Page 8 of Chosen, Eternally
“It was. It definitely was.”
He presses his lips together, his brows set in that way that tells me he’s not budging on this. Still, he says, “It wasn’t your fault, Cate. But you do owe me an explanation.”
“Okay, so let me get this straight,” James begins his recap. “You’ve been a witch since before I even met you, but you only had a limited amount of powers then. It wasn’t until you became the Chosen Guardian and?—”
“Protector. Chosen Protector,” I correct.
James waves a hand. “Protector, then. It wasn’t until you became a Chosen Protector that all these powers developed into something more, and you were sworn in to protect the city of Salem from vampires?”
“Right.” I nod. “But the swearing in ceremony kinda didn’t happen until after you… Well, until after we thought you died.”
He whistles once, shocked. “Okay, then. Well. I have… So many questions.”
“Right, I thought you might have a couple.”
“Okay, so, first one off the top of my head: I’m clearly not dead,” he says with a laugh.
“Not a question.”
He shoots me a frustrated look, and I sigh.
“We thought you were dead. Or rather, I did. But only because that’s what I was told after I woke up in the hospital the day after our encounter with those vamps. I went to your funeraland everything, and it was—” Again, I struggle to breathe. To push through the memories of other people grieving James in the small room of the funeral home. Thinking that while they were entitled to be sad, none of them would ever know the true pain of his loss like I would.
It takes a second for me to be able to recover, and when I do, I know I have to be as clear and honest as possible. “Someone lied. Tricked me and the Society into thinking you’d died. Somehow convinced the authorities—the police and the morgue—to lie about the condition your body was left in, and say that it was mangled almost beyond recognition. It’s why they told us the wake couldn’t be open casket.”
James looks at me, devastated.
“I don’t know what happened, James. Maybe it was another vampire using their powers of Subjugation? Though we supply city officials with antidotes to protect them from situations just like this. So I’m at a loss. But I promise that we’ll go first thing tomorrow morning to The Society and try to sort this whole thing out. Tell them how you were held in a cell for over a year, and just…” I shiver. “I promise if I wasn’t already fueled by revenge before, I sure as hell am now.”
He half-smiles. “Okay, so I get why you thought I was dead. But can we rewind to the genesis of it all? Like, what the hell are vampires doing in Salem? And why are witches the ones stopping them? Why doesn’t the rest of the world know?”
I sigh because this a tough one. “It’s kind of a long story. But the TL;DR version of it is that vampire killings started happening around the same time as the Salem Witch Trials—yes, most of the witches executed wereactualwitches, though not all of them. Now, the witches already knew of the existence of this species from their ancestors back in Europe, but the humans didn’t. Supposedly, there were no vampires here, but somehow they managed to make it to Massachusetts. Wecovered up every single vampire death by saying they were ‘animal-related,’” I say, recalling my mandatory history lessons from my teenage years.
“One night, there was a town hall meeting happening. Four of the strongest members of our coven were on trial and headed straight for the gallows. Almost a hundred people attended that meeting, which back then, was a lot. Suddenly, over a dozen vampires broke into the town hall and started attacking the humans, ripping their throats out right then and there. Now, for obvious reasons, we had never publicly used our powers in front of humans. The witches back then were adopting a ‘deny til you die’ philosophy, which they took quite literally, unfortunately. But the Four—Agnes, Mary, Emily, and Elizabeth—refused to stand idly by as people were massacred, even if these people were trying to execute them. So they used their collective powers to kill the vampires who attacked the meeting and ward the rest of them off.”
“Jesus,” James breathes. “Andthat’sthe ‘too long; didn’t read version’?” He laughs, and the sound of it makes my heart soar despite it all.
“I know.” I sigh. “It’s a lot. In the end, only seven human lives were lost that night. The rest were protected thanks to our fearless leaders. After that, the city of Salem was so thankful that we reached an agreement with the officials: the witches would be allowed to live a calm and peaceful life in secrecy, unbothered by the humans so long as we vowed to protect them from the vampires. However, putting all that pressure on our entire coven was a lot, so the Four decided to perform a spell that required they give up their lives and powers in order to create aChosen Protector. This witch would be the most powerful witch of them all, sworn to defend the city from the darkest of evils. And there would always be One—as soon as she died, another would be called.”
“But you haven’t been living in secrecy. This entire town’sthingis witches.”
“Well, duh. They couldn’t exactly erase history, so we just classified it under a mass murder which originated due to hysteria, Puritanical beliefs, and crazy paranoia. No oneactuallybelieves they were real witches. People just come here because theywantto believe, even though they don’t. It’s a good time.”
I choose then to pause and let James absorb some of what I’ve just told him.
“That was… a lot of information,” he finally says.
I nod.
“So you were just chosen out of a group of girls to be this kick-ass vampire hunter?”
“I mean, kinda? The Magicks chose me, so I’m not sure how they would’ve been able to pass those powers onto someone else without my death. It’s complicated, because the whole thing is supposed to be this great honor, but I hesitated to accept the role.”
“What would’ve happened if you’d refused?”
I shrug, unsure. “I don’t know. They kind of made it sound like I didn’t have a choice at first, to be honest. But I was prepared to run off to Asia with you. Though they probably would’ve come after us.”
James smiles, his eyes softening. “I would’ve run forever with you if we had to.”
