The blonde, who is probably a barmaid in the club, carries in a tray of drinks which she sets down on Ethan’s desk. Slower than necessary, as though to give the men present an opportunity to admire her assets, which are plentiful. I look down at my shapeless blue rain mack, feeling inadequate. I glance up at her just in time to see her giving my outfit the once over. Predictable I suppose.
I let my eyes wander back down to stare at my hands and wait for her to be done judging my apparent lack of style. I have more important life or death matters to be worrying about, and no desire to enter into a dirty looks contest with bitchy blonde barmaid.
Ethan pours from a bottle of whiskey and offers a glass to Marcel, who obliges him and takes the drink. But when h
e offers a glass to Gabriel, my work mate refuses the seemingly well-meant hospitality. The blonde waits by the door, probably in case anything extra is needed.
“Tegan, would you like a drink?” Ethan asks, and suddenly the attention of the entire room is on me.
“No thanks,” I reply, and then continue twiddling my thumbs, wishing I could be anywhere but here.
“You sure, Maggie could get you a Coke or something if you’d like?” Ah, so that’s the blonde’s name. Ethan seems to be studying me, with a look that tells me he’s wondering if I’m upset.
“As I said already, no thank you.”
“Okay, let me know if you change your mind. That’ll be all Maggie. Thanks,” says Ethan, dismissing her.
“No problem, boss,” she replies, and saunters out of the room, hips swinging from side to side.
“Look, can we get this over and done with,” I say as soon as Maggie has left. “I mean, I don’t think I can take much more of this waiting, so if you lot are gonna kill me “mafia style” because I know too much about your secret world, well then just go ahead and do it.”
“Tegan,” says Marcel appalled, “Gabriel and I have no intention of killing you, my goodness, the idea is barbaric.”
“Well I can’t exactly see any other conclusion to this mess.” I tell him, exasperated. I lock eyes with Ethan but I cannot decipher his expression.
“If I might make a suggestion,” says our so-called mediator David Rollans. “There may be a way for the young lady to be both involved with Mr Cristescu and continue in the employment of Mr Girard.”
“Excuse me, what do you mean by involved with Mr Cristescu?” I interject indignantly. I look to Ethan for an explanation but he simply shrugs and smirks at me, as if to say, you know exactly what he means. I can feel my cheeks heat up as my embarrassment increases.
But before I can protest further, David coughs and continues, “It would be an unusual case, since you are human,” he looks at me and smiles as one would a child with ideas above their station, “but you could declare yourself neutral, as myself and several others have done, and because you have connections to both sides of the river it shows that you are not one hundred per cent affiliated with either party. To give my own case as an example, I work as a mediator for the vampires and for the dhamphirs, and I maintain an unbiased standing point.”
“How about I sever my connections with both sides, that way I can go back to my normal life and forget any of this ever happened.” I snap, exhausted with the discussion.
“I’m afraid that is not an option Tegan. You’re already too involved, and as you said, you know too much and we are incapable of taking your memories from you. There isn’t any going back to your old life now,” says Ethan, as he makes direct eye contact with me. I’d almost swear from the look in his eyes that he was hurt by what I said about severing him from my life. He sits down in his chair, still watching me. I know it’s crazy and probably naïve, but my icy feelings towards Ethan thaw just a little in this moment.
I sigh. “Okay, so let’s just say I try this whole neutrality thing, what would I have to do exactly?”
“You would have to present your case in front of both Governors,” says David, “declaring your position as neutral. Mr Cristescu and Mr Girard would have to accompany you to their respective superiors, stating your position as a human with special abilities, and that your relationship with both of them is one of importance.”
“So,” says Marcel, “before we do any of that we will firstly need to determine what exactly your special ability is, and there lies our conundrum.”
“Well you two are the boys with the magical chops,” says Ethan. “It shouldn’t prove too difficult for you to figure things out.” He finishes with his trademark smirk. It’s a taunt but thankfully neither Marcel nor Gabriel rise to it.
Instead Marcel replies calmly, “It would be a very simple procedure, only for the fact that the very nature of the spell cast upon her is to conceal, it’s a big task to break through that kind of a barrier.”
Marcel mentioning the whole spell thing again peaks my interest. This is the first instance in which I have been able to consider it plausible. After all, I have learned today that Marcel is a genuine warlock, so it should only follow that magic and spells are as real as he is. Excitement builds up in me, because Gabriel believes it was possibly my mother who cast the spell. Does that mean my mother might have been a witch? My frame of mind turns hopeful, because when your parent dies before you have had the chance to truly know them you will grasp at anything that might reveal to you what they were like. Who they were.
I turn to Marcel. “What do you think the spell is concealing?”
He appears a little nervous at my question, after a moment he answers, “Truthfully Tegan, I do not know. But what I do know is that when a witch goes to the trouble of casting such a thick and impenetrable spell it is only for the most important of circumstances. That is what leads me to believe that whatever the caster had endeavoured to hide is something very valuable indeed.”
Delilah speaks up for the first time. “That is not necessarily a good thing, warlock. For all we know that which the spell is hiding could be detrimental if unveiled. Perhaps the caster performed such a powerful spell so that whatever is hidden within Tegan will never be permitted to cause harm.”
“So basically what you’re saying is that I could be a Trojan horse.” I add, not wholly convinced that this so-called spell is anything near as momentous as everyone believes.
“What she’s saying,” Ethan interjects. “Is that you may very well be death wrapped in an undeniably tempting package.” His eyes burn into mine.
“You lot have got to stop thinking I’m anything special. I’m just a normal girl, who by pure coincidence,” I emphasise the word for Ethan’s benefit, “has found herself in bizarre circumstances.”