“Wait!” came the gargoyle’s terrified voice and I whirled around, trying hard not to smile.
“Yes?”
The gargoyle’s expression shifted from worry to contempt and finally twisted into something that looked like resolve. I could have sworn it looked a shade darker.
“Fine,” grumbled the doorknocker in a voice reminiscent of Poe’s when he didn’t get an extra piece of fruit. “Your familiar may enter. But only this once.”
“Thank you.”
“Jackass,” whispered Poe.
Sure enough, a tingling rolled across my skin, and the air thickened with a pulsing energy. I heard a sudden loud click, like the sound of a deadbolt slipping into place.
The tingling lifted. And then the door swung open, revealing high, arched ceilings and floors of polished stone laid with strips of red carpet that led past a grand foyer.
“Welcome,” said the doorknocker, “to the dark witch court.”
My pulse leaped and I took a shaky breath. “Here we go,” I said and stepped through.
4
The thick red carpet stifled the sound of my boots as I stepped into the foyer, as though I was walking on grass. The door shut behind me, and I jerked as I felt the sudden prickling of the protection wards closing around the building, shutting it off from any supernatural access.
The foyer was large and decorated with elegant wood panels. A grand, winding staircase, richly carpeted in red and leading to the second floor, served as the centerpiece of the room.
But I wasn’t going to the second floor. The stage was on the ground floor. That’s where I was headed. I passed the grand staircase and moved towards another set of double doors with a sign above that read MEZZANINE.
“You know where you’re going?” came Poe’s voice next to my ear.
“It’s a theater. There’s only one place the witches would convene.”
“The stage?”
“The stage,” I agreed as I made my way towards the large double doors. When I thought about it, the dark witches choosing the old theater as their headquarters was perfect. They were all drama queens and in need of a stage to perform.
I was both flattered and alarmed that the dark witch court had asked to meet with me. The sheer notion of it all was staggering. Worse, I was five minutes late. The fiasco with the doorknocker had taken longer than I’d expected. Great first impression, Sam.
I strained to keep from shaking and tried to keep my face neutral, taking it all in. I was a Beaumont witch, after all. I could handle a group of wrinkly old witches.
Bracing myself, I pushed open the double doors and strolled through.
The muffled noise hit me first, and then the musty smell of old carpet. The air thrummed with dark magic, and I knew it was a show of strength and power. They wanted visitors to know they could kill with a snap of their fingers.
All righty then.
The magic reached out around the room, circling me and resonating different strains of the craft. Each one felt utterly different from the next.
The theater looked like any old theater in New York City of moderate size, lit by hundreds of candle sconces along the walls and a great candelabra that hung from the ceiling with three rings of candles. I could totally see it hanging from the entrance hall of a great medieval castle.
By human standards, the room would have fit hundreds of people comfortably in the seats. However, they now sat positively empty, save a few dark witches lurking along the aisles or standing along the walls. I didn’t recognize any of them, and that somehow added another layer to my unease.
I walked down a slight slant between the rows of seats towards the stage. A half-moon table rested in the middle of the stage, holding six chairs and facing the audience.
In each chair sat a black-robed dark witch.
There were three males and three female witches. Was it equally balanced on purpose? Who knew?
The female on the far left could’ve easily passed for my aunt’s older sister—frail, bent, and emaciated. Her one hundredth birthday had come and gone long ago. She was bald, and the black robe accentuated it even more. She sat hunched in her chair, but dark eyes stabbed me with sharp intelligence.
The female next to her was equally old, though she had a head full of black hair that spilled over her front. The last female witch didn’t look a day past fifty. Plump with coffee-colored skin and short curly black hair, she watched me with a knowing half smile. Creepy.
The males, well, the one on the far right looked older than the two old witches combined. The male witch next to him was plain and forgettable, middle-aged and slightly overweight, with short brown hair streaked with gray at his temples. Oscar Lessard.
He was the only dark witch I’d ever met on the court. He’d showed up at my home five years ago to offer me a full-time job—to watch the Veil on behalf of the dark witch court. Kind of like private security for the witches.
Red spots marred his pale face like he’d been arguing. Either that, or he’d had a hard time climbing up the stairs to the stage.
The last male witch, with gleaming black hair, looked only a few years older than me. His dark, almond-shaped eyes watched me accusingly.
And suddenly my warning flags tripped.
My heart thumped, and my legs felt like they were made of cement. But I never stopped moving and kept my face blank. Poe’s grip on my shoulder tightened as he sensed my unease.
Darting my eyes around the room, I made mental notes of the exits—the one I’d just come from and two more emergency exits that flanked each side of the stage—in case I needed to make a run for it.
“You know any of them apart from Oscar?” came Poe’s voice, as the stage grew bigger and bigger.
“No.” Oscar and I weren’t friends, though it would have been nice to get a heads up concerning this meeting. At least I could have come prepared. I tried to make eye contact, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes.
When I reached the stage, the young male witch jumped off his chair and pointed at me, making me halt.
“Do you see? She’s brought her demon with her,” he shouted, the anger in his tone igniting my own. “She has no respect for the court. I told you she was the wrong choice.” A murmur of consensus reverberated about the table.
Swell. Things were starting out great.
The elderly male witch with four strands of white hair left on his bald head cleared his throat. “Samantha. Were you not told to leave your familiar outside the theater?” he demanded, his voice low though kind and with a lilt of an accent I couldn’t place. His white beard was long enough to tuck into his belt if he’d had one. A thick scar started from his forehead and slashed all the way to his chin on the right side of his face, as though the claws of a bear had ripped his face apart. Though his eyes were small, kindness shone from them.
Knowing he must be referring to the gargoyle doorknocker, I opened my mouth and answered, “Yes.”
I’d barely gotten the word out of my mouth before several of the court members and the witches standing in the aisles rose to their feet with outraged shouts. The court broke out in a cacophony of cries, threats, and disapproving grunts from the ancient ones.
Like I said, they loved to perform.
A scowl creased my forehead as I watched their performance. I felt like a child standing before a group of disapproving parents. Screw them. I didn’t come here to be scolded, and now they were starting to piss me off.