Tales of Aradia The Last Witch Volume 5 (26 page)

"Is that why you are here?"
Agrippa said accusingly, "to offer feeble excuses?"

"No," Aradia said
passionately and shook her head. "No that's not why at
all."

"Then why?" Agrippa
demanded. The gargoyles looked like they were growing
restless.

"I came here..." Aradia
paused, "because I need your help."

Agrippa rolled his eyes and
muttered, "I knew it! Typical human nature. Only wanting to
associate with you when they want something."

Aradia stiffened but before
she could say anything Agrippa held up his hand. "The answer is no!
I don't help humans just because I saved your life doesn't change
that."

He then turned to leave and
would have hopped off the building until Aradia said, "but I am not
human!"

All the gargoyles stared at
her in shock even Agrippa turned back to look at her.

"What?" said Agrippa, "what
do you..."

"I am not human," Aradia
repeated, "I am a witch. A hidden witch!"

The gargoyles' eyes widened.
One of them, not Agrippa, chuckled boldly. "Is this some sort of
jest? All the hidden witches are dead! They were killed over three
hundred years ago."

"I know," Aradia said
solemnly, "I know that they are all dead. Well except for me, I am
the last one. I am Aradia the absolute last witch!"

Agrippa now look genuinely
intrigued. He straightened up and walked right up to Aradia. He
towered over her with an intimidating glint in his eye.

"Explain!" This is what he
demanded and this is what Aradia did.

For the next two hours,
Aradia explained everything right from her parents finding her to
finding the chronicle of her people along with their dead bodies.
Undisputed proof that she was indeed the last witch on
Earth.

"My god," the brown gargoyle
muttered, "you really are a witch."

Aradia nodded solemnly.
"Yeah and I am the last one."

Shayde and Whisper also
listened intensely to Aradia's story. It explained to them fully
why Saul and perhaps the Sovereign were interested in her. It also
made them feel more sympathetic to her then ever before.

"I still can't believe it,"
Agrippa murmured, "I still can't believe that you are actually
alive. I mean if there really was a hidden witch left alive why
don't more people know?"

"Well being the last of my
kind is not something I brag about," Aradia muttered.

A melancholy descended upon
the group as Aradia stared at the ground.

The silence was finally
broken when the white gargoyle remarked, "the thing I don't
understand is why would you bother werewolves at all?"

Aradia smiled a little. "The
thing about being the last of your kind is that you soon find that
your loyalty is never to one particular group of hiddens. Sometimes
I help the vampires, other times I help the shape-shifters, fae,
but this time I am helping the werewolves."

"Why?" asked
Agrippa.

"Because something majorly
weird is going down. A new drug becomes more popular than LSD or
weed and is distributed all over the country. Nobody knows what
it's made from and furthermore it seems to be the source of all the
latest violent conflicts concerning the hiddens. What's worse, the
drug was used to poison one of the Alphas in my hometown. None of
this can be a coincidence."

"It's not," Whisper
remarked.

Everyone turned to look at
her just as she explained, "lately all over Salem and even here in
New York the Sovereign has been recruiting more soldiers to his
armies. Half of the people we know have already sworn their loyalty
to him and been shipped off to training camps."

The gargoyles stayed
extremely quiet. Agrippa placed a finger to his lips, he looked
like he was deep in thought.

The brown gargoyle sighed
and said, "they are right though it can't be a coincidence. Why
just the other day we said that we had noticed fights breaking out
more often more the hiddens. Vicious fights not like the old ones
where the opponents would either win or get tired and move on. No
these latest ones have become more senseless. It's like they don't
even care of they die they launch into attack instantly and hold
nothing back."

"This is true," the grey
skinned gargoyle admitted, "fights have always been common among
the hidden race but these recent ones have been ridiculous. I have
heard that half of the New York Demon clan has already died and
more than a half of the Night Wind werewolf pack have died as well.
The seelie faes of New York have gone missing too. After the prime
minister was found slashed they retreated into their own realms.
That was over six months ago and no one has heard from them since.
They have clubs and businesses all over the city but no own has
checked in on them. I find that very odd, I mean you think if you
would own a successful business you would at least send someone to
check up on it."

"Unless of course," Agrippa
muttered, "you were afraid to go there for fear that somebody might
kill you."

"You couldn't send a servant
there," the brown one said, "for fear of somebody nabbing them and
torturing information out of them."

"And you would only be that
scared if you had someone pretty powerful after you," The grey one
concluded.

Agrippa slammed his hand
into his palm. "That settles it! Something fiendish is
afoot!"

"Exactly!" Aradia said as
she sprang to her feet. "Which is why I needed your
help."

Agrippa, however, seemed to
less enthusiastic about it. He slowly stood up. "Why should we help
you? The affairs of vampires are none of our concern..."

"Look!" Whisper practically
shouted, "do you really believe that the Sovereign isn't planning
something that will bring the whole world to its knees? The man is
the biggest control freak on this planet. He makes Adolf Hitler
look like Martin Luther King Jr. A bad analogy I know but the most
accurate I can think of. Obedience is the one thing he craves from
all his subjects. Yes, his subjects are the vampires but do you
honestly believe he would be satisfied with just that? No! He would
branch out and start conquering other people."

"Which is exactly what he is
doing!" the grey one declared.

Everyone turned to stare at
him while he said, "don't you see? The fights, the drugs, the
getting rid of leaders? He is planning a subversion and you only do
that when your planning on conquering something from the inside
out."

Agrippa sighed heavily and
turned away for a moment. After rubbing his deformed face with his
clawed hand, he looked back at Aradia, Shayde, and Whisper. They
stared at him with hopeful expectations.

He sighed agin before
asking, "what do you need us to do?"

Out of all the smiles from
the group, Aradia's was the biggest.

"I am curious about one
thing," Aradia inquired.

"Hmm?" Agrippa glanced
over.

He was the one who carried
her in his arms as they soared towards the building. It was the one
across from the factory that Kaiser had previously taken her to.
The brown gargoyle carried Shayde while the white one carried
Whisper. The grey one carried the flank, looking left and right to
make sure they were being followed.

Or
noticed
, Aradia realized,
it wouldn't bode well for the humans to notice the
gargoyles and start shrieking.

She chuckled before Agrippa
jerked upwards. Aradia gasped and threw her arms around Agrippa's
neck. He stiffened but said nothing. He just nodded to the other
gargoyles who nodded in reply. Spreading their wings further, the
gargoyles glided down to stand on top of the building. Slowly,
Agrippa set Aradia down on her feet. She smiled at him in spite of
his grim expression. Shayde and Whisper practically sprang from the
other gargoyles arms as soon as they landed on the
rooftop.

"Are we being followed?"
Agrippa demanded of the grey gargoyle who shook his
head.

Agrippa nodded in
satisfaction.

"Excuse me Agrippa?" Aradia
asked.

"Yes?"

"Like I just said, I m
curious about one thing."

Agrippa rolled his eyes.
"And that is?"

Aradia exhaled a breath.
"Well I know what your name is but I don't know theirs."

She pointed at the other
gargoyles to indicate what she meant. The others stared at her,
shocked that she even wanted to know.

Agrippa chuckled at their
expressions. "Well why don't you ask them yourselves?"

Aradia then turned to the
other gargoyles who sounded off. The brown one said his name was
Cato, the white was Aurelius, and the grey was named
Cicero.

"All Roman philosophers,"
Aradia noted with a soft chuckle.

The gargoyles exchanged
quick glances with each other as if Aradia had stumbled upon a
closely guarded secret. She noticed but before she could say
anything she heard a noise from behind her.

It was Kaiser climbing up
the fire escape ladder that led straight to the roof. He climbed
with no trouble but the moment he saw the gargoyles he stiffened.
His eyes grew wide and Aradia could see by the way his mouth was
widening that he was about to cry out. Aradia quickly ran towards
him and clamped a hand over his mouth.

"Hush!" Aradia hissed as she
looked behind him to make sure no one had heard. The guard
vampires, with their super sonic hearing, at the factory didn't
seem fazed one bit. They were too busy standing guard at the
factory.

"Thank God for that," Aradia
muttered. She kept her hand over Kaiser's mouth as she pulled him
away. He struggled, however, once he realized she was bringing him
closer to the gargoyles.

"What are they?" He demanded
as soon as Aradia took her hand away.

She sighed and explained in
addition to pointing out all the gargoyles and saying their names.
In spite of the introductions, Kaiser still quavered.

Aradia rolled her eyes and
said, "so what do you have for me?"

Kaiser said while never
taking his eyes off the gargoyles, "it is as you believed. There is
an office in there located to the north side of the building. Its
filled with papers and stuff."

"How do you know this?"
Agrippa asked.

Kaiser squeaked at the
revelation that this thing could actually talk. Aradia stopped
herself from chuckling but followed Agrippa's lead. "Well? How do
you know?"

Kaiser gulped. "I followed
the cleaning crew and over heard them gossiping about
it."

"Did they saw what those
documents are about?" Aradia asked.

This time Kaiser broke his
scared expression. He stared at her with a sarcastic expression
that said are you kidding?

Aradia let a slow
exasperated breath.
Of course it wouldn't
be that easy.

Agrippa looked at Aradia and
then back to the roof of the factory. After a few moments, he
nodded and said, "I see."

Aradia glanced at him,
curious.

"I see what you want from me
and my guild."

She then cast her eyes down,
a little guiltily.

Agrippa, however, just
sighed deeply. He then glanced back at his fellow gargoyles who
stared at him awaiting instructions.

He snorted a little before
looking back at Aradia. She stared at him, looking at him rather
hopefully.

He then smiled and scooped
her up in his arms. "Its a good thing you are cute."

Aradia smiled awkwardly
before Agrippa spread his wings. He nodded to the other gargoyles
who followed suit. They then raced off the building and jumped off.
They then glided towards the factory roof.

Shayde, Whisper, and Kaiser
hung back and stared at them. Shayde and Whisper held hands as
Shayde asked Kaiser, "do you think they will be okay?"

Kaiser shrugged. "One can
only hope!"

Agrippa quickly found a
cloud bank and with one jerk of his head the gargoyles followed
him. Aradia was fearful that they would fly straight into it but
she neednt have worried. Instead the gargoyles flew above the cloud
bank which was large enough to cloak him and his guild. This was
how they snuck to the factory rooftop without being noticed. Once
they reached it, they landed as gently as possible. Sure enough
there was a heavily locked door on the rooftop standing out
conspicuously like a huge zit on a super model's face.

"How do we get in?" Cato
asked.

Agrippa rolled his eyes
before stomping straight to the door and raising his huge leg high
in the air. Aradia realized what he was about to do and quickly
stopped him.

"There might be an alarm,"
Aradia explained.

She then turned around and
stared at the locked door. It had two looks and a padlock on the
doorknob. The door also looked reinforced,
so maybe it was a good thing Agrippa didn't break it down
because it might have caused him to break his own leg.
Luckily the padlock was on her side and after two
weeks of proper eating, sleeping, and no drugs her powers had
started coming back to her. Aradia held the lock in her hand and
narrowed her eyes. She sensed the locking mechanism in the padlock
and triggered it. She then pulled off the padlock and chain and set
in on the ground. She stumbled a big dealing with the energy
leaving her. Agrippa caught her and said, "what's
wrong?"