Blood Sworn

by Lauryn Evans

  “You’re right on time,” Clarissa remarked at the sight of her, glancing at the clock on the wall. “Which is good.”

  She seemed pleasantly surprised, as if she’d expected Renata to be late.

  Renata laughed, unsure of what to say. She’d always been punctual.

  Clarissa did say midnight, after all.

  Clarissa continued, not giving Renata time to reply. “We’re going to get started in a minute.” She floated around the room, overseeing the preparations, stepping in when needed.

  “Clarissa,” Renata called, letting her curiosity get the best of her. “Why are we doing the ritual this late? I thought high noon was when day magic was strongest.”

  She knew Lightblood witches practiced day magic, while the Nightblood coven practiced night magic. Day magic drew energy from the sun, while night magic drew from the moon. And Renata had more than enough run-ins with both witch covens to tell the difference between the two.

  “It is.” Clarissa snapped her fingers, magically lighting the candles around the circle. “But we’re not doing day magic.”

  “We’re not?”

  “No,” Clarissa answered, taking a piece of chalk from another witch’s palm and sketching symbols onto the floor inside the circle. “Connecting to the spirit realm is a different type of ritual. It’s only performed under the full moon’s highest point in the sky. That’s when the veil’s weakest.”

  “Oh.” Renata slid her hands into the front pockets of her jeans, her cheeks stinging with the heat of embarrassment.

  She hadn’t even noticed the full moon on her way inside. No wonder Clarissa made a comment about her being on time.

  Nora Clark, Jackson’s cousin, shot Renata a warm smile. She and the other Lightblood witches assembled themselves in a circle around the lit candles and symbols drawn onto the floor. Renata flashed a smile back at Nora, taking her place in the circle next to Clarissa, who led the incantation. She joined hands with the witches to her sides and did her best to follow, carefully reading the other witches’ lips. Eventually, she gave up trying the incantation and focused on channeling her energy into the circle.

  That’s what they needed her for, after all.

  A flash of bright light distracted her, stopping the other witches dead in their tracks. Renata could make out faint images of people inside of the circle, whose life forms appeared to be flickering like the candles that surrounded them. Her instincts told her they’d successfully established a connection to the ancestors, but didn’t need them to know it was a weak one. That, she could see for herself—without the help of Aurora’s memories.

  “What’s wrong?” Clarissa patiently asked the ancestors, keeping her expression neutral and to the point. “Who’s doing this to you?”

  “Him,” the ancestors’ reply sounded like a scared whisper, sailing through the room around them and sending a shiver down Renata’s spine.

  “Him,” they said again, frantically this time, in a panicked frenzy.

  “Who?” Clarissa asked again, her frustration growing. “Who is it?”

  “Him, him, him,” the ancestors repeated, over and over again, like a broken record.

  The light within the circle flickered dangerously, before the ancestors’ barely visible forms vanished entirely, blowing out the candles with a hiss that left the circle engulfed in darkness.

  “Dammit.” Clarissa’s hands were embedded in her blonde hair, clutching the back of her head.

  Renata’s curiosity ate at her. “Who were they talking about? Who is he?”

  Clarissa threw her hands up, exasperated. “I wish I knew.”

  Waves of dread and anxiety pulsed through Renata, making her instantly sick to her stomach. Whatever this was, whoever he was, she had a feeling that this was bad—really bad. The ancestors feared him. Anyone could see that.

  Who on earth had the power to affect the spirit realm like this? Who was strong enough to weaken the ancestors?

  Renata’s mind wandered to another witch coven’s ancestors, who wanted so desperately to walk the earth again, no matter the cost…

  The Nightblood coven healed her soul to access memories from her past life. They wanted to find the ritual that would bring down the veil between this world and the next, at their ancestor’s request.

  Good lord.

  Perhaps whoever he was, the Nightblood ancestors feared him just as much as the Lightbloods’ did. Perhaps he was the reason they wanted their coven to destroy the veil between this world and the next, to protect themselves from him. Maybe they thought they were safer on earth.

  If that was true, then whoever he was, and whatever he sought to do, would be bad. Very, very bad. If he had the power to hurt the ancestors, powerful spirits, what could he do to the living? If he was stealing the ancestor’s power, he must either need more, or be purposefully weakening the witches.

  Perhaps he meant to do both for whatever he planned to do.

  Renata forced herself to stop this train of thought. She had a bad habit of worrying too much before it was due. And all that did was stress her out more.

  Seeing as they were done here, Renata stifled a yawn. She couldn’t believe she was going to say what she was about to, but couldn’t help herself as she blurted out the words. “I’ll help you find out who he is.”

  Clarissa graciously accepted the offer before Renata could take back her words. “Thank you.”

  It’s too late to go back now.

  Renata smiled sympathetically. “Of course, it’s no problem.”

  “I’ll be doing some extensive research of my own, consulting old witch texts. Here,” Clarissa scribbled something on a piece of paper she’d gotten from one of the other witches. “Here’s my number, in case you learn anything. I’ll be in touch.”

  Renata accepted the piece of paper with another yawn.

  “Goodnight, Renata.” Clarissa waved, and Renata made her way back to the truck.

  An all too familiar sensation crashed into her like a tidal wave. Her vision blurred and faded away to nothingness, replaced by a foreign scene.

  The wind blew strands of her long golden locks into her deep silver eyes. Her magic sensed a powerful energy source and sang as if it were calling out to an old friend.

  This energy was dark, black, even. Aurora Courtenay didn’t recognize this entity, but her magic did. The connection felt ancient, much older than any kind of magic she knew about. She turned to look behind her, the feeling of being watched sending shivers down her spine.

  With a calm hand, Aurora brushed her hair away from her eyes, safely tucking it behind her ear. In the distance, a man walked towards her, taking relaxed strides. She stood up straighter, bracing herself for a fight.

  The man’s shaggy black hair glistened in the moonlight, illuminating half of his pale face. As his piercing yellow eyes met hers, an eerie sense of familiarity filled her entire being.

  She tasted his name on her tongue. It was a foreign name, a name she didn’t know how she knew. The man grinned as if he already knew what was about to happen next.

  Breathlessly, his name slipped from Aurora’s tongue as if it were being drawn from her.

  “Azazel.”

  A sly smile emerged on his face, his yellow eyes gleaming with satisfaction.

  “So you do remember me.”

  “Azazel.”

  Renata found herself repeating his name as her world came back into focus.

  A memory.

  That’s what she’d seen. One of Aurora’s resurfaced memories.

  Clarissa lessened her grip on Renata’s shoulders, her face drained of color. “What did you say?”

  Startled, Renata regained her composure. She hadn’t seen Clarissa come out of the house.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, her voice wary. “Who’s Azazel?”

  Clarissa turned to the house and wrapped her arms around herself. She clutched her shirt tight enough that her knuckles turned white.

  “Clarissa?”


  “It’s nothing.” Clarissa’s shaky tone did little to convince her otherwise.

  Renata protested, taking a step forward. “Clarissa…”

  Clarissa kept her back turned, her voice suddenly harsh. “Go home, Renata.”

  The words stung like she’d slapped Renata in the face. And after taking a brief moment to recover, Renata did what she told her to do.

  Even once she got back home, Clarissa’s words still hung over her like a storm cloud.

  “Go home, Renata.”

  There was something Clarissa wasn’t telling her.

  And that bothered Renata most of all.

  3

  Back at the house, Renata was wide awake, tossing and turning, desperate for an ounce of rest despite her droopy eyelids and the heavy feeling in her limbs.

  Whoever this Azazel was, he had to be powerful. Dangerously powerful. The only time Renata had seen Clarissa that worried was when she’d unexpectedly knocked on her front door the day before.

  But even then, Renata had never seen Clarissa as pale as she was after hearing Azazel’s name. No, Clarissa’s reaction resembled something far beyond fear.

  Renata worried that maybe Jackson was right. That perhaps she shouldn’t have gotten involved with all this. But she had. And now, if anything happened to the people she cared about, she would never forgive herself. All of her House members were under her protection. She would die before she let anything happen to them.

  To any of them.

  Renata turned to Jackson, who slept soundly beside her, and brushed his hair out of his eyes. She’d protect him and his humanity at any cost. Even if it meant sacrificing herself.

  She was more than sure of that.

  The morning sun told Renata she’d lost track of time. By now, she’d lost any opportunity to go back to sleep.

  Quietly, she snuck out of bed, throwing some clothes on before she crept downstairs. She needed to address what happened last night.

  And a possible threat to the House.

  Luckily, Adela, Edwin, Mariel, and Wyatt were already awake. Wyatt and Adela bickered while Mariel and Edwin mimicked them, making fun of the quarreling siblings.

  “Cut it out, Wyatt!” Adela snarled, snatching the television remote. “I was here first.”

  “But I told you yesterday that I was going to watch TV this morning!” Wyatt shot back, reaching for the remote. “I’ve been waiting to watch this for nearly a week!”

  “Well, it looks like you’re going to have to wait a bit longer, huh?”

  “Well,” Mariel mimicked Adela, exaggerating her movements. “It looks like you’re going to have to wait a bit longer, huh?” she said to Edwin. She glanced over at Wyatt and Adela, but they were too engrossed in their petty squabble to notice.

  “Ugh! I hate it when you do this!” Wyatt groaned, exasperated. “You act like you’re five years old!”

  Edwin Dubois flamboyantly put his hands on his hips, playing along with Mariel’s game and impersonating Wyatt. “I hate it when you do this!”

  “Hey!” Wyatt glowered at him, finally noticing what he and Mariel were doing.

  Mariel and Edwin locked eyes with each other before they burst out laughing, hugging their sides.

  Adela rolled her eyes at her younger brother as she gave up arguing, which was perfect timing.

  “Adela,” Renata called, pulling out a blood bag from the refrigerator. “Once everyone’s awake, I need you to call a general assembly meeting.”

  “Sure,” Adela Johnson, Renata’s second-in-command, replied with a nod. Her inky hair fell in front of her face, thick brows stitched together. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes,” Renata hesitated, pouring the contents of the bag into a glass. “There’s just something I need to address.”

  Something she dreaded telling them.

  Adela nodded again in response, before diverting her attention back to her brother, who was in the midst of a heated discussion with Mariel.

  Renata casually sipped from her glass, her mind racing. How would she present this to the House members without causing them to worry?

  She glanced up at Wyatt. Especially when some of them already seemed to be on edge this morning.

  Was it even necessary to say something this early on, when she wasn’t sure if Azazel was a threat? No, telling them what was going on was the right thing to do. She knew she’d regret it if anything happened before she had the chance to tell them herself.

  She thought of William Taylor, the best friend she ever had. If he were there, he’d be chastising her for worrying about how to tell them.

  “Sometimes the truth doesn’t sound pretty,” he’d say. She let out a low chuckle. No, the truth was the truth and just that. She sighed. She wished Will was there with her. That he could help her navigate this.

  The pain of his absence stung more and more every day since his death.

  Renata brushed it off. Will would want her to be strong for the others. Strong, the way the Mistress of the Newport House should be. The way Alexander would have been.

  Adela and the other House members trailed into the common room. Edwin and Heather plopped onto the couch, and Wyatt and Mariel sat at the kitchen table. Based on the way they held hands and were looking at each other, Renata figured they’d sorted out their differences. Alice stood by the window, and Adelaide sat on the edge of the sofa. Veronica Evans stood by the couch with her hands on her hips, knee-popped. Her slick, jet-black bob framed the tired look on her face.

  Jackson, still bleary-eyed, rested his hand on Renata’s waist, worry already etched into his handsome face. “Is everything okay?”

  Renata forced a smile. She hated the worried expression she’d gotten so used to seeing. “Yes. I just want to address something that might become a problem later on.” Hoping to stop him from worrying any more, she quickly added, “But we’ll worry about it later.”

  “Okay.” His hand fell from her waist as he sat down at the breakfast bar, facing her.

  “As you may know,” Renata began addressing the House members, “I helped the Lightblood coven do a ritual last night. Their ancestors are fading and with them, the coven’s magic.”

  She briefly explained the purpose of the ritual, to communicate with the Lightblood ancestors, before continuing. “The ancestors tried to warn us about ‘him,’” she repeated with the use of air quotations. “As I was leaving, one of Aurora’s memories resurfaced.” Her breathing slowed, taking her back to the memory. “His name is Azazel.”

  The youngest House member, Adelaide McKennon, shifted her weight uneasily. “Who’s Azazel?”

  “I don’t know,” Renata admitted. “All I know is his name.”

  “He’s a demon,” the oldest House member, Alice Brooker, breathed, her voice low.

  “Do you know anything else about him?” Renata asked, hoping for more information or anything she could use.

  “No.” Alice shook her head, her platinum blonde pixie cut bouncing. “There hasn’t been any talk of him for centuries.”

  Heather Thompson furiously typed away on her laptop, her dark hair cascading down her shoulders, falling in front of her face. “Well, according to Google, he’s a demon that pops up in Christian, Jewish, and Islamic texts.”

  “Ah, what would we do without technology?” Edwin declared, “We’d be living in the Dark Ages.”

  “Please,” Mariel rolled her ruby red eyes. “The Dark Ages weren’t that bad.”

  Edwin shrugged. “If you say so.”

  “This shouldn’t surprise me,” Wyatt said out loud to himself. “Why am I surprised by this? Vampires and witches are real. Why am I surprised demons are real too?”

  Mariel sighed and face-palmed.

  Wyatt turned to Jackson, who was now standing by the breakfast bar in the kitchen. “Did you know about this?”

  Jackson simply nodded, patting Wyatt lightly on the back. “You’re late to the party, man.”

  Veronica rolled her golden eyes. “Hello,�
� she drawled, putting her hands on her hips. “Bigger problems here.”

  “Sorry,” Wyatt surrendered, his cheeks suddenly red.

  “Anyway,” Heather continued. “Other than that, all I can find on him is that he’s a character in Supernatural, and a couple of websites say he has yellow eyes.”

  “In Aurora’s memory, he had black hair, pale skin, and—” Renata paused, before adding—“yellow eyes.”

  The kind of eyes she’d never forget.

  Mariel’s gaze fell to the floor, and she furrowed her brow.

  Wyatt shifted closer to her, resting his hand on hers. “What’s wrong?”

  Mariel swallowed. “A thousand years ago, I saw a man like the one you described, Renata. He was,” she paused, steadying herself. “He was working with Evander, acting as his right hand that night.” Mariel didn’t elaborate more, nor did Renata need her to.

  She knew.

  Before the Newport mansion burned down several months ago, Renata read a couple of entries from Alexander’s diary. He was there when his son, Evander, and the Order of the Seven Blades attacked their House. Evander and his hunters murdered all the vampires who lived there, then burned it to the ground. Alexander thought he was the only one that survived the assault, but Mariel had too.

  Now, Mariel was here. And Renata would stop history from repeating itself.

  Mariel tightly clasped Wyatt’s hand. “Power radiated from him. I could tell he was an immortal, but knew he wasn’t a vampire.”

  Adela uncrossed her arms. “Was that the first time you saw him?”

  “Yes. At the time,” Mariel explained, “the Nightblood coven did Evander’s dirty work. I was out feeding with some vampires I lived with when some Nightblood witches stopped us. The man you described was with them.”