Page 39 of Wicche Hunt

Her grandmother is the Crone, the most powerful of the Three on the Corey Council. The girl moves quietly across the room and out the door. Her grandmother and grandfather have rooms at the rear of the house. She avoids the stair that squeaks.

Standing outside the bedroom door, she hesitates. Should she knock?

“Come in, child, and tell me what has you up.” The door opens and an old woman with long white hair takes the child’s hand and walks her into an adjoining sitting room. The old woman closes the door and sits beside the child.

“What is it, girl?”

In stutters and stops, she tells her grandmother about the nightmare, about a baby that can see the future, can hear thoughts. The baby grows, but is sad and sickly, dark circles under her eyes, patches of hair missing. She wakes screaming in the night and there’s nothing to be done to console her.

The babe only lives seven years before she tries to quiet the voices in her head by walking into the ocean.

The grandmother nods, patting the child’s hand.

“You’ve been blessed, Sybil. You will bear a Cassandra wicche. They are very rare and a gift from the Goddess. We must do whatever we can to make her strong. She must live if she is to benefit the family.”

Sybil nods, still looking sick and scared.

“Don’t worry, child. We’ll help. The most important thing—when the time is right—is to find a strong father for her, someone whose gifts match, if not surpass, your own. We must make her powerful enough to survive being a seer.”

The image goes dark and then…

A dark, torch-lit stone room, low chanting and heat. My stomach cramps. I want out of this vision now. Head pounding, body sore, the chanting grows louder. Calliope and her demon are going to take me out in a vision. Pulling as hard as I can—

The image goes dark and then…

A man is standing at the top of a dark wooden staircase. Given the proportions of the entry, the art, the antiques, he’s in a mansion. He’s arguing with someone in the shadows. Shaking his head, one hand cuts through the air. The discussion is over. He turns to descend the stairs and instead goes flying, crumpling at the base, his head at an unnatural angle.

The image goes dark and then…

An older man is walking along the edge of a huge lawn in front of a great house. There are trees between himself and the crashing surf beyond. He checks his watch and again looks for someone. A cigarette flares in the dark. The man goes to the light and is hit in the head with a shovel. His body plummets from the high cliff to the jagged rocks and crashing waves below.

Head pounding, I rolled onto my side. Curled in on myself, I willed my stomach to relax.Please.I didn’t want to clean up vomit.

There was a knock at the back door. What time was it? “Declan?” If it was him, he’d hear me.

“Yeah? Everything okay?” Concern was creeping into his voice.

Flicking my fingers, I unlocked the door. I heard it open and close as I tried to right myself. I shouldn’t have moved so soon. Declan had just walked into the gallery as I climbed down the last five feet of scaffolding and ran past him for the bathroom. And once again, I was heaving into the toilet while he held my hair and ran his heating pad of a hand up and down my back.

Eyes watering, I mumbled, “Sorry,” before my muscles cramped again. Stomach already empty, I was flushing foamy bile and wishing I was in my bed.

He held a warm, damp towel in front of me. I took it, thumping back on my butt while I wiped my face, feeling miserable and cold.

“Come on,” he said, pulling me to my feet. “Let’s get you into bed.”

“Oh, sorry. I can’t. I feel too sick.”

He paused a moment and then chuffed a laugh. “Not that,” he said, picking me up. “You need a soft, warm bed, dark, and a cup of tea. I’m not much of a tea maker, but I can google how to do it.” He carried me upstairs, pausing to turn off the bright lights. “Can you lock the doors and lower the shutters?”

I nodded and did so. He was about to place me in my bed when I said, “Wait. Can you put me down?”

He did and I toed off my sneakers and socks before dropping the overalls. I crawled under the sheets in my panties and thermal, curling around my abused stomach.

“I’ll get you tea,” he said, turning back to the stairs.

“Declan?”

He paused.

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