had made a conscious choice to not kill me. He made it sound like warlocks and witches had no choice how they behaved. It was just hardwired into their DNA to be psychotic murderous assholes. Sure, I had met plenty who made me think that could be true, but I’d also been through their training, heard their rhetoric. They taught the apprentices that violence and cruelty were the only options if you wanted to survive in this world. And then they backed up their claims with horrific brutality.
A little compassion and understanding and this all could be stopped.
But Eddie didn’t care about that. He wanted to see Gideon staked in the middle of a field while his skin was stripped off with a potato peeler. This asshole didn’t give a shit about the fact that Gideon had saved countless lives through his secret protection of the people. They didn’t care that he had a wife and a daughter whom he loved deeply. Hell, they’d kill the man’s daughter in a heartbeat just to avoid the risk of her one day growing up to be a witch. Probably his wife too because she’d be viewed as a traitor.
A sickening shaft of fear sliced through my heart and I clenched my teeth against it. It wasn’t his suggestion that I was afraid of. It was the idea that most people in the world probably thought just like him. At one time, I could have almost excused it. I’d watched from a front-row seat as the Towers tortured and slaughtered the people of world. I understood their hatred and their fear.
But they couldn’t see the good within the bad; the so-called diamonds in the rough. If it was magical, it was bad and needed to die. And once they succeeded in tearing down the Towers and destroying all the witches and warlocks, what was next? The elves, because of their natural magical abilities? Or maybe the tattoo artists of the world because we knew how to mix potions?
Was this the world I was trying desperately to save? I’d be trading one horror for another.
I wanted to be sick, but couldn’t. Serah had just stepped out of the medical offices building and was heading toward the crosswalk.
She moved slowly, sort of waddling from the front door of the medical offices building and down the sidewalk toward the corner. She was wrapped in a heavy coat with a knit hat pulled down low to cover her ears as well as the Bluetooth device that was there. The only thing that looked somewhat out of place was the fact that she wasn’t wearing any gloves. One of her bare hands rested on the large stomach protruding in front of her while her other hung loosely at her side. I was willing to bet that she had a gun in her pocket and gloves would have made it impossible for her to pull the trigger.
While her shape was accurate, she didn’t quite act like a pregnant woman. There was a tension humming from her body as if she was expecting to be attacked at any second. Then again, it was likely that most women in Low Town were acting that way now that news had hit of a third murder. Staring out the front window of my shop today, I’d noticed that lone women in cars and walking down the sidewalk were few and far between. They were traveling in packs now and usually had a man close at hand.
Low Town had always had a bit of an edge to it. Maybe not like Chicago or Los Angeles, but it had its dangers. Yet, this recent turn had gone to a sickening extreme.
“What the fuck?” Eddie grumbled. “She supposed to be having twins?”
For once, I had to agree with him. Serah did look particularly stuffed between the pregnancy suit she was in and the heavy winter clothing adding a second thick layer.
“It’s like she got knocked up by the marshmallow man,” I murmured as she shuffled across the street when the light finally turned in her favor. Eddie’s wheezing laugh filled the silence as we waited.
After a couple minutes, Serah was safely inside the hospital and we all breathed a sigh of relief. I could feel the tension rush out of Serah. Her hands were probably shaking. Inside, a nurse was showing her to a private room where she would wait for approximately thirty minutes before she would set out on her long walk down the block