Page 104 of Witch Queen

Mae’s world stopped when Rose went limp, her arms sliding to her sides.

Brimstone and Hellreaver pressed against her back and Nikolai and Azazel embraced her as she raised her face to the sky and screamed out her agony and sorrow, her magic filling the air with a red haze that made the city tremble and turned the waters beneath them crimson.

CHAPTERTHIRTY-EIGHT

The calamitythat befell New York that day was put down to a freak weather phenomenon. It was a reality seared into the citizens’ memories by Anya’s Illusion Sorcery and bolstered by Gloria’s magic to such a degree that most could describe in accurate detail the fluke lightning storm that had smashed the Empire State Building to smithereens, with the winds carrying the debris into the Hudson River.

As for the Brooklyn Bridge, a rogue typhoon became the prime culprit for the damage done to its deck and cables.

It helped that the Immortals and the Special Affairs Bureau had blacked out the satellites orbiting above the East Coast that day and shut down all media communication, courtesy of Jared and the Chicago Seer’s forward planning.

The only ones who retained an awareness of the real reason behind the disaster were the mayor and his closest advisors. Mae would have preferred it if Anya had used her Illusion Sorcery to make them forget what they had witnessed prior to the magic war breaking out, but Bryony and Jared had insisted that would be a bad idea.

The Immortals, their allies in Chicago, and the magic community needed to work together with humans to prevent the End of Days. Mae had grudgingly arrived at the same conclusion.

Which was why they were currently sitting across from the mayor and his advisors at City Hall. The meeting began cordially enough with McKinney welcoming Mae and acknowledging everything she and the magic community had done to protect the city.

Things got awkward after one of McKinney’s counselors presented them with a document.

Abraham frowned when the advisor handed him the file. “What’s this?”

“A bill for damages,” McKinney said coolly.

Jared arched an eyebrow. Bryony’s mouth flattened into a thin line.

Abraham paled as he leafed through the paperwork. His eyes bulged when he got to the final figure. Mae leaned over and sucked in air when she saw the number.

Abraham regained his voice. He stared wide-eyed at McKinney.

“Five—five billion?!” the aide spluttered.

Bryony’s knuckles whitened on the armrests of her chair. “What?!”

“We’re willing to provide the New York coven with a generous repayment plan,” one of the counselors, whom Mae had named Tweedle Dee, said with a thin smile. “It’s on the next page.”

Abraham flipped the document. He swore.

Mae looked at the proposal and narrowed her eyes at the mayor. “Thirty-five percent interest? What are you guys, loan sharks?”

McKinney’s advisors bristled.

The second guy, Tweedle Dum, sneered at Mae. “You might be the Witch Queen, but you shall address Mayor McKinney with the respect he deserves!”

Hellreaver quivered a little on Mae’s chest.This guy is begging for an ass-kicking, my witch!

Bryony, Abraham, and Jared cut their eyes anxiously to the weapon. Mae willed an incensed Hellreaver to calm down.

“Look,” she told McKinney and his clowns once she’d promised the weapon steak for dinner, “at the end of the day, this city would have been flattened and you’d all be mindless, drooling slaves serving a Sorcerer King who enjoys nothing more than ripping your limbs from your body and feeding them to his monsters. Considering the final outcome of this war,youshould be offering us a reward.”

McKinney’s face darkened. The Tweedle twins glared at Mae.

“How dare you?!” Tweedle Dum snapped.

Crimson static sparked around Hellreaver.

“Shit,” Mae mumbled.

“He’s gone and done it now,” Abraham said flatly.

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