Hi!
I hope you all had a great weekend! So here it is, chapter 44. We haven't really heard or learned much about what happened to Anna, or why she turned rogue. You might get a few hints or maybe even answers in this one. And I'm dying to know if anyone has theories: What happened and why did Anna turn rogue?
Thanks for staying with this story, enjoy the read :-)
Lara
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Chapter 44
Elena Larosa's diary was one thing she came back for. But, there was something else. The Raven wasn't aware that she'd divided the dark magical objects she stole from him, as much as the head vampire didn't know what price he left her with. For some reason the second thought made her smile.
She moved on, approaching the wall beside the crumbling wardrobe slowly. Her mind went back to the night she turned rogue. Even though she couldn't recall all of what happened, there was an important detail she remembered and had kept from Alexander, on purpose.
When she came to her senses, she realized she must have lost Medici's leather coat at some point in time. And with it she'd lost a greater part of the magical artifacts she stole from the Raven. No, not lost. Someone took her coat and she had no idea who. She wondered if whoever took it had realized by now that they didn't get all of Medici's artifacts.
She understood why Medici had kept the artifacts close â he wanted to use them. Still, she thought it was foolish to keep all artifacts in one place. Medici had used her time and again, her and her magic. Her naiveté.
She'd learned. She learned well. So she had divided her loot, kept half of the artifacts in the pockets of Medici's jacket, and left half in her safest hiding place.
She knelt in front of the wall, flattening her palms against it. The incantation fell from her lips with ease. Power released in her palms. The spell fell apart, just as it did the night in the warehouse with Medici and she-
She froze. Stared at the empty space inside the wall, which was indeed ... empty.
Her head snapped up, targeting the spot Alexander stood in less than a minute before.
Come to me when you change your mind.
She knew why the head vampire had handed her Elena Larosa's diary just like that, why he made the bargain to begin with. He had left with a much greater price. When Alexander vanished he had Medici's stolen artifacts in his pockets.
* * *
She made her way to the perimeters, painfully aware that she was out in fading daylight. The sun was setting, making way for the night and other watchful eyes that saw much more than a human would.
There was no trace of the human police or the Circle. Nothing, but scraps of police tape that fluttered in the wind like a yellow ribbon come to life.
She was almost certain: this was the place where she must have turned rogue. This was where her memories of the night had gotten blurry.
She had to look for the auratic leftovers, and she had to do it here and now. If she waited any longer the traces might be too faint to be of use. Someone was with her in that street that night. Finding out who, might help her figure out what happened. If it was Medici himself, she'd find him and kill two ugly birds with one stone. If not...
The Circle was still looking for the remains of the Inri Brotherhood. Apparently they were uncertain how many had survived and were still out there. Uncertain if Raphael Medici was alive.
The blood was still visible on the street. She stared at it. The memory burned and chafed, like stitches coming undone from a fresh wound. She tried to get a hold of it, tried to see past the empty void inside her head.
Something in her heart contracted and hurt, as if someone was shoving a poisoned knife right into her core. All of a sudden she couldn't breathe. She closed her eyes and retreated to that empty spot in her mind until all she felt was the familiar numbness, and she could breathe again.
She rolled her shoulders and opened her eyes to second sight. Reality split and layers fell away until she could see the magical remains, a tangle of colors and auras that merged and met at Victor's coven house. Her eyes went back to the spot of blood.
There, right there. A vicious tendril of black paired with light red.
The hair on the back of her neck lifted as she stared at the auratic remains. Whoever had been in this street was powerful. Again something that seemed familiar â a missing puzzle piece she'd once held in her hand that seemed now gone, forever out of reach.
She followed the tendril, like crumbs of bread leading the way to her memory's grave.
Too much seemed to be interfering with her senses, as if she was taking a stroll through a fair, swamped by impressions and sensations. The auratic black around the mansion looked like a crater of smoke, tendrils reaching out like tentacles. Here on the other end of the street, she could make out the second explosion of auratic black. It led away from the chaos of light red and black.
She followed its trace quietly, shoving her hands into the pockets of her jeans. Her hood was up, covering most of her head, hiding most of her face. If she was careful, no one would recognize her and she would be out of the danger zone before anyone noticed.
The streets looked bare and naked without the usual hustle and bustle. And yet, the further she walked down the street, the more people crossed her path. The mansions and detached houses gave way to boring gray facades with occasional splashes of graffiti-colored symbols and patterns. It was a mix of semi-criminal excesses of Generation Y and upper bourgeois remains, which had defined this part of the city in the past decades.
While she was walking the shadows elongated slowly, then vanished with the withering daylight.
She turned to the right, a smaller street that would lead her further to the South.
Where was it going to-
There behind her. A motion. An aura. Red and strong. It was just like that night when she found Maria â one look was enough and she knew, knew beyond a shadow of a doubt who it was.
She whirled around. Even caught up in the folds of reality she knew the figure, knew the walk like her own. Andy was coming down the street, hands in his pocket.
She watched him approach, took in every detail â brown eyes, strong jaw and the blond, shoulder-length hair; that glint in his eyes he had the first time she saw him; that devil-may-care attitude that made him one of the best Force members the Circle ever had. It was still there.
She let her eyes drift over the vicinity. No one but a homeless person on the other side of the street. The old man's eyes were closed, his feet outstretched in front of him, resting beside two empty beer cans. Drunk or asleep. Maybe both.
"Out for a walk?" Andy said.
She shrugged and resumed her 'walk.' He fell into step beside her without missing a beat. She eyed him from the side, saw the hard jawline. He kept walking in a casual stride, but she felt the tension seeping off him as if it was a portable, electromagnetic field.
"I've been all over the city looking for you. What the hell are you doing here, Anna?"
She scanned the streets and dipped back into second sight, then went beyond. The colors swam in front of her eyes like watercolors dissolving. To her right: translucence and a washed out blackness that might have been from any passing vampire. A similar, equally potent touch of a dark aura to her left. And she didn't know where to go. She had lost the trace.
She swore silently and let go of auratic sight. Reality settled back into place like a messed-up Rorschach test. She blinked and turned to face him.
"Looking for something," she said. "You?"
If Andy was here, he wanted something. She needed to know what.
He slowed, stopped and turned to face her. "That's not what I meant. What happened to you? The night Victor's coven was attacked, I arrived after the last explosion went off."
Explosion. She rolled the word over in her mind.
Was there? An explosion?
"I was looking for Blaze, then I saw you in that street, all alone and you were-" He looked down at her. Iron and steel in his eyes. "You are a rogue witch, Anna. Why?"
Why. Why why why. Why was everybody asking her that?
And what was that? That feeling that seemed to knock her out of that perfect state? She had to get back to it. She looked away, retreating into that place.
"I don't know."
He grabbed her shoulders. "Dammit Anna, what happened in that street?"
She looked back again, fixed his eyes. "That's what I'm trying to find out."
He stilled and searched her face.
"Why are you here, Andy?"
"I was looking for Fabrice," he said, eyes roaming their vicinity.
Fabrice. A vampire that was anathema in this city. A vampire that had once taken her blood. Coincidentally he had also been Andy's informant. Maybe he still was.
Andy's eyes went back to her. If she had only looked into his eyes she might have missed it, might have believed his face was relaxed. A muscle in his jaw was jumping. His feet were set apart, weight perfectly balanced.
Oh yes, Andy was far from relaxed.
"I'm looking for him because he was part of the group that attacked Victor's coven house," he said.
She stilled. She hadn't known that. Another component she had missed. Lost.
What else?
Andy sighed. "I think Alexander believes Fabrice and Victor are both involved in the attacks, maybe even with the Inri Brotherhood. I don't know about Victor, but I know what I saw wasn't Fabrice's work. I saw him, and something was off about him."
She pondered on that. "You think you can trace the perpetrators, if you get a hold of Fabrice," she finally said.
He nodded. "Pretty much sums it up."
She cocked her head. "Half the city's either looking for me or wants me dead. Why are you telling me this?"
He crossed his arms in front of him. The muscles underneath his white t shirt stood out like a relief.
"Tell me this first, Anna. Why are you here? What are you looking for?"
The question was more an artless statement than anything else. Was she going to tell him that she was here because she had lost half of the illegal magical artifacts she stole from the Raven? Because she couldn't remember how she turned rogue?
She shook her head. "I'm just trying to find out what happened."
"That would make two of us," Andy said.