Page 3 of Soul of a Witch

Turning my back on the city so many had died for, I trudged on. There was a voice in my head, screaming my name like an endless echo. The cries of my warriors were trapped within my own mind.

Amid the swirling smoke ahead, a figure appeared.

It was a woman. Not a demon, not a beast. A mortal woman, with long blonde hair that was damp and dirty. She wore boots and trousers, but the make of her clothing was unlike anything I’d seen on Earth or in Hell. Her head was bowed, her shoulders hunched as she clutched at her side.

I sniffed the air.

Blood, sugary sweet, spring berries and honey, nectar on my tongue…

She was a witch.

Witches only sought demons for one purpose — to control us. They would force us to bend to their will if they could discover our true name.

Something about this witch was familiar. Like the face of an old friend, warped by time. But that was impossible. I did not keep company with witches.

Then she lifted her head and looked at me. Her eyes glittered like sapphires, bright and beautiful amid so much gore. We faced each other in silence across the open field, her scent wafting over me like a heady perfume.

Intoxicating, irresistible, the most alluring ambrosia.

Then she spoke, and my entire world changed.

“Callum…please…help me…”

2

Everly

Earth — 7 Years Ago

It was forty minutes after midnight when the shout came through the trees. “We found her! She’s alive! We found Juniper!”

Members of the search party cheered and hugged. Many of them rushed forward, eager to see the missing girl. The distant wail of an ambulance reached my ears, but with it came another sound.

Juniper’s screams carried far ahead of her, shaking the excitement of those who had searched this forest for two days in hopes of finding her alive.

My mother stood nearby with her arm around a thirteen-year-old Marcus Kynes. Juniper’s mother hadn’t come out to search for her, but her younger brother had. His eyes were wide, his hands shoved into the pockets of his blue windbreaker.

“Is she hurt?” He appeared torn between running toward the screaming and fleeing in the opposite direction. “Why is she screaming like that?”

Mama’s gaze met mine. But she looked away again, swallowing hard as she squeezed Marcus’s shoulder. A wave of nausea roiled through my stomach, forcing me to close my eyes and count to ten as I took a slow breath.

Did Mama still have Juniper’s blood under her nails? Or had she washed it all away, scrubbed clean like the church’s wooden floors?

Juniper was wrapped in a heavy blanket as she walked between two men, her arms gripped so she couldn’t thrash away from them. People murmured as they stared at her wide eyes and bloody chest.

“She cut herself,” someone whispered behind me. “I’ve always said the Kynes family isn’t right. Drug addicts, all of them.”

That was the rumor we had been instructed to spread: Juniper had done this to herself. She was a crazy girl from an even crazier family.

Any accusations she made couldn’t be believed.

“Monsters!” Juniper screamed. She fought her rescuers as if they were the very monsters she spoke of, throwing herself to the ground and staring back into the trees. “There are monsters! In the trees! They…they came out of the ground…the mine!” She screamed again, clawing at their hands to pry them off. The ambulance had arrived, and the EMTs had a stretcher ready. One of them prepared a syringe, and Juniper balked, staring at the needle with renewed horror. “No! Get that thing away from me! Stop…stop!”

I clenched my hands tight behind my back. Merciful God, why did shelive?

Juniper’s eyes were drooping, her shouting growing weak. Then her gaze fell on me. She raised a trembling finger, and my stomach twisted when I realized her nail had been ripped off.

“You were there,” she said. She tried to lunge for me, but her legs gave out. The EMTs had to lift her from the ground. Even with her body betraying her, Juniper kept fighting. “You were there, Everly! You saw…tell them…tell them, please!”

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