Page 33 of That Ain’t Witchcraft

“If that were all you’d done, I’d buy bigger jeans and deal with it.”

“Ah. Still holding that messy business at the carnival against me, are you?” He took a careful sip of his drink—coffee, by the smell of it—before offering, “I didn’t kill you when I had the chance, you know. I think that ought to buy me a little tolerance.”

“I could slit your throat before anyone in this place realized I was going to move.”

Leonard took another sip. “Mmm. Maybe yes, maybe no, but then you’d be covered in blood—arterial spray is so messy—and that would be a bit difficult to explain. Not to mention you have no idea whether I’m here by myself. I could have an entire team waiting across the street to take you down.”

“You’d be dead. That might be a fair trade.”

“Not really. You wouldn’t still be running if you’d realized that the best way for you to protect that viper’s nest you call a family was to come to me willingly.” He put his cup down and reclined in his chair, smiling, utterly at ease. “If you were an operative in good standing, we could return to the old status quo, where we leave your people alone except for the occasional observer, and your people understand that if they rise against us, we’ll destroy them. It was good enough for Enid and Alexander. I can’t imagine it wouldn’t be good enough for the current generations.”

“We’re not living in the fifties anymore.”

“No. No, we’re not. Sometimes I think it’s a pity, other times I’m not so sure. The Internet is a blessing, absolutely. And facial recognition software! My God. Let it advance a little further and we won’t need witches. We’ll finally be able to purge them from the human population, and won’t that be a blessing for everyone?”

“Maybe not for the witches,” I said softly.

Leonard looked at me like I was a fool. “Have you ever met a witch, Annie? They’re beset by demons of their own creation from the cradle to the grave. They never know peace, never know comfort, never know anything more than the torment of their own unnatural abilities, their own unbearable burdens. I know you want us to be monsters, because it would be easier for you if we were, but remember, the Covenant was formed to protect humanity from the things lurking outside the firelight. Sometimes that includes humanity itself.”

I looked at him. Then I turned to look at the coffee shop around us. People were going about their business, blithely unaware of the danger. We might as well have been talking about the weather. It was a good tactic. Most people don’t pay nearly as much attention to their surroundings—or to the conversations happening around them—as they believe they do, and the Dungeons and Dragons game at the front of the shop was only going to help keep us under the radar, since anyone who did overhear us would probably assume we were talking about something similar, some world where all the monsters were drawn on graph paper and all the problems could be solved with a roll of the dice.

“Why are you here, Leonard?” How are you here, how did you find me, what do you want, how do I make you go away. The questions were like puppies, tumbling over themselves inside my mind, getting tangled into balls of limbs and waggling tails. I wanted to ask them all. I didn’t want to ask any of them.

I didn’t have time for this. James would finish his shift soon. He’d leave, and I would be alone with Leo in a way I hadn’t been since the carnival, when he had finally seen fit to remind me that he was more than just another Covenant operative: he was their heir apparent, the man raised since birth to one day lead the greatest organization of monster hunters in the world. The fact that he could seem ordinary enough to make me forget that fact was just one aspect of why he scared me so badly.

He … lulled. He made things I’d hated my entire life seem forgivable, or at least understandable, like there were two sides to the story. Listening to him was like attending a lecture on moving a person’s Overton window, making the unthinkable permissible one simple, logical twist at a time.

“Why do you think I’m here, Annie?” He picked his mug up again, turning it in his hand. His eyes remained fixed on me. “It’s my responsibility to check on the recruits, to make sure they’re doing well. You did an excellent job with that Blight infestation in Ohio. How did you clear the field alone? Oh, of course—you weren’t alone. You had the ape with you. How is he doing? Still deluding himself that he could ever hold onto you? I’m sure you’ll get tired of slumming soon. Don’t worry. I won’t hold it against you. You’re not the first, and you won’t be the last, to think there’s value in a little extracurricular hunting.”

“If you ever talk about Sam like that again, I will kill you, and damn the consequences,” I said pleasantly.

Leo laughed. “I almost wish I could test that conviction. It would be worth the pain to see you realize how badly you’d messed up.”

“Fuck you.”

“You know, I prefer you this way: honest.” He sipped his coffee. “No pretenses, no lies, just this glorious, untamed killer looking for a place to direct her rage. You could be spectacular with the right hand to guide you. Warriors do better when they have scholars standing behind them and pointing at the target. You’d never have to think again. All you’d need to do was move. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”

I couldn’t help myself. I burst out laughing. James looked over his shoulder, frowning when he saw the source of the noise. I couldn’t explain. I smiled sweetly at Leo instead, leaning forward.

“See, that’s where you show that you don’t know me at all. I’ve never wanted to be the blunt instrument.” That was Verity’s job, and she was welcome to it. She enjoyed moving through the world like a knife, slashing and stabbing and cutting away at the foundation of things until they crumbled around her. She didn’t plan. She … choreographed.

I planned. I considered the consequences. And yeah, sometimes I acted impulsively, sometimes I went against my own better instincts and my own precious planning, but I always did it for a reason. The fact that Leo thought otherwise was one more piece of proof that he had never seen me, Antimony. He’d only ever been looking at my name, and what it would mean to bring my family back into the fold.

“There are other paths open to you,” he said.

“I like the one I’m on just fine,” I replied. “Why are you here, Leo?”

“You disappeared for quite a while. I was concerned. You’re my project, Annie, and I’m going to see you to completion. Your parents might have raised you in hiding—however many of you there are—but once we knew you existed, there was no way you were ever going to get away. You’re clever enough to understand that much.”

“Go away.”

“What, you’re not going to ask whether I’m here alone?”

“I know you’re not here with Chloe or Margaret, since I’m pretty sure they’d both kill me on sight. I don’t know who else you could bring with you without attracting their attention. I do know that you’ve got more freedom of movement than most Covenant operatives, probably because you’re going to run the show one day, and they want to be sure you understand what you’re getting yourself into. So I figure yeah, you’re probably here alone. The best reason not to kill you is that if I did, the rest of the Covenant would come.”

“Clever girl.” Somehow, from his lips, those words sounded like an insult. Leo stood, putting his mug down. “I know where you are. I will always know where you are. You’re going to choose me, Annie. Believe me when I say that. You’re going to choose me, and when you do, I’m going to be generous and let you come directly home. We’ve been waiting for you so long, a few more weeks aren’t going to hurt anything.”

He turned his back on me, giving me a perfect target. All it would have taken was one knife between those shoulder blades and … well, it’s not that all my problems would have gone away forever. It’s just that I would have had a different set of problems, one that maybe pissed me off a little less.