Page 113 of Catastrophe

BAELEN

Arabella greeted me as we returned to the task team office, but her welcome didn’t last long. She jumped to her request before Savida had released Zaide from his winged hug. “We need you to take everyone to a safe place.”

“This is not safe?” I asked, alarmed.

“It’s safe, but it’s our mission space. Having so many witches here is interfering with our work. We can’t look after them and also come up with a way to defeat the hunters and find Fafnir.” She waved a hand at the witches milling around the space, ease-dropping on the conversations, and sitting on the edge of a desk where Isaac was showing Charlie something on a screen. He growled at them and they skittered off to another desk.

I could see what she meant, but it didn’t seem to me they could do anything without Charlie anyway, so what did it matter if they had to care for victims? They weren’t doing much else.

I rubbed my chin. “Where is this safe place? I need to see it to be able to portal there.”

“It’s multiple places, actually. We hope you and the others will help get the council back to their people and the witches to stay in safe houses that Elizabeth’s family owns.”

The woman in question entered the room, and Charlie extracted himself from Isaac to join our conversation. “Safe houses?”

“Of course. We need a place to go to in case the portals are attacked.”

“If the portals are attacked, what happens?” I asked, out of curiosity.

Elizabeth shrugged. “We defend them, we call in reinforcements and if we can’t do that, we have the safe houses to retreat to.”

“Your reinforcements have only ever been members of your own family.” Charlie patted her back and cheered. “Isn’t it good you’ve come out of hiding and can now ask for assistance from the other council members and supernatural task teams?”

“Yes, Charlie. You are very wise,” she replied dryly.

“Right, well, give me the coordinates to the safe houses so we can show Baelen where to go,” Charlie ordered and then looked around. “And where’s Daithi? It’s so typical of him to slope off before he has to do any hard work.”

“Charlie—” Savida admonished.

“I’ll help,” Zaide offered.

Charlie frowned. “Are you sure you’re up to it? Have you portaled before?”

“I’m well enough and I would like to be useful,” he replied calmly. “I haven’t portaled before, but I believe doing it under the tutelage of Baelen would ease my anxieties around it.”

His confession made a warm feeling bubble inside my chest. I am glad he trusts me so.

“An excellent suggestion. I’ll inform everyone to get ready to leave.” Arabella clapped her hands and hurried away.

Elizabeth accompanied Charlie to the screens and Charlie typed in the numbers she spoke of until a house was visible on the screen.

“That is where we are going?” I asked.

“One of.” Elizabeth said. “Around fifteen witches can be housed there.”

“There’s about fifty here.” Zaide paled.

“We have more houses.”

I patted his shoulder. “You will be fine. We may need to have a rest after, but once they are safe elsewhere, we can concentrate on the hunters.”

“That’s the spirit.” Another woman whom I hadn’t met came over with Arabella. “I’m Marianne, the vampire council representative.”

“You are part akari.” I noticed her tiny fangs and raised a surprised brow.

“I’m fully blooded.” She replied sharply and then softened her tone when she noticed my surprise at her snappy response. “But we haven’t been to the homeland in many centuries. We’ve adapted here. Become vampires.”

I nodded. “It’s impressive you have kept your line full of akari ancestors. Is that valued here?”

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