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“No one on our side, I’m ninety-nine per cent certain of that. Any Sadler acolyte would brag about it rather than cover it up, and I really don’t think any of them would let me go down for a crime they committed.
“It could be someone from out of town. But I think it was probably one of the Thornber acolytes. Some sort of attempted coup.”
I flick through the case file. “The murder happened out at Thornber Manor. So the main evidence against you is an eyewitness account of the murder from—from the victim’s son.” I can’t bring myself to utter Gabriel’s name. “Wouldn’t he want the person who actually did it to be punished?”
“You’d think so. He always seemed to revere his father, and it went both ways—he was his spoilt little golden child. My best guess is that Gabriel killed the actual murderer himself—probably horrifically—then covered it up to hide the existence of dissent in the ranks. And then, added bonus, he decides to frame me as a perfect cover-up, one big screw you to the Sadlers, and a chance to claim the town. He always says he has at least two reasons for everything.”
I nod, though I have no idea of the Thornber family dynamics. I’m so disconnected these days from the thread of rumour and history that swirls around the town.
“Anyway, never mind the Thornbers. Where were you the night he died? Really.”
There’s an answer in the case file, but it doesn’t make much sense.
“At home with Leah. She cooked some food. I watched the football. The usual. Then around ten, I travelled out to Summer Hill.”
I lean over the table. “Summer Hill? By yourself? Why?”
There’s only one reason any of us would make the trip to one of the furthest flung and most difficult to reach areas of the Dome, and that’s to perform the annual Ritual that keeps Mannith protected. I shiver inwardly at the thought. The Ritual isn’t for the faint-hearted, and it’s only a few weeks away. Mum had better not have deluded herself into thinking I’m going to take part this year.
Bren’s supercilious expression fades for a moment. “I wasn’t actually by myself. The missus was there, too.”
“So, on a random evening, you and your fiancée travelled out to our Ritual spot. And while you were there, someone else happened to kill Dad’s only rival. What aren’t you telling me?”
Bren slams his palms down on the table, making the blocker handcuffs shake. “I can’t think properly through these damned things. It’s hard to explain.”
“Just do your best.”
“We’re trying for a baby.”
I give a very unprofessional squeal. “That’s lovely! So, I get it, you took advantage of a warm summer’s night to get frisky in the great outdoors.”
Bren laughs, and for a second, the strain in his face disappears. “Something like that. Leah’s surprisingly traditional sometimes.”
Under the Old Ways, practitioners are meant to conceive outdoors. Find somewhere beautiful. Connect with the forest or the river or the trees. Genuinely feel the earth move.
“Something like that?”
“You know what they say about Gabriel-fucking-Thornber, right?”
My back tingles at the sound of the name. “People say lots of things. I try not to listen.”
“Sorry to bring him up again. But you know the rumour I mean.”
“That his mother was half-demon?”
All Born Practitioners have some demon blood, by definition. That’s where the power comes from. We’re essentially what happens when a human and a demon love each other very much. It’s just that in most cases, the demon genes were introduced into the bloodline centuries, perhaps even millennia ago, and then passed down through generations of practitioner marriages. It’s rather more disturbing when the unholy union is meant to have happened in the twentieth century. And it has a rather more impressive effect on power levels.
“It’s not fair for the Thornbers to have that advantage. We wanted to attempt something similar.”
My whole body goes as cold as when I touched the handcuffs. “What? What… would that even involve?”
Nowadays, demon blood is something that tends to be more associated with vampires than with practitioners. Vampires are born human, of course, and then turned by other vampires, not directly by demons. But the same creatures that created the earliest practitioners through sex and reproduction also created the earliest vampires through blood and death. You don’t get many vampires in the north of England full stop, and you certainly don’t get them in Mannith, because the Dome keeps them out unless they’re explicitly invited in. But I’ve come across the odd one over the years and they are deeply disturbing. Just for their political views, before you even start on their bloodthirsty way of life. We like to at least pretend that we’re a bit more human than that. Or at least, most of us do. Maybe Bren begs to differ.
Bren shrugs. “It didn’t work. All those teenage warnings about how a baby is practically inevitable when two practitioners don’t use protection were a load of bollocks. But the summoning attempts left me too drained to put up a magical or physical fight when they arrested me later that night. Or to come up with a good cover story. That’s what I mean when I said I’d been weakened.”
“I still don’t get it. I hate to feed your ego, but you’re a ridiculously strong practitioner. I can see this weird sex magic might be quite intense and wear you down a bit. But surely not to the extent that you’re left helpless to protect yourself.”
He shrugs. “Itwasintense. And maybe I’m losing my touch.”
