The End of Magic (The Witches of Echo Park #3)(40)

"So that's it," Arrabelle said finally-though there was no one in the well-appointed waiting room to hear her. "Decision made, no questions, no thought . . . just action."

She sat back against the plush leather couch, covered her mouth with her palm, and shook her head in disbelief. She would've expected better from humanity. She had expected better. She'd believed that someone in charge would want to discover what the blood sisters were all about. Wouldn't just round the witches up and put them in internment camps-jerry-rigged from abandoned prisons and schools . . . basically any building they could throw camp beds in and then police with the military.

The United States was spearheading the international campaign to collect and imprison blood sisters. The European union  , China, and Russia were following suit, as well as many of the former Eastern bloc countries and most of Asia and Africa. New Zealand, Australia, some of Central and South America, Cuba, Canada, and Iceland were the holdouts.

"You're still watching." It wasn't a question.

Evan stood in the doorway, leaning against the doorjamb. He looked wiped out but healthier than he'd been only a day earlier. The women they'd rescued from the underground warehouse had saved him-pouring their own psychic energy into his body to heal him. Arrabelle understood their reasoning: Maybe he and the others . . . Lyse, Niamh, Arrabelle . . . could actually fight The Flood. Stop them, even.

Though this was an outcome Arrabelle was becoming less and less sure about reaching.

"Train wreck," she said, thinking about more than just what was happening up on the television screen. "This shit, what's happened before this . . . it's getting really bad and we're not doing anything to stop it."

"It's the twenty-four-hour news cycle. Makes it look worse than it is," Evan replied. "But I feel you. I don't like sitting around, either. I want to be doing something."

"It's so frustrating. And I don't think the news is blowing it out of proportion. I believe it's bad out there. Really bad."

Evan didn't argue with her.

Probably because he knows I'm right, Arrabelle thought.

She returned her gaze to the flat-screen television on the wall, watching as three older women were forcibly removed by police officers from a house in Glastonbury. The women were all brown-skinned with white fluffy clouds of hair puffing out around lined faces and frightened eyes. Only the oldest woman, so frail she used a walker to maneuver down the stairs of the semidetached house, looked disdainful of the proceedings. When one of the policemen tried to take her arm to hurry her along, she shooed him away with a feral growl.



       
         
       
        

A news anchor was talking over the picture, but as Arrabelle watched, the sound abruptly went out.

"Evan, did you mute the TV?" she asked, but Evan raised his hands in the air to show that his hands were empty.

"Not me," he said as Arrabelle found the remote control on a small side table by the couch and pressed the volume button until it was all the way up.

Still no sound.

Piercing green eyes looked out at them from the screen. The old woman was staring directly into the lens of the news camera. The semidetached house, the policemen . . . they were still there, but out of focus. Like the background had been frozen in time so this elderly blood sister could reach out across time and space to connect with them.

"What the-" Arrabelle began, but the old woman let out a hacking cough and the sound stopped Arrabelle short.

"Bell, they've come for us-" the old woman said, then covered her mouth with a shaking hand as she fought back another cough.

Arrabelle climbed off her perch on the couch, moving closer to the television screen.

"Bell, they've come for us-" the old woman began again.

"Evan? Are you seeing this? She just said my name-"

Evan nodded and left his place by the doorway to join her in front of the television. He stood close enough to take her hand in his own.

"-and we will wait for the sign," the old woman continued, and Arrabelle could see the wrinkles on her worn face as she spoke. "But don't make us wait too long."

She winked at them and then the picture and sound returned to normal. Of course, they'd forgotten the volume was now on its highest setting and it made them both jump. Arrabelle raised the remote and quickly turned the volume down.

The picture changed again and a coiffed, male news presenter sat in a studio, chattering about the newly discovered existence of magic. Evan took the remote from Arrabelle and pressed the power button. The screen went dark, cutting off the man midsentence.