Witch of Warwick (Dark Coven Book 1)

by Heather Young-Nichols

  The

  Witch

  Of

  Warwick

  Copyright © 2020 by Heather Young-Nichols

  Cover Art by Sassy Cat Creative

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Email: heather@heatheryoungnichols.com

  Sassy Cat Creative: https://www.sassycatcreative.com/

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Also by Heather Young-Nichols

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Luken

  I dropped my keys onto the table with a loud clank as the front door clicked shut behind me. They slid across the table’s surface and onto the floor as I headed over to the fridge, hoping my memory of one last beer inside was accurate. I’d had the kind of day that demanded some alcohol.

  When I pulled the door open, the light shone brightly down on the almost emptiness. But the glorious brown bottle sat lonely in the middle. The only other things inside were a stick of butter and a box with two slices of leftover pizza.

  I really needed to go to an actual grocery store and had no idea when I’d last bought butter. This was getting embarrassing.

  There’d be no shopping tonight, but one day…

  “Fucking hell!” I yelled when I turned around and saw a form sitting in a chair in my living room.

  In the fucking dark.

  Like a damn creeper.

  “That’s a fine hello for your best friend,” the familiar voice said back.

  I hadn’t noticed him sitting alone in the dark. Kind of odd if you asked me.

  Miller Campbell was the first person I’d met when I came to town at fifteen, having been claimed by the coven after my mother’s death. I’d lost the only person in the world I’d cared about and had known nothing of witchcraft, covens, or the council.

  I’d been untrained.

  Rebellious.

  Miller stuck with me through it all. He pushed off the chair and came out of the darkness. My size with his blonde hair a mess and his icy blue eyes looking at me.

  “What’re you doing here?” I asked. This had to be something official otherwise he would’ve sent me a text instead of scaring the shit out of me. “How’d you get in? Never mind.” I held up a hand. “Forget about the second question.”

  Getting into a locked apartment wasn’t all that hard. Especially when you had the craft to work with. Even without it, I was fairly convinced Miller would still be able to get in.

  “Luken, Serena Good is dead,” he said just as bluntly as could be.

  The beer bottle stopped halfway to my mouth. I must’ve heard wrong. He couldn’t have said what I thought he had.

  The stories of Serena Good were notorious. I’d never met her of course, but even with me having been here for such a limited time, I knew what this would mean. What I didn’t know was how the council would handle it or why Miller was in my apartment. She’d been getting older, they’d said, and sure, the day would’ve come eventually, but this unexpected death wouldn’t mean anything good. There was a lot I didn’t know about the inner workings of the council, but this much I did.

  “Shit,” I finally said while scrubbing my fingers through my hair.

  “Yeah.” He went silent and stared at me for what seemed like an eternity. Then he said, “They want to see you.”

  My eyes popped open wide in surprise. That was the last thing I’d thought would’ve come out of his mouth next. Or ever. It didn’t make any sense.

  Wanting to see me made no sense. I was a nobody amongst the great and powerful. Sure, I’d done a few jobs for them in the past, but as part of a team. Maybe it was that. Maybe they wanted me to be part of a team.

  “Tonight,” he added.

  “Say what now?” Again, Serena’s death would affect all of us, no question. But the council wanting to see me was off-putting. Strange in a Twilight Zone sort of way and it made me nervous.

  “Yeah.” Miller stood up and walked over to me, clasping his hand on my shoulder. “I didn’t get a bad feeling if that’s what you’re worried about.” Still, I didn’t answer him. “But I told them I’d come get you so they wouldn’t send… someone else.”

  Obviously, I was supposed to be grateful for the small things in life.

  The council had immeasurable power. They could’ve sent some of the worst warlocks around if they thought I was going to give them any trouble over coming in. Magical hitmen, so to speak, only they didn’t kill you. Though you might ask them to by the time they finished.

  “Let’s go then.” I set my bottle on the table and leaned over to grab my keys off the floor, then followed Miller out of my apartment, already missing that beer.

  I hopped on my motorcycle while Miller climbed into his car. He waited for me to pull out first, probably under orders to follow me and make sure I showed up.

  As if I’d ignore the council.

  I’d never met them, and honestly, I was a bit surprised they even knew of my existence. These men were revered among my people. As direct descendants of the Salem survivors, their individual powers were stronger than any single witch or warlock could imagine. Together, they were a force no one wanted to face. However, they were so old, they couldn’t go out on jobs anymore.

  What the hell could they possibly want with me?

  There wasn’t a lot of time to consider all the scenarios that had me headed to the council headquarters. I took the roads slower than I could’ve but didn’t bother wasting time. There’d be no point in that. If they grew irritated, they’d just locate me another way. The final turn came way too soon.

  I pulled into a parking lot with Miller right behind me. I’d only known where to go because this place was the stuff of legends, not because I’d ever been here before, though looking at it now, it didn’t look all that legendary. More like a big, old house. But I’d parked in the parking lot of the abandoned building next door for several reasons. One being an easier escape if necessary because no one could’ve blocked me in.

  I swallowed hard as I got off my bike. Miller jogged toward me. Of course he parked nearby but not so close to be at a disadvantage.

  “Apparently, as soon as they heard about Serena, they went into a closed-door meeting. For hours.” He pulled the door open for me and waited as I crossed the threshold. “But you’re what they asked for the minute they came out.”

  “Why me?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Don’t know. But I think you’re about to find out.”

  I’d
never met the members of the council individually before and had planned to go my entire life without coming face to face with them as a whole. Now I was about to face them all at the same time and I hadn’t even done anything wrong. That I knew of, anyway.

  Inside the house that the council used as their meeting space, a large man indicated I should follow him, which I did after glancing back at Miller. I wasn’t sure Miller had ever passed the threshold I was about to, yet he still gave me a big thumbs-up of support, the asshole. We worked for someone about four degrees removed from the actual council, yet that was as close as I ever wanted to get.

  The dimly lit room gave me a creepy vibe. Why couldn’t they just have had a normal conference room?

  Instead of fluorescent overhead lights, candles burned around the perimeter and near an altar behind the line of four men and one woman, all in white robes as if they needed that extra touch to make things ominous. I was told they only wore them while in session but who knew? Maybe they wore them while relaxing at home.

  All five members were older, probably in their sixties if the salt and pepper hair was any indication. The woman, I’d heard someone refer to her as Rebecca once, wore her hair in a long, silver braid that disappeared behind her back. All watched me with severe looks on their faces.

  Small streams of smoke rose from the incense in jars amidst the candles. Maybe I was a human sacrifice they needed to make. But there was another odor in the air. Something… Sage maybe? Had they been smudging the room to rid it of ill wishes and bad spirits?

  “Yes. We regularly cleanse the room,” one of the elders announced.

  I swallowed hard. Not having said that aloud, the only reasonable conclusion was that at least one of them could read minds. Fuck. I closed my eyes and tried to clear my mind of any and all thoughts, hiding my uneasiness at being here.

  A voice whispered inside my head, it’ll do you no good.

  Fuck, that was unnerving and didn’t help calm me down even a little. Hearing something that wasn’t your own internal monologue was off-putting. As if someone else had momentarily used your body without permission.

  He was probably right about it doing no good, but I was going to do my best anyway.

  The elders said nothing for the longest time. They looked me up and down, then whispered to each other or, in some cases, seemed to have a silent conversation between two of them. But me… I just waited. My fate was in their hands, though I hoped they’d at least tell me what I’d done and why I was here.

  “Please sit,” the man in the center said as he pointed at the chair across from their crescent-shaped table. I took a deep breath and did as he’d requested. “Do you know why you’re here?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “No, sir.”

  As I folded my hands in my lap, I crossed my legs. It all felt unnatural. I’d never tried to sit with my legs crossed in my life and had no idea why I was trying it out now. No matter how I arranged myself, it just felt wrong.

  Under the weight of their stares, I had a hard time sitting up straight, as if their appraisals were physically weighing me down. Finally, I leaned over and sighed. This had to be another test I was failing. Or going to fail. They weren’t saying anything, but my general feeling was that I was less than they were looking for. A disappointment.

  My stomach rolled with anticipation.

  It wasn’t exactly my fault. I’d had no training before discovering I was a warlock with abilities I needed to learn to control. A person didn’t just wake up one day with powers and suddenly know what to do with them.

  That had been my mother’s fault. She’d kept my powers secret from me, from the world. Kept me secret from the council. She’d said she hadn’t wanted to me be their pawn. Those were her exact words and I had no idea what they’d meant. But I knew she’d been serious about it because they were the very last words she’d spoken to me as she’d died. Maybe it was all the drugs they’d given her for pain because after five long years here, no one seemed to want to use me for anything until now. I’d been fifteen when the breast cancer had claimed her. I guess there were some things that still beat magic.

  “We have a job for you,” that same middle elder finally said.

  They hadn’t introduced themselves at all. Did they even have names? Seemed a little unfair that they got to know everything about me, my thoughts, and I didn’t even know what to call them.

  A voice whispered Michael in my head, so I assumed that was his name. Damn, I didn’t like that at all.

  At least I no longer had to wonder why I was there.

  A job? I’d hoped for and dreaded this moment for a long time. Doing something to be useful, outside of my regular job fixing cars at a local shop, was exactly what I needed. But, from rumors I’d heard over the years, this job could’ve literally been anything.

  “You’re going to Warwick,” Michael added, the creases around his eyes moving as he spoke. “There’s a witch there. Newly coming into her powers, but untrained. As you remember, she won’t know what’s happening. She’ll probably be frightened.”

  “And I’m supposed to…”

  “Teach her. You’ll train her properly without becoming too involved. That’s the tricky part. You’ll guide her, but her decisions must be her own. And she mustn’t break our rede: And it harm none, do what ye will.” The elder stared me down with serious eyes, causing something to skitter up my spine. Perhaps an unspoken warning. “Miranda Deerborne is reckless. She makes rash decisions and likes to test limits. However, right now she will be grieving her grandmother. Which means she may be more reckless—or less—right now. It’s hard to say. Be cautious.”

  “How will I know who she is?” I asked.

  There wasn’t a chance in hell I could turn them down. Even if they weren’t the elders who could outcast me from our society, I owed the community for accepting me in the first place. Mom had left when she’d been pregnant with me. Shunned them, so to speak. That kind of thing wasn’t taken lightly, and I could’ve paid for her sin. But they hadn’t done anything and that counted for something. It had to count for something.

  “You arrive in Warwick the morning of the funeral. Her grandmother bound her powers. Now upon the grandmother’s death, that binding will fade away. We need to ensure she doesn’t hurt anyone. As you know, doing so would make it almost impossible for her to join us and we can’t lose Miranda Deerborne to the other side.”

  Her grandmother? She was Serena Good’s granddaughter but didn’t know about her powers?

  “Serena was the strongest witch of her time,” the elder continued. Coming from him, that meant a whole lot. “She died protecting her granddaughter. Miranda must be brought to the side of love and light. She is often consumed by hate and rage, but despite that, she can be saved. That is your job, Luken, and I have every assurance you will be successful. You leave for Warwick the day after tomorrow and will find Miranda at the only cemetery in town. Please use tomorrow to get your things together.”

  “I will,” I said with a curt nod, then I stood and left the room. They hadn’t dismissed me, yet I had absolutely no doubt it was time for me to go.

  I didn’t have to be asked twice to leave this group. It was like being in the middle of your stern, judgmental grandparents with no one to help rescue you.

  “What did they want?” Miller asked as soon as I got back out to him.

  The building wasn’t packed but this was the center of our coven so other witches and warlocks lingered around. Their eyes followed me down the hall, though I got the feeling that most knew what I was being sent to do. This was a big deal. Train a new witch and bring her to the side of light?

  “I’m going to Warwick the day after tomorrow.”

  “Why?” he asked as he followed me out of the house.

  “I have to train a new witch.”

  Miller chuckled. “I’m sorry,” he said, not bothering to cover up his laughter. “It almost sounded like you said you have to train a new witch.”

&n
bsp; “I did. ‘Bring her over to love and light,’” I said, using air quotes. “Apparently, that’s my job now though why the fuck Oliver couldn’t go is beyond me. That sounds like something he’d be sent to do.”

  “Well, shit.” Miller snickered as he followed me out of the house. I released the door as soon as I was through just so it’d slam in Miller’s face. All that did was make him laugh louder. “Oliver is probably already on a job and besides, that could actually be kind of fun.”

  I shook my head. I knew exactly what kind of fun Miller was talking about and it wasn’t what I had in mind.

  “No,” I told him plainly.

  “What? Luken, a young, new witch… you’ve got to show her some light and some love.”

  “Fuck you,” I said with as much contempt as I could without laughing. He might’ve been an idiot, but he was also my friend.

  “Let me know if you need any help,” he called out as I swung my leg over my bike. I flipped him a middle finger over my shoulder, then got the hell out of there.

  When I got back to my apartment, a folder with all the information the council had on Miranda Deerborne was sitting on my table. Sometimes it was still weird when magical things happened around me, even if I’d been the one to do it. But this was one of the things I really didn’t like. They could pop into my apartment anytime. Day or night. Like they had to deliver this packet of information about Miranda. As well as stuff about the house, Serena, and Serena’s final arrangements.

  Miranda would for sure be at the cemetery to bury her grandmother. So I had an exact time and place I knew I could find her and that was where I would make first contact. Man, it felt wrong to descend on the poor girl as she buried her grandmother, but I didn’t have a choice.

  The next day I packed a bag that I could strap to the back of my motorcycle, then took care of a few errands. I also let my neighbor across the hall know I’d be gone. We’d become acquaintances and I didn’t want her to think my body was inside rotting when she didn’t see or hear me for a few days.

  The following morning, I strapped the bag to my bike and headed out on the road. At first, I glanced behind me regularly to make sure no one was following me because I wouldn’t put it past the council or any of the council’s cronies. Miller in particular because he’d do it just to fuck with me. I also hoped the more miles I put between me and home meant the less chance the council would be able to read my thoughts because I had no idea how any of that shit worked.