Bitter Demons (22 page)

On the other hand, without their help, I
might not survive an attack from the crow witch. Maybe seclusion
really was the best thing for me.

Several times, I was on the verge of telling
Zara the truth, but I always pulled back. Jackson was the one I
wanted to tell. He would know what to do. Of course, he wasn't
talking to me right now, which made things a bit more
complicated.

After hours of debate, I finally decided that
he'd have to put our personal issues aside. If nothing else, he'd
at least want to keep his brother alive. While the crowd still
loitered downstairs, I crept through the front door and worked my
way back toward Jackson's house. I peered inside his bedroom
window, hoping to see him sitting at his desk drawing or possibly
laying on his bed thinking of ways to apologize to me.

Instead, the room was empty and dark.

Maybe he'd gone into town? Or just for a ride
to get away for a while?

I stifled the growing disappointment in my
belly and took a piece of paper and a pen from my pocket. I'd
brought them just in case, and now I was glad I did. I jotted a
quick note for him to please meet me in the barn again at midnight
tonight. I added that it was a matter of life and death, figuring
that would really drive it home how important this meeting was.

I slipped the note in the crack of the window
and propped it up in a way that I was sure he would notice when he
walked through the door. Behind me, I thought I heard the beating
of wings. My heart skipped a beat and I turned, terrified of seeing
blood-red eyes staring back at me.

Instead, I saw a bluejay flutter from one
tree to another. I sighed in relief, then hurried back to the house
to wait until midnight.

The butterflies in my stomach were fluttering
in full force by the time midnight rolled around. I had no idea if
Jackson would show or if he was still super angry with me. What if
he hadn't even seen the note? How long was I willing to wait here
in the barn for him to show?

I pulled out my cell phone and checked the
time again. Five after. He was definitely late. I warmed my hands
with my breath, then rubbed them together. I should have worn
gloves.

It was dark inside the barn, and I considered
conjuring an orb to make it seem less frightening, but decided
against it. Any extra light might draw attention, and there was no
telling who might be watching.

A flutter of wings up above sent an icy chill
up my spine. My breath stopped cold in my chest and I took a step
backward toward the door. Had I imagined it? I held my breath and
listened closely. Then, the flapping sound came again, and my body
flooded with terror.

In the next instant, a shadow flew in front
of my face. I swatted at it, lunging for the door. Hoping for
escape. I screamed as I tripped over something hard and metal on
the floor. I heard the fabric of my jeans rip and warm blood
trickle down my shin, but I didn't stop. I scrambled to my feet and
kept moving. Two more steps and I would have made it outside.

The crow swooped down, its sharp claw
scraping across my cheek. I reached up to touch the scratch, then
stumbled, my vision blurred. All I saw as I lost consciousness was
the sinister gleam of its blood-red eyes.

Pain thundered through my skull. I opened my
eyes and tried to bring my hands up to my aching head, but I
couldn't move. My arms and legs were stick-straight like a board,
and I struggled to free myself from whatever magic held me in
place. They had dressed me in a white dress just like the one
Caroline had been wearing the day we found her.

The room was dark. Candlelight flickered
across the stone ceiling. Voices whispered all around me and I
turned my head to see a room full of witches dressed in black
velvet robes that shimmered in the light. These robes were very
different from the ones I'd seen the night of Brooke's initiation
ceremony, but the room was the same.

"Let me go," I said.

A witch cackled near my ear, her voice
ancient and gravelly. She ran her long, crooked fingernail across
the scratch on my cheek and I winced. In her other hand, she held
my necklace, its blue pendant swinging back and forth as she held
it up for me to see.

"Who are you?" I asked. Panic rose up in my
chest. Without that necklace, I was on my own. Aerden wouldn't come
for me this time.

The witch narrowed her red eyes at me. Her
withered face cracked as she brought her lips into a gruesome
smile. Her teeth were blackened and rotting, and I could smell the
decay in her breath. She was old. Much older than any human should
be.

"I am the one who should have had your
throne," she said.

At the sound of her voice, every witch in the
room grew dead silent. The anticipation in the air was dense, and
the hairs on my arm stood up.

"I am the one who has waited all these years
to find you so I could finally take back what was rightfully mine."
Her voice echoed in the small ritual room.

I wanted to close my eyes and find that this
was all just some bad dream. How could I have been so stupid? Going
out to the barn alone was careless. My eyes searched the room,
counting. Twenty-five robed figures plus the head witch. The
red-eyed crow. There was no way I could take them all, even if I
did have use of my arms and legs.

My body was positioned over the portal to the
shadow world. I hovered in the air about four feet from the blue
stone. The scene was eerily similar to Brooke's initiation and the
thought of what these women might want to do to me left me gasping
for air.

"When I was a young girl, about your age, a
group of women came to my small town of Peachville," the old witch
said. "They knew some of us girls had special... talents. We were
recruited and evaluated. Judged for our merit and our abilities. In
every test, I was the top of my class. I was the one the Order of
Shadows chose to lead this town as their Prima. I was to be the
first one initiated and joined with the powerful demon who came
through this portal."

The witch clapped her hands together and I
jumped, feeling dizzy and frightened. "Everything was set. The
choice had been made," she said, circling me. "A week before the
ceremony was to take place, your wretched, thieving ancestor found
me in the woods practicing some spells from a book I'd found among
the Orders things. I was a curious child. I hadn't done anything
wrong. But Clara, she ran to the women of the Order and told them
what happened. Doing magic outside of training was strictly
forbidden at the time, but I knew what I was doing. I wasn't going
to hurt anyone. I just wanted to see if I could figure out the
magic."

The old witch leaned in close to my face, her
rotting breath turned my stomach. "You have her eyes," she said.
"That same superior look that says I'm better than you. I deserve
more. She deserved to pay for betraying me. I visited Clara's room
that night and cast a hex spell on her. She grew sick with a fever
and nearly died. Probably would have if it hadn't been for the
healer who discovered the spell. One of the women in the Order had
a gift for sniffing out hexes, and once the women learned what I
had done to a fellow witch and potential member, they banished me
from the training."

Her story sent shivers up and down my spine.
She'd come here for vengeance, and in that moment, I knew she
wasn't planning to let me live. I could hear the hatred in her tone
when she talked about Clara, the first Prima.

"She stole everything from me," she said.
"And I've worked my entire life to get it back. I've built this
family, this coven on my own. We're more powerful than most witches
ever dream of becoming. I took that book of dark magic and built a
life around it, using soul stones to steal the power of other
witches and drink it down so that I could have eternal life and
unimaginable power."

I swallowed and my mouth felt like it was
filled with sand. The witch's story had my head all turned around.
Had she really been carrying this hatred in her heart for a hundred
years?

"I searched for years to find a way to take
back what should have been mine," she said. "And eighteen years
ago, I found it. An ancient spell that allows a coven to transfer
the Prima blood-line from one family to another. I wanted it so
badly, I could taste it."

She licked her cracked lips and raised her
hands high in the air. Flames shot from her fingertips as she let
out an angry, high-pitched scream of frustration. "I almost had it
all those years ago when your mother was a young woman," she said.
"In order for the transfer to work, there must only be one living
member left in the Prima blood-line. Your mother was an only child,
so I arranged for the death of her parents in a car accident."

I thought of how Zara had said the Order
suspected foul-play. I felt sick.

"With them out of the way, I only had to sit
back and wait for little Claire to take over her role as Prima.
That's when I took her, just as I took you tonight."

Oh god, my mother. I listened to her story,
my mind racing to make sense of it all. My flesh crawled as she
came close to me, putting her hands on both sides of my face.

"Only, I never counted on you," she said in a
hoarse whisper. "Mommy's little secret. Your mother got pregnant by
a married man and out of shame, kept her growing belly hidden with
clever glamours. When she gave birth, she sent you away, ashamed to
tell anyone about her mistake. Even as she lay here, looking so
much the same way you do right now, she never told anyone she'd had
a baby. An heir to the line."

I struggled against the magic holding me
down, but it was no use. I squeezed my eyes closed. This couldn't
be happening.

"I spilled her blood on this very floor,
thinking that I would finally take up my throne. When the spell
didn't work and your mother's body lay lifeless and spent, I knew
that someday I would find her heir and the Prima line would be
mine. Our family would rule this town the way it was always meant
to be ruled."

The room seemed to spin out of control. All
these years, I'd wondered what happened to my mother. Now, I was
living it myself. I was going to die just as she had died. Tears
ran down the side of my eyes and into my hair.

Footsteps on the stone stairs made every head
in the room turn in anticipation.

I prayed for Jackson or Zara or an army of
women from the Order. Please. I didn't want to die. Not like this.
Not tonight.

A girl in a black robe, shorter than most of
the women in the room. Her hair was jet black, her skin pale. Her
eyes were the purest color of blue.

"You're late, Mary Anne," a woman called from
the corner of the room.

Mary Anne stood at the bottom of the stairs,
her blue eyes fixed on me for a moment. I wanted to tell her to
run. To get help. But then, she turned her gaze to the woman in the
corner.

"I'm sorry, mother," she said.

My heart pounded. This was Mary Anne's
family? She was the crow I'd seen in the school and on the balcony
that night, but she wasn't the only crow. There were dozens. She'd
never belonged in an orphanage or a foster home. It was all a
set-up for this moment.

"Now that all of my descendants are here, we
can finally begin," the ancient witch said. She held out her hand
and a woman handed her an ornate silver cup with a red ruby
encrusted on the side. The cup was tarnished. The old witch's
fingernails scratched against the metal as she gripped it
tight.

Fear gripped my chest and made it difficult
for me to breathe. This couldn't be the end. There had to be some
way to fight back.

The old witch held the cup high above her
head and began to chant in an ancient language. I didn't understand
what she was saying, but I knew it couldn't be good. My skin
erupted in goosebumps.

"
Alocuskah. Migdalian. Beshka locutar
singestra.
" With these last words, she held up a single
fingertip and pressed the sharp nail against her wrist. She cut a
sharp, jagged wound into her flesh and let the blood flow into the
ancient cup.

The witch passed the cup around the room and
one by one, each member of the family spilled her blood into the
cup. I watched, unable to move or do anything to stop this crazy
ritual. When the cup passed back to the old witch, she lifted my
blue pendant high into the air, then dropped it into the blood.

A sharp pain pierced through my heart. I
cried out, and the old witch laughed. "It hurts doesn't it?" she
said. "Your demon will be cut from you and it will feel like I've
ripped your poor heart from your chest."

My muscles tensed, and I tried to break free.
I wanted to lash out at the woman. To fight for my life. But I was
bound too tight with her magic. I couldn't feel my own power.

She turned to the women in the room. "When
the last of her blood runs into the portal, we have only moments
before her spirit leaves her body. It's at that precise moment that
we must transfer the bloodline from her family to ours."

"Wait." Mary Anne's small voice rang out in
the cave-like room.

"You have wasted enough of my time," the old
woman said, her eyes flaring bright red. "Keep your mouth shut and
do as I have taught you."

"You said we weren't going to hurt her," Mary
Anne said. Her blue eyes were wide with panic and fear. "You told
me the transfer would be painless. That it would just suck her
power from her body and she would be fine."

"Don't be stupid," the old witch said. "This
is not a child's game we are playing at here. The girl must die in
order for the spell to work."