Isabel made sure that Wiccan Patrol was four hours a day and would cover Witching Hour. The patrolling teams might change out at any given day, but Isabel had tried to be kind to the Wiccans she worked with as the Ventus Custos. She would shift out members who looked like they needed extra sleep or had upcoming commitments that they needed to attend. Isabel would never dream of asking someone to keep up with her pace daily, and rotated patrol teams every two or three days. "James, be sure to bring your athame and summoning gloves."
James Carter was a tall Wiccan of exquisite coloring. He had raven black curls that topped a caramel-colored rectangle fact with high cheekbones. Isabel heard how the girls at school swooned at the freckles that dot his face like little kisses from the sun or about his smoldering dark eyes that seem to draw them in, and she had to agree. James was pleasing to look at and a pleasant company to have around, but Isabel had no use for pretty things in life.
Her life was filled with much danger and it took a certain type of person to survive it. She was more interested in how skillful a person is or how charming they made themselves out to be; Isabel was more interested in having people who could survive without her mothering them than having a pretty boy who knew nothing about how to survive.
Thankfully, James was competent. The Wiccan was more than competent, and he should be. Isabel put about three years of constant training into the boy. If he was anything but competent in the least, Isabel would have rebuked him publicly, a move that would have severed the honored oath of master and apprentice. Then, promptly moved on with her life. Fortunately for both of them, Isabel was a good teacher and James was a good student.
"What?!" James yelped. The kind and accommodating patrol leader was going to remind everyone in the Thuban Coven what exactly she was capable of as a Wiccan, not just as the Cutsos or the Livingstone heiress. She knew how to take a life just as well as she could protect it. If any Wiccans stood in her way, by Magick Law, they forfeited their lives to the Custos' will. "Why? What exactly happened during these last weeks?"
Isabel was silent as she sharpened the athame in her hands with magic, and James could only watch as unseen brokenness clouded her eye. It looked out of place on the normally unruffled girl.
It has been four years since Isabel became the Ventus Custos, and almost three years ago when she declared him her apprentice. It made him practically untouchable to Thuban Coven and the Wiccans at school. He stilled when Isabel finally spoke, "Thuban Coven Wiccans believe that High Priestess Gabriella Lucchesi's word carries more weight than my direct orders."
James dropped the finger-less gloves that Isabel commissioned for him from a solitary Wiccan who specialized in weaving special runes into the fabric to protect against demonic attacks. His brain raced to process the information, for Wiccans to disregard a Custos's direct orders was punishable by death, ex-communication from the magical community, or even possibly having their Magick bound. The books that disclosed information on the Magick Code and Custos interaction went into great detail on how each code was migrated by a Custos word.
When the tutors Isabel hired to teach him about the Code and the fine line he would walk between obeying the Coven and honoring his master, they made it really simple for him to remember. It was like getting a direct order from a god, and then, turning around to do the exact opposite while expecting the god to bestow upon them the greatest of great gifts. James turned to her slowly, watching her as Isabel continued to sharpen the athame against the rolling stone.
Isabel was much too calm to be holding an athame. It was a ritual knife that Wiccans used in many different rituals. They weren't common rituals, but rituals that required a sacrifice of a Wiccan. It was why many Wiccans did not use an athame, not even in the Coven wars that happened in the past was an athame ever used. Only Custos and their apprentices were allowed to carry athame knives as weapons, the Code made it clear that the Wiccans body was weak against steel. Athames were steel blades that had a black handle. As Fae would shy away from iron, werewolves shied away from silver, vampires shied away from blessed metals; Wiccans were careful not to be stabbed or severed by steel.
For one, James knew it hurt worse than hell. One of the many tutors Isabel hired had a severed arm from his rotatory cuff from an injury of a cursed steel blade, and James had asked what it was like to have a severed limb. That was a two-hour lecture that James wished he could have back. "What?"
Second, there was a poison in the steel that kills Wiccans. James was not interested in finding out how fast he could die by a poisoned blade. Isabel would find some way to bring him back and bind him to the school just so he would listen to generations of Wiccan masters telling him how foolish he was to have died by poisoned blade after receiving years of training to avoid blades and the hours that were spent by Isabel's perfectionist hell training to be able to unconsciously transfigure steel to any other metal. She chose to randomly throw metallic, rose-gold colored sharpies at him while he trained to help him increase the speed rate. And Magick forbid, if he were to be marked by one of those damn sharpies.
He would never hear the end of it.
"I ordered them to move. They refused and physically held me down while a summoned demon tore apart families with newborns. By the time that I was able to get to the families, the demon was returned to the depths of hell and the families were decimated," Isabel said.
Every time she closed her eyes she could see it, the bloody footprints of small children trying to run away, the claw marks that lazily traced the walls, and then the bodies of the deceased. "I'm not taking that chance again. Any Wiccan take doesn't follow my orders as Custos and patrol leader will forfeit a limb."
"Severing a limb with an athame?"
"In the olden days, traitors were hung after being drawn and quartered. Thieves would lose a limb," Isabel said. "I'm going to make sure the patrol teams never take my word for granted. Then, they will spread the word."
"Isn't that a bit on the extreme side, Isabel? Severing a limb with an athame grantees that the limb can never be attached again. It's a handicap against them in our world. The number of Wiccans that can perform any sort of combat Magick is limited. The fields that they can perform even less."
James knew first-hand how Isabel Livingstone could be cruel and unmoving. She trained him when others had given up on him. Almost three years of constant training under a taskmaster like Isabel, who had the entire Magick community scrutinizing her every move meant that his ritual circles were basically copied and printed, he was more fluent in ancient and death languages than he was in the language class he took at school, and it meant that his mistakes where her mistakes.
But he knew that in the cruelness that Isabel had there was immense kindness. Isabel claimed him in front of the Thuban Coven when his father passed, and then took her in when his home was burned the following night. She put in the paperwork that made him a ward of the Livingstone estate so he wouldn't be put in a group home or with a foster family. Isabel paved a way for his future, taught him everything she knew he could achieve, and found those who would teach him everything she could not.
She was his master, his friend, and everything that the Thuban Coven was supposed to be. Isabel was the only person he trusted to have her back, and if he had to choose between the Thuban Coven and Isabel; he would pick Isabel until the end of time and Magick. "If I don't act, more innocence to summoned demons. I might lose control, James. Besides the anger that burns in my soul, I have obligations that I have to live up to, sworn oaths that I made in the name of Magick. A severed limb in the place or the loss of a trained Livingstone Custos? There is no one in the Magick community who would turn against one who guards the Custos, James."
"And if they try even when they lose a limb?"
"Then," Isabel said with trembling hands. "Then, they will forfeit their lives in accordance to the Magick Code for Wiccans."
It honestly scared him. It wasn't that James didn't believe her. It was the fact that he did believe her that scared him. Isabel Livingstone might kill multiple living beings during this patrol, and the world they lived in was on her side when it came down to it. Their laws and codes will protect her, and their world will close ranks around her to make sure that she is never implicated or involved in the murders. After all, the Ventus Custos gave an order that Wiccans chose to ignore in honor of their High Priestess. Isabel Livingstone was justified in her act of violence.
James straightens out his posture because for Isabel he would hold his head up high. He waited until Isabel looked up at him to give him an athame, and declared to her as her apprentice that he will carry out whatever she asked of him. "Your will is mine, my master."
Isabel's shoulders drooped in relief, and that action only strengthens his resolve. Isabel was always the sword and shield that protected him, and now he had a chance to help repay her. He would make sure that the others understood. If they choose to uphold High Priestess Gabriella over their Ventus Custos, they would taste an athame blade. James would make sure it was his that protected his master.
And if these foolish Wiccans dare to strike at his master, James was going to make sure it is an action that Magick themselves would judge them in the afterlife as he was going to make sure they choke on it.