Blood of the Exiled (Witch Fairy Book 10) (13 page)

Adriel laughs and it sounds a bit wicked.
 
“There is no need for that.”

Jadyn is yet again bewildered.
 
I guess Grandma didn’t go into detail about my powers.
 
“What do you mean?” she asks.

“You’ll see,” Kallen says.

It’s better to show her than tell her.
 
Determined expression on my face, I walk to the conference room door.
 
It’s time to meet my Grandpa again.

Opening the conference room door, I see them clearly.
 
It’s like I’m looking at fish in a fishbowl.
 
They are seated at a long, rectangular table and crowded down at one end.
 
No Arthurian round table for Grandpa.
 
Saccharine sweetness in my voice, I lie, “Grandpa, how nice to see you again.”

Several of the Witches start, but one sitting close to Grandpa says, “She is bluffing.
 
She must have been told that we made a circle here.”

“Who would have told her that?” another Witch says, not quite believing the first’s explanation.
 
“And who are those people with her?”

I laugh.
 
“You’d be surprised at what I can get people to tell me.”
 
I won’t out Jadyn.
 
They’ll find out soon enough it was her, if they don’t already know.
 
“I’d like to introduce my friends, so why don’t we get rid of this pesky thing so everyone can see everyone else clearly.
 
Take a seat you guys while I work out the details.”
 
To my amusement, Kallen and Kegan both take a seat at the opposite end from the Witches, lean back in their chairs and prop their legs up on the table.
 
Alita sits down next to Kegan, but Adriel and Tana remain standing.
 
Taz is trying to nap behind Tana’s skirt.
 
No one in the room has noticed him yet.
 
Nor have they noticed the light which has appeared against the far wall.
 
Nixie has gotten good at blending in with the light of a room.

I walk to the edge of the circle and wave my hand through the glimmering sheen that only I can see.
 
Instantly, the magic dissolves and the circle is gone.
 
There’s a lot of gasping and outraged grumbling.
 
Several chairs scrape across the floor because the Witch seated in them either backed their chair away from me or stood up.

“This is impossible!” one of the Witches claims.
 
Why do people say that when they’ve already been shown that something
is
possible?

I remember the Witch who just made the inane comment.
 
“Fatin, how have you been?
 
Have you exercised any nasty spirits lately?”
 
He was one of the few of the original Witan I allowed to keep his magic.
 
Other than my parents and Nixie, spirits who haven’t moved on can be bad news.
 
Fatin has the power to call them forth and exercise them.
 
Not many Witches can do that, so I left his magic untouched.
 
With the threat that if he misused it again I would come back and take it away, of course.
 
I’m interested to see if he took that to heart.

“Xandra,” he says with a tip of his head.
 
His chair did not move when the circle came down so he’s still seated just to the right of Grandpa.
 
How brave of him.

“What are you doing here, Xandra?” Grandpa asks.
 
He says this more in surprise than anger or anything resembling it.
 
Curious.

“I promised Grandma I’d check in on you guys.
 
Make sure no one is plotting to take over your mind again.”
 
I stare pointedly at a couple more familiar faces around the table.

Ignoring my response, he asks, “Is your grandmother well?
 
When will she be returning?”

Um, what?
 
“She’s not coming back.
 
Didn’t you know that?”

From the way his face falls, I guess he didn’t.
 
After a moment, he says, “Is there an address where I can forward her things?”

So he can track her down and grovel at her feet, he means.
 
Thank goodness grandma’s an Angel and there’s no way he can reach her.
 
Before I can respond, Adriel says, “She no longer has a need for the material things she collected here.”

Grandpa’s face pales.
 
“She is dead?”
 
I notice a couple of Witches around the table seem relieved at the thought.
 
Bastards.

“No, she’s not dead,” I say sharper than I probably should have.
 
“She is alive and well.
 
She just won’t be coming back here.”

Grandpa suddenly looks like someone turned his eye into a disco ball.
 
His left eye is twitching rapidly and the eyeball itself is swirling.
 
Creepy.
 
He looks like he’s in pain.
 
He brings his hand up to shield the eye’s movement from us.
 
“I see,” is his only response.
 
Ironic since I don’t believe he can see at the moment.
 
Not out of that eye, anyway.
 

If someone’s eye is twitching uncontrollably, it’s universal law that you must ask why.
 
I’m pretty sure I read that somewhere.
 
Tactfully, I say, “What’s wrong with your eye?
 
Why is it being all funky?”

“It’s nothing,” Grandpa grunts.

Sure, that was believable.
 
From behind me, Jadyn says, “It is the consequence of reversing mind control spells.
 
Because of the damage those
spells
can cause, the victim usually suffers intermittent loss of control of some of their nerves and muscles somewhere on their body.
 
It can range from a slight tic to what appears to be a seizure.
 
For your grandfather, he loses control of his eyelid.”

Oh.
 
“That sucks, Grandpa.
 
Is it going to do that the rest of your life?” I ask, still the Queen of Tact.

I called him Grandpa but my tone clearly indicated that what I really meant is ‘man who sired my mother and then outed himself as a total schmuck to the point that he tried to kill his own granddaughter – twice’.
 

I’m going to continue to call him Grandpa, even though it seems to make his eye twitch more.
 
It definitely bothers him.
 
A lot.
 
He’s more of a ‘call me Your Highness or Sire’ kind of guy.
 
That’ll never happen.

“I don’t know,” he admits gruffly, irritated that I didn’t do the polite thing and ignore his eyelid which is now flapping so hard it’s like it’s trying to fly off his head.
 

Is it wrong to hope his eye does twitch the rest of his life?
 
Probably.
 
“We have a lot to discuss and I’d rather do it without your friends.”
 
I’m sure at least a few of them are trying to control him as his Witan had before.
 
I can see it in their guilty faces.
 
Why did he let any of the Witches who did that to him before back into his power circle?
 
The man is an idiot.

“Yet, I suppose your ‘friends’ will be able to stay?”
 
Fatin says friends like he just threw up a little in his mouth.
 
Jerk.

Smiling sweetly, I say, “I like my friends better than dear old Grandpa’s.
 
Mine have never slowly taken over my mind and reduced me to a zombie-like person to do their evil bidding and then left me with a twitchy eye.”
 
Fatin has the decency to flush a deep red and keep his mouth shut.
 
The day is just filled with shocking events.

“I have no desire to speak with you privately,” Grandpa says, bringing my eyes back to him.
 
His face is a blank page, no anger, no disgust, no sign of emotion at all.
 
Weird.

“Aah, Gramps, you make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside when you say such nice things to me.”
 
There is so much sarcasm in my
voice,
the air in the room feels heavier.

“Do not call me ‘Gramps’,” he growls.

“Enough,” a voice says from behind me and my skin begins to crawl as magic floods up from the earth.
 
Tana had better not be planning to use it in any manner that can be construed as dark magic.
 
If she does, this is going to get ugly fast.
 
“You are in no position to refuse to meet with the Princess who serves two realms.
 
Even if you were, such a crude reception and barbaric behavior on the part of you and your staff towards your own flesh and blood
makes
you unworthy of your crown.”

Um, how does the old phrase go?
 
Something about the pot calling the kettle black?
 
Then again, Tana hasn’t acted as if she expects to resume her position as Queen of the Fairy realm.
 
That’s for dwelling on later.
 
I have other things to worry about now.
 
For instance, the magic which is barely being leashed inside her.

Before I can say anything, Kegan removes his feet from the table and leans close to Alita.
 
“Are you alright?” he asks.

My eyes fly to her.
 
She doesn’t look alright.
 
Alita’s skin has paled and her lips are a pasty, whitish color.
 
There’s only one thing that makes her react like this.
 
Dark magic.
 
My first thought is Tana, but I’m not getting any vibes from her which would indicate she is doing anything other than holding magic within her.
 
It doesn’t feel malevolent.
 

Kallen sits up and leans across the table.
 
“Who?” he asks Alita.
 
I guess he figured out it isn’t Tana faster than I did.

With a shaking hand, Alita points towards a Witch I haven’t met before.
 
She has strawberry blonde, frizzy hair, and her skin is aged and wrinkled way beyond her years.
 
Unless she’s really a hundred and fifty years old.
 
If that’s the case, then she looks fine.
 
Her body is hunched forward due to a distinct hump between her shoulders and she is rail thin, bordering on anorexic.
 
This Witch has apparently had a hard life.
 
And sure enough, she’s uttering a spell under her breath.
 
I really need to pay more attention to Witches’ mouths.

Before the Witch can utter the last phrase of whatever dark spell she is going to use, Tana’s magic goes flying.
 
“
Lift the curse of darkness from this Witch’s lips who will let evil unfold like the lash of a whip
.”
 
I know that’s not really a spell.
 
She only said it for effect.
 
The magic Tana twists as a dark magic repellant can be done by a powerful Fairy without any type of spell.

Tana’s magic hits the Witch so hard, her chair goes flying backwards.
 
Her legs flail helplessly as her body plunges and her head hits the carpeted floor in a loud thump.
 
Unfortunately for the rest of us, she’s wearing a dress.
 
I really,
really
didn’t need to know that she’s wearing a pink, lacy thong which is exposing her wrinkled butt to us.
 
That image is going to haunt me for a long time.
 
With nervous glances in our direction, the Witches on either side of her help her up and back into her once again upright
chair,
one of them making sure her skirt is covering everything it should.
 
Thank god.