by Lily Luchesi
She headed back downstairs, leaving her to it. The others knew about the child, but like her mother before her, she believed that children should be seen and not heard. And even then, rarely seen.
She took a seat in her armchair to wait. Finally, the women filed back into the living room. Veronica looked to Liza, since she seemed to be the mouth piece of the group.
“What you are proposing is risky. What if the Dark Prince doesn’t like the offering?” she said.
“He takes souls as payment, the purer the better, he won’t care if they are male or female,” Veronica replied.
Liza glanced at the others. “Okay, but if it goes wrong…”
“I’ll take full responsibility,” Veronica said.
That seemed to appease her. “Okay, we’re in.”
2
They gathered under the next full moon, deep in the woods. The area was warded against humans, so it was safe for them to practice openly. As far as anyone knew, the women were attending a book club meeting.
Veronica went through quite the ordeal getting the two men into her car, to the point where she had to spell them to get them to cooperate. They now sat in the middle of the clearing, back to back with a wooden stake between them, which they were tethered to.
“You’re so pretty,” one of them cooed at her.
She felt her stomach turn. “Shut up,” she said. It was the spell doing its job, but it didn’t make it any less annoying. They were all over her when she met them in the bar. She put up with the pawing and groping to lead them back to the house. It gave her great satisfaction to watch their faces as they realized what was really going on.
The coven was waiting on Holly to show up, assuming she hadn’t chickened out. Veronica busied herself marking out the circle. Her heart was thumping in her chest, this could actually work. It was nearly twenty years since she last saw the Dark Prince, the night he came to take her soul. Barely sixteen, she welcomed the chance to gain power, she didn’t give her soul a second thought.
The Dark Prince was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. She fell in love instantly, but when he left in the morning, taking her soul, and her virtue, with him, a rot set in. Where once she felt warmth and hope, now there was only an empty space. It grew over the years, making her crave more of what she couldn’t have. Hurting others, taking from them, it made her feel temporarily whole. She wondered if it was the same for the others, though she didn’t dare ask. Over the years she had made a reputation for herself as the baddest witch in town and she wasn’t about to shatter that illusion.
Is it an illusion? she thought, looking around the clearing at the others. None of them would go to the depths I would. None of them are prepared to make real sacrifice.
“Holly’s here,” Mary Webster said.
Holly came hurrying toward them, her black robe tucked under her arm. “Sorry, Jim’s mother is here, and I couldn’t get away,” she panted.
Veronica rolled her eyes; glad that no one could see her in the dim light. That was one of the reasons why she never took a husband. More trouble than they were worth. She took lovers from time to time, that was all she needed.
They waited while Holly stripped out of her clothes and put on her robe. Gathering in a circle, Veronica began the ritual to call for the Dark Prince. She spoke the sacred incantations, before stepping forward with the anointed dagger.
The two men were staring at her. They caught sight of her naked flesh under the robe and started salivating like dogs.
Gripping the dark-haired one’s hair, she yanked his head back and dragged the dagger across his throat, spilling dark red blood down his front. She quickly did the same with the other one. Quick and clean, just the way I like it, she thought.
“Come sisters, bathe in the blood,” she called, disrobing to stand naked. The others followed suit. They dipped their fingers in the blood, drawing symbols on their body, chanting as they did.
Veronica felt free like this, nothing to tie her down. She chanted louder and louder, imagining the Dark Prince as he looked twenty years ago, appearing before her.
The minutes ticked by and she started to falter. Where is he? Surely, he wouldn’t ignore their call.
Liza stopped first, the others quickly following. Veronica continued to chant until Liza grabbed her arm. “He’s not coming.”
Veronica wrenched her arm away. “He’ll come. Keep chanting!”
“Veronica, it’s no use. He mustn’t be happy with the sacrifice,” Holly said, wrapping her arms around herself.
Veronica let out a growl, grabbing the dagger, she plunged it into the chest of the fair-haired man over and over again. “Come on! Show yourself. We spilled blood for you!”
Nothing.
She sank to the ground, placing her head in her hands. Why didn’t it work? Why wouldn’t he help her? Did the spell fail because she was weak?
“We needed something purer,” Hettie said, grabbing her robe and pulling it on. “God knows what these guys got up to.”
“I tried that,” Veronica snapped.
“What do you mean?” Hettie said, eyes wide.
Veronica got to her feet. “Nothing. Forget it.”
“What did you do?” Liza demanded, stepping in front of her.
“I sacrificed the O’Carroll girl to him.”
“Great! Just great,” Debra Cox shrieked. “That was on the news. We’re fucked. She’s going to get us the gas chamber.”
“Shut up, Debra! I hid the body well. They think she is a runaway.” Once more she was explaining herself to people who were beneath her, whose opinion didn’t matter.
“I’m out of here,” Dorothy said and a few of the others followed her back to the road.
“Fine! Go!” Veronica screamed after them. It was their fault, somehow, they screwed up the ritual. That was it. It’s them, not me.
“You need to get a grip,” Liza said. “Ever since you had the baby, you’ve…”
“Don’t you dare!” Veronica snarled.
Liza at least had the good sense not to continue. Instead, she gathered her clothes and left, the others following behind her.
Standing alone in the woods, she felt the urge to scream build in her. Channelling the energy, she created a fireball in her hand and hurled it at the bodies. There was a burst of flames, before they flickered and went out, barely leaving a mark. Not too long ago she could have incinerated them both in seconds, leaving only ashes.
She fell to her knees. “Please Dark Prince, hear my plea. What can I do to gain your counsel? What must I sacrifice to please you?”
She closed her eyes, listening for some sign. Any sign. There. A noise in the distance. She strained to hear it, but it faded away.
Her eyes snapped open. Her powers were too weak to receive the message. He could be trying to reach her right now and she wouldn’t even know it.
“Why is this happening to me?” she whispered.
3
Veronica stepped into her bedroom to find him waiting for her. He wore a black three-piece suit with a red tie, his dark hair slicked back, and those coal black eyes were taking in every inch of her.
“Dark Prince,” she said, dropping into a bow. “You came.”
“Rise,” he said, in a voice as smooth as honey.
A smile spread across her face. “I knew you would hear me.”
“Well you certainly made enough noise,” he said, taking a seat on the bed.
She stayed where she was. She wouldn’t go to him unless he asked. “I was desperate. My power is fading, I need your help.”
“Really? And how long has your power been off?”
“For nearly a year now.”
“And has anything happened in that year?”
“No, I mean…well, I had a child, but…”
He raised an eyebrow. “There’s the answer then.”
“What? No, everything I’ve read says that most witches’ powers increase with pregnancy, why would mine fade?”
He stood up and crossed the room to her. He was so close, she could smell him, an earthy smell with undertones of sulphur.
“And how did the little one come to be?” he asked, placing a hand on her stomach.
“It…I don’t…” Veronica stuttered.
He leaned forward, his lips at her ear. “I think you know what you have to do.”
Veronica jerked awake. Sitting up, she found herself in bed where she’d been since returning from the woods. It was a dream. Or was it?
Throwing the covers back, she got up, wincing at the pain in her back. Left alone, she’d began the arduous task of digging two graves for the men, then she shifted their tubby asses into them. She’d be feeling it for weeks.
Moving down the hall to the nursey, she pushed open the door and stepped inside. The room was lit by the glow of a night light that Lupe must have bought for her. She never saw the point in bending to a child’s whims. When she was young, she too feared the dark. Her mother cured that fear by locking her in the basement overnight. Problem solved.
The child lay on her back, fast asleep. She was dressed in a white romper suit, a little tuft of jet black hair stood up on her head. Veronica took in the details, but there was no emotion behind them. You were supposed to feel a rush of love when you had a baby, right? Before now, she felt nothing – indifference. Now another emotion was brewing. Anger.
It was you all along. You did this to me.
Somehow this child stole her power from her. What the hell was she?
“I should have gotten rid of you,” she muttered.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to. Last year, she woke up from a wild bender to find that she was missing quite a significant amount of time. That wasn’t unusual, sometimes she could lose an entire week when she let loose. But this was different. This time it was four months. She found herself in a motel room in Missouri, surrounded by beer cans and used needles. The clerk at the motel told her that she signed in using a name she didn’t recognize, along with a dark-haired man wearing sunglasses. That was all he knew. The father was a total blank to her, she couldn’t remember a thing. All she knew was that she was somehow four months pregnant and it was too late to do anything about it.
Against her better judgement, she decided to keep the child. Wayfield was a small town, people liked to talk. As much as she hated it, she had a reputation to uphold. Giving the child up would show weakness. Stupid bitch gets herself knocked up, then can’t raise the child. That’s what would go around town. Not that she cared about other people’s opinions, but something in her made her keep the child. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she thought she would come in useful someday. Now that day was here. That was no dream. The Dark Prince came to her in a dream where it was easier to communicate, where her mind could welcome him in. The message was clear. Sacrifice the child and he would come.
The child stirred, bringing her fist up to her mouth. She opened her eyes and looked up at the woman who gave birth to her.
“Time to make yourself useful, Adriana,” Veronica said.
Adriana started to cry.
4
“You’re going to sacrifice a baby?” Liza said. “Your own baby?”
“Yes, Liza. Try to keep up. The Dark Prince came to me and told me that this was the only sacrifice he would accept.”
“She’s a baby,” Dorothy said.
Veronica looked at her like the moron she was. “Correct.”
They were gathered in the woods once more, but Veronica waited to tell them the news, fearing they wouldn’t show up. When she walked out of the tree line carrying the car seat, it raised some eyebrows.
She placed Adriana on the altar they’d built from wood. The baby was quiet for now, pacified by what was going on around her. Her huge blue eyes missed nothing.
It took quite a bit of convincing for Lupe to leave them alone. She didn’t seem to believe that Veronica wanted to spend time with her daughter. I wonder why?
“Veronica, if you kill your child, people are going to notice!” Liza said.
“Actually, they won’t. Lupe is going to take the baby with her to visit her parents and they are both going to get into a car accident. There will be no survivors.” The plan was set, it would mean using mind control on Lupe, making her drive out of town to crash her car, but it would be simple enough once she was at full power again. The car would be an inferno, no one would ever know what really happened. After some time playing the grieving mother, she could resume her life as normal. Maybe she would even take the opportunity to get the hell out of Wayfield. It may be her ancestral home, but the stench of humans was too much to bear some days. The only thing worse than having them hating her, was them being sympathetic to her. She shuddered at the thought.
“You’re insane,” Liza breathed.
“Don’t pretend like you care about the child,” Veronica said. Liza, like her, never wanted kids.
“I care about getting caught and spending the rest of my life in jail,” Liza snapped.
The rest murmured their agreement. She was losing them, she knew it.
“Really? Well imagine this. What if the rest of your life was a lot longer? As in eternity.”
“What do you mean?” Joanna said.
“Immortality. Ultimate power. That’s what I mean.”
That perked a few of them up. “He could do that?” Holly asked.
“He can do anything. It’s what he did for me, before this parasite stole it from me,” Veronica said, pointing at the child.
“How could she do that?” Liza asked.
“I don’t know. And it’s not important. I plan on asking the Dark Prince for all of it back and he is going to give it to me. He promised me. Now, you can all walk away if you want. Or you can change your life forever. No more blending in, no more struggling with spells. Permanently young and enough power to rule the world if you wanted.”
She saw a few of them smile. Holly was practically drooling at the thought.
“And if it doesn’t work?” Liza said.
“If it doesn’t work, I’ll transfer what power I have left to you in forfeit.”
Gasps went up around the coven. Liza looked stunned. “Are you serious?”
“Yes, I will make a pact in blood. That’s how sure I am.” If it got her on side, she would say whatever she needed to.
“Damn, she’s serious,” Dorothy muttered. They knew she would never make a deal like that lightly.
“Agreed,” Liza breathed.
Drawing the dagger blade across her palm, Veronica did the same to Liza before clasping it, their blood mingling together.
“I vow to transfer all power to you if I fail in my task. Do you accept this bargain?” Veronica said.
“I accept,” Liza blurted. Either way, she was walking away with more power.
The other sheep followed as she knew they would.
They formed a circle and like before, Veronica started the ritual. When she finished her chant, they all stepped up to the altar. Adriana stared up at Veronica as she raised the blade above her.
As the chant rose again, Adriana started to howl loudly. “Dark Prince, hear our plea, come before us as we offer this child to you,” Veronica said, bringing the dagger down.
Before it could touch the infant, all the women were blasted back off their feet.
Adriana continued to cry, as a dark form stepped out from the trees. He made his way toward Veronica, who lay on her back, gasping for air. The blast had crushed her chest, she had moments left.
When she saw who it was, she reached for him, certain he was here to save her.
Crouching beside her, the Dark Prince smiled. “Thank you for the sacrifice. I’ll make sure the power goes to a good home.”
The power. My power. He betrayed me.
Hope faded for her, as she took her last breath. Her hand dropped and she was still.
5
Adriana continued to cry, kicking her legs, her face red. The Dark Prince stepped up to th
e altar. Sacrificing a baby, Veronica you really crossed a line this time.
Contrary to popular belief, his kind weren’t interested in babies being sacrificed. Their souls were pure, that was true, but the point of a pure soul was one that resisted temptation. Meaning they had to be old enough to make decisions. It would have been a waste, which is why he decided to step in. Veronica proved herself to be a thoroughly vile human being, how would her child turn out? It was nature versus nurture. Would she become like Veronica without Veronica there to raise her? He couldn’t wait to find out, especially now she was gifted with so much power.
“Hush, little one. You’re safe. I have big plans for you.” The child’s cries grew louder. He didn’t have the first clue how to deal with babies. This needed a nanny’s touch.
He whistled loudly and a woman materialized beside him. She was squat with gray hair, fashioned to hide her horns.
“My lord,” she said, bowing her head.
“Take the child. Make sure she is well cared for,” he said. It wasn’t her usual role, but she would do as she was told.
The woman looked at the bodies scattered around them. “What about them?”
He glanced at their lifeless forms. “Oh yes, take care of that too. We can’t have the humans finding them. Take the child somewhere warmer first, Chastity. Wouldn’t want her to catch a cold.”
Chastity gathered the screaming infant into her arms, a look of distaste on her face. “What is so special about her?” she asked.
“She just inherited a lot of power. It will be interesting to see how this turns out.” The rules of sacrifice were simple. The lives were forfeited and whomever was left standing, took the power. In this case, it was the child. Having the power of thirteen witches, that was going to be a sight to behold. She could change everything. At the very least, she would make an interesting concubine when she came of age. He walked away, dematerializing when he reached the trees.
Chastity took the baby and headed for the road, trying to soothe her. Why did he pick me to look after the brat? What do I know about babies?