyone was already sitting in the living room. The ones missing were Henry and Liam—and some who had said they wouldn’t make it, like Iris. But Henry and Liam were supposed to be there.
Liam arrived two minutes later. He spotted Ciara, who was still standing outside the living room, and walked over to greet her. “So, your first meeting.”
Ciara looked up and smiled. “It is.”
“How early were you here?”
Ciara couldn’t help but chuckle. “I came thirty minutes ago.”
Liam smiled, shoving his hands in his pockets and taking a quick look around. “Of course.”
“Better early than late.” Ciara liked to live by that. She had to, with her job.
Liam couldn’t see his brother anywhere. “Try teaching that to Henry.”
“Once he starts talking to me again, I will.”
Liam turned to look at Ciara again, his brows furrowing. “You’re not staying with him?”
Ciara didn’t have a flat in England. At least he doubted she did.
“I haven’t talked to him in weeks. So, no.”
“Where are you staying, then?” Liam asked.
“A hotel. It’s—”
“Henry will come late!” Doherty said and stood up. “We need to begin now.”
It was six o’clock.
Liam and Ciara stood in the doorway, not bothering to squish between other witches and wizards sitting on sofas, benches, and chairs.
Doherty turned to look at Ciara. “Would you mind telling us what you know, Ciara?” he asked and sat back down.
Ciara looked around the room. Everyone was staring, dying to hear what she had to say. “Well, uh, as some of you might know, I’ve been working to defeat the witch hunters for quite some time. We’ve been able to either catch or kill nearly all the witch hunters in America,” she said. “But, unfortunately, some of them escaped to Europe. Great Britain seems to be their target now. We thought we had identified their leader, but we were wrong. It turns out their organisation has more levels. We don’t know who the actual leader is, but there are people working to find that out. We also haven’t figured out how many mid-level leaders there are. It’s likely their organisation is more complex than we first assumed.”
“So, you’re telling us you know nothing?” A snort followed the words. Ciara remembered the man—Harry Edmonds.
“No,” Ciara said, unbothered by the way the man presented his question. She was used to dealing with people like him. “It looks like at least thirty witch hunters have come from America to Great Britain. More witch hunters are scattered elsewhere in Europe. For example, we could locate two in France, and the local officials already caught them.”
Liam had never seen Ciara talk like that. There was so much determination and strength in her tone. She spoke like a leader. An inspiring leader.
“As far as we know, there are six more witch hunters somewhere in Europe. Or more. So far, they’ve evaded the authorities,” Ciara continued. “In America, we caught two witch hunters. Both originally from America, but they had moved to Great Britain earlier this year. We were able to get some of this information by interrogating them. Even so, they were rather tight-lipped, and we weren’t able to get as much out of them as we would have liked.”
“What happened to them?” The woman who spoke was Diana Adams or Diana Adamson, Ciara couldn’t remember which.
“They were dealt with in America.”
“Dealt with?” The woman raised an eyebrow. “You mean killed?”
“Once we were sure we wouldn’t get more information from them, we delivered them to professionals who handle people like them,” Ciara told. “As far as I know, their memories are erased and they don’t know who they are. They are in a prison of sorts.”
“How can you be sure they have no more information?” This time another woman spoke.
“Well, first of all, experience. They would have had more information, but they would have never given it to us. We use a potion to make sure that’s the case. There’s no point trying to gain more information after the confirmation.”
“Is it fail-safe?” Harry Edmonds asked.
Ciara nodded. “It is.”
Mr Edmonds nodded, but he didn’t seem convinced.
“Anyway, it looks as though thirty witch hunters have come here. It’s likely they’ve gained more followers during their time here, too,” Ciara said. “According to our calculations, there could be over seventy witch hunters in Great Britain right now.”
“Whose calculations?” Mr Rossler—Ray—asked.
“A colleague of mine from America. He’s the best at what he does.”
“You trust him?”
“Absolutely.”
Ray nodded. “That’s good enough for me.”
Ciara smiled in appreciation. Ray openly showing his trust for Ciara would help Ciara gain more trust inside the group. So far, the members had been rather sceptical and doubtful.
“We also know the possible whereabouts of some of the witch hunters.”
Gasps and whispers filled the room upon this revelation. Liam wondered if Ciara had practised her speech. It was smart to leave the juiciest parts towards the end.
“We should send out people to make sure this information is correct,” Doherty said. “People who won’t be seen. We can plan an attack after we have confirmed the locations.”
“I already agreed to check one of the locations unless someone objects,” Ciara said.
The room went silent. Everyone waited to see if anyone would object, but no one did.
Doherty stood up, gaining everyone’s attention. “We need seven more volunteers.”
“I volunteer,” Liam said, stepping forward. He earned a displeased look from his mother, but he ignored it.
He wanted to help, and for once Iris wasn’t there to stop him. She was working.
Once Liam had volunteered, more people followed suit. In the end, there were eight volunteers, including Ciara and Liam.
Each voluntary member was assigned a location. The task was to see if there were any witch hunters in the location. They had until the morning.
After the meeting was over, Doherty stayed behind to talk with the volunteers. “I need each of you to be finished by morning. And I want to hear from you when you’re done, so I’ll know if anyone runs into trouble.”
All the volunteers agreed. Six of them left the house to do their part.
Henry was still a no-show.
“Are you going to leave right away?” Liam asked Ciara.
She nodded. “I want to be finished on time.”
“Be careful.”
Ciara looked him in the eyes. “You, too.”
“Of course.”
Ciara said her goodbyes to everyone and left. Mary, who scolded Liam for volunteering, held him back a little longer. But after the one-sided discussion, he left to finish the task.
***
THE LOCATION ASSIGNED to Ciara was an old house. An elderly woman was supposed to live there, but Ciara feared that someone had killed her.
Ciara used a hiding spell and blended herself into the tree. She was sitting on a branch, spying on the house. She could see shadows moving inside, but the curtains were closed. There was no way to make out what was happening.
Ciara was glad she didn’t have to go inside—at least not yet. She dreaded the thought of what had happened in that house.
She had witnessed plenty of horrors thanks to the witch hunters. They killed innocents whenever they benefitted from it. A life could be worth less than a house for them. No one was safe from them. They didn’t always target specific people. Sometimes their victims were random, selected for something they had—like a house.
Ciara doubted she could finish before the morning. She wasn’t excited about spending a night on a tree branch, but she couldn’t go around wandering if there were witch hunters. Not alone.
That was the tough part of the task, even though it seemed rather simple. If the witch hunters saw Ciara, it would likely be the end of her. Even if she managed to escape, the rest of the witch hunters would have found out their whereabouts had been uncovered. There was no way Ciara would let that happen.
So she sat in the tree and even surprised herself with her own patience. For two hours she just sat there. During those two hours, nothing happened.
Her patience was thinning. In fact, she was planning to switch her hiding spot to another, even though it was risky.
But, as if on cue, the front door opened. A man walked out, carrying a rubbish bag.
Ciara could see his tattoos from where she was hiding. He was a witch hunter. He even had a tattoo of their symbol on his shoulder. An outline of a flame with a wand in the middle.
Was he alone? Ciara had seen shadows move inside, but she couldn’t be sure if it had been just one or two people. If the man was alone, Ciara could attack on her own.
That man deserved to die for what he and the rest of the witch hunters had done. They had killed Theo.
Ciara’s eyes flickered between the windows and the man. A flood of adrenaline rushed through her, and her heart raced.
There was no movement inside.
Is he alone? Could I beat him?
Ciara hesitated too long. After taking the rubbish out, the man walked back inside.
Ciara had already done enough. She had confirmed there were witch hunters in the house. Still, she stayed in the tree.
She wanted to find out what had happened to the owner of the house—the woman who had lived there.
Eventually, her decision to stay and watch a little longer turned out to be a good one.
She found out there were two witch hunters. Both were around thirty years old and male.
Ciara didn’t find out anything about the owner, though. She couldn’t risk being seen, so she couldn’t go around snooping.
Perhaps she was better off not knowing about the poor woman’s fate, anyway.
But she didn’t have anywhere to be the following day, so she stayed observing the house until it was five in the morning. She gained little more information, but at least she had done everything she could.
She used magic to teleport near her hotel, exhaustion hitting her, and made her way inside. The first thing she did was get to the lift, even though she would have preferred stairs because of a past accident. She stepped inside, pressed her floor’s button and waited.
She leaned against the lift wall and stretched her neck. Her eyelids felt heavy, and she had to force back a yawn.
Before getting any sleep, she would have to call Doherty.
The lift doors opened, and Ciara stepped out. She walked to her hotel room.
Just as she had got her hands on the key card in her pocket, she looked up and saw the door was already open—ajar.