“That beast—you cry out at the very sight—lets no one through who passes on her way. She blocks their progress; and there they all die.”
― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
“How did you know where to find me, Ronan?” I asked, after I opened my eyes and realised that the car was moving through the busy motorway. My hair was plastered to my face and my back hurt every time I moved. The dried blood was stuck to my shirt, but I was ignoring the fact that at some point I was going have to get it off.
It was a hell of a relief that Alexis wasn’t tracking me down. She had proven way too many times that she was much stronger than I thought.
I had no idea how Ronan knew that I needed his help. He had been missing for some time, or that’s what he wanted everyone to believe.
“I’ve been following your track for some time now. I came back to London and shortly after I realised that Alexis was keeping you prisoner. I followed Rodriguez from the palace,” he explained, and kept glancing at the rearview mirror. I hoped we weren’t being followed and he was simply oversensitive.
“Someone had broken into your cottage up north,” I said, resting my head on the back of the seat. “I was tracking Matilda there a few weeks back. People in the village believed something had happened to you.”
“My own son held me against my will after the events in Gjoll. I was weakened by Alexis’s magic,” Ronan said, sounding uneasy.
My jaw dropped and I stared at him not believing that Nameless had betrayed us both.
“That piece of shit managed to trick us all. I trusted him and he turned me over to Alexis.” I went through everything that happened since I left Ronan with Ricky in Gjoll. Apparently Nameless waited until he was left alone with his father. I felt bad that I never tried to look for him. His letter should have roused my suspicion. I had spent enough time with Ronan to know that he wouldn’t have just abandoned me.
My mentor wasn’t particularly shocked that Lucifer had turned out to be my father or as usual he just wasn’t showing it.
“He must have been under her influence for a while. Even Zachary’s sister didn’t notice anything. She trusted him and I truly believed that he loved her,” I said, yet again going over Arthur’s death. A lot of drama and anguish could have been prevented. Ronan didn’t fail me in any way; he was injured after Alexis had used him to get to me, and then his son turned on him.
“Yes, it certainly looks that way, but tell me what’s happened to your magic?” he asked.
“She paralysed me and then poured some potion into my mouth. I don’t know what it was. I have never heard of it. I woke up later on, drowsy and disoriented without my magic. I hate this new me, Ronan. I always thought that I could be human, but now I truly want to get my half-demon self back.”
The clock on the dashboard was showing a few minutes after midnight. If I hadn’t come up with that silly plan and remembered Ronan’s story, then I would still be in that cell.
“Immortal spell,” Ronan said. “She removed your demonic DNA from your body.” I knew that this didn’t sound good.
Alexis was smart and she had made my life a living hell. It was clear that getting my magic back wasn’t going to be easy.
“Ronan, I’m no one without my magic. I have to get it back,” I said, dreading that he was going to tell me I had no chance of being my old self ever again. The past had taught me that there was usually a way out of even the worst situation.
“It’s an advanced dark spell, something that I have never seen done. I have no idea how to help you or even where to start,” he finally said and I inhaled sharply, shaking my head. This wasn’t a no. He just simply didn’t know how to help me. “Unfortunately there are other things that you should be more concerned about.”
“Like?”
“The whole of London believes that you murdered Prince Arthur. A few bounty hunters are after your head.”
I wasn’t shocked; this was to be expected. I was locked up for some time and couldn’t act.
“Yeah, Alexis framed me. I’m not planning to sit around and do nothing. That bitch had me locked up for two weeks. Ricky, Paul, Emma and probably Zara are in prison too. We need to get them out.” I clenched my fists, thinking about all my options.
There was only so much that I could do without my magic and I really hoped Ronan was planning to stick around for a while.
“Nameless is my son, but he’s going to pay for what he’s done. He betrayed his own bloodline,” Ronan said, sounding furious. I was blaming myself for this. I should never have trusted him after Gjoll, but then Ricky was hurt and I was so lost. I willingly trusted anyone then. “Obviously your father is the key to all this. This is the right time to ask for his help.”
“No, Ronan,” I said quickly. “Lucifer doesn’t owe me anything. He gave me a task and I failed him. I’m not going to ask him to help me.”
Lucifer’s influence would only go so far, and Alexis had made this personal. I needed to take care of her myself, with magic or without.
“Well, that will only complicate matters. You can’t be seen in public. Every demon in the capital knows you,” my mentor said. “Do you even know where Ricky and the rest are being kept?”
“Not right now, but I’ll find out. There are people out there that are still loyal to me,” I assured him, but deep down I knew that people always believed what they wanted to hear. I couldn’t go back to my flat or even Ricky’s place. Alexis probably found the way out of Suicide Lane and she must have helped Rodriguez to get out too. I would have sensed if she died out there. Unfortunately I was never that lucky to think that the Eurynomos had taken care of her. She was still a threat.
We drove the rest of the way in silence, both lost in our own thoughts. There were a lot of things we had to discuss. Ronan didn’t say anything, but I knew he wanted to help me. We both decided to stop in the Broken Shoe. If Paul was locked up I had a feeling that no one would look for us there. And the pub was still central.
Ronan agreed, probably for my sake. I hadn’t eaten properly in over two weeks and I really needed to heal.
An hour later he parked his car, that he apparently rented out in Brixton, out in the alley and then we walked a short distance to the pub. The message on the door stated that the Broken Shoe was temporary closed. We used the back entrance to break in. It felt odd knowing that the retired Watcher wasn’t waiting for me there.
The space upstairs was small and in the end I took Paul’s bed and Ronan told me he was happy with the sofa. We talked over a few things, but we were both too tired to come up with any solid plan, so we went to sleep.
After I lay in Paul’s bed, my tears started. I didn’t want to cry, but I felt like everything had fallen apart and there was no way out of this. I told myself that tomorrow I had to come up with a new plan or a solution. It was that or I didn’t want to wake up at all.
“You shouldn’t leave the pub. Too many people are looking for you right now,” Ronan said when I showed up in Paul’s tiny living room in the morning ready to conquer the new day. I tried to ignore the fact that my head was throbbing with pain and my muscles felt ridiculously stiff. Ronan had given me some magical paste for my back, and that helped with the pain.
It was going to take a while before I’d feel like myself again. My magic was still gone and I refused to think that I would never get it back. For now I was just a human girl that needed to heal, at the same time I was ready for anything.
“I have to find out where Ricky and the rest of the team are being kept,” I said, rubbing my eyes and trying to focus. “You know I won’t be able to sit around. This will drive me absolutely insane.”
It looked like Ronan went out this morning, because there were some groceries in the fridge and a freshly brewed coffee.
“Some demons in the area have set an award for your head, Maxine. If you want to go out you have to change your appearance,” Ronan said, and my jaw dropped. I couldn’t bloody believe it. I was only gone a few weeks. Things were looking bleak for me. This was the time when I needed to rely on my magic, regardless and that bitch had taken it away.
“I changed my appearance in order to get into the palace. Ricky had brewed a specific potion for that,” I told him.
I also had to get in touch with Cyril, hoping that he was still in Rodriguez’s good books. He hadn’t been in the meeting with Nameless and the rest of the group, and he was the only other person that I trusted.
Ronan offered to get the ingredients that we needed. Shortly after that he left the pub. I hated that Alexis had forced me into hiding. She really had managed to screw with my life big time.
I switched on Paul’s TV and started changing channels, looking for something to do.
“Maxine Brodeur is armed and extremely dangerous. If you spot her call this number immediately,” a handsome reporter was saying and for a second I thought I was seeing things.
My face was plastered across the main news channels. Ronan wasn’t exaggerating when he said that everyone in London was after me. Now I had no other choice. I needed to change my appearance.
It was a miracle I had managed to escape last night. That must have really pissed her off. I knew if it weren’t for Ronan the human police would have been scraping my parts off the rail track.
I sighed loudly, and started brushing my tangled hair. That way I was able to clear my head. The pacing wasn’t helping me anymore.
Rodriguez most likely used his influence from the palace to get to Zachary’s boss too. Nameless must have reported to Alexis that the detective was helping me all along.
Ronan was right: I couldn’t even think of going out of the pub as the real Maxine Brodeur. Some of my clients had always been loyal to the agency, but the media had put me in such a bad light that now it was going to be very hard to prove that I was innocent.
It took Ronan two hours to come back with everything we needed. He said Ricky’s apartment seemed in order, but it was too risky to go back there. I was itching to get out, to head straight over to the palace, but Ronan convinced me that it was another suicide mission. Alexis was still very much alive, and that was exactly what she was expecting from me.
“It will take me a few hours to prepare this potion. Have you got any idea who you want to turn into?” Ronan asked, unloading all the stuff on the table in the kitchen. My stomach tightened when I thought about all the people that I had met and interacted with. Emma was the first choice, but she was most likely locked up too.
“Paul’s barmaid. She works for him from time to time. He should have a photocopy of her ID somewhere,” I said, knowing that this made perfect sense. After that I could easily move around London undetected.
I had a slight panic or anxiety attack when I went downstairs to fetch that ID. My hands started to shake and I felt like my chest had cracked open. I hated seeing the pub empty, hated the fact that I couldn’t get out. Paul had been building his business for years and now it was my fault that it was falling apart.
By the time I went back upstairs I was drenched with sweat and my breathing was laboured. This had never happened to me before and I really needed to get myself together. My friends were counting on me. Ronan was brewing the potion on the kitchen work surface.
“Ah, we might have missed a very important detail, Maxine,” Ronan said, staring at the tar-dark liquid that was bubbling slowly away.
“What is it?”
“You are no longer a mongrel, which means that the potion might not work,” he pointed out and I was ready to scream. I didn’t think about that, and in a way Ronan was right. What if that potion wasn’t going to work?
“We don’t have any other option. I need to get to Ricky and Paul somehow,” I said, feeling stupid. Of course, there was no guarantee, but I had to try it.
We waited a few hours until Ronan was done. Then came the moment of truth. I didn’t want to drag this along, so I drank it as soon as the potion was cool enough. My heart pounded in my chest waiting for something to happen. Minutes started to drag and I knew that without this I was pretty much screwed.
Alexis had taken everything from me—my magic, my hope and now even my dignity.
“Maxine, we have to come up with some—”
“No, this is going to work. Alexis hasn’t won yet. This is happening. I’m not human,” I cut him off, shaking all over and pacing around. I kept telling myself over and over that maybe there was another option, another way out of this. More time passed, and anger shifted into disappointment and resentment.
Sour sadness blocked up my lungs and suddenly I couldn’t breathe.
My magic was gone, probably forever, and I knew that I would never accept it. Ever.