Page 215 of Castings & Curses

A breeze moved through the tomb and the spider webs fluttered.

I placed my hands on the cold stone floor and let the thoughts guide me like a memory buried deep inside.

A girl, young, beautiful. A man, older and dark. He wanted her. Her power. What she could do for him. She was used. Manipulated. Until they came to this castle. Her castle. She killed the owners. She ran the household while he was out pirating and plundering other places.

Then a child. A son. Another. A son. Another. A son. Then a daughter. A daughter that was filled with all the wickedness she had consumed throughout the years. A daughter that, at the age of five, took her first look at her father and devoured his energy like a starving dog devours a meal.

I got up. I snickered. “It’s not you, is it? He’s not the old man either, is he?”

The cobwebs blew again, harder this time, and I got up and followed them, streaming along the cemetery now, leading me through the darkness with a luminescent sheen.

They stopped at a very clean gravesite and I read the name inscribed there, Rose. I asked, “Well, Rosie, I’m here. What do you need to tell me?”

A cold breeze flittered by and then wrapped around me as though it would smother me if it squeezed any tighter. I waited a moment, thinking it was some sort of communication technique, but I realized as the force against my nose, my mouth, my eyelids pressed harder she was not trying to tell me anything. She was trying to get inside of me, possess me.

Oh hells no.

I fought back. Probably looked ridiculous to the entire cemetery of spirits should they have chosen to watch, but I was not going to surrender my body to that bitch. Reincarnation my ass. This was all a lie. A spoiled child lived, murdered her father, and established a lore to eventually bring me here. One of her kind. One. I remembered that from the book Nadia showed me. There can be only one.

“Show yourself, you bitch!” I used the protective magic my mothers, my adopted mothers had bestowed upon me as a gift when I left for school. I had never so much as thought I would need it before tonight. Again, back at the school, I was the scariest thing on that campus.

Here, in this graveyard, the succubus appeared as she fell backwards on her ass and laughed. “Oh, those witches.”

She knew my moms? I considered her as she moved to stand. “Who are you?”

She indicated the tombstone next to her and said, “Rose.”

I shook my head. “No. Rose is dead. Has been a long time according to that marker right there.”

She winked and said, “Rose was born, but she never died.”

I was holding the amulet my moms had given me and that seemed to matter to this monster before me. “Why am I here?”

“There can be only one.” She indicated the tombstone again. “It’s not entirely a tall tale meant for the men. It’s just…creatively structured so they will obey me.”

Not a bad game plan, but them obeying her and me being possessed by her, not the fate I had in mind. “Doesn’t make any sense. You want to possess me so what? What is your endgame here, Rosie?”

“My Peaches. They really were the best choice to raise you. Maybe too good.” She frowned and then her eyes glowed as she looked at me. “I don’t want to possess you, my Peach. I will become you. Or, rather, you will become me.”

I shook my head. “Nah. I’m good.”

She laughed. More like cackled, but her eyes were glowing brighter. “You see, the key to immortality is having a fresh supply of genetic coding, food, and…a spell book that no wizard, warlock, or witch can resist.”

“He’s not your everlasting mate?” I asked.

“He will be. At least, he will be until I’m bored with him.” She shrugged. As if it were a secret, she whispered, “He has a mark on his hip that was easy enough to add to the lore. His family, like so many others, believe this is their heritage. When in reality, they are simply conduits of dark magic. I adjust the books to appeal to whoever reads them.”

She winked and I gasped. “What?”

“You aren’t the only one who has friends in magical places.” She shimmied. “You’re not nearly as well fed on dark magic as you should be at this age. It appears they have taught you to sip, not gulp. To moderate, not dominate. You…taste disgusting.” She spit out whatever she had siphoned off of me without my knowledge she was even feeding.

“Gross. And FYI, lady, nothing in this area of the realm tastes all that great either.” I indicated the darkness around me as if that encompassed the whole of the castle grounds.

“FY?” She concentrated. “What does that mean?”

“Wha—never mind. Doesn’t matter. What matters is this, you are not getting into this body. You are not taking over this mind. I’m out.” I flashed her the peace sign and held onto my amulet and began backing away from her and toward the castle.

“You’re not going anywhere.” She lunged at me with superspeed and knocked me backward. I remembered being little and a neighboring boy had thrown an apple and hit me in the back with it. That thing hurt. My moms told me to stand up for myself. He was bigger than me, but they insisted that did not matter. I needed to be prepared to fight someone bigger than me if I wanted to survive in this world.

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