Page 72 of The HalloQueen

I knocked the bar twice, “On that note, I’m going to head out I’ve got groveling to do.” I nodded toward the exit and bumped Yusuf to have him follow me. I felt infinitely better now that I’d fed, but I knew it was another thing I’d probably have to apologize for when she finally spoke to me.

“Seriously, when have you been in her house in the last three years? Have you gone to Chicago?” I heard Shannon hiss at him as Yusuf and I exited the building and went out onto the walkway.

“You want to tell me what that was all about with Bels’ moms?” I asked him, weaving around people to turn back down the alley.

He leaned closer to me and spoke softly, “they’re the names I was given by the Coalition on Sunday to check in with if I needed help finding Monique. They wanted me to report her as an Undead to them.”

“Wait, what?” I slammed my hand into his chest and stopped him dead in his tracks, “Why would Annabel’s mothers even know about the Coalition?”

“You didn’t know?”

“Okay, Yus, you’re freaking me out, what is going on? Are they hunters?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” He looked around the walkway, deciding it was too crowded, and pulled me into the alley with the hand that had been on his chest, “Thomas, what do you know about Green Witches?”

I shrugged, “They like…plants.” Chuckling in disbelief I pulled my hands through my hair, “Are you fucking telling me that Bels is a witch? She doesn’t even have an alter in her house.”

“I don’t know a damn thing about your woman, but Sybil and Deirdra Williams are a Green Witch line assigned to the Boston area by the Coalition. That’s all I was told.”

I drug my hand over my face and put my other on my hip and began pacing up and down the dark corridor. “Then why have I never heard of them? We have lived in Boston forever. Surely we would have been told about the Williams family if that were the case. The Farleys were the Green Witches you met with in Boston, not the Williams.”

“They were our witches, yes, but they’re not the only ones.” Green witches acted as the in-between for Others and the Coalition. Their job was to monitor supernatural and paranormal activity in an area, collect dues, conduct investigations and report back to the main Coalition office in Paris. They were the ones you went to if you were injured and didn’t have a personal doctor. They were the ones who could ship you back to Paris for being too reckless. They were… immune to vampire bites.

“Oh my gods.” I froze, “Oh my gods. If Bels is a Green Witch, Mo can’t hurt her - this is wonderful!”

Yusuf scoffed, “Oh please, we both know that Monique could gut her in a moment. Not being able to turn her is not the same as not being able to kill her, and frankly with her mental state right now, death might be the better of the two choices. You heard her friend say she’d been in the hospital, right? I can almost guarantee you that she wasn’t mugged.”

“Have you met with them yet? Have you met Sybil and Deirdra?”

“No,” he shook his head, “I didn’t want to report Monique as a danger to the mortals unless she actually was. I didn’t want to put her in the position where they’d shoot first and ask questions later.”

“They’re not hunters, they wouldn’t hurt-”

“They may not be hunters, Thomas, but they have hunters. Don’t be dense.”

“You always handled the witches. You paid our dues, you handled the meetings... I’ve never had to meet with a witch! I only know what you’ve told me!” I shoved him, feeling out of control from a taste of anger that pulled to the surface from the bar. I remembered the quarterly meetings where he insisted that I stay home with Monique, pulling gold out of the safe and disappearing into the city, only to return exhausted hours later after they’d interrogated him regarding suspicious activity. It was a big city - there was often someone misbehaving.

“I was the oldest! Do you think I was going to voluntarily put you and Monique on their radar? It was easier to keep our exposure to them limited. I did it to keep you safe, my friend.”

“Well, we’re seeing them now. Come on.”

“Thomas it’s past midnight!”

I didn’t hear him as I shook into my wings and took flight going South.

I knew she was an Other. I saw her in my mind, puttering around her kitchen, poking her long black nails into that stupid glittery skull pot and her voice filled me.

“Why should they live in boring terra cotta? I know I wouldn’t enjoy that.”

“I find plants peaceful. I'm not very good at it, but my mom has a green thumb”

“I offered to move them to Chicago to be with me and they flat-out refused. They’ve been here longer than I’ve been alive and I think they’re just set in their ways, but they’re almost 70 and getting forgetful.”

“They said I needed to come home to learn about the family before it was too late.”

My girl,mon coeur, she belonged in my world. She was supposed to be with Others. She was supposed to have magic. That fact alone solidified what I’d already felt - she was supposed to be mine.

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