Saving Ana Ch. 01

Chapter 1: The Vampire, The Witch and the Coven.

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Ana Castegarde took a deep breath and resisted the urge to scream.

No good had ever come of her losing her temper, and she knew that the moment it happened she'd automatically be railroaded by one Lola Burbank, the coven's enforcer and an annoyingly confident High Priestess.

Lola had joined their coven a few years back after transferring from England and while they didn't exactly hate each other, both woman had very strong and firm beliefs which were often in conflict.

It was one of those meetings which had Ana wanting to punch everyone in their collective faces. Ever since the Coven Mother had died over a year ago, leaving Ana suddenly in charge, it had been an absolute nightmare.

Rhea Bridge had been the last of the old witches, and with her departure things would in all likelihood end in the Coven's eventual demise. The sudden death had left the girls of the Coven reeling, unsettled. Ana had only just entered into her status as high priestess. She hadn't been ready to be Coven Mother (A point which Lola seemed to bring up all too frequently).

How was she supposed to guide the coven when she could barely guide herself?

Ana was the youngest Coven Mother ever in the history of the Sydney Dark Witches since it had been established way back by Convict women in the 1700s. And it showed - she felt overwhelmed by the responsibility and distraught at every turn.

There wasn't much room for life outside of the coven business once one became a Coven Mother. It was a heavy crown to bear and had effectively been the end of her youth and any sort of life outside of the coven (not that she'd had much of a life to begin with).

So while the others got to live their lives as normal witches, working where they wanted, going out when they wanted, dating whoever they wanted, having the opportunity to marry, have kids, build a life - that wasn't to be for Ana. She had been robbed of those opportunities the moment Rhea Bridge had died and the title of the Coven Mother had transferred to her.

She knew the others were unsure of her leadership, she had Lola questioning her every move and decision, and she wished with every part of her body she could give Lola the role, but that would only happen if she died. She never understood why Rhea had chosen her as Coven Mother and not Lola. Lola had been more powerful, more experienced and 5 years older than Ana. By every right Lola should have been next. But Rhea had insisted it be Ana, said it was Besmiirh - fate.

Well fate was cruel, because at the age of 30, Ana was childless, husbandless and lonely - without any opportunity or chance of ever rectifying these things because the burden of being Coven Mother just didn't allow it.

There was the magic shop to run, meetings to organise, meetings with other covens to operate, diplomacy, humans to assist, witches to keep in check, catastrophes to avoid...the list was endless.

Now one more thing had piled onto the list. One more dreadful, terrible burden which she didn't even know how to handle.

The current hot topic of debate tonight: the vampires. More specifically, one vampire, the Master of the City of Sydney, known as Julian.

She'd never had much directly to do with the vampires in the city. They mostly resided in The Underground - a special, secure series of passages and rooms underneath the city which housed many of the area's preternatural citizens in a secure and safe environment. 2020 or not, despite all the integration and progress made between the humans and non-humans in the last 70 years, it still wasn't completely safe and so The Underground was established to ensure protection.

Of course, the one time she had really ever even set foot in The Underground was to scream her head off at Julian, because he had pretty much pimped out her sweet, innocent, darling little sister, Lena, to some ancient vampire to appease a ridiculously psychotic Vampire Master from another city.

Goddess, she had raged. It had barely been a meeting and more of abusive, angry tirade at the Vampire, which had - she was almost ashamed to admit - resulted in the obliteration of an entire wing of The Underground. To his credit Julian had taken it rather calmly and hadn't seemed at all disturbed by her aggressive threats and violent destruction.

In the brief memory she had of Julian she remembered him as an authoritative, calm and pragmatic individual who had an uncanny ability to sooth a person. He was terrifyingly charming which was a real danger if you let your guard down with him.

It wasn't until last night that she'd ever really spared any further thoughts for the Master of the City - she'd been so furious with him that she'd pretty much all but cast him from her mind. That was, of course, until two of his vampires had shown up on the doorstep of the Magic shop and demanded her help, her expertise.

The vampires had introduced themselves as Orville and Jasper - two of the Master's guards. Desperate for an audience because something terrible had happened. Julian had lost his mind, in the literal and metaphysical sense in what had appeared to be overnight.

He had gone to sleep for the day and when he had awoken he was frightful, terrifying, smashing things and attacking people and was only able to be subdued by ten of the guards. Ana had heard in detail just how horrifying it had been from her younger sister's closest friend, Lachlan, who had been working at The Underground that evening and had seen it unravel.

It seemed evident that something had happened to him, everyone was under the impression that perhaps he had been cursed. When they had been unable to settle him, that was when the vampires had come to her.

And that was the controversial topic of conversation: to help out the vampires or not.

It was Lola versus Ana, round number whatever. She was quickly losing count of how many times they'd argued through this particular topic this evening.

"There is no amount of money on this Goddess-forsaken earth to convince me that we should help those fang-faced, blood fuckers," Lola drawled in her East-London accent, red nails tapping incessantly against the old wood of the table.

Before Ana could tell Lola that no, actually, they really could use the money because the house was in a pretty poor state and the funds from the Magic Shop were barely covering their electricity and water rates, another priestess piped up.

"We're barely able to pay for bills as it is, Lola," Adeline said, shrugging her shoulders apologetically, "I think, actually, I'm siding with Ana on this one. Not just because it would be a good power move, because it really would be. But they're offering a exorbitant amount of money. We can't just pass that up because you once got your heart broken by some Russian vampire."

Lola gave Adeline a cold glare, her mouth set in a tight line. Ana just about wanted to laugh.

"I liked it better when you lived away from the Coven." Lola snapped back.

"So does Marcus, but here we are." Adeline sighed, eyes glazing over as she no-doubt began thinking about her boyfriend, "Actually if we could wrap this up soon that'd be great, I have a date to get to."

"Excellent idea," Ana interjected, "All in favour of assisting the vampires, raise your hands."

All the girls raised their hands, with the exception, of course, of Lola who just sat and stared down each witch with a glare. Anxiety filled the room, but to the girls' credit none of them gave in.

"Right, that settles it." Ana felt relief wash over her body.

"But we haven't even discussed the terms or anything!" Lola shouted, "I love you bloody witches, but you're all going to put me in an early grave."

"What's there to discuss further?" interjected Arabella Bridge, one of the Junior Priestesses.

"Well, where's he going to stay while we sort this out? He's going to need to be observed and easily accessed by us."

That was, Ana was displeased to admit, a fine point. Where exactly would they work this out? It needed to be a safe magic space for them, but also safe for him.

"Why doesn't he just stay here?" her youngest sister, Lena offered, "He can stay in the basement, there aren't any windows down there, so if he's up during the day he won't be burnt to a crisp. It'll be easy for us to access and we won't have to be around any 'unnecessary' vampires."

Lola looked dumbfounded, silent for the first time the entire evening.

Adeline stood up, "Right, that'll work. I'm off then."

"Sit down, Parker-Tate," Lola ground out.

"I wish I was in exile with my boyfriend," Adeline muttered under her breath as she dropped down into the chair sulkily, "Wouldn't have to attend these stupid, long meetings."

"How is Astrid going, Ana?" May Whitmore piped up. Ana had barely even noticed the witch at the end of the table. May was like that though, not noticeable until she wanted to be noticed. It was a skill Ana wished she possessed.

"Fat," Sybilla Bridge piped up, cheeky grin plastered all over her face. Ana saw her sister nudge her and frown.

"You can't call pregnant women fat," Arabella remonstrated.

"She'd kill you if she heard you say that, Sybilla" Lena shook her head, an unmistakable laugh tickling her voice, "She's almost due."

May sighed happily, "Wow, the first babies in the coven in this generation. How exciting!"

"Well, we won't know what they're about until they're born," Ana smiled, thinking about her obscenely pregnant sister, "They're half-werewolf too, so the distribution of magic will be different."

"How long has Astrid been in Melbourne now?" Sybilla frowned.

It had been four long months since her sister, Astrid, had left for Melbourne with her boyfriend. All because she had fallen in love with the wrong guy.

Well, he'd been the right guy for Astrid, just that it had been the wrong situation.

Their romance had caused the ire of the Sydney werewolf clan and their queen. For a number of reasons really, the main one being that her boyfriend was supposed to mate the queen, but had mated with Astrid instead. He'd gotten her pregnant and they had to leave lest they be murdered by the clan. It was actually quite a terrifying prospect, but Ana had tried to stay positive, reminding herself that two beautiful things had come out of this situation: 1) Astrid had settled down with someone she loved, and 2) they were expecting babies. With being Coven Mother, Ana wasn't certain she'd ever get the opportunity for either of those things, so for now being an Aunt was going to be something she was going to thoroughly look forward to.

"Four months," Ana replied.

"Four months? Look, I know I'm fourteen but that doesn't sound right. How can she be just about to give birth. I thought she'd only gotten pregnant just before they had to leave?" Sybilla asked.

"Werewolf pups gestate for approximately 150 days, which I guess is 5 months." Ana shrugged.

"Right, enough distractions," Lola interjected, "time to get back to the conversation at hand."

There was a collective groan from the table, but Lola continued on anyway.

It had finally been decided, after three hours of gruelling back and forth, that the coven would agree to see the vampire master's state at the shop tomorrow.

Which was precisely how Ana Castegarde found herself agreeing to allow the vampires to bring their Master to the Magic shop. Ready or not, she was about to take her role as Coven Mother to a whole new level.

Ana could only pray to the Goddess that she wouldn't come to regret her decision.

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The very next evening, after closing the Magic shop for the day, Ana and the girls prepared for the arrival of their vampire guests. Unsure of where they might initially contain the Vampire Master, the witches prepared a large cage, binding it with containment curses and protection charms. Ana was unsure if it would suffice, or if the powerful vampire would be able to break through it, but it was the best they had.

Like magic, when the clock struck eight, there was a knock on the door. Ana answered, unsurprised to see the Master's men, Jasper and Orville at the door.

Jasper, a handsome blond man in an immaculate suit was the first to speak.

"Mother Castegarde," the man bowed respectfully. Ana grimaced at the title, there was nothing in the world that made her feel more unattractive than her official title.

"Please, call me Ana."

"Ana," the man nodded. Ana looked around for Julian, but couldn't see him anywhere.

"Master Julian is in the car," Jasper continued "We wanted to ensure that we could contain him in here before bringing him out."

"He's particularly agitated today," the deep voice of Orville interjected, "It took us seven of our strongest wolves and three sirens to subdue him."

Unlike Jasper, Orville wasn't particularly good looking or bad looking. He was a broad, large man, weapons strapped to his body as if he were preparing for a fight. He had never been particularly friendly even the first time she had met him. Right now he was positively un-impressed with her.

"Is he not, then, tearing up the car?" Ana tried to look over the shoulders of the vampires to the vehicle in question.

"We managed to get some Ceracuse chains on him before we left. It has managed to contain him thus far."

"Where on earth did you get those?" Ana frowned, wondering how on earth the vampires had managed to come by something as rare as Ceracuse chains. The chains themselves usually looked pretty normal, but ingrained into the material was a rare metal found in the Ceracusian Valley which had intense magical properties, including the ability to bind and subdue other magical creatures. The valley had been destroyed years ago now, during war. The remaining metal, if one could find it was highly regarded. There were probably only handfuls of it left in the world now.

"Your sister insisted we invest in them a while ago. It was a shame we had to lose her in security, she was a decent witch." Orville grunted, and Ana had the distinct impression that Orville did not think of her as a decent witch. Although she had no idea why, as prior to a few days ago she'd never met Orville in her life, and the meeting had been normal as far as she had been concerned. Evidently not though, as the vampire didn't appear to be too fond of her with his standoffish demeanour and judgemental expressions.

"Right, well, please come in," Ana moved out of the doorway to allow the two men in, she lead them down to the basement, to the cage, "We prepared a cage, I know it's a bit crude, but it's the only thing we had big enough that we could enchant to contain him while we observed."

"It's fine," Jasper smiled broadly, "You have done a fine job."

Yes, she really hoped she had. Otherwise they were all meat.

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The guards brought Julian in. Or...rather, the vampire who had been Julian. While this man looked like Julian with his thick, dark hair, sea-green eyes, and dominating figure, there was something completely wrong about him, and Ana realised it was all in the presence of his eyes.

The vampire struggled against the guards, evidently trying to fight them off, but was subdued by the enchanted chains. The vampire hissed, trying to lean and sink his teeth into one of the werewolves escorting him down the stairs of the basement.

The four of them managed, barely able to put Julian in the cage and quickly locked it behind him.

"Can we observe him without the chains on?" Ana asked. Even as she spoke the question she wondered if it was a good idea.

"Aye," Orville nodded, "I believe we have enough power between you witches, and the rest of us to subdue him if he escapes the cage."

Orville tentatively got to the edge of the cage, quickly reaching in to unlock the chains and pulled back as soon as he could. The chains hissed and groaned, falling to the floor in a thud.

Julian took the opportunity to launch himself at the door of the cage. The door dented which shouldn't have been possible considering just how many charms they had placed on the thing. Just how powerful a vampire was he?

"Goddess above," Adeline murmured, "What is wrong with him?"

"No idea," Jasper replied, jumping as Julian launched himself at the door again. Luckily it was still able to contain him.

"He just woke up like this one evening-" Orville was interrupted mid-sentence by a loud growl and hiss. The group turned to watch in fascination as Julian began hitting his head against the bars of the cage. The force so strong, Ana could hear the cage groaning under pressure, the magic beginning to yield against his own impressive power.

"Shit," she heard Lola gasp, "He's going to break through if we don't do something soon."

Ana tried to calm herself and think. What could they do? She turned to her enforcer, knowing now was the time not to argue with Lola.

"Do you think a Libra Charm could work for the moment, in sedating him?"

Lola turned to face her, a look of surprise over her face, "Maybe, can you...can you make one?"

"If you guys can hold him. It'll take me at least ten minutes."

"Babe," Lola deadpanned, "I don't know if we have ten minutes."

"Make me ten minutes and I will make you a Libra charm."

Lola began nodding, "Okay." she turned to the other witches, "Ladies, it's time to call the four winds, Lena you're on North, Arabella on South, I'll be on West, Adeline get on East."

The girls began their formation, chants breathing though their mouths like music through a stream, lyrical and beautiful.

"Stay back," Ana warned the guards, of course none of them seemed particularly motivated to get close to Julian or the girls. She turned to race up stairs to the Magic shop.

"Where are you going?" Orville yelled out at her, over the wind that seemed to come from nowhere, although Ana knew it was the magic the girls were summoning to keep Julian bound to the cage for as long as possible.

"To make a charm, If I do it right, it could calm him enough to be able to manage him for now. It won't be a cure, but it'll probably help us stop him from smashing up the place and killing us all."

"Probably?" She could hear anxiety palpable in the vampire's voice.

"Just hang tight," Ana didn't have to time to be patient. She had precisely ten minutes and she needed every single second to create the calming charm.

Ana raced up the stairs, trying not to stumble and trip in her anxiety. She raced through the shop and into the magic room, trying to remember exactly what she needed to create the Libra charm. She didn't have time to go looking through Rhea's old books, all she had was her memory and hopefully the right ingredients.

Ana managed to locate a pendant, a sun-shaped silver thing on a long silver chain. Not something one would usually use for a Libra Charm, but it would have to do. She stumbled from shelf to shelf, furiously looking for ingredients to make a brew. She began to chuck in the herbs and spices into a little pot, chanting the words she had committed to memory as quickly as she could.

"Libra, ichenti daru irgani e chennti ibiam a tor,"

The ancient language slipped out of her tongue like it was second nature. The words she understood so clearly; Libra, Oh power be summoned, imbue with the balance of the Goddess.

The brew began to bubble and hiss, blackening and thickening. She wasn't sure if that was supposed to happen, but then she didn't have enough time to think about it. She dropped the pendant, chain and all into the pot. With a loud hiss and crack, the pot began to splutter rainbows of colours. Ana quickly fished out the pendant with a spoon and placed it on the bench to cool.