Warlock 4 - Preview Chapters

Entirely ignorant of how things are done and too damn stubborn to give up.

Apparently, these were my defining traits, as expressed by the women in my life.

Even Mel admitted that summed up a lot of Blackwood warlocks, though she claimed they usually knew how things were done, they just didn’t care.

That I’d immediately come up with a stupid idea that involved being ignorantly stubborn … fine, I was becoming more self-aware.

“They have four whole floors?” I whispered, reading the board in the building’s lobby.

The top four floors were listed as Fielding Enterprises.

“The whole building,” Sam answered.

I read the other company names, some three or four to a floor.

“That’s a lot of different companies.”

“Fronts and shells, mostly,” Cassandra said. “It’s less noticeable to the mundanes than owning the whole building outright for one company to use. So there’ll be a real estate trust owned by a shell corporation for the building, then individual corporations for each of the ‘tenants.’”

“And it helps hide the cash to run it through a lot of different businesses,” Rachel added.

I nodded as though that all made perfect sense to me. I’d taken a business class in high school, but they hadn’t covered anything as big as the witch Families must be.

Cassandra stared at me for a moment. “Have you not seen Melaina’s corporate structure?”

“Her what?”

Cassandra blinked. “Do you think she keeps all her money under her mattress?”

“I hadn’t really given much thought to Mel’s money.”

“How about ours?”

“Ours?”

“Our money? The coven’s money? Do you know where it is?”

“The … bank?”

Mel had said she’d transferred some money for us and we had credit cards. I knew the amount, but tried not to think about it too much.

“Samantha?” Cassandra hissed.

Sam sighed. “Melaina’s handling the coven investments along with her own.” She gave Cassandra a calm-down look. “Don’t worry — it’s on my list to fill him in some day, but —”

She shrugged.

“There’re a lot more important things,” Cassandra agreed. “But a Family Head needs to have some idea of what’s going on.”

“I’ll add it to the class line-up for tutoring so it doesn’t get lost,” Rachel said.

Cassandra nodded while I groaned.

We were in the lobby of the Fieldings’ main offices.

The building was downtown and more than fifty floors, so that must have meant a lot of cash. The Fieldings weren’t involved in anything illegal — well, not anything illegal to the point where witches would worry about it — but a lot of deals between witch Families didn’t exactly scream out for a paper trail.

I adjusted my tie and tried to study the security desk out of the corner of my eye. There were a couple mundanes there, and I wanted to wait until the lobby was clear of anyone who wasn’t a witch before I headed for the elevators. I guess some of those companies did actual business with the mundane world or something.

“Stop fidgeting,” Sam whispered.

While the lobby desk looked more like reception, with a beautiful woman behind it, I had no doubt it was security. Witches didn’t need the overt trappings of metal scanners and x-ray machines, and I’d felt the wards scan us as we entered the building.

I had Sam, Rachel, and Cassandra with me, since they were in the coven already. I’d like to have had Mel along, but everybody thought that would diminish my own authority — something I was okay with, but everyone recommended against.

Apparently, Mel was a Big Gun and, despite Sam’s expressed preference, you didn’t walk into a business meeting with a shotgun on your shoulder.

Morgan and Priscilla had gone shopping again, since Morgan’s shields were now as solid as could be expected and most of her clothes and other belongings had disappeared from the foster home — Gabriel had packed both his stuff and Morgan’s before taking her, making it look like they’d run off together, something Morgan seemed more horrified by than the whole possessed by a war goddess thing — but none of it had been at the warehouse.

Cassandra had tried to reassure Morgan that not all of her stuff had been destroyed, since it was almost certain Gabriel kept her panties.

No, I didn’t think it was a helpful comment either.

What little was left we picked up a couple days after the confrontation — on what the Department thought was Morgan’s birthday — taking the opportunity to try and clear up the mess the two fosters’ disappearance caused.

Luckily, Alex and Karen hadn’t figured out how they were going to tell the Department that two of their fosters had disappeared, so we just had Felicity glamour them into thinking they had and that nothing came of it … but they should never, ever mention it to a case worker again.

Then Morgan called her case worker to arrange her exit meeting, because she wanted her birth certificate and social security card and stuff, which got Morgan and I to a coffee shop where I kept an eye on her from under a glamour. The others were nearby, we just didn’t want to crowd everybody else out of the relatively small coffee shop.

That had gone pretty smoothly at first.

Then Morgan fucked up and asked when Gabriel’s age-out date was, because she wanted to feel out what we’d have to do to cover his disappearance with the Department so Alex and Karen didn’t get into trouble for it.

“Who’s Gabriel?”

So, first, Morgan texted me that that we were in the shit, but I didn’t have enough glamour to pass along suggestions very well and Control was purely physical, so then I had to text Mel, because Felicity doesn’t have a phone, after which I texted Morgan back, telling her to keep Mrs. Ingrahm there until Mihai could get Felicity to the coffee shop.

Which didn’t work, of course, because Mrs. Ingrahm had other meetings.

So I glamoured us and we followed her until Mihai could catch up, then Felicity fixed everything.

Except for the part where Mrs. Ingrahm had called Alex and Karen, asking who the fuck Gabriel was and why he was in their foster home without her being aware of it.

As nearly as we could tell, Gabriel and the Cait had glamoured Alex and Karen to think Gabriel had been brought in by Mrs. Ingrahm, and Mrs. Ingrahm had been glamoured to think Alex and Karen said they needed a year’s break after me before taking in someone else.

The nods of agreement the girls all gave about how plausible that was disturbed me.

Mihai got us to Alex and Karen’s, where Felicity then glamoured them to forget about talking to Mrs. Ingrahm about Gabriel, and never to do so again.

Mel agreed that by the time Felicity’s glamour on them might weaken enough to fail, none of them were likely to think about either Morgan or Gabriel enough to trigger that happening — which still kind of made me wonder what kind of house of cards some of the shit behind the Veil actually was.

“You’re not fooling anybody staring at the directory,” Cassandra interrupted my musings. “They know exactly who we are and why we’re here.”

“Let’s go then,” I said, seeing that the lobby was now empty of everyone but us and the receptionist.

I turned from the directory board and headed for the elevators behind the reception desk.

The witch there, who I was sure was a lot more than a receptionist, put on a fake smile that faded as I walked right past her.

“Sir! Sir, you have to check in!”

I ignored her attempt at pretending we were all mundanes and there wasn’t any witch-shit going on, but the four women who appeared around the elevators were all dressed in black suits with sunglasses — just like the Witch Council adjutrices. Something that translated as helper but I was pretty sure meant enforcer in this case.

The four surrounded us as I pressed the elevator’s up button.

Of course it didn’t light up.

“Kentrox Blackwood,” one of the witches said. “Do you have an appointment?”

I ignored her — she knew I didn’t — and pressed the button again.

No light, so I started mashing it repeatedly.

“What do you think the duty cycle on one of these buttons is?” I asked Rachel. “Ten, twenty-thousand clicks?”

“Kentrox Blackwood, please —”

“Look,” I said, continuing to mash the button, but acknowledging the witch. “The Blackwood Family Head is here to meet with the Fielding Family Head on a business matter. I know she’s in the office today, and we’re not leaving until —”

Two men, obviously mundanes, in suits entered the lobby and approached the reception desk.

“Elevator’s out!” I called to them. “Might have to walk up. You should probably reschedule.”

I saw the receptionist start to reassure them, but they were pretty savvy and immediately saw that whatever the fuck I had going on, they didn’t want to be anywhere near it and muttered something about rescheduling as they headed back out the doors.

“I can do this all day,” I told the witches surrounding us. “The neat thing about being Blackwood Family Head after centuries of The Blackwood taking care of everything is I’ve got a lot of time on my hands for hobbies.”

Ding

*

The elevator took us straight to the building’s top floor, then opened onto a large reception area with desks at either end of the elevator lobby.

Big, expensive looking desks.

Backed by big, expensive looking walls with medium-sized expensive looking paintings.

“The left one,” Cassandra whispered.

I turned left, even though I had no idea how she knew that — the desks looked identical to me.

“Don’t try to barge past,” Rachel whispered, “there’re wards.”

I gave her a slight nod and examined the waiting area to see the mana. The whole area behind the desk glowed with a wall of mana-powered wards. Strong ones, if how much they glowed had anything to do with that.

I didn’t even bother going to the desk, just sat on one of the couches that lined the lobby — they knew who I was and why I was here.

I pulled out my phone and started scrolling — I really was prepared to stay as long as it took. Yeah, camping out in her lobby would probably irritate the Fielding Family head, but completely ignoring Sam’s calls didn’t exactly scream courtesy.

What I’d told the adjutrix downstairs about having nothing but time was pretty accurate. There wasn’t anything set on the schedule until the Lammastide Conclave — even our Europe trip could be put off indefinitely.

Finding my mother and Morgan’s family were important, but Hannah and Brittany were more urgent.

We waited about an hour before an adjutrix came through one of the doors and approached us.

“Kentrox Blackwood.”

It wasn’t a question.

I looked at her expectantly.

That there was only one of her meant that we weren’t going to be picked up and carried from the building … probably — Rachel had said the Fieldings did have some strong telly affinities.

That left several other possibilities, though.

“I’m afraid Sororix Fielding has been called away.”

I paused, parsing that — the girls had told me having to lie to get rid of me would be a sign of weakness.

Personally, I thought games like this were stupid, but apparently the witches cared.

“So she’s no longer in the building?” I asked.

The witch’s jaw set.

“Sororix Fielding is … preparing to respond to the call.”

I nodded and settled back on the couch.

“We’ll wait until she’s left,” I said. “In case she has a free moment on the way out. Or handles things without having to leave.”

This was actually one of the scenarios we’d run through the night before.

Being called did not equal responding to the call and responding didn’t mean in the way the caller asks. So far, there’d been nothing untrue said, but also nothing that made it certain Sororix Fielding was planning to leave her office any time soon.

The witch took a deep breath and waited, then there was a muted roar from overhead.

“Sororix Fielding has left the building,” the witch said.

I nodded. I’d just chased the Fielding Family Head out of her own office. Cool.

I hoped the helicopter was fucking expensive. And there was turbulence.

The girls had said this was the least likely outcome, with even us being physically removed being more likely, so I counted this a win so far.

Now to go for the extra point.

I stood, smiling at the witch.

“See you tomorrow.”

“Kentrox Blackwood …”

I shrugged. “I have nothing to do until the Conclave.”

Yeah, we had the Europe trip scheduled, but Hannah and Brittany took priority over that.

The witch’s eyes went distant for a moment and she sighed.

“Sororix Fielding will speak to you at the Lammastide Conclave. Is that acceptable?”

*

“It was a test,” Morgan said.

“Of course it was a test,” Cassandra laughed, holding up her cup to clink with mine.

We were having tea to celebrate getting a little win against the Fieldings.

Morgan shook her head. “Not the way you think.”

“Well, enlighten us.”

I sat back and sipped my tea.

Sam, who was on the floor between my legs, held half a cookie over her shoulder. “Dunky?”

Rachel, on my right, took the cookie and dipped it in my tea a couple times before handing it back to Sam.

Morgan seemed to be thinking hard.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Cassandra muttered.

Morgan waved a hand, then bit her lip.

“You showed them too much,” she said.

“What do you mean?” Sam asked. “We didn’t give them anything.”

But Cassandra paused, then bit her lip, and then nodded, brow furrowed.

“You see it now, Elsa?”

“Yeah … too much.”

“I don’t remember giving them anything,” I said.

“Information,” Morgan said.

Cassandra nodded. “Shit.”

“What?” I asked.

“It didn’t make sense,” Morgan said. “I just didn’t get why. Why wouldn’t they just call you back and say ‘no?’”

“Worried about —” I shook my head. “No, ignoring us was a lot more offensive than outright refusing. That’s what pissed me off the most.”

Morgan nodded. “That’s what they wanted — you pissed enough to show just how important this is for you.”

“You don’t think they got that from me calling every day?” Sam asked.

“Phone calls are cheap,” Morgan said, “and they have no idea whether Noah thinks your time is important or not.”

“It’s pretty important,” I said.

Sam laid her head back in my lap, smiling.

“Thank you, Dominus.” She held out another cookie. “Dunky?”

“And now they know it’s important enough for you, the big boss Family head, to be okay spending the next few weeks sitting in their waiting room,” Morgan said.

She shared a look with Cassandra.

“They want something,” Cassandra said.

“Something big,” Morgan agreed.

“Big enough that Hannah and Brittany really are on the table and they wanted to know if what they want could be too.”

“Other than one of our kids,” I said, “I can’t think of much that’s not.” I shrugged. “Maybe this will save some time.”

“Oh! I know this one!” Sam yelled, spraying a bit of moist cookie over the coffee table and pointing at Morgan.

“What the fuck?” Morgan asked.

“Your other resonant,” Sam said, and now I saw that Morgan’s second resonant had some blue mana in it. “It started filling when you figured this out — it’s Understanding or one of those.”

Morgan’s eyes narrowed. “Is it another stupid one?”

“You have to figure things out,” Rachel said. “Like crosswords and suduko even.”

Or take classes, Felicity put in, nudging at Morgan’s hand because she’d stopped scratching.

Morgan looked around, especially at Cassandra, as though waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“Okay.” She nodded. “I can live with this one.”