by Bo Reid
“I don’t work with witches,” he hisses.
I watch him lick his lips, and I smirk, tilting my neck to the side, taunting him with my blood as my eyes connect with Javaraya’s across the table.
“Shame,” I remark moments before Arius lunges forward, gripping my throat and sinking his teeth into my neck, and I feel him suck down my blood — that’ll be a nice little power trip for him. My blood is like a drug to his kind, potent, addictive, and laced with unknown additives, you just never know what kind of high you’ll get.
The others quickly rise from their seats. Still, I simply smirk at Javaraya before gripping Arius’ throat with my flaming hand. He loses his bite on my neck, and I stand tightening my grip and forcing him back against the wall.
“Sorry, love, dinner is promptly at six,” I seethe, and he grabs my wrist, attempting to loosen my grip, but I don’t let go.
I can hear the others moving around behind me, I throw my other arm out behind me, “clypeus,” (Shield) I command and a small force field is brought up between them and us.
“Now are you going to behave, or should I fry you and let someone else take your place?” I spit. “After all, I don’t need you specifically.”
He manages to nod his head, and I drop my grip from him as well as the force field holding back the others.
“What the fuck was that?” Kalayavan huffs coming up to help Arius back up as he coughs and grips his throat.
“Don’t worry, we’ll play nice now,” I smile, walking back over to the table. I conjure up a bonding contract that details our little needed partnership and place it on the table. “I’ll just leave this here for everyone to read over, sign it — in blood, of course — and get it back to me,” I explain and tap the contract. Walking over to the corner, I grab my broom and head for the door.
“Where are you staying, in case we have questions,” Ernesh calls.
I glance over my shoulder, and my lips curve up into a sinister smile, “I’ll be in touch,” I call over my shoulder before walking out.
Kalayavan
I walk over to the contract and sit down to look it over while everyone else rushes after her. “It’s locked,” I mumble as they unsuccessfully attempt to open the meeting room door.
“Don’t just sit there! How are we going to get out of here?” Ajal growls.
“It’s probably temporary. She just doesn’t want to be followed,” I shrug as I scan more of the contract.
“What’s it say?” Ernesh asks softly from over my shoulder.
“I’m not the contract dude, but as far as I can tell, it’s pretty straight forward. We agree to be bonded as a group in order to defeat whatever the fuck is coming for us at which time we either die—”
“Solid,” Ajal snorts.
“Or, once we have defeated the being, we’ve fulfilled the contract, and our bonds are released,” I explain.
“And what exactly do we need to defeat, and how?” Ernesh asks.
“It doesn't say. I don’t know if she even knows whatever it really is; she just seems to know it's something.”
“Something big enough to send the previous devil back to Hell, and force the strongest coven to do something so drastic that they all died,” Ajal points out.
“Yeah, exactly,” I agree.
“What do we do?” Dearil asks.
“I think first we need to figure out exactly what the fuck her coven did to her. Those powers, that strength is not fucking normal, not even for the strongest witch. They did something, and I’m betting whatever it was, cost them their lives,” Javaraya says from across the table.
We sit around the table with grim expressions on our faces as we wait to be let out of our meeting room turned prison. I turn and study Arius.
“Dude, are you okay?” I ask as he leans against the far wall, a look on his face that I can’t place, but if I had to guess, I would say he looks high as fuck.
“Huh?” he asks, shaking his head, trying to clear it. “I… I’m fucked up…” he trails off.
My eyebrows shoot up, and I look over to the others that are all equally confused.
“Did she… poison him?” Dearil asks.
“I mean, that would be the easiest way to take out the vampires, adding something to your blood that is harmful to them but not to you,” Ajal says as he reaches out to poke Arius.
“No… I’m…” he trails off.
“You’re…” I prompt.
“I’m high as fuck,” he says, and his face spreads into a lopsided grin, baring his fangs. “Fuck that’s good blood,” he muses, bringing his hand up to wipe a drop of blood from his chin and then sucking it off his finger.
“What the fuck?” Dearil huffs as he watches a very stoned head vampire.
“I need some more of that,” Arius says as he sways side-to-side.
“No, you definitely do not,” Javaraya grits. “You barely even got any, and you’re beyond fucked up right now. If you got ahold of any more of her blood, you would fucking overdose on the shit.”
“I don’t think vampires can overdose on blood,” I point out, and Javaraya cuts me a glare to let me know I’m not actually helping things. “I was just saying.”
“He can if she laced her blood with something.”
“She didn’t,” Ernesh says as he scrubs a hand down his face and stares at the vampire between his fingers. “He’s high on power; he’ll probably end up with some kind of temporary power boost of his own once he comes down from his high.”
We stare at Arius, and I know we’re all thinking the same thing; temporary power boost.
The door clicks, and whatever spell she used to temporarily lock us in here has lifted. I roll up the contract, stand, and walk over to Javaraya. “Here, like I said, I’m no expert,” I shrug.
He takes the scroll, and silently, we all make our way out of the meeting place, Ajal making sure Arius makes it up the stairs. There have been plenty of times that we don't agree in this room, times we leave more pissed off than when we got there in the first place. What we have never done is leave this place without a single fucking clue as to what we have in store for us. “How did she even get in?” Dearil asks as we stand above the ground and seal up our meeting space.
“I have no idea,” Javaraya mumbles as he stares down at the ground, a place we have soaked in our blood, time and time again. The one place we all thought would always be safe, and it was just broken into by a witch on a power trip.
Chapter Six
Javaraya
“What the fuck are we going to do?” Ajal growls as I stalk back to my house with everyone else following closely behind me. Everyone but Arius, who is still high as fuck on witch blood, and clearly couldn’t care less about our little problem.
I’m really sick of the whole leadership role here; yes, everyone manages and controls their own territories, their own people. But when it really comes down to things, I am supposed to be the one that runs everything else; I am supposed to keep everything in order. Now some random witch comes into my fucking town and thinks she owns shit?
Worse even, she just fucking might.
“Javaraya!” Ernesh growls and grips my shoulder.
“What!” I yell, turning around to face them.
“We need a plan,” he says calmly as my chest heaves with my deep breaths.
“We don’t even know if she was telling the truth about any of it,” I remark, shaking my hand to dissipate the flame rising up in my palm.
“Yeah, because just any old witch can take hellfire and the lightning of an alpha dragon like it's nothing more than hot air,” Ajal snorts.
“I think we all just need to get some sleep, think things over. Javaraya will look over the contract, and we can meet again in a few hours,” Kalayavan suggests, and we all nod.
Ernesh transforms into his dragon form and flies off towards his cliff-side home while the others walk towards their territories. Arius sways and stumbles like a drunk but manages to walk in the right directi
on; he’ll either make it home or end up passed out on the sidewalk. I couldn’t care which at this point. I manage to collapse onto a bench on the sidewalk, leaning forward and resting my elbows on my knees.
“You good, boss?” Kalayavan asks as he takes the seat next to me.
“Not even a little bit,” I sigh, “I knew cleaning up my father’s messes wouldn’t be easy, I just never thought she would be one of them.”
“You knew her?” he asks.
I shake my head. “No, I mean, yes. Not really.” I sigh. “She was just a baby, and I was about eight. I remember her mother coming to meet with my father and the other council heads, everyone that sits on our council today. Our fathers turned her mother away. Back then, they barely managed to get through a simple meeting without killing one another, she wanted everyone to join forces, and they refused. She was pregnant at the time, and then she had the baby. I can still remember her crying, begging for everyone’s help, and them refusing. The toughest, most badass witch of the century was asking for help. Instead of them considering what could be so powerful that she would stoop so low as to ask for help in the first place, they just turned her away.”
“None of that was your fault, or mine, or anyone else’s. We have spent most of our lives trying to clean up after them; we always knew there would be a never-ending line of messes to fix.”
“Yeah, but you don’t understand,” I sigh, running my hands through my hair, “I wanted that baby; when I saw her, I wanted to protect her. I tried to convince my father to listen to Khalida,” I whisper. “I was just a child, there was nothing I could do to change his mind, but because he didn’t save her then… That’s why I have worked so damn hard to change the way we do things now.”
“What do you mean you wanted her?” Kalayavan asks.
I swallow, my throat feeling like it’s coated in thick honey and broken glass. “She was meant to be mine; I could feel it even then.”
“And you felt that tonight? Before or after you tried and failed to fry her?” he snorts, attempting to interject humor into this situation.
“I didn’t feel her at all,” I confess.
“If she was meant to be yours… you would have felt something. You know that’s how it works,” he whispers.
“I mean I could feel her, I could feel a piece of who she used to be, but whoever she is now? That’s not who she was back then. Whatever they did to her, they changed her, but what if her life outside our barrier is what really changed her?”
“She was just a baby then…”
“She’s still meant to be mine,” I growl. “Whatever has happened to her didn’t change that, but… it changed something.”
We sit on the bench staring across the street at the twenty-four-seven Nightmare Diner, the late-night patrons eating their food and living their lives without a care in the world. Beings that don’t realize everything changed less than an hour ago.
I’ve thought about Tanda for many years. I never knew her name, I never even knew if she survived the coven death, but she has never left my mind. I never picked a queen to serve by my side because I knew that she was meant to be mine, the only true queen that could serve with me. Turns out, my queen was alive this whole time, and I’m fairly sure she hates me to her very core.
If I didn’t know any better, I would say, given a chance, she would rip my black heart from my chest and show it to me before I died. Her melodic laugh would wash over me as I stopped breathing. My soul would be dragged down to the depths of Hell, where she could play with me like a new toy until she got bored.
The worst part? I think if she asked… I would rip out my own heart and hand it to her willingly because even though she isn’t who she used to be, she’s still meant to be mine; I can feel it.
Kalayavan
Anyone ever tell you not to judge a book by its cover? Well, I think they were onto something. When I first saw Tanda, I never in a century would have thought she was capable of half the things I just saw firsthand. Turns out tiny girls with perfectly pouty, pink lips and black Doc Marten’s, who are pissed the fuck off, are pretty goddamn powerful.
I don’t remember her, or her coven, or anything that happened back then. I was maybe two and still driving my mama crazy, shifting into my older siblings to get them into trouble. There was a time that she never knew who did what because she wasn’t sure if my siblings were throwing fireballs in the house, or if I had shifted into their forms and did it to get them into trouble.
Spoiler alert: it was mostly me.
Dearil was born the same year as Tanda, so no way in the fuck he knows what’s going on. Honestly, I feel bad for the dude, he wasn’t meant to take over Siren Bay for another few years. Still, after both his parents passed away, he had to step up, making him the youngest of the Hells Hallow Council.
I guess if you don’t count Tanda, that is. I mean, from what Javaraya said, her coven was the most powerful. Which means her father or another council member probably had a seat on the council, meaning she is owed one.
Ajal and Arius were probably about five when she was born, so they should remember something, but the werewolves and vampires aren’t as forthcoming with teaching their young as the others. They might not know everything, but they should at least remember a mass death of the most powerful coven, everyone that was around back then should know. I wonder if that means the regular residents of Hells Hallow do know what happened back then. Maybe they know everything, and they just wrote off their deaths… or perhaps they were told to forget, perhaps they have been biding their time for the last twenty-five years in the hopes that she would return home one day.
Regardless of not knowing Tanda back then, not knowing of her all these years, there was something about her. When I saw her wrap her hand coated in fire around Arius’ throat, my dick twitched in my fucking pants, and all I wanted was for her to put her hand anywhere on my body.
Trust me, that’s saying something considering most of my adulthood, the only interaction with females I’ve had, is when Javaraya is also there. It’s not that I’m not attracted to females, they’re great, but they’re a goddamn handful and just not fucking worth it. When you have my demon status, and you’re the devil’s right-hand, females want your status more than they want you. So I figured I didn’t need any females around, Javaraya still likes the ladies, though. Most of the time, I just join in whatever games he has going on with his flavor of the week, and sometimes it's just him and me.
I know there would never be anything more than physical with him and me, but that’s fine; like I said, he likes my ass.
Tanda
I touch back down just inside the opening of the forest trees, with my home in view. The pain shoots through me, knocking me to the ground, and I feel my lightning and fire start to go haywire. I scream in agony as the pain courses through me, feeling as though it’s ripping me open from the inside out. I hear the soft mewing of Hex and feel her tiny body press into my side as I lay on the ground shaking from the pain. I don’t want to hurt her while my powers are so out of control, but I latch onto her, pulling her close to me, and her purring brings back a sliver of my sanity.
I can make out the house as the pain dies down, and even though my vision was a little blurry, I know I can make it inside. Hex meows some more, purring and nudging me with her head. I pet her, taking a moment to collect myself and take a few deep breaths.
“I know, girl, I’ll be fine,” I whisper as I push myself up.
I grab my broom and manage to stumble my way inside the cabin, with Hex hot on my heels. I grip the back of the couch as I drop my broom and attempt to stay steady on my feet.
“The items are back where I found them,” I hear Jonathan call to me as I enter.
“Thank you,” I sigh.
“Are you alright?” he asks, concern evident in his tone.
“Yes, thank you, I just need to rest for a while,” I sigh and sink down into the large couch.
I lay down and rest my head on the p
illow, bringing my legs up as I feel a blanket being draped over me.
“Rest, Miss. Morass, we will make sure all is well,” Jonathan calls from above me on the back of the couch.
“I need to lock up and put up a small force-field,” I yawn and feel a residual shake rack through my body.
“You need to rest,” Jonathan says.
“If they figure out where I am, they’ll come here. I’m in no condition to deal with them, a force field and lock will keep them out a bit longer. I have to, for my own safety,” I explain, and push myself up.
There’s work to be done, and so I allow the pain to drive me instead of trapping me.
“Very well,” Jonathan sighs, and Hex twists between my legs.
“I know, girl,” I tell her, bending down to pet her head.
“Why don’t you give her a voice as well?” Jonathan asks, confused.
I look down at Hex and smile, “she doesn’t need one for me to understand her.”
I work as quickly as I can to throw up a small force-field, surrounding the opening where the cabin sits, lucky for me I planned ahead and managed to lay the groundwork for this before I even left earlier. Then I lock up the house, putting a protection spell around it, ensuring no one here to do me harm can enter. I suppose that one will probably always remain up. Even if they do agree to the contract, I could never truly trust them, and I would want to know if they meant to do me harm before they got close enough to inflict it.
By the time I’m lying back down, I can tell the sun will be rising soon, and Daniel flies in through the chimney and finds his place to hang upside-down from the rafters. “Rest, Miss. Morass, you’ve done all you can do for now,” Jonathan calls to me from the window, and I nod before he flies away, out to be my eyes and ears for the day.
As I feel my eyelids get heavy and flutter closed, I feel Hex curl up on top of me and start to purr. I rest my hand on her small back and sigh, letting the darkness of sleep drag me under.
