Seeking Witches

by Cailee Francis

  “You’re a succubus, Rose. Could you seduce or I don’t know, just distract him a bit with your powers?” Jamie asked. “That came out more sexist than I meant it, but we’re desperate here.”

  “It’s not going to work in these circumstances, Jamie. I think we’re going to have to do this the old-fashioned way or make a run for it.”

  Jamie frowned. “I’m not running. We end this right here and now. If we let these necromancers get away, they’ll disappear until they find other ways to strike back at us.”

  Rose watched the zombies’ approach. They were intimidating, horrifying and they stank, but they were also slow.

  “Your sleep spell, if that’s what it was, worked on Lily. Can’t you use the same thing on him?”

  Lisa shook her head. “Unlikely. It’s easiest with physical contact, but if it’s to work it has to be within a person’s… err how do you describe it? Their personal space. You have to be up close to them when you cast it. They can’t be shielded from you, and it makes it a lot easier if on some level they want to fall asleep.”

  Rose glanced at Jamie. “Lily was in pain, so she wanted it to stop?”

  “Yeah, that’s my thinking,” Jamie replied, “or she didn’t want to be here.”

  Lisa, Rose and Alexis exchanged glances. If Alexis had her mind influenced, was it possible Lily had too? Rose felt guilty all of a sudden, because she hadn’t helped when she was on fire. She was just so sure Lily was the enemy, but then she might be. It didn’t change the fact she was a person with feelings, but she’d obviously done bad things and Rose just felt she didn’t have time to think about it right now. She readied her axe because the zombies were coming.

  What they lacked in speed they made up for in numbers. Some of the zombies were armed with swords and knives, while others looked intimidating enough without weaponry. Most had been dead a while, and their flesh and clothing had mostly rotted from their bones. None were complete skeletons, and all went for the coven members.

  “I can only shield you if you stay close together. If you split up to fight them, I can’t help you!” Alexis explained, before the others ran off.

  “There’s nothing to be done for it,” Jamie said, as he opened his arms wide and summoned a large ball of flame into each palm. “The undead hate fire. Burn them or cut their heads off. If it doesn’t kill them, it will slow them down.”

  With a whoosh, the fire flew from his hands, striking the nearest two. They went up in pillars of flame, but more kept coming. It seemed the zombies were completely fearless.

  Rose dashed forward and struck the head off the nearest one with the axe. She mourned the absence of her sword, as well as the poor person who’d risen from their grave, and turned to attack the second. It had already fallen to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, but the other zombies were close.

  She glanced back at Lisa, afraid of losing sight of her in the chaos, but she looked to be summoning something Rose couldn’t see. Alexis was close, which likely meant they were both shielded.

  Rose parried a knife attack from the nearest zombie, and then backpedalled as two more went up in gushes of flame. The one she was fighting hadn’t, so she swung at it with her axe and severed its arm holding the knife. It didn’t seem to slow it down, as it tried to claw her eyes out with its remaining hand. It took another axe swing to the neck to stop it permanently.

  Alexis was fighting one of the zombies now. She levelled a kick at the side of its kneecap, which had more than the desired effect and knocked off its lower left leg entirely. The whole zombie toppled, and she kicked it repeatedly, before setting it aflame with her magic. It burned brightly, and she watched it burn until it stopped moving. She seemed to soak up the flames’ glow as her anger finally smouldered, and then she pinpointed the necromancer. He was staying back in the distance, watching the undead as they attacked Rose and the coven members. His eyes glittered darkly, and he seemed to completely ignore his unconscious companion, who it seemed might be his sister.

  Alexis slipped through the darkness, seemingly unnoticed by the zombies, which attacked Jamie and Rose.

  Lisa did notice, and she hurried to catch up. “If you’re going after him, you’re not doing it alone,” she exclaimed. Lisa glanced back at Rose, who in that moment decapitated another zombie.

  Rose might not have magic, but her skill with weapons was formidable and served her well in the fight.

  Jamie was burning the zombies, and while they were usually silent, more than once they shrieked as the fire took to their tattered clothing and burned the remaining flesh from their bones.

  When only two zombies remained, he left them to Rose and hurried after Lisa and Alexis.

  “Do you need my help?” Rose called, but Jamie shook his head in the darkness.

  “Leave this to us.”

  Rose felt a little hurt, but she concentrated on fighting the zombies. She realised it was easier than she’d expected; perhaps a reflection of her growing energy with the impending Succubus Moon. She wasn’t a magic user, and Rose knew that if she went with the others, they’d need to protect her. It was energy they might better use fighting. So she stabbed, and kicked, and fought to bring the zombies down, and inwardly prayed the love of her life would be alright.

  “We can’t let him get away,” Alexis exclaimed, as the three mages pursued the necromancer.

  “He’s not going anywhere,” Lisa promised, and though she knew he had the ability to teleport, she also expected he couldn’t use that ability while he remained on the grounds. He’d got past their wards but he wouldn’t get past this.

  They had time to catch up with him, especially in the direction he was going. It seemed the grandson of Victor J. Wade had little desire to stand and fight the way his sister had.

  “He’s making for the field behind the ritual place,” Lisa said, as they hurried between the trees.

  They tried not to run headlong into a trap, because they weren’t sure the necromancer wouldn’t leave something waiting for them to either slow them down or kill them. He’d lost the undead he’d raised, or that Lily had, but he might not have given up yet.

  “He’s stopped!” Jamie murmured, as he ran through the damp grass to catch up with their target.

  “Wait!” Lisa screamed, as soon as she saw a strange swirling around the necromancer, close to the ground. It was hard to make out the details in the dark.

  He stopped in time, while the disturbance in the air took on more substance. It carried the proportions of a human, but it looked like something else taking form.

  “We need to strike now and strike hard!” Jamie exclaimed.

  Lisa had never excelled at fire sorcery, but she had other talents like kitchen witchery, as well as some unexpected abilities. She focused her strength and pulled the necromancer up into the air, breaking his focus. He didn’t rise far – it was a few feet at most, and he crashed immediately to the ground, but he lost his grip on the spell he’d been casting and the darkness faded back into the night.

  “Where did you learn that?” Alexis asked in awe.

  “Jojo!” she declared, but she didn’t explain because time was one thing they were short on.

  The necromancer climbed to his knees, brushing off dirt, but Jamie was poised to throw a fireball. Soon Lisa and Alexis were in front of him, ready to attack at the slightest provocation.

  Rose was scratched and bruised, but she ran toward them, slowing as she caught up.

  “You got him!” she declared, holding the bloodied, stinking axe at the ready, just in case it was needed.

  It took a good five minutes for Alexis, Jamie and Lisa to weave a net of energy around the necromancer that held him in place until the Enforcers arrived. He was taken into custody, as was his sister Lily, who was still unconscious on the ground.

  “We think he might’ve been controlling his sister mentally,” Rose told Agent Williams, as she was teleported away by another Enforcer.

  “We have ways of figuring th
ese things out,” he promised her, as he surveyed the carnage on the ground.

  The Enforcers had set up lights to study the scene.

  “There’s a cemetery a few miles from here. We think it’s where he got them.”

  Rose realised in retrospect, they probably should’ve seen that coming.

  She put her arm around Lisa, just grateful she and the others were alright. They still hadn’t managed to get through to Kieva and Lucy, the coven members in Las Vegas, who the necromancer had claimed were dead. They wouldn’t rest easy until they knew the truth.

  6

  Lisa dug into her chocolate sundae as Rose relaxed back in the booth at the ice cream parlour. The day was bright outside, and it felt fresh and clean, and full of promise after their ordeal at the cabin. Jamie sat beside Lisa, eating a strawberry ice cream when Alexis walked in, followed by Raven and Erin.

  There wasn’t enough seating, so Raven pulled over another small table, so he and Erin could sit with the others.

  “Hey there!” Lisa said animatedly, before indulging in another spoonful of her sundae. “It’s great you could make it. How are you feeling, Raven? You’re looking so much better.”

  He chuckled and eyed her ice cream. “Damn, I need to get me one of those. I am much better; thanks for asking, Lisa. My lady’s keeping an eye on me, making sure I don’t get into any trouble.”

  Rose smiled. “You had her worried, so she’s probably making extra sure you’re alright and know you’re appreciated. What’s the story with Kieva and Lucy? I haven’t heard any more since I spoke with the Enforcer.”

  “Sorry I didn’t get back to you about it sooner,” Alexis told Rose, and also Lisa. “They were out of touch for a few days there but we tracked them down and they were alright. It seemed they took our advice to be careful to heart and went off the grid.”

  Rose was grateful, just as Lisa was relieved. “I’m so glad to hear that. So Sarah’s married now?”

  Alexis nodded. “Yes she is, and they’re still travelling on honeymoon.”

  “Nice!” Lisa exclaimed with a smile.

  “Agent Heriman’s alright too,” Rose told them. “We’ve worked together a little in the past and I checked in on him to make sure he was okay. He’s on sick leave for real this time, but he’ll be back. It could be a month or two. They broke his leg.”

  Alexis frowned. “I’m sorry to hear that. At least he’s going to be okay. It could be worse.”

  Rose wouldn’t have liked to admit it aloud, but somehow the thought that Agent Heriman would be back made her feel a little bit safer.

  “How are the renovations coming with the cabin?” Lisa asked Erin, while Raven got some more menus from the counter.

  “We’re thinking it might not be worth it,” Erin admitted. “The damage was pretty extensive. For what it would cost to repair it, we might as well knock it down and re-build, so that’s what we’re thinking of doing. We’d like to build a new cabin and coven meeting-place, only further back on the property. We don’t want it too close to where the zombies were. I’ve been talking with Raven and we’d like to plant a ring of trees as a memorial on the old ceremonial site, and create a new one. We could perhaps plant a garden where you fought the zombies, and have something beautiful there. What do you think?”

  “I love everything about the idea,” Lisa exclaimed, drawing a nod from Rose as well.

  “Something good should come of this and sooner or later the cabin would need to be re-built anyway,” Lisa added.

  Rose had noticed it was becoming a bit run down, so it didn’t seem a bad idea now.

  “I’d be happy to help you plant the garden,” she promised, imagining the garden awash with colours.

  There were other murmurs of agreement from the coven, who for all their difficulties, had come out of this stronger than ever.

  No one was mentioning the necromancers who’d summoned up the zombies that attacked them. The male necromancer – Matthew Wade, was awaiting sentencing for his crimes. He had a good lawyer, but his freedom would take a miracle. There was proof his sister Lily had been manipulated with magic, but the spell was no longer in effect when she’d attacked the coven members. It seemed all she needed was a push from her brother to set her on the same course as him. Her hatred, and perhaps sadness, had been simmering beneath the surface for some time.

  “Your ice cream’s gonna melt,” Lisa commented, drawing Rose’s attention away from deeper, darker thoughts and back to the brighter, more ice cream-filled present.

  “Thanks! I hadn’t even noticed it had arrived,” she confessed, before reaching for the caramel sundae. It looked delicious. She tasted a spoonful, then grinned as Lisa leaned over to kiss her.

  “Mmmm, that does taste good,” she giggled.

  It was a lovely day with those she cared about. It couldn’t have been more perfect, yet she couldn’t put one detail out of her mind: there were only 4 days remaining before the Succubus Moon. Soon she would come fully into her power – for a time, but she wondered if her will would be strong enough to control her abilities. She would have to wait and see.

  About the Author

  Cailee Francis is an Australian author of romantic and erotic fiction, mingling fantasy, friendship, drama and romance. Her novellas include A Masquerade in Time – the popular first book of the Fae Souls series, and the paranormal romance, Cynthia and Eve. She's also written a large number of erotic short stories, which are available individually and in bundles.

  When she's not writing, Cailee works as a self-employed graphic designer, cover artist and editor, and she likes to balance art and writing in equal measure. She writes a range of stories; some but not all of which are LGBT romance.