Page 27 of Crimson Devotion
The moment she hears a commotion, she turns around, facing me. For a moment, her eyes widen, but it’s not the fact that she’s seeing me — it’s the state she’s seeing me in. She takes a couple of steps forward, brow furrowing in confusion.
“Faith,’’ she breathes out, reaching up to touch my cheek. “You’re one of them.’’
I swallow, then nod.
“Did you want to become one?”
“No.’’
A deep sigh of relief comes from her, the tension in her shoulders lessening significantly. Her bright blue eyes bore into mine, and for a couple of moments, she’s silent. She’s observing me, judging even.
Then, she walks past me, shuts the door, and mutters a softspell. It’s one I’ve heard her use before, and she basically makes sure no one would be able to hear us talk outside this room. My eyes fall back on Lucifer, and he looks like he’s just about to wake up from his deep slumber.
“Why did you come here?” I ask, returning my attention to the witch. “More importantly, how?”
Yvonne mulls the answer over in her head, chewing on her bottom lip. She approaches me, and the chain necklaces wrapped around her neck jiggle, the gold glimmering under the candlelight of the basement.
“Sit.’’ She motions toward a chair in the corner, and I don’t know why, but I listen. She returns to stand next to Lucifer, stroking his hair again, but her expression holds no affection. Instead, all I see is pure hatred, her jaw clenches, her hands curling around the strands of his hair.
“Tell me, Yvonne.’’
“By now, I assume you know the past that binds me to these…creatures.’’
I nod. “Yes.’’
“See, when I was looking for a way to reverse the spell — vampirism — or to find a way to permanently kill all seven of them, I stumbled across an old witch.’’
“Older than you?” I ask, cocking my head to the side.
Yvonne turns to look at me. “No, not older than me. She’s about a hundred years younger. You see, the reason I’m immortal is because of the power of my coven. They gave me immortality as a parting gift, so I could be able to seek revenge and successfully end the ones who harmed us. But when they were killed, their spellbooks disappeared, too. That’s why I messed up the spell and turned D’Achille family into vampires. I was a baby witch, and I was doing a complex spell by memory, which, in retrospect, was a terrible idea to begin with.’’
“Did you find the spellbooks?”
She snorts. “No. Then I ran into Lucifer, and the motherfucker was taunting me for weeks before I put him to sleep. And once I was certain he’d be out of my way, I returned home. There was a little gift on my bed, waiting for me.’’
My eyebrows lift to my hairline. “A gift?”
Yvonne hums. “Yes, it came from Lucifer. He sent it before I put him down, but since I wasn’t home, I had no way of seeing it earlier. The motherfucker knew where the spellbooks were.’’
“Why don’t you just wake him up and ask him?”
A deep, chilling laughter comes from Yvonne, but it’s void of any real humor. Her eyes soften, sadness overtaking them. As her gaze dips back down to Lucifer, I see her struggling to keep it all in.
“Because this isn’t just a simple spell, Faith. It’s a curse. And to reverse one, or at least, stop it, takes a lot of sacrifice.’’
“Human sacrifice?”
Yvonne nods. “Curses aren’t natural. They’re created with the darkest, most dangerous magic one could summon. Nature has its way of finding balance. If you want to create one, to undo it, you must sacrifice something else. Oftentimes, it’s either human lives, or the witch’s soul.’’
My eyes fall to my lap. Yvonne is a lot of things, but she isn’t a killer. I don’t even want to know what she must’ve done in order to put Lucifer to sleep, or the price she’d need to pay to wake him up. Whatever it was she’s done, it’s still haunting her, even though it’s been over two hundred years at this point.
“Witches were made by Mother Nature when she needed us the most. We were supposed to be the protectors to restore the balance to the world that the human race has destroyed. All the wars, all the death, all the pain — we were supposed to help the world heal. But when my coven, my family, were killed because of the D’Achilles…’’ Yvonne pauses, jaw clenching, eyes filling with tears of anger. “I forgot my purpose. And it’s catching up with me, Faith.’’
“What do you mean?”
“Karma is a very real thing.’’ She chuckles, turning her back to me to wipe the tears. Yvonne’s always seen crying in front of someone else as one of the biggest weaknesses, and it’s very rare to see her even a little vulnerable.
“I know,’’ I whisper, then clear my throat. “But it doesn’t explain how you came here.’’
