my question. Are you going to talk to the others?”
“I’ll consider it. However, I’d prefer not to speak with the witches, especially the younger one.”
“Rita? Why not?”
He was quiet for a long moment before replying, “I can see a malevolence in her, one not too different from Emilia’s. When it comes down to it, she will do what works best for her, whether or not it is moral.”
“You’re wrong. Rita’s a good person,” I defended, even as I remembered how she’d been with Brian. Was Ira right? Was there a darkness in Rita that hadn’t yet come to the fore?
“Don’t you consider me a witch?” I asked. “I have magic.”
“You’re only half a witch, and you were not raised in the way of magic. You’re very human in your behaviour. You don’t understand your magic, but that’s not a bad thing. Those who understand their power are susceptible to being corrupted by it.”
I let that sink in. Perhaps my lack of skill wasn’t such a negative after all.
“You’re very insightful, you know.”
“I see the world and I interpret it as best I can. If that is insight, then I suppose you are right.”
“Come on, let’s go inside. It’s getting cold out here. Do you want to help me build a fire?”
“Yes, I’d like that,” Ira replied, following me into the house.
Finn kept a spare bucket of coal in the closet under the stairs, so I took it out and, with Ira’s help, loaded up the fireplace before topping it off with a few firelighters. I put one of Finn’s DVDs on, and we sat down to watch it. About halfway through Finn came downstairs, exclaiming loudly about how nice it was to walk into a toasty living room with the fire going. He settled in next to me on the couch, and I tried not to think about the fact that Ira had spoken to me and especially not about what he said about Finn being in love with me. I knew he liked me, but love? That was stretching it a bit.
I was deep in thought when I sensed someone’s attention. Flicking my gaze to the side, I found Finn gazing at me, and something in my chest tightened. He looked away, seeming a little embarrassed, and my heart squeezed. If Ira was right and Finn really was in love with me, well, that made living here a whole lot more complicated.
8.
Swooooooosh. I aimed the fire extinguisher at the mist hovering at the end of the dark alley. I almost tumbled over from the force of using it. The mist disintegrated on contact, and I grinned in triumph. This must’ve been what it was like for those people who went to shooting ranges to blow off stress. Only more fun—way more fun.
“Okay, Miss Trigger Happy, take it easy, would you?” Finn yelled as he came running into the alley after me.
He was dressed in his black DOH uniform, which I had to admit was quite fetching. I’d taken off at warp speed when I spotted the mist slithering down a side street. In an unlikely turn of events, I actually outran Finn when he started chasing me. Must’ve been my adrenaline.
Earlier today, Finn asked me to join him and Ira with the DOH on their mist hunt. Pamphrock had divided his men into teams, assigning them different shifts at various times of the day so that the chance of the mist infecting people was minimised.
I followed Finn to another back alley. Alleys and side streets seemed to be the places the mist frequented most during daylight. It was like it knew it’d be more likely to be seen out on the main thoroughfares, and the idea that it had conscious thought was unsettling.
I stumbled in fright when I saw just how much mist was back here. It slithered along walls, crept by window boxes. One of Finn’s trainee slayers, Danny, appeared, obliterating the mist with his extinguisher. Somehow, this seemed to anger it. The mist that remained conglomerated into an almost solid mass and started to make a distorted humming noise.
“Well, that’s not creepy at all,” I said to Finn. Several other young slayers appeared behind us, each with their extinguisher at the ready.
“All at once,” Finn shouted. “On the count of three. One … two … three.”
On three, they let loose on the mist. This time it didn’t evaporate though. The edges faded, but the centre held strong.
“Shit,” Finn muttered, before ordering loudly. “And again!”