Tales of Aradia The Last Witch Volume 5 (21 page)

Tristan's jaw dropped.
"Aradia's in New York?"

King Rian nodded solemnly.
"Not only has she been shirking her duties for the council but she
has now officially abandoned us in order to go to a freaking
concert!"

Tristan was speechless.
After a few minutes, he slowly sat down.

"Now if that's settled,"
King Rian said as he once glanced around the council table. "All
those in favor of revoking Aradia's title of the Witch Queen,
exiling her from the High Hidden Council forever thus condemning to
be a pariah in the hidden community of Salem, raise their
hand!"

It was sad how none of the
other council members didn't even hesitate with their answers. In a
matter of seconds, Brannon, Tobias, Adolfo and Castel raised their
hands.

"Since I was the one who put
forward this motion you all know my vote." King Rian drew a heavy
breath before reaching for the gavel. It lay on his right like a
ominous hammer of truth and finality. "If we all no further
arguments," he narrowly glanced at his son who didn't even notice.
Tristan was too busy staring at the ground in utter shock. "Then it
is settled, from this night forward Aradia is stripped of her rank
and title on the High Hidden Council. She is no longer the Witch
Queen. She is no longer anything to us but a mistake that we must
lean from."

"And move on from," he
muttered as he raised the gavel high in the air and brought it down
onto the table.

The thunder from the gavel
was so loud and distracting that no one could have noticed Tobias's
smirk of satisfaction.

"This is so cool!" Aradia
shouted.

"What?" Saul
asked.

Aradia just laughed and
shook her head. The music and fireworks were so loud that it amazed
her why she hadn't gone deaf yet.
It's
worth it though
, Aradia thought as she
glance towards the stage.

The band Vampires are
Everywhere which consisted of a lead singer, drummer, electronic
keyboard, bass player, and lead guitarist performed their first
single Immortal Love. The song that had made Aradia fallen in love
with them in the first place. They all wore their signature black
clothes and hairstyle and Saul and Aradia stood in the fourth row
watching the band perform in total rapture. The lead singer
screamed into the microphone while the guitarist screeched heavily
onto the guitar. The others payed equal attention to their
instruments making Aradia feel as if she were in a
dream.

They, Aradia and Saul, had
driven all the way to New York and checked into a glamourous hotel.
After meeting up with Shayde and the others, they had made their
way to the concert and had spent the following glorious hours
listening to the band perform.

Aradia had been surprised to
see Rage being passed around.
I didn't know
it was such a popular drug
. The fact that
had been introduced just a year ago made Aradia extremely surprised
at it's success of becoming a party drug.
I
doubt LSD had this much success. Hell even cocaine took years to
become a full mainstream drug so the fact that Rage is becoming
extremely successful is awfully suspicious.

This brought her back to
wanting to confront Saul about Roy's alpha being poisoned by Rage.
She had meant to confront him but after all the partying they had
done it kept slipping her mind. The drugs, the booze, and what not
was starting to make Aradia feel weary. So weary that Aradia was
discovering some rather unsavory things about her powers. Such as
the fact that unless her energy was at one hundred percent she
couldn't use them at all. Unless she was well-rested and fed she
was completely helpless! This she had found at the hotel room right
after Saul and her had checked in.

Aradia had been stepping out
from the shower and Saul had showed up. He had stood in front of
her with a hungry expression. Aradia had laughed and wrapped the
towel around her tighter. She had tried to move past him but Saul
had pinned her to the wall. Without so much as word, he pressed his
mouth down on to hers. Aradia had tried to fend him off. Although
she was enjoying her new sex life, she still wanted to maintain a
level of control in it. She had tried protesting or at least asking
for a condom. Saul hadn't listened, he had just kept kissing her.
Aradia had had enough and tried to push Saul away only to discover
she couldn't! On any regular day, she could easily break Saul over
her knee but for some reason she wasn't able to stop Saul. Only
Shayde's opportune knock on the door had stopped him from dragging
Aradia to the bed. Apparently, Saul had a visitor waiting for him
in the lobby. Aradia had asked, extremely curiously, why didn't his
friend just call him. Saul had then fastened Aradia with a cold
steel stare. In a split second, Saul had seized Aradia by the
throat and pinned her against the wall. He had snarled into
Aradia's shocked and gasping face that under no circumstances was
she allowed to question him. Furthermore, she was not to leave this
room until he came back. He then left without so much as a
backwards glance. Not even when Aradia slid to the floor, massaging
her throat and trying to feebly to ask Saul why he was acting like
this.

Come to think of
it
, Aradia thought,
that wasn't the first time he's been rough with me.

For the past month, ever
since the theft at the store, Saul had been treating her very
differently. When they had first met Saul had only been a bit
forceful on her but now he was practically ordering her around.
Whenever he wanted to do something they did it with no arguments
and whenever Aradia tried to argue with him Saul would slap or yell
at her.

"What?" Saul's voice brought
Aradia's attention back to the loud blaring concert. The music was
so loud that it was hard for her to believe that she zoned out in
the first place. However, the way she had been surrounded by the
Rage drugs made it somewhat believable. The drugs reacted to her
very differently from the others. Sometimes she would lapse into a
coma, and other times she wold just black out into a state of
meditative euphoria. Aradia knew the drug was dangerous especially
after what had happened to Adrian. However, she had been hitting
the drugs so hard before that finding out the truth didn't seem to
be enough to get her off of it. She had tried limiting her intake
of Rage but it had been hard. Saul had so much of it on him that it
was like trying to go on a diet while you were locked in a Fudge
Shop. However, during the times Saul had been asleep Aradia had
searched the loft from top to bottom and found no trace of drug
making equipment so whatever Saul was doing with Rage he definitely
wasn't supplying it.

But if he isn't the
supplier then who is?

There had been another
reason for why Aradia had wanted to come to New York. She had hoped
to find Kaiser and talk to him. It had been hard giving Saul the
slip but eventually she was able to do it. The moment she did she
found the nearest Yellow Pages book and looked up Kaiser's name.
The following days consisted of narrowing the search and
eliminating results until finally she came to a run down looking
apartment building.

Kaiser's mom lives in this
dump?
Aradia thought as she knocked on the
door.

She knocked twice before
sighing deeply.
Maybe nobody's
home.

She was about to leave
before she heard someone from behind the door. "Whose
there?"

"Kaiser?"

"Whose there?" the deep
voice repeated.

"It's me Kai, it's
Aradia."

"Aradia?"

She groaned. "Aradia
Preston? You know the girl who helped solve your dad's murder and
risked her life to help you?"

The door slowly creaked
open, and Aradia smiled. Her smile vanished quickly as she saw that
she was now staring down the barrel of a shotgun.

"What do you want?" He
snarled.

"First of all, I would like
not to have a gun pointed at me," Aradia said with her voice
quaking a little. "Second, I would like to have world peace. Third,
I would like to apologize my father for hitting him. Fourth, I
would like to thank my mother for being such a great mother. Fifth,
I would like to tell Melina I am sorry for not helping her. Sixth,
I would like to tell Roy that I am also sorry for letting his
Uncle/Alpha die..."

"Adrian's dead?" Kaiser
said. He finally pulled the gun away from Aradia's face and stared
at her.

After breathing a heavy sigh
of relief, Aradia nodded.

Kaiser looked out into the
hallway and quickly shifted his gaze from left to right.

"Get in!" he
ordered.

He didn't even want for
Aradia to respond before pushing her into his dingy apartment. He
slammed the door and locked all three bolts. When he turned around,
Aradia was staring at him inquisitively.

"What?" he said as he put
the gun down.

"Does the term 'jumpy' mean
anything to you?" Aradia couldn't help but point out much to
Kaiser's chagrin.

He just growled as he went
to his fridge. Aradia looked at all the filth laying around the
floor.

"I guess your mom isn't that
good of a housekeeper eh?" Aradia asked. She had meant it as a joke
but could tell by Kaiser's face that he didn't take it as
one.

"My mom's not here," he
growled.

"Well obviously," Aradia
began.

"No you don't understand,"
Kaiser snapped, "this isn't my mom's place. I live here on my
own."

"Huh?" Aradia was genuinely
shocked. "But the last time we saw each other..."

"Yeah well," Kaiser snarled
as he reached into the fridge, "things change Rai!"

He pulled out a milk bottle
and drained it dry. After belching and wiping his mouth with the
back of his hand was when he looked back at her.

After staring at her for a
few minutes is when he started to explain. "Things were going okay
with me and my mom for a while but...For Christ's sake I never
wanted an education. I never wanted to be a doctor or nothing. I
never wanted to have a big shot lifestyle or some shit."

"You dropped out of school?"
Aradia asked.

Kaiser snorted. "Kicked out
actually."

"What happened?"

He shrugged. "Got caught
dealing weed in the bathroom."

Aradia's widened
again.

"What?" Kaiser asked
again.

She thought about cracking a
joke about his stupidity or at least the stupidity of his situation
but then remembered that Kaiser had a gun.

The state I am in,
Aradia realized,
it be
most unwise to provoke him into anger.

"Oh nothing," Aradia said,
"I was just wondering what happened after that?"

Kaiser laughed a full
throated sarcastic laugh. "What do you think? My mom kicked me out
and I have been living here ever since."

"You have been dealing as
well huh?" Aradia remarked.

"Whatever," Kaiser snapped.
He then slammed the fridge door closed and stared at her. After a
few tense moments, he snapped once again. "So you going to tell
what you are doing here or what?"

Aradia sighed. "I was hoping
we could talk..."

"About what?"

Aradia massaged her face
with her hand.
I might as well be
honest.
"I was hoping to talk to you
about..." She paused to gather strength.

"About what?" Kaiser
repeated.

"About drugs!" Aradia cried
out. Her eyes completely clenched.

Now it was Kaiser's eyes
that went wide. "What?"

Aradia sighed. "It's like
this Kaiser, there is this new drug being sold in Salem. It's
called Rage and I need to know more about it. Since you are the
only drug dealer I know, and you owe me I thought..." She trailed
off and hoped to God she hadn't given Kaiser a reason to kill
her.

"Owe you?" Kaiser spat, "I
don't owe you nothing!"

"Oh yes you do Kaiser!"
Aradia shouted, "I helped you solve your dad's murder. If it wasn't
for me you never would have found out the truth. You never would
have found out that Dereck Caradoc was the one who had killed him.
You never would have found out anything without me. You can't deny
it. Whether you do or don't it doesn't matter because either way
you owe me. And I need your help. No to be more specific I need the
help of a drug dealer and unfortunately you are the only one I
know!"

Kaiser didn't say anything
while Aradia took deep breaths. Five seconds seemed to pass where
he just stared at her. Afterwards he groaned and ran his fingers
through his hair.

"Alright," he conceded,
"we'll talk."

"One thing first though,"
said Aradia.

Kaiser raised his
eyes.

Aradia gulped and said,
"would you please put some clothes on?"

Kaiser looked down and
that's when he realized that all he was wearing were his very
transparent briefs. He laughed but still went to his room and
pulled out some pants. After putting them on is when he came back
and saw Aradia sitting on his couch.