The Chosen Witch

by Chandelle LaVaun

  The red smoke slithered between gravestones, spreading farther across the cemetery. A gust of wind slammed into my face and whipped around my body. It howled like the wolves. Maniacal laughter bubbled up from the ground.

  “How we doing over there, George?” I yelled out to Cassandra.

  The prophecy had said we needed allies for a reason. I didn’t want to start a battle without them.

  “Almost!” Cassandra shouted back.

  Before I could respond, the ground trembled like an earthquake. Bright red lights blasted out from the ground and lit up the sky. High-pitched shrieks pierced my eardrums, but I held still.

  “Los muertos,” Paulina shouted from far behind me.

  I frowned and opened my mouth to ask what she meant when the ground in front of me exploded and skeletal hands reached out of the dirt. They clawed and pushed the earth around until an entire human body emerged from the grave. My pulse quickened and my breath hitched. This was something straight out of a horror movie. I watched in terrified silence as dozens of skeletons climbed out of the ground. The red smoke snaked around each figure and filled the empty rib cages. The eye sockets flared to life with little fireballs for eyes. Some of them were missing bones and body parts, but it didn’t seem to stop them from stalking toward us.

  “They possessed the bones!” Paulina shouted, but I’d already figured that much out.

  “Hold your fire!” I ordered. We needed our allies. “Cassandra!”

  The second I yelled her name, the skeletons charged. Something glistened in their hands, and it took me a second to recognize it as metal. How the hell did they get weapons? My mind spun with confusion, but I forced the thoughts away.

  I took a deep breath and eyed my opponent. “Now!” I yelled and sprinted forward.

  The battle cries of my Coven sounded behind me, but I didn’t look back. I raced straight for the skeleton demons and swung my weapons. The monster’s skill was no match to mine. In seconds, I sliced through its spine and sent the bones crumbling to the ground. I grinned and bounced back to destroy another when the pieces began to reassemble. What the hell?

  I cursed and jumped backward to give myself room. They didn’t die. Whatever I chopped off just reattached itself. The skeleton raised its weapon and charged toward me, but before I could react, a wall of glimmering blue jumped in front of me. I gasped and froze mid swing.

  The blue figure grabbed the skeleton by the neck and turned to face me. “Now!” it bellowed.

  Without hesitating, I let my sword hand fly in a perfect arc, slicing up the middle of the skeleton. The translucent blue figure solidified until I recognized it as a spirit.

  She did it. I was so excited to see the ghost I almost missed it slam the broken bones of the demon back into the grave.

  The spirit turned to me with his hand held out and yelled, “Give me your dagger, soldier!”

  I blinked in surprise but handed over my weapon. The spirit grabbed it from my hand and stabbed the demon in the skull. Red light flashed, and then the smoke vanished.

  The spirit turned toward me, held his fingers up to his lips, and whistled louder than a freight train. He was dressed like a colonial soldier and held a bayonet in his right hand. A second later, a squadron of transparent, glowing blue spirits appeared behind him, each strapped with a bayonet and a knife.

  The spirit holding my dagger turned his gaze to me and grinned. He actually grinned. “You all take ‘em down, and we’ll send ‘em back. Got it?”

  I nodded and snapped my jaw shut. Ally with those between the lands. These demons couldn’t be killed the normal way. We needed a spirit’s help.

  I spun on my toes and spotted my Coven battling one skeletal demon after another. “Just slice them down! Our new friends will finish it!”

  “General,” a whispered voice rumbled close to my ear. “You’ll get this back after.”

  The spirit took off into the battle with my dagger. A skeletal demon popped up out of the ground in front of me and I charged. I only had my sword now, but I wouldn’t let that slow me down. Everything around me blurred into a sea of red. I ran, ducked, and jumped over gravestones while slicing my blade into everything in my path. I moved like a tornado, bouncing from one spot to the next without slowing down or looking back. Our allies were trained fallen soldiers. The second bare bones hit the ground, they jumped into action and snuffed out their red smoke.

  Neon red lightning flashed through the cemetery off to my left. White swirling magic blasted bones to dust over on my right. I summoned a gust of wind and slammed it into three skeletons chasing down Chutney. Easton’s battle laughter echoed off the trees, though I couldn’t tell where he was. Two skeletal demons leapt in front of my path with three-foot-long blades. I slid across the dirt and swung my sword into the sky. I rolled and jumped back to my feet. My sword flew back to my palm.

  I turned and threw it back into the air like a boomerang. “Down!”

  Kessler and Cooper dove to the ground and rolled out of the way. Willow screamed but when I turned, I found her conjuring brick walls in front of her on the fly. Skeletal demons splattered and broke against the surface. I stopped and looked around the cemetery to each of my friends. Their skin was pale and glistening with sweat under the moonlight. I smelled the bitterness of blood in the breeze and cursed. Neither demon nor spirit bled. That meant my Coven was hurting. Libby and Henley’s magic were barely illuminating and only traveled a foot or so before fading out. Our allies trampled through, but we were heavily outnumbered. They couldn’t snuff out one demon before two more popped up. If only we could get them all down at once.

  I turned and spotted Royce slice the head off a skeleton, and an idea came to mind. “Royce!”

  Royce’s gaze snapped to mine. Blood trickled down his forehead onto his cheekbones. “Why are you still human?” he shouted back like he’d read my damn mind.

  I raised my right hand and called for my sword. When the metal hit my palm, I nodded at Royce and prayed he understood what I was about to do. “On five!”

  Royce cursed and turned away from me.

  One. I adjusted my hold on my sword hilt.

  In the distance, Royce yelled out to the rest of our Coven.

  Two. I took a deep breath and willed my power to full strength until my body lit up brighter than the sun.

  Three. I raised my sword in the air, blade up. My power made the ground beneath me tremble. All of the gravestones within twenty feet of me lifted off the ground and hovered in the air.

  Four. I looked to Royce and waited. He waved his arms around at someone and shouted. Finally, he turned to face me and nodded.

  “FIVE!” I shouted and summoned the heavens above me.

  Lightning cracked overhead and struck my weapon. I roared and pushed all of my power into my sword and slammed the blade into the dirt by my feet. White light exploded like a mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb and seared through the cemetery. The second the brightness vanished, I jumped to my feet and plucked my sword from the ground. Bones and skulls littered the ground, but they had already begun to reassemble. Our allied forces let out a wicked battle cry and charged the fallen demons. Red smoke billowed. Shrieks and screams filled the night.

  Faster than a snap of the finger, everything went silent. No shrieking, screaming, or maniacal laughter. No scraping of metal blades. No howling winds. The night was still again, like nothing had happened at all. Only the rough, ragged breathing of my Coven reached my ears. Our ghostly allies remained rigid and ready, waiting for a signal to either fight or rest. I, too, hesitated to believe it was over. I glanced around the cemetery one more time but saw only my Coven and our allies. Henley raised her left arm in the sky and stared at the moon. Within seconds, her magic made everything around us glimmer in a soft golden glow, brighter than it had been before the attack.

  I straightened out of my crouched position and turned to count each one of my friends. The fifteen of them were bloody, scraped up, and breathing like they’d j
ust swam across the Gulf of Mexico. I wanted to feel excited and relieved since we were alive and on the other side of the second task…but I couldn’t shake the tingle of unease in my gut.

  “General.” A whispered voice rumbled close by.

  I spun and found the leader of our allied friendly spirits holding a glistening dagger. My dagger. The one he’d borrowed from me during the fight. He rested the tip of the blade on his empty ghostly palm and knelt before me, and then raised my dagger in the air. His eyes, despite being a translucent blue, were sharp and focused.

  I stabbed my sword into the dirt beside me then reached forward and grabbed the dagger hilt with my left hand. A warm shock blasted through my fingers and traveled up my arm. “Thank you.”

  At first sight, the hilt looked its normal antique silver, but when I raised it closer to my eyes, the glow off my body reflected back at me. The surface was rough and unfinished, but cool and comfortable against my skin like one of our working crystals. Realization dawned on me slower than I wanted to admit. It was black crystal, meant for protection. I held the blade tip up in the air and twisted it around. What used to be a dark silver metal now looked darker than night itself. The black color was rich and had the slightest sheen when moved under the right lighting. I recognized it immediately. Hematite, known for being unyielding in power. My double-edged dagger was now a menace of power and protection.

  If my magic hadn’t connected with it instantly, I wouldn’t have believed it was mine. I lowered my weapon and smiled at the spirit. “Thank you.”

  He bowed his head. “Now you are ready. Good luck, and goodbye.”

  “Thanks for your help tonight.”

  The squadron of friendly spirits stood straight, saluted me, and then disappeared from sight. I sighed and looked back at my dagger. What had they done to it? Why did they do it? How was this supposed to help us? I had so many questions.

  “Leadership looks good on you, son.” Kessler’s deep, familiar voice took the edge off the anxiety rolling through me.

  Leadership? Heat rushed to my face. I had taken over, hadn’t I? It was Kessler’s job to be our leader here, not mine. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  “Don’t be,” he interrupted me with a huge smile. “This is what you do. I wouldn’t have wanted anyone else to lead us tonight.”

  I smiled and nodded. “Thanks.” But I didn’t feel relieved. If anything, his words made me feel jittery and anxious. Almost claustrophobic. I had no desire to lead, to be in charge. I wasn’t responsible enough for the job. How could I keep everyone else under control when I couldn’t manage to shower every day? That had to be a prerequisite for leadership. The last time I voiced these concerns to my father or Cassandra, they both insisted I’d grow into it… Except, what if I didn’t want to?

  “So, who’s up for ice cream?” I turned to my left and found Royce leaning against a tree trunk with a wicked grin on his filthy face.

  Silence.

  Despite the tension coiled in my gut, I laughed. “Rocky road, perhaps?”

  “I’d prefer peaches and cream, actually,” Easton said under his breath.

  The rest of us groaned.

  Lily smacked him on the back of the head.

  The rest of us laughed.

  Easton grinned shamelessly. He winked at his girlfriend, unfazed.

  “So, what did they want your dagger for?” Cooper walked up in front of me and held his hand out. “May I see?”

  I flipped the dagger in the air and caught it by the blade, letting the hilt be free for my brother to take. “Here. I have no idea why they wanted it, but it definitely got a remix. Cassandra, what can you tell us?”

  “Not much,” she answered with a sigh.

  What? From the moment the spirit took my dagger, I thought Cassandra understood why. She’d nodded in approval at the time. All of my confidence left me in a rush, like I’d been sucker punched in the gut. I felt deflated.

  “Oh…” I didn’t know what to say. She always had answers and explanations. We relied on it. The second I thought that, I regretted it. It wasn’t fair to her. I turned to my left, to where she stood between the two trees everyone had joined under.

  She ran a hand through her tousled, long red hair. Her eyes seemed locked on something way off in the distance. “Whatever they did to your dagger is the reason we came here tonight. That’s why he said ‘now you are ready,’ but I don’t know what that specifically means.”

  “Why does it look different?” Cooper asked, his pale green eyes focused on the blade.

  She shrugged. “Black crystal and hematite. Protection and power. Tennessee has to go to the Gathering, so he’ll need both. I had a vision a few minutes ago—”

  A dark blade speared through the middle of her stomach. She gasped.

  “NO!” Time slowed around me. Everything was a blur of motion and a dull roar in my ears. Blood splashed across my face. My throat and jaw burned like I was screaming, but I didn’t know if I was. All of my focus zeroed in on the demon’s barbed tentacle impaled through my best friend’s body. When my hands gripped onto something sharp and sticky, my brain snapped back into action. I pretended I didn’t hear her gasps or see the widening of her eyes with each slide of the tentacle. With both hands, I pushed against the end of the tentacle, trying to prevent it from going any farther.

  Screams of rage echoed around me. Bursts of bright whites and neon reds flashed over my head as my Coven’s magic attacked.

  A shadowy form tackled me like a linebacker and slammed my back into the ground. It pressed into my chest and loomed over me. The demon had glowing red eyes, venom dripping from its mouth, and tentacles slicing through the air. I raised my right hand and called for my sword, but the demon pinned me to the dirt with its tentacles. Lightning and black smoke pummeled into the monster from all sides to no avail. Its beady red eyes narrowed on my face then looked down my body, like a puppy who knew I had a cookie in my pocket.

  My pocket. It wanted the pendulum. I forgot about my dagger and jammed my hand in my pocket. The crystal warmed between my fingers.

  My friends were already tired from one fight, and this demon wasn’t slowing down. It wasn’t going to stop until it got the pendulum. I clenched my teeth and summoned every ounce of power inside of me until I lit up brighter than the sun. The demon hissed and reared back. There was a pop louder than a gunshot, and the demon exploded like a firework.

  I scrambled to my knees and crawled to Cassandra. Her eyes met mine, and everything shattered around me. I yanked my shirt off and pushed it against the gaping hole in her body. The blood pooling under her spread wider and thicker with every second.

  “Kessler!” My voice cracked.

  “Tennessee…” she whispered. She moved her hands over mine and squeezed. Her skin was ice cold.

  “Just hang on!” I begged her. Something wet dripped down my cheeks; might’ve been blood or it might’ve been tears. “We’ll get help. Kessler!”

  “I’m here,” my father’s voice rumbled in my ear. His hands covered Cassandra’s. “I’m right here.”

  Within seconds, the hands of my Coven, our Coven, stacked on top of each other. Energy buzzed and crackled between our arms in little bolts of energy. Warmth radiated from my hands and spread through my body. We were trying to heal her with our magic, our powers. But even though her breathing calmed, her skin drained of its color. Her eyes filled with tears as she looked around at each of us.

  “Just hang on,” I begged again. “We can heal you.”

  “You can’t,” she whispered.

  “Don’t give up,” I yelled. We were witches for Goddess’s sake. Surely there had to be something we could do. I ran through my memories of spells and healing magic, trying to think of the answer to cure her.

  “Tennessee, you cannot stop this.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper. “You know that.”

  “I don’t.” My voice cracked. She was right. I couldn’t save her.

  She coughed up bl
ood and shuddered. “I don’t have long now. You all have to listen to me. You remember everything I told you?” Her gaze met Kessler’s.

  “Yes. I’ll tell them.” Kessler nodded. “What else?”

  She took a few deep breaths. “I need…my…hand…now.”

  No one moved.

  “NOW.”

  Once her left hand popped free, she wiggled her fingers above the dirt. A rainbow of mist swirled through the air and between her fingers until it formed together and made two rectangles. The shapes dropped to the ground, and Cassandra sagged against the dirt.

  I reached forward and plucked two items up…and gasped. Under the bright glow of Henley’s intensified moon, two female faces looked up at me.

  The one on the left had raven hair, an extravagant crown, and the Roman numeral II etched into the top. The one on the right had hair of sunshine, a flowered diadem, and the Roman numeral III. They looked like every tarot card I’d ever seen while looking nothing similar at the same time.

  “The High Priestess and the Empress,” I said.

  Cassandra nodded and the movement sent her into a coughing fit. “Listen…”

  “We’re listening,” Cooper said softly.

  “My Mark will not carry on until they claim their rank. Only then can the locket be found.”

  “What?” I exhaled and stared down at the tarot cards.

  The locket was a gift given to every Hierophant by the Goddess herself. It contained our race’s secrets and history all the way back to the fall of Eden when we were created. It was the single most important item our race had. When one Hierophant died, the locket would disappear and wait to be found by the other Cards. And we’d only have three weeks to find it before the locket would return to the Goddess. Forever. I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out.

  “Cassandra…what…what…?” Kessler stuttered and it broke something inside of me. He never was anything but sturdy and strong. “What…does this mean?”

  “Find them,” she whispered. Her lips were stained red and split. “Find them, induct them, then seek the locket. You must…find…the locket.”