by R. L. Weeks
Joshua looked green. “Someone’s been dead in here for a while.”
Blood was splattered on the walls, mirroring the abandoned house in the woods. “JERIMIAH!” I yelled. “Block the back door,” I ordered Joshua. I stood in front of the front door. If he was in there, then there was no way I was letting him out without a fight. I readied my powers for an attack. I twisted my mouth in disgust as I struggled with breathing inside the house. It looked like it hadn’t seen daylight in years. Dust covered every surface. It definitely didn’t look lived in.
Joshua shouted from the kitchen. “Kate, you should come and see this.”
The woman in the kitchen was slumped over, half-sitting against a leg of the table. Crimson stained her black, matted hair. Her lips were blue, and she had been decomposing for some time. The smell was the most overwhelming thing about the scene. It was obvious her bowels had been released. I covered my mouth with my hand. “Do you think he could have done this?”
Joshua shrugged, his gaze fixated on the dead woman. It was hard to tell in death, but I was pretty sure it was Jerimiah’s mother.
We walked around the house, holding our noses as we checked each room. Jerimiah was nowhere to be found, but his father was. He was also dead, slumped against the bed frame in the master bedroom. His throat had been cut. He had been killed while standing. I could tell by the upward strokes of blood covering the drapes and part of the wall. He had to have been moved after he was killed.
“Where could Jerimiah be?”
I looked around the room, trying to find any clue to the craziness that we had walked into. Not one room looked lived in except for Jerimiah’s bedroom. Joshua and I checked the bed. “It hasn’t been slept in for a while.”
I pressed my lips together. “I saw blood on the drapes months ago. The smell must’ve gotten too much for him.”
On Jerimiah’s bed were empty jars and stuffing. “Voodoo dolls.” I sighed. “He wasn’t living at the headquarters, which means he found somewhere else to stay.”
“What about the abandoned house you two keep harking on about?” Joshua asked.
“I love your memory right now!” The house in the woods was the perfect place to hide out. “Let’s go.”
My stomach twisted as we left the house. I couldn’t believe, no matter how much of an ass Jerimiah had been, that he was a parent-killer. It didn’t like an accident either.
I pulled out my phone.
No matter what we think of each other right now, we need you. Meet us at the old house in the woods.
I pressed Send to Nicholas and matched my pace to Joshua’s. We were both full of adrenaline. At one point, we were almost running. Joshua’s muscles were flexed, and he hadn’t commented on the blackness that my eyes had turned to. I was mad. Not only had Jerimiah threatened and hurt Vanessa and tried to hurt me the other day at headquarters, but now he had potentially killed his parents in cold blood. He needed to be stopped, and I was only too pleased to be the one to stop him.
The house came into view, beautiful in its loneliness among the age-old trees. It greeted me like an old friend. I led Joshua through the meadow of dead flowers and to the unmarked graves littered around the entrance. “This is it.” I looked up at the towering building. I could sense the residual energy from the witches. Their calling to me was stronger than ever as I entered.
Every dream I had pieced together. The dead didn’t hide from me now. They showed themselves to me in all their truth: slit throats, dead eyes, and cloaks. On each of their wrists were the marks of the Black Lily Coven. I may not have been a part of their coven, but they strangely felt like family.
Joshua grabbed my hand in his when Jerimiah stepped out from the shadows, his eyes a crimson red, his expression sadistic.
The dead witches whispered to me. Channel us. See inside his mind. I sensed the honesty in their words and listened. “Joshua. Don’t hurt him yet. I’m going to need you to trust me.”
I closed my eyes and called upon the witches in the house. My skin prickled, and the temperature dropped several degrees. I opened my eyes and could see my breath in the air in front of me. The witches stood in a line, staring at Jerimiah with a hatred that I shared. Their magic was strong, stronger combined than mine alone, and with both, I felt invincible.
You can do this, they whispered in my mind, giving me the strength to let go of Joshua’s hand and step forward. I held out my hand, forcing Jerimiah to his knees. I was stronger than him. He felt that too. Fear washed his features as mine darkened. I towered over him and placed my hand on his head.
Plunging into the depths of his mind shocked my body. We both dropped to lie on the floor, and the dead witches formed a circle around us.
When I opened my eyes again, I was no longer inside the house.
Jerimiah’s mind was a dark, cold place. At first, I felt afraid. The ground beneath my feet was glossy and black. His brain, like Jerimiah, was chilling. I searched through his memories. They were hidden behind colored doors. The first door was red. Cautiously, I turned the handle and stepped inside.
We were inside the boy’s toilet at our high school. The boy, Callum, taunted Jerimiah. He was never kind to him, but this time something was different—Jerimiah fought back.
The lure of power was everything a boy like Jerimiah could want. His parents didn’t care for him. His father hit him, and he had spent his whole life feeling powerless, but no longer. He pulled out a voodoo doll from his pocket and smiled sadistically. Callum laughed at Jerimiah until his pounding heart got slower and slower. Jerimiah pressed his fingers into the chest on the doll, watching as Callum dropped to the floor, clutching his chest.
That was his first blood lust, and it wouldn’t be his last.
I walked out of the first door and took a moment to catch my breath. He had killed the boy—no surprise there, but still, he did it intentionally. He had no remorse or regret on his face.
With a heavy heart, I pushed opened the second door, which was black.
When I stepped inside, I saw Jerimiah sitting with Alexandra. Her eyes were matte black. “We have given you all you desire. Power. Vengeance. Now, you must give us something in return.”
Jerimiah dropped to his knees. “Anything, My Queen.”
“Kathryn Bathory attends your school.”
He looked confused. “What about her?”
“She is a rare witch, or she will be,” she explained. “She’s going to hold remarkable powers, and we need her before the Black Lily Coven take her.” Her eyes glinted red. “Force her to show her powers. Do whatever you have to do to force her to join us. She was promised to us long ago by Johnathan, her uncle, but it may not be enough. The Black Lily lay claim to her too.”
“How is she remarkable?” he asked snidely. Clearly, he didn’t think a lot of me, even back then.
“She is the firstborn, blood female of her line since the powerful Alada, queen of the Black Lily Coven. Alada was the first witch, and since then, only male heirs have been born in her bloodline until now.”
He gulped. “How do I get her on our side? How do I get her to bring out her powers?”
She ran her fingernail along her bottom lip and smiled. “Take away something she loves. Suffering is the birth to power, and with it, she will become one of us. Do whatever you must do.”
He nodded, understanding clearly. “I will.”
She nodded. “I have a secret weapon too, in case you fail.” She didn’t elaborate, but we both figured the weapon wasn’t a what, more a who. “Now go.”
I fell out of the second door and landed on my knees. My heart was pounding in my ears. I had been used. I need to know everything, I reminded myself and forced myself to go on. The next door was dark green. I opened it cautiously, and my worst fear was realized.
We were in the forest, surrounded by leaves, and my father was alive. He trekked through the leaves and trees, trying to find something.
Jerimiah stepped out from behind a tree trunk and in front
of my father. “Looking for something?”
My father growled softly. “You’re one of them. Aren’t you?”
Jerimiah smirked. “Yes. I am.”
“You won’t take her,” my father promised. “She will not become a witch, damned prophecy or not.”
“She’s the firstborn girl. You knew what that meant.”
“Damned to the coven and the prophecy. Kate is my daughter, and I will die protecting her.”
My world collapsed. My dad knew what I was, and he had tried to stop them from claiming me.
Jerimiah sighed. “She will join us.”
He shook his head. “No, and if you want some advice, get out yourself. The Black Rose is evil to its roots. Magic is evil, and my daughter will not have anything to do with it. I forced my brother away for trying to brand her. I will do the same to any of you.”
I gasped. He had pushed my uncle into hiding after he found out he had branded me. I still couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I wanted to yell for my dad to run, but it was a memory. What had happened, happened. Not even I could turn back time.
Jerimiah whistled loudly. The wendigo came running toward them. My father tried to run, but the creature was too fast. “Kill him,” Jerimiah ordered.
I turned away and covered my ears as the wendigo tore the skin from my dad’s body. “Leave behind some of him. We need to make it look like a bear attack,” I heard Jerimiah say before I ran out of the door, panting.
Tears fell down my cheeks and landed on the glossy ground below. Jerimiah had my dad killed. I wanted to jump right of his head and kill him, but my intuition told me to keep going.
Angrily, I marched to the last door, skipping a few.
Jerimiah was staring out of the school window at me. I may have made the ground tremble, but Amara’s death had been no accident. Jerimiah looked at his hands. In them was a voodoo doll, on it, Amara’s hair. Her head was bleeding. He jammed a rock into the stuffing of her head as the building collapsed. He watched me as I looked at him, horrified at what I had done at the time.
I stumbled backward, falling out of the door and back into the black void, with only doors to look through. I got to my feet, and my eyes glazed over. Jerimiah had killed Amara, not me.
I hadn’t realized it, but my plunge into the darkness had been mainly to escape the pain of realizing what I had done to Amara. In fact, everything I had done after finding out I killed her—or thought I had—was to distract myself. Every spell, outing with Vanessa, kiss with Nicholas… Knowing I wasn’t responsible gave me relief and a new feeling to accompany it—anger. Jerimiah had stolen everything from me. Orders or not, he had to pay.
Another memory materialized. Jerimiah was in my room, standing over my sleeping self. He reached into my mind and forced dreams into my cache of dark things and Nicholas’s killing me. He painted the pictures vividly to push me to believe the prophecy so I’d come over to their side. A doll was held in his hand that struck an uncanny resemblance to me. On it, my hair was attached. He pushed it back into his pocket and left my room.
I shuddered at the thought of him being in the room with me while I was sleeping. He was dangerous, more dangerous than I had ever imagined. He was a tragic case of hurt people hurt people.
After the memory faded, I closed my eyes and left his mind. When I opened them I was back in my body, and I was pissed. The witches were gone, and Joshua was standing over me.
“He killed my dad! Made me believe I was a murderer. He was the reason my powers got so out of control. Instead of letting them come out naturally, they had been forced out through grief, guilt, anger, and despair.” The burning tears came out fast and thick. “I want to kill him!”
“Perhaps he deserves it,” Joshua said and helped me to my feet, “but if the past months have taught me anything, it’s that you are not a killer. Despite your actions, you have a kind heart. Don’t let him burden you any longer. We can take him to Magora. He will suffer more there.”
Joshua made sense. I looked at Jerimiah who rocked back and forth in the corner, crazed by the invasion on his mind. I let him wallow in it. I couldn’t have him arrested for Amara, as it was done using witch magic and they weren’t about to convict someone over a voodoo doll, so Magora did seem like the right thing to do. I pushed Joshua’s hand away and stepped in front of Jerimiah. “There’s one thing I have to do before he gets locked away.”
“Don’t do anything you’ll regret.”
“I won’t regret this.” I pulled my leg back, and with intense force, I kicked Jerimiah hard in the face. Blood spurted from his nose. “That’s for killing my dad.” I kicked him again. “That’s for Amara.” And again. “For Vanessa.” And again. “For everyone else you’ve hurt.” I knew I should stop, but I was still dark, and my soul wanted nothing more than to hurt him until he was dead. I leaned over and wrapped my hands around his throat.
I only got to strangle him for a few seconds before I was pulled away from him by two sets of arms. Dragged back, I looked up, crying. Nicholas had come after all. He looked about the same as I felt. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair was all over the place, and he was paler than the moon. “Stop,” he ordered and pulled me into him. He held onto me as if I might break at any given moment.
I let him hold me, despite how I felt about Jayde, and cried.
Nicholas took Jerimiah away, to where the elders would be waiting for them, after a heated phone call from Joshua. Joshua had been ordered to take me back to Nicholas’s house and take care of me. Apparently, I was a risk. I watched Nicholas leave with Jerimiah, who was a sniveling mess, and shut my eyes tight. Adrenaline still pumped through me.
“Kate.” Joshua touched my cheek. “I know you’re confused right now, but you’ll understand everything soon. Let’s get you back to the house, get you a nice cup of coffee, and we can talk. It’s time you know the full truth about everything.”
Chapter Sixteen
Joshua held his head in his hands. “I’m sorry about that kiss,” he told me, his voice cracking. “It was purely physical, but that doesn’t make it okay.”
I drank my coffee. It tasted good. I needed it after the day I’d had. “I know. It’s not your fault.” I sighed. “You said you were going to tell me the truth. I need to know. The devil figuratively has me on a short leash. The darkness is killing my soul, and soon there will be nothing left of me.”
He looked up. “I know. I’ll tell you everything, but before I do, please know I am sorry for not telling you sooner. I only found out myself recently. The elders kept a lot to themselves.”
I changed seats and plonked myself next to him. “You should know before we begin that Alec is the devil. He’s taking on the warlock form of a man named Alec. He’s the high priest of the coven. I’m assuming people don’t know that Alec’s body has been taken over by Lucifer himself.”
The room was quiet as Joshua processed the information. “Lucifer is the king of the supernatural. Witches and warlocks are among the most powerful, then there are wendigos and shifters.”
I nodded, remembering hearing about those creatures of the night.
“Then there are vampires, sirens—men-devouring creatures of the depths—and demons, manipulating the lives of humans every day.”
I shuddered. “I thought there were only witches, wendigos, and shifters.”
He shook his head. “There’s so much more than that. The covens started with a woman, Alada. She was beautiful, a free spirit and the wife of the pack leader of the shifters, Akora. She was descended from a line of witches, powerful ones, where each firstborn female in each generation held powers stronger than any other. The power was passed through her ancestors. She was the creator of the Black Lily Coven.” His gaze darkened. “However, one summer evening, she was killed by a warlock from the coven she’d created. He was the son of the second in command, appointed by Alada herself. When she died, a curse was placed upon him and all the firstborn sons of each generation. They were to be betrothed to ea
ch firstborn daughter in her lineage. The curse was for them to fall in love.”
That sounded a lot like the prophecy between Nicholas and me. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”
He sighed. “It gets worse. They were to fall in love but were cursed to kill the other. Alada, I believe, hoped that the daughters to come after her, from her four sons, would be powerful enough to kill each of the men from the warlocks’ line, and if they weren’t and the men killed the women, then they would live out a life of loneliness from killing the person they loved.”
I shuddered. That was Nicholas and me. Had he come from his line and I from hers?
“That’s just the start,” he said. “The wars between the sons and daughters of the lines caught many in their carnage, including the vampires, sirens, and demons. The warlock who killed her started the Black Rose Coven to separate himself against the Black Lily Coven who refused to practice dark magic. He believed that practicing the black arts was the only way to combat the curse on him and his line. Lucifer helped the warlock—his name was Orga, I believe—create the Black Rose Coven. Lucifer wanted them to obey him—all supernatural creatures—but the Black Lily Coven and others such as the shifters refused. Before long, the Supernatural Order, as they called it, the force governing all creatures, was divided. Lucifer was no longer the master of the ones who refused to channel his angelic powers and instead used the earth. Shifters didn’t use to turn on the full moon. Lucifer allowed them to change at will, but when they chose to break ties with Lucifer, they were cursed to shift in excruciating pain each full moon.” He paused to catch his breath. “Over the centuries, the origins of the curses were forgotten. Vampires have been pushed into almost extinction, and there are few sirens left. Demons are bound to hell, unable to come to earth for no longer than days at a time, and wendigos are controlled by the covens. The supernatural world has gotten smaller and smaller. There aren’t many of us left.” He paused, seemingly lost in thought for a few moments. “Everyone had forgotten about the curse on the two covens’ lines. No daughter had been born in Alada’s line for centuries, only men until now. Until you.”