by Sarra Cannon
She chanted and the stone glowed brighter.
Screams echoed in the hallway and I turned, fear closing my throat and making it harder to breathe.
A girl, naked except for the red cloth draped around her middle, was carried into the room, her body trembling. Her eyes wide as saucers.
Her initiation ceremony.
It was so similar to the ceremony I'd watched in Peachville the day Brooke had been initiated. The fear in this girl's eyes was the same, too, and I knew instantly no one had prepared her for this night. I wanted to close my eyes, but I forced them open.
A figure in a blue robe stepped out of the shadows to examine the girl. She lowered her hood, and I gasped. Her white-blonde hair. Her pale blue eyes. This wasn't the Priestess Winter I knew, but then, it wouldn't be. She had only taken power eight years ago.
"Zara's grandmother?" I asked in a whisper, forgetting no one could hear or see us.
"Margaret Winter," Lea said. "A cold bitch if there ever was one."
This older Priestess Winter stepped toward the naked girl, her pale eyes gleaming. She lifted one pale, wrinkled hand to the girl's face, caressed it, then gripped her chin tight. Their eyes locked for a moment, then the young girl began to cry silent tears.
Priestess Winter released her, then waved her hand toward the red glow of the portal.
My stomach twisted. This woman took joy in the fear of others. She hadn't touched the girl to offer words of comfort or welcome. She'd merely gone over there to see her terror up close.
I shuddered and turned away.
"I have a feeling you'll want to see this," Lea said.
I took a calming breath, then returned my eyes to the ritual. "Do you know what happens?" I asked.
"No, but I have a good guess," she said with a sinister smile.
Her smile confused me. Was she enjoying this? She couldn't be.
The five witches on the pentagram knelt down at the points and began to chant. The initiate's body went rigid, hovering over the portal as the swirling mist of red over the portal stone began to glow brighter. My pulse quickened, waiting for the arrival of her demon.
The prima raised her hands high into the air, opening her mouth to speak the demon's name. But before she uttered a word, a bright light flashed like lightning across the portal. Witches all around the room gasped and backed away.
"What's happening?" I asked.
"Just watch," Lea said.
I trained my eyes on the red portal stone. Another flash of bright light, then a slow burn. White smoke rose up as if the portal itself were on fire. The prima threw her hood off and backed away from the stone, fear in her eyes.
Priestess Winter grabbed the prima's arm and shoved her back into her spot on the pentagram. "Finish the ritual," she growled.
The prima shook her head. "Something's different," she said. "Don't you feel it?"
"I said finish the ritual." Priestess Winter slapped the prima across the face. "Bind the demon, now."
"Calixto, demon of the shadow world, we bind you." Her voice trembled. "Enter into this holy vessel, we command you."
The red mist below the initiate's body seemed to bubble up. With a loud crack, a rush of white smoke poured forth. Only, instead of entering the girl's body, the demon wrapped itself around the neck of one of the witches forming the pentagram. She grabbed her neck, but her fingers went through the smoke as if it were only air. In seconds, she fell to the ground, a bloody mark around her throat.
Another strand of white flew from the portal, then another. The room erupted in screams and cries as more and more demons materialized. Witches tried to run, but a white demon blocked the doorway, slicing witches from top to bottom with a silver sword.
In the chaos, I didn't know where to turn my eyes. Blood rained down as more than fifteen demons sliced through the first row of witches.
I covered my mouth. I felt ill. I wanted it to stop.
Then, suddenly it did. Demons froze mid-motion, trapped between smoke and beast.
Priestess Winter stepped to the middle of the room, blood coating the bottom of her robe. She held up a tight fist, her face gnarled in anger.
The witches of the coven slowly backed away from the frozen demons, terror in their eyes.
"Don't fear them," Priestess Winter said. "Bind them."
A few brave witches stepped forward, binding the demons with their magic. Some of the demons became trapped in boxes of ice while others became bound with fiery rope. Each of them were brought to their knees, their demon form forced to become human and powerless.
All were bound except one. A tall powerful form hovering over the portal stone. The first to come through. A silver sword in his hand, its hilt decorated with jewels. I gasped. I'd held that sword in my own hands.
Priestess Winter walked to the front of the pentagram, her eyes trained on him. Keeping her right fist clenched tight, she reached out with her other hand, putting it straight through the heart of the smoky form.
He crumpled to the floor, forced to become human.
I instantly recognized his silver eyes. They were just like his son's.
"King Ryen," Priestess Winter said. "I should have known you would show your face here eventually. Did you think you could save her after all these years?"
The king struggled to stand, but the priestess pushed him back down with only a flick of her wrist. Iron shackles appeared out of nowhere, rising up to clasp his arms and pull him further toward the ground.
"No," he said, struggling against his chains. "I came to set her free."
The priestess cackled, throwing her head back. The sound filled my body with terror.
"Free? She will never be free," she said.
The king lifted his chin in defiance. "Death is freedom."
Priestess Winter held her hand out to the shivering prima at her side. The woman pulled a silver dagger from her robe and placed it in Priestess Winter's hand, a red stone sparkling in the light.
"You alone will find such freedom today."
"You're wrong about that," the king said. "You will join me."
He pulled his arms tight to his chest, then raised them up with a terrible force, the chains shattering like glass. He shifted into white smoke, moving so fast my eyes couldn't follow. Then, with a cry that shook the walls, he reformed behind the priestess and plunged his sword deep into her back. Its tip pushed through her gut and came out the other side.
I gripped Lea's arm. Had he killed her?
Priestess Winter dropped to her knees, her hands grasping for the sword, as if trying to pull it from her body. Her face began to change and wrinkle, aging rapidly as blood the color of burgundy poured from her wound.
The king lifted his boot to her back, using it as leverage as he pulled the sword from her body. He raised it again, this time aiming for her heart.
Feast Of Souls
I wrapped my arms tight around my body, breathless.
I watched as the king's sword moved toward the witch's heart, my own cheering him on, forgetting for a moment the reason we were here.
Priestess Winter dodged his sword before my mind could comprehend what had happened. The king stumbled forward, then attempted to shift. Her spell caught him mid-way between man and demon. His body turned to stone. Only his eyes were still human. A stormy silver, darkening to a deeper gray as he watched the priestess.
Her face wrinkled and changed as she stepped toward the town's prima. The woman bowed her head, her lip trembling.
Priestess Winter put a bloodied finger under the prima's chin and lifted it up, meeting the woman's tear-filled eyes. "Your family has been loyal to the Order," she said, coughing. "This line has been filled with powerful leaders who never wavered in their faithfulness, and I hate to end your reign so abruptly."
The prima's head pulled back slightly, her eyes searching the face of the aging priestess. "I don't understand," she said, her tone uncertain.
"I need power to heal," Priestess Winter said. She pl
aced her wrinkled hand on the prima's cheek, stroking it slowly. "Such a shame."
She began to chant in Latin, words I had heard before. In Aldeen.
How would this ritual heal her? I didn't understand.
With one quick motion, Priestess Winter raised her ritual dagger to the prima's throat. The blade sliced clean across her skin.
Priestess Winter held out one hand and a silver cup flew across the room toward her. She lifted it to the prima's neck, catching the blood inside.
I turned away, covering my eyes with my hand.
Lea gripped my shoulders and turned me back toward the scene. "I know it's difficult, but this is the part you came to see."
I stifled a cry, my fist pressed hard against my mouth.
Priestess Winter stumbled, nearly dropping the chalice as the prima fell to her knees. Blood trickled over the side. Summoning her strength, the priestess made her way to the eye of the red portal, then poured the contents of the cup across the large stone. It bubbled and hissed. All at once, the witches of the Clement coven fell to the ground, their faces locked in a death-gaze.
With a loud crack, the portal stone broke into a million pieces.
"Stop," I said, falling to my knees. "I can't take any more."
"Wait," Lea said. She crouched down beside me and placed a hand on my arm. "What's she doing?"
I expected the priestess to go straight to my grandfather, but she didn't. Instead, she fell to her knees on top of the ruined stone. Slowly, she lifted her hands upward in a V, chanting again in a foreign tongue.
I shook my head. "Did this happen in Aldeen?"
"I don't know," Lea said. "We didn't stay long enough to find out."
I waited with breathless anticipation as a mist began to form above the body of each fallen witch. "Oh my god," I said, my flesh erupting in goosebumps. "I've seen this before."
The white mists hovered over each dead body, each taking on a light of its own, just like when Coach King had passed on. The mist over the prima's fallen body was so bright, I had to shield my eyes.
"I have too," Lea said, her voice trembling. "But never here in the human world. Usually when a witch dies, there's no sign of the demon's spirit. I don't understand it."
I waited for the mists to fill with shimmering color like Coach King's spirit had done, but it didn't happen.
"Why aren't they passing on?" I asked. Dread pooled in my stomach.
Priestess Winter stood, her face unrecognizable now. She stretched her arms out wide, then leaned forward as she released all the air from her body. With a terrible gasping sound, she let her head fall backward, sucking in a loud breath as her jaw practically came unhinged.
The white spirit of each demon lifted up, then moved through the air toward the priestess. One by one, they were sucked into her open mouth. She consumed them all, her wrinkled body becoming younger with each demon that entered her. The trickle of rust-colored blood at her side stopped as her wound healed over. Her hands lost their wrinkles and her face became smooth and young.
Finally, only the prima demon's spirit remained. A single bright mist in a room full of death.
Priestess Winter walked over toward the statue that held my grandfather captive. Tears flowed from his eyes, wetting the stone beneath. "Your Queen will never be free," she said. "Her fallen spirit will fuel my withered heart for an eternity to come."
Priestess Winter inhaled again, pulling the bright spirit into the dark cavern of her mouth.
Finished with her feast of souls, her jaw snapped shut. Then, she licked her lips and smiled.
I've Seen Something Like It Before
We returned to the crow village in an instant.
Lea fell to the ground, gasping for air. Courtney ran to her side, but I didn't even look around to see who else had arrived since we'd been gone.
"What did you do?" I shouted, my body feverish. "We have to go back. He was still alive."
"I can't," Lea said. She coughed, her shoulders shaking violently.
Angela ran inside the blue house nearby and came back with a blanket. She threw it over Lea's shoulders, then looked up at me, worry in her eyes. "What happened? Did you see our grandfather?"
I paced, my steps quick and frantic. I drew a shaky hand through my hair, images of death burned in my mind.
Jackson took my hand, but I pulled it away. I didn't want to be comforted. I wanted to make sense of what I'd seen. I wanted to go back there and see the rest of it.
"We saw him," I said. "We saw..."
My voice gave out. I struggled to breathe. What had Priestess Winter done back there? What exactly did we see?
"You're scaring me," Jackson said. "Tell me what happened."
"Harper?"
I looked up to see who had spoken. It was a voice I hadn't heard in months.
Lark stepped forward, her eyebrows drawn together in concern. Seeing her face brought down my walls, and I threw my arms around her, holding her tight. She hugged back.
"I missed you," she said. "I was so worried about you after my mother told me what the Order tried to do to you. Thank god you're okay."
"I don't feel okay right now," I said. I pulled away and collapsed into a nearby chair. I leaned over on the large table and put my head in my hands. "I don't even know where to start."
Jackson, Lark, Angela, Zara and Mary Anne all sat down at the table with me. Courtney and Lea sat on the ground near us, meditating together to restore Lea's power. Essex stood behind Mary Anne, his hand on her shoulder. All eyes were on me, waiting.
"It was horrifying," I said, my voice catching. I cleared my throat. "The ritual started as a regular initiation. Some helpless girl. But once it started, we could tell something was wrong. Priestess Winter was there, but not the one we know now. Her mother."
I looked to Zara.
"Your grandmother," I said.
She pressed her lips together, then looked down at the table, her hands fidgeting in her lap.
"Instead of just one demon coming through the portal, there were more than a dozen," I said, reliving it in my head. "They slaughtered as many as they could before Priestess Winter stopped them. She was so strong, she made them powerless with just a flick of her wrist."
I paused to catch my breath. My heart was still beating a hundred miles an hour.
"My grandfather led the demons through. I think they planned on killing everyone," I said.
"Why?" Angela asked. "Why would he do something like that?"
I rubbed my forehead, then met my sister's gaze. "Because our grandmother was a slave there," I said. "She was the prima demon of that town. He said he'd come to set her free. To release her spirit by killing her and the woman she was trapped inside."
Angela gasped and lifted the back of her hand to her mouth. "I had no idea."
"I don't think he was expecting Priestess Winter to be there," I said. "Either that or he'd completely underestimated her power. She was too strong for the small group he'd brought with him. He tried to fight back, and for a minute, I thought he'd killed her. It was the strangest thing. He was able to surprise her. He stabbed her straight through the stomach and she was bleeding really badly. But..."
How did I explain what happened next? I replayed the scene in my memory.
"When he wounded her, something weird happened to her. She began to age really fast. Her skin shriveled up and her face changed," I said. "I thought she was going to die right there, but then she got free and before he could defend himself, she turned my grandfather into stone."
"She killed him?" Mary Anne asked.
I shook my head. "No, she just trapped him there so he could watch." Tears filled my eyes. "Priestess Winter said something about needing to heal her body, then she slit the prima's throat, performing the same ritual we saw her perform in Aldeen when she killed the whole town. Every witch in the room fell dead right there in front of us."
"Why would she do that?" Essex asked. "Why would she kill her own people?"
"S
he needed them," I said. "She needed what was inside of them. The demons."
Jackson's mouth opened in surprise. "What are you saying? The demons didn't die when the witches died?"
"They died," I said, searching for the words to explain what I'd seen. "But it was as if the death of the prima and the breaking of the portal stone freed their souls. It's hard to explain. Their spirits rose up from the bodies as mist. I saw it when Coach King died. It was exactly the same, as if they were preparing to pass into the Afterworld."
"Oh my god," Jackson said. He brought a hand to his forehead. "The broken portal set their spirits free."
"I think so," I said. "But they didn't shimmer and disappear like Coach King's spirit. They just hovered there for a minute, until..."
My voice cracked, and I had to take a deep breath to compose myself.
"Until what?" Angela asked.
I glanced up at Zara. I knew this would be difficult for her to hear. She might have hated her grandmother, but this was still her family I was talking about.
She swallowed and straightened her shoulders, as if readying herself for the news.
"Until Priestess Winter inhaled them," I said finally. "She sucked them in as if she was drinking them."
"They healed her," Mary Anne said, her eyes wide and her expression blank.
I nodded. "How did you know that?"
"I've seen something like it before," she said. She glanced toward the alter at the center of the village. "I've seen the Mother Crow eat the souls of the dead, but I never understood what it was. I never realized they were demon spirits."
Everyone around the table grew silent and still.
"I only saw it once," she said. "When I was a little girl. She brought a witch up here and slit her throat like you were saying. Only, she didn't exactly inhale the spirit. She used a stone."
"What kind of stone?" Essex asked.
"A soul stone, I guess," Mary Anne said. "I can't remember exactly. It may have been red, though, instead of black. She pulled the spirit into the stone, then she ate it."
