Loch Nessa (Damned Girl Book 4)

by Clare Kauter

  I frowned, thinking. What was it that was disturbing me about these witches? I was pretty sure I wasn't just looking for a reason not to join the coven. Their energy wasn't quite right. Perhaps there was more to the Green Wattle Witches than met the eye.

  A coughing sound to my right alerted me to the fact that Hecate was looking at me expectantly. I realised while I'd been surveying the room, Hecate had still been talking. Apparently at some point she'd asked me a question, and I'd just been staring blankly in another direction.

  "Oh, sorry," I said. "What?"

  "The initiation ceremony is about to begin," she repeated, frowning slightly.

  "Right," I said with a nod. "Let's get to it."

  "So you're ready to jump in?"

  I nodded again. "Absolutely." I was fully prepared for whatever questionnaire she threw at me. I couldn't see any papers around, so I assumed it was a verbal test. Maybe she was going to ask for a practical demonstration of my magical skills. "Hit me with it."

  Hecate smiled warmly. "Beautiful." She reached into the folds of her robes and produced a small golden dagger. "Time for the sacrifice!" she cried.

  "Huzzah!" came a cry from the rest of the coven, who then began a low, eerie chant. Their words were indecipherable, some ancient language I didn't recognise, and they slowly got louder.

  There was a clap of thunder and lightning illuminated the room briefly before a sudden downpour of rain began. The drops were hitting the tin roof so heavily and loudly that Hecate didn't hear me when I said, "Wait, sacrifice?"

  Or maybe she was just ignoring me.

  Apparently not listening to her introduction had been a mistake. I opened my mouth to ask about the sacrifice again – more loudly – but then I felt Daisy's small hands on my back, pushing me towards Hecate and her blade, which was glinting maliciously in the firelight. Wait, was I the sacrifice? God, what kind of cult was I joining?

  At least if I was the sacrifice, that suggested no one was about to be killed – they'd only need a little bit of my blood to perform whatever ritual they were about to undertake. Even so, I didn't trust Hecate to start hacking away at me with a knife. She was getting old, after all, and her eyesight wasn't what it used to be. Not to mention that she was starting to get a little arthritic. What if she slipped and lopped off my hand?

  OK, this I could not deal with. I spoke louder this time so that I could be heard over the rain pounding the metal roof.

  "Could you just explain about the sacrifice one more time?" I all but yelled. "Is it completely necessary? Surely I could just fill out some sort of form instead."

  Hecate rolled her eyes. "It's nothing to worry about."

  "No need to be a wuss," Daisy said from behind me, still holding me in place, demonstrating that her upper body strength was a lot more developed than it looked to be. It was easy for her to be all tough about the sacrifice when she wasn't the one being gutted. Not that anyone would be able to sacrifice her if they tried – she had the muscles of a prize weightlifter. She'd fight off any assailant with ease. My arm was starting to go numb where she had hold of it.

  "Give me your hand," Hecate commanded.

  I shook my head vehemently. Nope. No. Not a chance. She wasn't coming anywhere near me with that knife. Even if I trusted her not to murder me with it, I had no idea where that blade had been. Was it properly sterilised? I didn't want to catch something.

  Daisy grabbed me and used her ridiculous strength (seriously, was she a secret bodybuilder?) to straighten my arm and hold me still while Hecate attacked me with the knife. The rest of the coven stood by, chanting eagerly. It was like something out of a horror movie.

  Hecate raised the blade and a hush fell over the witches as they watched. I gulped. Well, I hadn't contracted malaria from the vampire attack a couple of months ago, so I guessed I'd be OK after this. Maybe. Still, that didn't make it less nerve-racking.

  Hecate brought the blade down to my hand and I scrunched my eyes shut, not wanting to see whatever horrors she was about to perform. I kept my eyes firmly closed for a moment, waiting for the pain to hit. Nothing. I finally grew impatient and opened them just in time to see Hecate prick the tip of my finger.

  "Ouch!" I cried.

  Every witch in the room flicked her gaze to me and gave me a look of unbridled disgust. It was fair enough, really. It had been a very small cut. Daisy was right – I was a wuss.

  Hecate turned my hand over and squeezed the tip of my finger until a single drop of crimson formed. It seemed to fall in slow motion, taking an age to finally hit the floor. The blood splattered when it hit the wooden floorboards and the ground itself seemed to ripple as the magic took hold. Purple smoke rose from the chalk outline of the circle as the previously unlit candles ignited and the room hummed with energy. The blood splatter itself began to bubble as if it were boiling. It evaporated more and more furiously until the liquid had disappeared. The mauve circle of energy broke and rushed towards me, flowing in through the open wound in my finger. As the last of the energy stream was sucked into my digit, the cut healed and my finger returned to its former pristine condition, except for a small purple mark where the cut had been.

  "There you are, sweetie," said Daisy. "All done. Now that wasn't so bad, was it?"

  I opened my mouth to answer, but I couldn't think of anything to say. No, that wasn't so bad. I'd definitely been overreacting. Of course, if I'd known what was about to happen, and if the witches hadn't started chanting their creepy spell, and if there hadn't been a wild, windy storm raging outside maybe I wouldn't have been so swept up in the drama of it all. But there was, and I was. And now the entire coven thought I was a melodramatic sook. What a wonderful first impression.

  "Excellent," said Hecate. "Now that you're bound to the coven for eternity, we can get back to business as usual."

  My eyebrows flew so high they just about hit the vaulted ceiling of the church. "Excuse me, what was that?"

  "Oh, don't worry about it, Nessa," said Daisy. "It's just a figure of speech."

  She was lying. I'd performed a binding ritual. Damnit! What had I just done? That was the danger of magical contracts – there was no fine print to read. You just had to perform them blind and then live with the consequences. Why – WHY – could magicals not just use normal pen and paper contracts like everyone else? I glared down at the floor, breathing deeply to try and get my temper under control.

  The thunder outside clapped and banged as the room was illuminated by another flash of lightning. The church doors creaked open and a cold wind blew into the room, bringing rain in with it. I momentarily forgot my anger when I noticed something standing in the doorway. Silhouetted by the flashing light of the storm and the cold blue moonlight was a man's figure. I fought back a gulp. I couldn't see the face of the intruder, but I certainly recognised his energy – or lack thereof. There wasn't enough light to see his face very clearly, but even in the dim candlelight I could see his mouth split into a toothy grin. He stared at us silently, smiling, before he finally spoke.

  "I thought I smelled blood," he said, and then he took a deep breath in through his nose. "Yummy."

  CHAPTER 3

  THE VAMPIRE SWAGGERED TOWARDS US, his teeth glinting in the candlelight. As he drew closer, I felt his strange vortex of energy sweep over me. The rest of the witches dropped to the ground, leaving only me, Hecate and Daisy standing (and even they were looking a little peaky). I suppressed an eye roll. Frigging light dwellers. Susceptible to everything.

  Pierre (the blood-sucker formerly known as James) had, when I first met him, been a simple vampire magician. He could do a few interesting spells, but other than that there was nothing too extraordinary about him. At some point after his girlfriend had bitten me and been changed by my magical blood, Pierre had done some dark deals and ended up with a new kind of magic – one that sucked all the light out of the world around him. The candles' flames had shrunk and a couple had even been snuffed out, and nearly all the witches were sitting on the fl
oor shivering in fear. They weren't going to be much good to me if it came down to a fight. Even if they managed to scrape together enough energy for a cast, Pierre would just absorb the magic and keep going.

  Great. I was bound to the coven forever and they weren't even able to help me chase off one pesky vampire.

  I looked around the room. All the crosses had been removed at some point, presumably when this became the haunt of the Green Wattle Coven. There was nothing here that I could use to scare off a vampire. There weren't any large, pointy sticks around to stake him with. I hoped his girlfriend, Honey (formerly known as Jessie), was somewhere nearby – she'd always helped me when I'd had trouble with Pierre in the past.

  "You can't come in here," I said.

  Pierre took another step forward in response. "Oh, I think you'll find I can."

  I frowned and flicked my eyes to the doorway behind him, hoping to see Honey approaching. Maybe she'd been delayed somewhere. I'd have to just keep him talking.

  "How come you can come in here without being invited?"

  "The doors of a church are always open to lonely wanderers," he replied with faux solemnity. "Implicit invitation."

  "Really?"

  He rolled his eyes. "No. My goodness, you really are quite gullible. It's a good thing I'm a vampire and not a zombie – your brain would barely be enough for a snack."

  "That was a bit rude."

  "I'm sorry," he said condescendingly. "Do you think you'll recover from the shock of my nasty words?"

  "Somehow I'll soldier on," I said. I bit my lip, risking another glance out the door. Still no sign of Honey. What if she wasn't coming? I shook that thought away. She'd be here. She'd never let me down before. I just needed to keep him talking instead of snacking for as long as I could. "So are you going to explain how you managed to just walk in here uninvited or not?"

  He rolled his eyes. "That only works for private residences," he said. "You really should have done your research knowing that you had an angry vampire sorcerer plotting to kill you."

  I frowned. "Then how come when I was in the North Pole that time you didn't attack me at the inn?" I said. "I know you were outside. I felt you steal all the light. You were out in the street and you knew I was there. Why didn't you come in?"

  He gritted his teeth, clearly annoyed by my questions. He was itching to get started on – well, whatever he had planned. I assumed he'd drain the others, probably starting with Daisy because she was a faery and they were apparently very tasty. I didn't know what he'd do with me – presumably not drink my blood, because that was what Honey had done and he was furious about how that had turned out. Maybe he'd just tear me limb from limb. Flay me. Filet me.

  Eek.

  "I couldn't come in because the owner of the inn lived inside," said Pierre, sounding bored. "It's quite simple, really."

  "So you can't come into a private residence without the owner's permission."

  "That's what I said."

  "So you couldn't walk into, say, a house without the owner telling you explicitly that you were allowed to enter?"

  "Are you really finding this so difficult to comprehend?"

  "No, not really. I just wanted to clarify," I replied. "You can't walk into someone's house without their permission."

  He rolled his eyes. "We've been over this."

  "But you just walked into God's house and I'm damn sure you don't have his permission to be here."

  Pierre scoffed. "What, and you think God would be OK with witches being in here?"

  I shrugged. "No, probably not," I said. "But he can't do much about it. We're not vampires. You, on the other hand..." I walked closer to him, a little too cocky given that my coven was lolling about on the floor, unable to do anything to fight this guy off. Even so, I still had his cured vampire girlfriend, my personal bodyguard/stalker who followed me everywhere I went, to help me. She was probably just around the corner and would take him out if he tried anything.

  "And?"

  "You're a vampire," I repeated. "And strutting into a church is a very bold move for someone who's allergic to holy water."

  Pierre made a show of looking around him and frowning. "Hmm," he said. "That would be very bold for someone like me, you're right – if this church was still operational. Unfortunately for you, it's not. There's not a cross or bowl of holy water in sight. I doubt your technicality about it being God's house is going to do anything, either – doesn't look like he much cares about this place anymore. Half your pews are missing and there are cobwebs in every corner."

  "How dare you!" cried Lavinia, the cleaner of the church who looked to be roughly 250 years of age. Her greatest badge of honour was her ability to function just as well as she had in her youth without even needing glasses. I can't say for sure that she was wrong – perhaps she'd been blind as a bat when she was younger as well.

  The entire coven shifted and avoided eye contact with Lavinia at once. No one had the heart to tell her that the vampire was right. Not only were there cobwebs in every corner, they were also everywhere else – the windows, the ceiling, the few pews that remained. The basin where the holy water should have been was similarly filled with webs. I'd suggested to Hecate that maybe someone should tell Lavinia about the spiders for safety's sake – if she couldn't see them, she was liable to be bitten and killed by one. Hecate said I wasn't to tell her under any circumstances, and since then I'd noticed that every time Lavinia spoke Hecate's eye began to twitch. I'd begun to wonder if maybe Hecate was hoping Lavinia would get bitten.

  I scoffed. "You really think a coven of witches wouldn't have a vial or two of holy water hanging around? You do know what witches are, right? Like, we're here to do spells. As if we wouldn't have an ingredient as basic as holy water."

  "Actually, we're fresh out," called a voice from the crowd. I turned and glared at the hunched witch who had thought it was a good idea to call my bluff in front of the vampire.

  I gritted my teeth. "Thanks for the update, Maude."

  A slow grin spread across the vampire's face. "Well then, it doesn't look like your God is going to do anything about me coming in here after all."

  "He's not my God," I spat. "I was raised by Satan."

  "Good girl," came a voice from above. Speak of the devil.

  I noticed a flicker of fear cross Pierre's face, but it was gone in an instant. The vampire took a deep – and deeply unnecessary – breath and said, "Satan doesn't scare me anymore. I serve a new master."

  "Watch yourself, fang face," came Satan's voice from above. Not her best insult, but ordinarily that would have struck fear into the heart of a vampire. Pierre's eye barely even twitched. I didn't like this. Not at all.

  I glanced over Pierre's shoulder again, wondering what the hell had happened to Honey. It had never taken her this long to come to my rescue. Where was she? I mean, I suppose she could have had a life of her own, but I'd never really considered that before. She'd always been so hellbent on keeping me safe from her crazy (ex?) boyfriend.

  Pierre caught me looking at the doorway and shot a quick glance over his shoulder. He turned back to me, laughing softly.

  "Ah, of course. You were trying to stall until my love arrived to save you."

  The look of amusement on his face made me nervous. I tried not to gulp, but I failed.

  "She's not coming," he said.

  I frowned. "How do you know she's not –"

  "Enough chit chat," said Pierre. "It's time for you to fight your own battle." He paused and grinned slowly. "And lose."

  OK, Honey wasn't coming. The coven of light dwellers was no good to me. I doubted I could take this guy on myself. There was nothing else for it: I was going to have to enlist some assistance from the underworld.

  "Uh, Satan? A little help?" I hissed at the sky.

  "If you can't deal with one pesky vampire, what good are you?"

  "Have you not seen how strong he is?" I squeaked. "Can't you do something? You don't have to come yourself. Maybe you
could just send a demon to back me up. Even just a small one?" I was pleading with her now.

  "I believe in you, darling," said Satan.

  Great. I was on my own. There had been a time when Satan would have whisked me off to Hell to get me out of harm's way, but these days it seemed to me that she had a misplaced confidence in my magical abilities. She seemed to think I could – and should – fight for myself. While I appreciated the encouragement, I didn't think I was quite ready for this. Not that I had much of a choice.

  I took another step towards Pierre. "Get out."

  He opened his mouth to reply, but stopped, frowning and looking down at himself.

  My eyes widened. Oh my goodness, had that worked? Was the loophole about this being God's residence actually a legitimate way to kick a vampire out of a disused church? I continued staring at him for a moment, but then realised that couldn't be the reason he'd stopped, because he still hadn't left the church. So what was he doing?

  I was about to ask him when I was distracted by a burning sensation coming from the jeans I was wearing under my robes. Not in a, like, STI way. In a there's-a-Doomstone-in-my-pocket-and-it's-getting-antsy kind of way. Of course – that was one way I'd be able to save this situation. The stone seemed to know when I found myself in a sticky spot and even when I had no idea what to do, it always seemed to have a backup plan. But could I risk using the stolen gem now in a room full of magical law enforcement professionals?

  Biting my lip, I tossed up whether or not I'd be able to use the stone without Daisy or Hecate noticing. I discounted that idea, realising that it was completely idiotic – I'd be caught for sure. They had one of the companion items that were connected to the stone, and they could tell when it was used. I'd already had to lie enough the last time I used it, when I'd been suspected of murdering a goblin in Hell. The ghost who'd originally stolen the stone, Ed, had been called to me by the Doomstone to help me escape. The officials knew the Doomstone had been used, and I'd had to lie and say it was Dick (a Department official and the actual goblin murderer) who had used the Doomstone to send me from Hell to the forest near my house, only to then kidnap me and take me back to Hell. Yeah, it wasn't the best lie, but they hadn't questioned it.