Persie Merlin and the Witch Hunters - Bella Forrest Page 0,113
ain’t got naught te do with what’s happenin’ te us.”
The older woman snorted. “I bet ye’d say anythin’ te save her, eh? Well, there’s naught ye can say. It don’t matter that yer da is the boss, we’re goin’ te stop this infection, and that means takin’ ye and yer little witch out. He’ll understand once we explain everythin’. I expect he’ll be glad ye’ve been dealt with, so he don’t have to deal with the disappointment of havin’ a witch lover for a son.”
Hang on… what?! If I understood correctly, Reid’s father was the leader of these witch hunters. Did that mean Reid was also a leader of Veritas, or maybe just the leader of this Irish branch? When it came down to it, we still didn’t know how far the influence of Veritas reached, and it wasn’t as though I could just ask these people who evidently wanted me dead.
“This ain’t what ye think, so don’t ye dare try and tarnish me good name or that of me da!” Reid shouted back, as I peered warily around his muscular arms. “I ain’t gone against me values or the laws laid down by the Veritas. I only reached out for help ‘cause of this curse that’s hurtin’ all of us, and ‘cause I didn’t want it infectin’ more people. Folks’re on the brink of dyin’, so I did what I had te. It’s no different te nickin’ a magical device and usin’ it fer our own ends. Only it’s a person, not a device. Though that ain’t new for us, neither.”
“Ye did what?” The ringleader frowned. Thanks to Reid’s last sentence, any lingering shreds of doubt I might’ve had about their part in the missing magicals evaporated. They’d stolen devices and magicals, the latter helping them to use the former.
“It ain’t no secret that we hate witches, aye?” Reid said. “We want te out them and show we ain’t scared of what they can do, but that don’t mean they don’t have their uses when somethin’ like this happens.” He pointed at himself, and I wondered if he could hear the hypocrisy in what he was saying. They hated us, but they needed us, and magic was okay as long as it served them? I wanted to give him a jab in the spine, but I resisted. If he could talk us out of here, then I supposed he could say whatever he wanted—I’d get him back for it later. “This lass agreed te help us lift the curse, so long as we didn’t bother this island again. I’d say that’s a price we can pay, te stop the infection and save ourselves, eh? What’s one isolated group of witches off our radar if it means we live another day? If we can continue our work elsewhere?”
I peeked out from behind Reid once more. “He’s telling the truth. We’re not involved in any way. I wouldn’t touch him with a barge pole.” I shot him a glare, so everyone was on the same page. “He kidnapped me and tortured me, for Pete’s sake! That’s when I told him he should’ve just asked for help instead of trying to electrocute me.” I decided to exaggerate what had happened, in case it helped our case with the witch hunters. “After he explained what was going on, I decided to help, because even if you hate what we are, I don’t hate non-magicals. And I don’t want any of you dying because of something a magical did. That doesn’t exactly paint us in a good light, now, does it? Meddling with non-magicals also goes against our laws, whether you want to believe it or not.”
“As if a witch would voluntarily help a human,” a different woman hissed. They were all Irish, I noticed. And hearing and seeing the hatred spewing out of them, I realized that Reid had actually been relatively tame by comparison. This lot would definitely have tortured me within an inch of my life, and they wouldn’t have flinched.
“We do it more often than you’d think, actually.” I wasn’t going to back down without a bit of sass. “Especially in cases that are this disturbing. And there’s more than one way to undo a curse. Although, if you want the facts, killing Reid and myself would do absolutely nothing to remove the curse from the rest of you. I didn’t cast it, so you’d just have one dead witch hunter and one dead witch.”