Shards of a Broken Heart (Witchfire 4)

Chapter 1 - Stretched Thin

CHANCE

I stood in the middle of the crumbling courtyard, little better than a crow picking at the aftermath of a grisly battle. The charred concrete still radiated heat, the stench of iron and sulphur making my nostrils flare as I toed the rubble, finding little bits of blood and bone that hadn't been consumed by the flames. The place positively reeked of magic, but it was the gouges in the brick wall that truly rankled my nerves, for it attested to some kind of blast that could crumble stone like meringue.

It was a far cry from the warfare I'd grown up with, tethered to fang and claw and reflexes, anchored in the leather grip of a sword or gun. It was unnerving to think that I might come up against something like this soon; someone who could summon lightning and end my existence with a passing thought.

There had evidently been some kind of explosion, but who had been caught in the blast? I could make out the lingering scents of Ivy, Waters, Jerome and Ruben, all accounted for by the paramedic team and on their way to the Incantum's infirmary, but the other members of the task force were still unaccounted for. I supposed it was feasible that Holden, the vampire with wine-red hair, had gone back to the Irephang skyscraper with Daina. She was his superior, after all, the acting City Warden of Melbourne's vampires. He had no choice but to heel at her command, which was why I'd kept my cards close around him, reluctant to give away any information I wouldn't say directly to her face.

The same was true of Seth, the simpering womaniser who called himself a Light Witch but had yet to hint that there were any lights on upstairs. They were both sorely mistaken if they thought their secret rendezvous had gone unnoticed the past few weeks. I didn't know what they saw in each other, but I appreciated that it kept them distracted and away from me.

Muffled shouting and shattering glass alerted me to the commotion inside long before the back door burst open.

"Lady Nightshade? We have a situation."

The honorific title chafed. It was constantly pulling me in a million directions, spreading my attention thin, my influence even more so. Once I would have been at the heart of the battle, meeting the threat head on; now I was the person who cleaned up the aftermath, forced to rely on the snippets of evidence left behind to piece together some semblance of what happened for my daily reports. It was as if I'd been sidelined in my own story, even though I'd seized that power that should have put me at the heart of it.

Once, that would have made me angry. I would have taken destiny into my own hands, killing anyone who stood in my way.

Now I accepted the pull so that I did not have to push myself; so that I didn't have to find some intrinsic motivation to live, to eat and train and function. I did those things for my people now.

And yet, I resented them for it.

"What is it?" I asked, my tone devoid of inflection and warmth. I'd taken too long to respond; he'd started to sweat, the sour stench of it curling in my nostrils.

"It's the Southern Dark Witch," the paramedic said, holding open the door, as if he might need to leap back into the fray at any moment. "She's refusing to go to the infirmary without her daughter, but her injuries..."

"I'll handle it," I said automatically, shouldering him aside. He flinched from that cursory touch as if it scalded him, as everyone did these days. I had become the personification of fear the moment I sawed off my father's head with the shackles I'd worn on my wedding day, his blood splattering up the front of my mother's pristine wedding dress. I'd burned it along with his remains, but I still felt the pinch of that corset sometimes, as if someone was still lacing it up behind my back, choking a little more life from me with every passing day.