by Ben Alderson
But in a single moment, everything stops.
A loud crashing sounds from beyond the room. The second Mother ceases her chant, the pain dwindles. I regain control of my limbs, so I move quickly to push myself up off the ground.
Our front door lies in broken pieces, shattered as it was slammed into a wall across the hall. It nearly landed on the witches standing nearby. I squint through the smoky, sage-filled air to see a figure standing in the now-empty doorframe.
Savi.
Her eyes glowing with hues of gold and crimson, she opens her mouth and releases a deafening roar that fills the room with life, power, and formidable strength.
Instinctively, the witches cast their magic toward Savi—my Savi. But the darkness inside me is bigger and stronger than ever before. No longer does it remain nestled in my core. It’s gained control of my mind.
Unleash, George. Unleash…
Savi
I can’t run fast enough. Even as trees and houses blur past me, I know I’m too late, and that dread roots deeply within me.
I will never forgive myself if the hunters have found George.
I chastise myself for not better preparing George and Chad. I didn’t want to provide the details of my whereabouts, and now, I’ve put the only family I have in danger.
“Savi, wait!” Chad calls out, but I don’t want to listen. I don’t stop until Chad reaches me, yanking me backward by the arm. I nearly slam into him.
“We can’t stop! George needs us.” I plea with him, begging him to see my way for once in his life. My brother and I have always been close, but our personalities clash in moments like this. I’m reckless by nature. He usually can’t see past his reservations.
But we don’t have time to stop or think. We must charge, head first, into the abyss and pray we’re not too late—for George’s sake.
“We need a plan. We can’t just rush into a witch’s house! Think about what you’re doing right now.”
We’re standing on George’s front porch. I’ve walked past his house many times, but I’ve never been inside. For some reason, he never wanted to introduce me to his family, and I was okay with that. I could understand family drama better than anyone.
I consider Chad’s request. He wants me to think clearly. He wants me not to be rash.
It’s as if he doesn’t know me at all.
“Fuck this,” I growl.
Before Chad realizes I’ve freed myself from his grip, I’m already facing the front door of George’s house. Firmly, I plant my foot against the solid oak, sending it flying through the foyer of the old Victorian manor.
The air is heavy with incense and magic. I feel my skin tingle as I cross the threshold. Silence is in the air as I enter and turn to face the dozen or so witches who encircle George. A look for horror creases his smooth skin, my best friend stands as I approach them.
With fangs bared, I release a long-buried howl. In the distance, the many wolves of Hillcrest respond to my anger, but I ignore them. My focus is solely on the witches who have already begun to call upon their elements.
“Savi?” George whispers. He tries to take a step toward me, but an older woman pulls him back. I assume she is his mother. She narrows her eyes as I growl in response to her long, boney fingers gripping the flesh of my friend.
Gasps fill the room, breaking my concentration.
“It can’t be,” someone says.
“Impossible!” another shouts.
I offer the other witches little regard. They may be calling upon their elements to protect them from me, but my focus is on George’s mother. She seems the least worried about me breaking in, giving her full attention to George instead of me.
She yanks him toward her, turning him so he faces her completely. She grips his jaw, pulling his face so their gazes meet. I can see the discomfort on George’s face, but he does not cry out. I hear him clench his jaw, teeth grinding as he listens to her.
“What have you done, boy?” his mother says. Her voice is deep, scratchy. Though her displeasure is evident, I don’t worry about the aftermath of her words. I only care about freeing George from her grasp.
Chad steps out of the shadows, hands clenched into white-knuckle fists at his sides. His muscles bulge and strain against the fabric of his t-shirt.
“A vampire!” a witch gasps.
My stomach twists in agony as I take a step closer to the witches, to George. I don’t understand the pain I feel when he’s near me, but I can’t worry about that now. I’ll have to push past it to protect my friend, to free him from the witches. If we make it out alive, maybe he can finally give me some answers.
I watch the shock that registers on George’s face. I’m sure a vampire duo busting down the door of a witch’s house is an unwritten no-no rule, but I’m sure George doesn’t expect less of me. He knows I’m reckless, and he knew I’d react this way the moment he called us. It was a cry for help, obviously.
I can’t help but be grateful. Though we stand in the crosshairs of powerful, angry witches, I don’t see a single hunter. But even though we’re safe now, I know we’re not safe forever. They may not have found George today, but in time, they’ll come for me. And they’ll likely find him. They’ll also find a town full of supernatural creatures, and they’ll try to burn it to the ground. If we survive this fight against the witches, I plan to do everything in my power to stop the hunters’ operation. No longer will they be allowed to hunt, torture, and kill supernaturals in the name of some divine legacy.
I fully enter the room where the witches stand, and I prepare myself for their attacks. These people are part of a coven—they’re probably his mother’s coven mates. I know George hasn’t joined them, because he often vents to me about his mother’s persistence when it comes to that obligation. So I have no intention of hurting them—unless they force me to. I just want to get us out alive and with the book in hand.
I scan the room for it now. The older woman beside him, with wrinkled, pale skin and messy black hair twisted into a frayed bun atop her head, clutches it in her hand. Her dark eyes narrow at me, as if she’s daring me to take another step. And I do, because there’s nothing she can do to stop me from taking that damn book.
Before I can react to call out a peace offering, Chad charges the room. He dodges several elemental attacks, leaping over fireballs and twisting around hurricane winds aimed directly at him. While these witches may be powerful, they are no match for a vampire’s speed.
I know my brother will be fine, so I return my attention to George, who’s wrestling the book from the woman’s grasp. I run forward just as a fireball is flung toward me. It lands center mass but quickly extinguishes itself. I don’t even feel the pain of the flame, and my clothes aren’t charred. I shrug, assuming the man is a baby witch. I got lucky. I could have been engulfed in flames and turned to ash before my family’s eyes.
I smile as his face betrays his horror. He blinks, and I’m already before him. I strike out, landing a quick smack to his chest. He flies backward, slamming against several other witches who were launching their attacks against my brother. They all tumble to the ground in a messy heap and struggle to stand.
I turn to face George just as the woman who I assume is his mother holding the book smacks him across the face. He stumbles backward, his shock evident. I’m outraged that she would do that to her own son. Anger boils within me, but before I can react, George stops me dead in my tracks.
He’s standing several feet from her now, and he’s visibly shaking. He tenses, scowling, and releases a deafening shriek. Throwing his hands out, he unleashes power. I’ve watched George practice magical spells before, but I’ve never seen anything like this. The energy released seeps from every surface of his exposed skin, like it’s his essence that is propelled from his body. It spreads, enveloping the entire room before I can escape. One by one, as the dark mist reaches the witches, they fall, gripping their chests, screaming in agony. Soon, the only ones standing, unharmed, are Chad, George,
and me.
Eyes wide, George looks at the mess he’s left behind. Gasping, he stares into the foggy darkness, as if he sees something we cannot. Inside me, my own darkness twists, as if it too were begging to be released. I hear the distant sounds of beasts, and I wonder if the wolves are coming to our aid.
“The book!” I shout, and quickly, George snaps it from the ground. He clutches it to his chest and rushes over to me.
“Let’s get out of here,” Chad calls, already running for the door.
As we emerge from the darkness of the manor with grimoire in hand, I know we are not victorious. The witches will come for us, and we will pay for the magic George used.
George
Every time I peer over my shoulder, I see the wince of pain across Savi’s determined face. It’s dark out, so I can’t look for long—not with the threat of tripping over the uneven ground a reality with every footfall.
Still, adrenaline rushes through my veins like an angered river, but the roaring of it racing through my body blends with a new force, a stronger force. Even now, I hear the echo of the witches’ chant in my mind. Like water to a seed, their words urge the darkness to grow. Instead of being present in only my stomach and mind, it spreads, and I can almost feel it in my arms and legs now. Even my fingers and toes tingle with this unwanted presence.
Abraxon.
Is it a dark power? Or is it something more?
I fear I know the answer even now as we barrel through the streets.
I hug the grimoire to my chest as we run through Hillcrest toward Bane’s Forest. It was Savi who shouted our final destination as we left my house, leaving a littering of witches across my living room floor.
With each blink, I see the replay of darkness that seeped from my skin and slammed witches out of my way, and away from my friends. It washed over my living room, painting walls, flooring, and ceiling in blackness.
I remember seeing eyes staring back at me, countless yellow glaring irises hiding within the shadows I released on the room. The beasts within the darkness tore claw and tooth until not a single person was left standing. Then, like the pull of a plug, it rushed back within me. For those elongated moments, I couldn’t breathe as the cold breath of power flooded back within me.
I want to forget, but I can’t.
The barrier of Bane’s Forest is ahead, so close I could reach out and touch it. Once we pass within the shadows of tall pine, I feel safer than being on the streets of Hillcrest. I am certain it is only a matter of time until the witches regain their composure and come after us.
But for now, the stone cottage should keep us safe. My own protection charm will shield us from their combined searching powers.
And I need the time the cottage provides. I need to search the grimoire for answers to the pain I cause Savi… and more.
Despite the cold chill of night, the grimoire warms my chest. My hands are glued to its leathered, worn face. I will not let go of it for anything.
A blur of fast movement to my left catches my breath and attention.
Savi.
She now leads us. Chad’s still beside me, silent as a guarding statue. I worry if he keeps looking behind us with each step we take, he might break his own neck.
I want to call out for Savi to wait, but I know she will meet us at the cottage in her own timing. Instead, I pick up my own speed, ignoring the twisting within my entire body, and don’t stop until I see the cottage ahead.
“Get inside,” I say to Chad, who has not broken a sweat—unlike me. My legs and lungs ache from the run. “If you leave the perimeter, they can find us.”
Chad does not argue with me. He steps across the shattered paneling of the deck and passes Savi, who is sitting with her legs pulled to her chest, eyes pinned toward the sky.
“Are you all right?” Chad asks her.
Savi doesn’t look at him as she responds. “Just find out what is wrong with me. Quickly. I feel… different.”
She turns her face away from me as I pass. I know it’s to mask the agony that pinches her features, but I sense it. There’s a pull within me as I pass, like something is reaching for her. Is what the darkness said true? Is it like a magnet pulling for its other part? Did I unknowingly leave a piece of the Abraxon puzzle within Savi that night?
Chad pulls up a chair in the dark cabin. “Here. Sit down.”
I thank him with a weak smile, sit, and rest the heavy grimoire on my lap. Chad stands behind me, hand on my shoulder as we look down upon the book.
“Do you think we will find something useful?” I ask him, brushing my hand across the leathered skin of the book.
“After what we have been through just to get our hands on this thing, I certainly hope so. Otherwise, this would have all been for nothing.”
We don’t waste time discussing the repercussions of what is to come. Soon, we will have to leave the cottage, and the witches—Mother’s coven—will find us. And when they do… well, I don’t know what is going to happen.
They may tell Elder Jane, who will tell the council, what we did. Or maybe the coven will just try to complete their ritual. There are too many possibilities that await us, and none of them have a happy ending. The most important thing right now is to focus on helping Savi.
I open the book, and my breath falters, an unnatural reaction. The pages are yellow and brown around the edges but perfectly cream toward the center. The first three are unmarked.
“Do you know what you are looking for?” Chad whispers to me.
I shake my head. “Healing? Resurrection? Anything that explains the power I used on Savi to bring her back.” I couldn’t tell him that I would recognize the page when I found it. It’s the same page I stared at the night I failed to revive Father.
I don’t get even a few pages into the book before Chad’s hand stops me from continuing my search. He presses down on the page, a finger sharp with accusation.
“I know this mark.” Anger coats every syllable he speaks.
“It’s the symbol of Mother’s coven. Surely, you noticed it stitched into their cloaks tonight when—”
“Wait. Stop.”
He tries to silence me with his firm tone, but we don’t have time for this. “What is it?” I ask.
“This symbol… It’s part of your mother’s coven?”
“Well, yes…” I trail off, confused.
Chad walks away from me with heavy feet. I swivel my back on the chair to look at him. His index knuckle is shoved into his mouth, where teeth bite down on his skin. Even his shoulders are high and tense.
“Tell me, Chad. What is this symbol?”
“That symbol…” He shakes his head, as if the words actually hurt him to speak. Face blushed, he is red with frustration. “That symbol was carved into my parents’ skin when they were found. It was on their dead bodies.”
I almost throw the book with disgust across the dark cabin.
“I could never forget that symbol. My parents’ killers left that mark—their mark—behind.”
I don’t hear what he says next as he buries his head in his hands and squats to the floor. There is a part of me that wants to drop the book and rush for him, but Savi is close by. She is likely listening in. I’m not ready to remind her that we kept this part of our lives a secret from her.
Instead, I flick the page over, so we’re no longer staring at the symbol. But in doing so, I see something as equally terrifying on the following page.
“Abraxon,” I say aloud, and my body reacts. A sharp pain starts at the base of my feet and floods every cell of my body. For a single, yet seemingly never ending, moment the floor falls from beneath me, and I am covered in darkness. As if I am pulled from the freezing grasp of water, I am suddenly back in this dark, dank room. Chad says my name, but I am too focused on the text to respond to him.
Abraxon, beast of night and blood,
Flood the host with thy power and lineage. May you forever live and thrive.
King, we are not worthy.
Demon Abraxon, fill our sacrifice.
My ears ring in the silence.
“George!” Chad says, cutting through it. “Did you find something about Savi?”
“No, sorry.” I shake my head and blink several times to clear the ringing in my mind. “This… This says…”
“Demon? Sacrifice? Who is Abraxon?” Chad reads aloud, his body close to mine. When he speaks the demon’s name, I press my hand to my stomach to still the dark presence’s twisting. I refuse to believe Mother would do this to me, her own son, but I cannot shake the truth.
Abraxon.
That same name.
Their horrible chant.
I’ve heard stories of demon possessions while studying at the Academy, but they were nothing more than tales of terrible power before the council, before the treaty, before the factions formed and agreed to live peacefully.
Turning the page, I find a dark, hand-drawn image that makes me want to cry out. Someone covered two side-by-side pages in black ink, only leaving color in the form of cream circles in the shape of sharp, angry eyes. I can’t deny the similarity of this drawing and what I witnessed at home tonight.
“It can’t be…” I mumble, hands shaking as I try to maintain my grasp on the grimoire.
Even Chad is quiet, as if he is finally putting together what he saw at my house and what this image confirms.
“Do you think this is real?” he asks. “A demon possession? I mean, even vampires have our own stories of it. Some believe angels and demons are the true source of our differences from humans. But surely, witches come from angels, and vampires… Do you think this is what happened to you and Savi that night? A possession?”
I ignore his question and focus on the where the two pages connect. Deep red splashes of ink are seeped into the crease. That’s the color of Mother’s coven. Seeing it against the black ink background, I can’t help but notice these shades work together to resemble a face. There are two almond-shaped circles beside each other, and those are surrounded by a circle and then split with an angry X. With a trembling finger, I point to it, guiding Chad’s eyes in its direction.
