“There was a cost to this product,” she murmured as if she were still in a half-trance.
“What does that mean?” I fought the urge to simply snap at her, demanding the answer, but in this state, I’m not sure any sort of tone would help - she would either tell us, or she wouldn’t.
“Blood was paid to ensure that this product was spelled correctly.”
I wanted to shake her and tell her that we all paid in blood in this game, but I somehow didn’t think we were talking about the same payment - or if we were, our methods differed vastly.
“All the product has been spelled so that your clients will somehow think that theirs is superior, and...” she hesitated, “Olek’s death was the sacrifice they needed. Their Witch tied Olek’s death to the success of this product.”
With each word she said, Ravi nodded along with her. Fucking moron. At this rate, she could tell us that it was raining outside, and even if the sun was shining he would agree with her. I swallowed down my irritation, and allowed her to continue.
“What are you saying? That by killing Olek I somehow activated their bullshit spell to make their product sell better than ours?”
She didn’t even answer me, in fact, I wasn’t even sure if she heard what I was saying.
“I have to counter what they’ve done here, but make no mistake, Sergei knew full well that he was starting an all-out war, and he planned meticulously for almost every action of retaliation against him.”
“Olek?” I asked, unable to stop myself from spitting the question out.
“Olek was always meant to die, but to die by your hand activated the dark Magick she did on these,” Corinne gestured to the bag sitting in the palm of her hand.
“But you tipped their hand, informing us of what they were doing,” I countered, needing so badly to believe that she would be our saviour.
Her expression became crestfallen, “Yes, but from what I’ve just seen, he was leaving you breadcrumbs to find. You would have discovered the betrayal eventually, and the outcome would have been the same. Sergei wanted you to feel that sense of betrayal deeply, believing that in your rage you would make poor decisions, allowing him to take over easily.”
Ravi fidgeted nervously and I turned my gaze onto Corinne, giving her the full weight of my attention. She raised her chin, steeled her spine, and met me head on as an equal.
“Then you counter the spell and we unravel this bullshit one bit at a time.” She dipped her head in agreement, my fingers brushed against hers as I removed the bag from her hands.
“I’ll send this down to Aleksei at the lab,” I stated to no one in particular in the room. As I stood to leave, Corinne followed.
The push of bodies against us as we shouldered our way through the crowd no longer held the same appeal, and as a reflex, I leant back and grabbed Corinne’s hand, guiding her through the club as I held her firm.