Page 85 of Demons & Damnation

“I’m ten,” Lina replied, giving Kyla a proud smile.

“Don’t you talk to her,” Tony said, his voice sounding nothing but weak and feeble. “Whatever you wanted to achieve today isn’t going to happen. Go away. You’re not welcome here.”

Kyla took her eyes from her younger sibling and fixed Tony with a steely glare. Cocking her head to one side, she asked, “And how old would our child be now, Tony? Do you remember that?”

Tony pressed his lips together and shuffled backwards a step. “That is the past, Kyla. You have no business bringing that here.”

Kyla ignored him and looked down at Lina again. “Did your daddy ever tell you how he tried to murder your brother or sister?”

Lina frowned, her dark eyebrows furrowing together as confusion and horror spread through her eyes. “Mummy...” she said, her voice shaking. “What is she saying?”

Anna-Rose lifted her eyes from the floor and stared at her daughter. The second her eyes locked with Kyla’s, Kyla’s mind flooded with her mother’s voice.

Please don’t hurt the girls. Please, they are innocent in all of this. Please, Kyla, for the love of God, don’t hurt them.

Kyla narrowed her eyes at her mother. “God himself couldn’t help you even if he was stood right here.”

Tony shoved the door, trying to close it in Kyla’s face. Kyla stuck her foot over the threshold, keeping her eyes on Tony’s as the door bounced back off her shoe.

Tony moved forwards a step in an attempt to close the door again, this time piling all his weight against it.

Don’t you dare move, Kyla thought as she stared at him, not even blinking.

The air filled with a deep rumble followed by splintering wood. Seconds later, thick brown vines ripped through the floor of the house, their pointed ends snaking around Tony’s legs, coiling around him with dark menace.

“Mummy!” Lina cried, running to Anna-Rose and throwing her arms around her waist.

She started screaming and crying, tears streaming down her face, streaks of snot falling from her nose as she gasped for breath in between her pitiful sobs.

Kyla rolled her eyes, stepped into the house, and closed the door behind her. “Stop that noise,” she said, staring at Lina. “Before I make you.”

“You don’t have any control whatsoever, do you?” Anna-Rose asked, her voice quiet.

“What’s that old saying? ‘Like mother, like daughter’?”

“You don’t understand,” Anna-Rose replied, her eyes washing over with water. “They’ll use you, Kyla. All for nothing but their own gain.”

Kyla facepalmed herself and then gave her mother a sadistic smile. “Well, fuck me if this really doesn’t sound familiar. Talking about yourself in the third person really isn’t healthy, Mother.”

Anna-Rose let out a high-pitched scream that could have easily shattered Kyla’s head if it were made of glass. “Shut up about me and him. This is nothing to do with that. I’m talking about the witches. The highest, most powerful order of them all. They need an elemental’s power to achieve their aim, Kyla. Centuries have passed without any elemental giving in to the dark side, but if you do this, you’re nothing but a lamb to the slaughter.”

Kyla narrowed her eyes as her curiosity won over. “What are you talking about?”

“The Helios Coven. Did Gran tell you anything about them?”

Kyla stalled for a second, wondering why her gran wouldn’t have mentioned this if it was so important. “No.”

“They are the crème de la crème of witches, Kyla. Except, none of them ever have been an elemental. Not one. But they are at the top of their game. Everyone thinks they’re all dead but they’re not, they’re very much alive, Kyla. All they need is the power of an elemental to regain their leader. She is not a nice person and not someone you want to be responsible for bringing back to life.”

Kyla frowned as she took in her mother’s words. “If it was that bad and that drastic, Gran would have told me. I don’t believe you. It’s just more lies to stall what’s about to happen.”

Anna-Rose shook her head. “No, Kyla. I know what’s going to happen and I know nothing will stop that. But that doesn't mean I can’t pass on what I know. Gran wouldn’t have said anything to you because she doesn’t believe they’re still around. To her, they’re not a risk.”

“And if they are a risk, what have they got to do with me?”

“Elemental witches are granted their powers because they’re not susceptible to particular persuasions or manipulations, they are their own free spirits. God himself knows you are definitely the definition of that. But, if an elemental is tempted to do bad things driven from ill feeling, this could make them vulnerable to being kneaded in certain directions because their free spirit is compromised by negative emotions.”

“For someone that wanted nothing to do with magic and the supernatural, you seem to know a hell of a lot about it. That only begs the question of how much of this is bullshit?”

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