Chapter 1: The Vampire, The Witch and the Coven.
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Ana Castegarde took a deep breath and resisted the urge to scream.
No good had ever come of her losing her temper, and she knew that the moment it happened she'd automatically be railroaded by one Lola Burbank, the coven's enforcer and an annoyingly confident High Priestess.
Lola had joined their coven a few years back after transferring from England and while they didn't exactly hate each other, both woman had very strong and firm beliefs which were often in conflict.
It was one of those meetings which had Ana wanting to punch everyone in their collective faces. Ever since the Coven Mother had died over a year ago, leaving Ana suddenly in charge, it had been an absolute nightmare.
Rhea Bridge had been the last of the old witches, and with her departure things would in all likelihood end in the Coven's eventual demise. The sudden death had left the girls of the Coven reeling, unsettled. Ana had only just entered into her status as high priestess. She hadn't been ready to be Coven Mother (A point which Lola seemed to bring up all too frequently).
How was she supposed to guide the coven when she could barely guide herself?
Ana was the youngest Coven Mother ever in the history of the Sydney Dark Witches since it had been established way back by Convict women in the 1700s. And it showed - she felt overwhelmed by the responsibility and distraught at every turn.
There wasn't much room for life outside of the coven business once one became a Coven Mother. It was a heavy crown to bear and had effectively been the end of her youth and any sort of life outside of the coven (not that she'd had much of a life to begin with).
So while the others got to live their lives as normal witches, working where they wanted, going out when they wanted, dating whoever they wanted, having the opportunity to marry, have kids, build a life - that wasn't to be for Ana. She had been robbed of those opportunities the moment Rhea Bridge had died and the title of the Coven Mother had transferred to her.
She knew the others were unsure of her leadership, she had Lola questioning her every move and decision, and she wished with every part of her body she could give Lola the role, but that would only happen if she died. She never understood why Rhea had chosen her as Coven Mother and not Lola. Lola had been more powerful, more experienced and 5 years older than Ana. By every right Lola should have been next. But Rhea had insisted it be Ana, said it was
Besmiirh -
fate.
Well fate was cruel, because at the age of 30, Ana was childless, husbandless and lonely - without any opportunity or chance of ever rectifying these things because the burden of being Coven Mother just didn't allow it.
There was the magic shop to run, meetings to organise, meetings with other covens to operate, diplomacy, humans to assist, witches to keep in check, catastrophes to avoid...the list was endless.
Now one more thing had piled onto the list. One more dreadful, terrible burden which she didn't even know how to handle.
The current hot topic of debate tonight: the vampires. More specifically, one vampire, the Master of the City of Sydney, known as Julian.
She'd never had much directly to do with the vampires in the city. They mostly resided in The Underground - a special, secure series of passages and rooms underneath the city which housed many of the area's preternatural citizens in a secure and safe environment. 2020 or not, despite all the integration and progress made between the humans and non-humans in the last 70 years, it still wasn't completely safe and so The Underground was established to ensure protection.
Of course, the one time she had really ever even set foot in The Underground was to scream her head off at Julian, because he had pretty much pimped out her sweet, innocent, darling little sister, Lena, to some ancient vampire to appease a ridiculously psychotic Vampire Master from another city.
Goddess
, she had raged. It had barely been a meeting and more of abusive, angry tirade at the Vampire, which had - she was almost ashamed to admit - resulted in the obliteration of an entire wing of The Underground. To his credit Julian had taken it rather calmly and hadn't seemed at all disturbed by her aggressive threats and violent destruction.
In the brief memory she had of Julian she remembered him as an authoritative, calm and pragmatic individual who had an uncanny ability to sooth a person. He was terrifyingly charming which was a real danger if you let your guard down with him.
It wasn't until last night that she'd ever really spared any further thoughts for the Master of the City - she'd been so furious with him that she'd pretty much all but cast him from her mind. That was, of course, until two of his vampires had shown up on the doorstep of the Magic shop and demanded her help, her
expertise.
The vampires had introduced themselves as Orville and Jasper - two of the Master's guards. Desperate for an audience because something terrible had happened. Julian had lost his mind, in the literal and metaphysical sense in what had appeared to be overnight.
He had gone to sleep for the day and when he had awoken he was frightful, terrifying, smashing things and attacking people and was only able to be subdued by ten of the guards. Ana had heard in detail just how horrifying it had been from her younger sister's closest friend, Lachlan, who had been working at The Underground that evening and had seen it unravel.
It seemed evident that something had happened to him, everyone was under the impression that perhaps he had been cursed. When they had been unable to settle him, that was when the vampires had come to her.
And that was the controversial topic of conversation: to help out the vampires or not.
It was Lola versus Ana, round number
whatever
. She was quickly losing count of how many times they'd argued through this particular topic this evening.
"There is no amount of money on this Goddess-forsaken earth to convince me that we should help those fang-faced, blood fuckers," Lola drawled in her East-London accent, red nails tapping incessantly against the old wood of the table.
Before Ana could tell Lola that no, actually, they really could use the money because the house was in a pretty poor state and the funds from the Magic Shop were barely covering their electricity and water rates, another priestess piped up.
"We're barely able to pay for bills as it is, Lola," Adeline said, shrugging her shoulders apologetically, "I think, actually, I'm siding with Ana on this one. Not just because it would be a good power move, because it really
would
be. But they're offering a exorbitant amount of money. We can't just pass that up because you once got your heart broken by some Russian vampire."
Lola gave Adeline a cold glare, her mouth set in a tight line. Ana just about wanted to laugh.
"I liked it better when you lived away from the Coven." Lola snapped back.
"So does Marcus, but here we are." Adeline sighed, eyes glazing over as she no-doubt began thinking about her boyfriend, "Actually if we could wrap this up soon that'd be great, I have a date to get to."
"Excellent idea," Ana interjected, "All in favour of assisting the vampires, raise your hands."
All the girls raised their hands, with the exception, of course, of Lola who just sat and stared down each witch with a glare. Anxiety filled the room, but to the girls' credit none of them gave in.
"Right, that settles it." Ana felt relief wash over her body.
"But we haven't even discussed the terms or anything!" Lola shouted, "I love you bloody witches, but you're all going to put me in an early grave."
"What's there to discuss further?" interjected Arabella Bridge, one of the Junior Priestesses.
"Well, where's he going to stay while we sort this out? He's going to need to be observed and easily accessed by us."
That was, Ana was displeased to admit, a fine point. Where exactly would they work this out? It needed to be a safe magic space for them, but also safe for him.
"Why doesn't he just stay here?" her youngest sister, Lena offered, "He can stay in the basement, there aren't any windows down there, so if he's up during the day he won't be burnt to a crisp. It'll be easy for us to access and we won't have to be around any 'unnecessary' vampires."
Lola looked dumbfounded, silent for the first time the entire evening.
Adeline stood up, "Right, that'll work. I'm off then."
"Sit down, Parker-Tate," Lola ground out.
"I wish I was in exile with
my
boyfriend," Adeline muttered under her breath as she dropped down into the chair sulkily, "Wouldn't have to attend these stupid, long meetings."
"How
is
Astrid going, Ana?" May Whitmore piped up. Ana had barely even noticed the witch at the end of the table. May was like that though, not noticeable until she wanted to be noticed. It was a skill Ana wished she possessed.
"Fat," Sybilla Bridge piped up, cheeky grin plastered all over her face. Ana saw her sister nudge her and frown.
"You can't call pregnant women fat," Arabella remonstrated.
"She'd kill you if she heard you say that, Sybilla" Lena shook her head, an unmistakable laugh tickling her voice, "She's almost due."
May sighed happily, "Wow, the first babies in the coven in this generation. How exciting!"
"Well, we won't know what they're about until they're born," Ana smiled, thinking about her obscenely pregnant sister, "They're half-werewolf too, so the distribution of magic will be different."
"How long has Astrid been in Melbourne now?" Sybilla frowned.
It had been four long months since her sister, Astrid, had left for Melbourne with her boyfriend. All because she had fallen in love with the wrong guy.
Well, he'd been the right guy for Astrid, just that it had been the wrong situation.
Their romance had caused the ire of the Sydney werewolf clan and their queen. For a number of reasons really, the main one being that her boyfriend was supposed to mate the queen, but had mated with Astrid instead. He'd gotten her pregnant and they had to leave lest they be murdered by the clan. It was actually quite a terrifying prospect, but Ana had tried to stay positive, reminding herself that two beautiful things had come out of this situation: 1) Astrid had settled down with someone she loved, and 2) they were expecting babies. With being Coven Mother, Ana wasn't certain she'd ever get the opportunity for either of those things, so for now being an Aunt was going to be something she was going to thoroughly look forward to.
"Four months," Ana replied.
"Four months? Look, I know I'm fourteen but that doesn't sound right. How can she be just about to give birth. I thought she'd only gotten pregnant just before they had to leave?" Sybilla asked.
"Werewolf pups gestate for approximately 150 days, which I guess is 5 months." Ana shrugged.
"Right, enough distractions," Lola interjected, "time to get back to the conversation at hand."
There was a collective groan from the table, but Lola continued on anyway.
It had finally been decided, after three hours of gruelling back and forth, that the coven would agree to see the vampire master's state at the shop tomorrow.
