Page 65 of April's Fool
“Wish things were back to how they were when it was us, Cody and Toth, and the castle?”
“Yeah, before I went and got involved in the Basil shit.”
“If it helps, I don’t regret anything to do with you. Witch Damon, hitman Damon, they are the same to me and I love all sides of you.”
“You say all the best things.”
There were only two more days of peace, hardly any time to teach Damon anything offensive with his magic, before Basil struck.
Whether this was planned, or a spur-of-the-moment choice on his part, taking advantage of Oak and Thyme being so distracted, I wasn’t sure. It worked in his favor, though.
“Shit!” Thyme cried as he looked at his phone.
Oak was staring at his own with a horror filled expression. “No!”
“What’s going on?” Damon approached Thyme hesitantly, taking his phone from him. “Oh, fuck! We have to go!”
“Where? What is it?” I was trying to stay calm as panic saturated the air.
“The coven is under attack! Poppy is there with the baby! We need to get there as soon as possible. Can you fly me?” Damon clutched at my arm for support.
“No, we need Barr. He can take us all. Barr!” I yelled, running across the club, taking Damon with me. We were in the lounge set aside for demons as the rest of the club was in use with a couple of omegas in heat.
“Here, Mori!”
“We need a portal to the coven house for all of us. Can you manage?”
Barr nodded eagerly, following us back to Oak and Thyme, who were getting reports of the situation. Barr was putting on a brave face, but his tail was low. He was scared. So was I, to be honest. I didn’t know how to fight witches. Damon hadn’t had enough training. Barr absolutely none at all. We weren’t in the right position to be taking part in a fight like that.
“No, it’s not the house, it’s the center, it’s uh, where Poppy has been staying since its wards are deeper. The coven grimoire is there.” Whatever that was, Oak sounded almost as panicked about it as he did his sister-in-law.
“I need to see what it looks like,” Barr said nervously.
Oak held out his phone with a picture of a squat, long building, very nondescript and in the middle of the city. There was no way this wouldn’t escalate quickly.
The portal went up quickly, and we ran through, immediately finding ourselves in the thick of it.
“Damon, Mori, Barr, just knock out witches you don’t know. We’ll sort theirs from ours later. Sleep spells only, okay?” Oak took charge of the situation as Thyme hung back nervously, twisting his fingers. “Thyme, with me.”
I turned to Barr. “Look, you’ve not had any training with this. If you want, just find somewhere to hide.There’s a park there, climb a tree and wait for us to come back.”
“Mori, Sir, I can help.” He tried to put a brave face on.
“Only if you want to, okay?” I wasn’t about to order him to hide, no matter how much I’d like him to.
Damon halted Barr, following us with a hand on his chest. “Look, you are too important to be running around, maybe getting hurt. I need you to take a position where you can see and you are safe. We might need you to make a portal at short notice, so be ready, okay?”
Barr deflated, all his false confidence gone. “Thank you. I’ll keep watch.”
“Here.” I handed him my phone. “Call Alpha Blake. Tell him what’s happening here just in case he wasn’t already alerted. He might want to get some shifters here.”
“Okay.”
Oak and Thyme were in two different fights, back to back, as they tried to get inside the building. With the witches distracted, it was easy enough to sneak up behind one and knock them out. I hated using physical attacks, but my magic, if it could be useful, had to be reserved for what we might find inside.
The other was easy for Damon to knock out. He used a burst of magic, then frowned at his hands. “I’ll get used to that eventually,” he muttered.
As a group, we ran through the building avoiding skirmishes, instead focusing on getting to Poppy.
