sound of voices stirs me from unconsciousness. A sharp pain throbs in my skull and the blood pounding through my ears is deafening. As I try to move I realise that I can’t. My hands are tied behind my back by rope that pinches tightly into my wrists.
Then I hear a cry. A scared little whimper that has my head up and every one of my senses on high alert. I blink the world into focus.
And my eyes land on Callie straight away.
She’s sat in front of me on her knees, dressed in her little nightdress, filthy with dirt. Her hands are tied behind her back and there’s a gag in her mouth. Tears stream down her frightened face as she trembles all over.
I fill with ravenous wrath when I notice the bruise on her cheek.
Her eyes are on me. She’s calling for me, her words stolen by that rag between her lips. Desperately, she pulls at the rope keeping her tethered to a pillar of stone.
Not just any stone.
To what remains of the final Bloodstone. I look up and all around.
‘Shit…’ I hiss, pulling against the ropes once more.
We’re in the same place the vision showed me. The same place I saw myself die.
To make matters worse, we’re not alone.
Surrounding us all, encircling us, are ten others. They’re all in long robes with hoods covering their faces. Their hands are together as if in prayer and they hold deep red candles.
I try to go to Callie, but I’m trapped too, tied to a pole with my hands bound behind my back. I try to call my magic, but it doesn’t come.
‘I wouldn’t bother trying to get free.’
The sound of footsteps in the dirt moves closer. I look up as Clara plants herself before me with a disgustingly smug grin.
‘Those ropes are tied tight, and thanks to your incredibly generous assistance, you solved our problem of how to contain your magic. I thank you for making your own binding spell. I would not have known how to make one myself. Sadly, trapping magic was never a part of my education. Quite the opposite, in fact.’
She peers over my shoulder with a self-assured smirk. I look and see the small binding spell I made at the side of the river wrapped firmly around my wrist.
When I try to speak, my words are muffled.
Clara kneels and slides the gag down, freeing my mouth.
‘What the fuck are you doing?!’ I demand, rage shaking my words and panic surging through my veins. ‘Where are the others? What have you done to them? Let us go. Right now, or-’
‘Or what?’ she scoffs. ‘I’m sorry. But you are not going to do a thing.’ She taps the end of my nose. ‘Not a damn thing.’
Thrashing, I try to bite her fucking finger clean off. She merely laughs and gets to her feet, kicking a load of dirt and dust at me as she does.
Clara strolls away towards an altar type of table beside the Bloodstone and Callie.
I look at Callie and do my best to smile. The sheer terror on her face… it breaks my heart into pieces as she glances at all those who stand around us.
‘Look at me, baby girl. You look at me. Listen. You are going to be fine, okay? You’ll be absolutely fine. I promise.’
‘Don’t be making promises you can’t keep, Arcane.’ The low voice that echoes around the chamber is familiar. From behind comes another.
He stops and flashes me a wink.
‘Ash,’ I snarl, watching him stride towards his mother.
At his hip, tucked into his belt, is the scythe.
‘I swear,’ I warn. ‘If either of you hurt a single hair on my daughter’s head, I will skin you both alive. You will wish you were never fucking born!’
Ash chuckles darkly as he carries on towards Clara.
On the altar is a large chalice and a bloodied bowl beside it.
Clara starts grinding up whatever is in the bowl. The crunching mixes with a wet squelching as she works.
‘Why are you doing this?’ I ask, pulling once more at my bindings. ‘What do you want?’
‘What do I want?’ Ash asks, almost shocked that I would ask such a foolish question. He turns to face me and shakes his head with a disbelieving grimace. ‘I want what I’m due.’ He points to himself. His grimace turning into an angry sneer. ‘What I’m entitled to. What is rightfully mine!’
‘More power? Is that all you want, huh? Being in the Council not enough for you? Pathetic.’
‘You don’t recognise me?’ he asks. ‘I don’t look familiar?’
‘You look like a psycho. A soon-to-be-dead psycho,’ I spit back.
‘So I do look familiar then,’ he laughs. ‘I take it your precious mother never mentioned me then?’
‘My mother?’
‘Yes. The dead psycho. Did she ever mention me?’
‘No. But then, as you said. Dead. And a psycho. Who the fuck are you?’
‘I’m you,’ he shrugs. ‘Or… I should have been. Everything you have should have been mine by right. Your magic. Your power. Your position-’
‘I have no fucking idea who you are, and I don’t care. Let us go, and I promise I won’t kill you.’
‘No one is going anywhere until I get what I want.’ He looks around him proudly. ‘And you are all going to give it to me. Every single one of you.’
I follow his gaze.
Fuck!
Six others are sprawled out in perfect symmetry, lying still and silent. The five missing witches.
And Gabriel.
‘What have you done to them?’ I ask. Their eyes flicker open occasionally, but they don’t move a muscle.
‘A simple enough remedy,’ he shrugs. ‘Paralyzes them. Makes them compliant.’
‘You’re the one that brought their disappearance to our attention. Why bother if you’re the one who took them?’ I stare at Gabriel, wishing his eyes would open.
‘The rest of the Council discovered it and brought it to me,’ Ash groans. ‘If I’d have hidden it, I would have looked suspicious. So I had to play along.’ He faces me once more and continues to sneer. ‘It should have been mine. You don’t deserve all you have.’ His eyes narrow. ‘That’s about to change.’
‘And about time too,’ comes another voice.
Her voice is soft. And it’s one I know well. One I thought had died back in the human world. There are slow and purposeful footsteps, and I watch as she walks around me, placing herself at Ash’s side. Her snide smile is just as I remember it. And I hate it just as much now as I ever did.
‘Lilly Hooper takes what she wants and cares not one bit who she hurts in the process. She destroys the lives of others and tears them into tiny pieces. It’s about time she got a taste of her own medicine.’
‘Ava Sinclair,’ I snarl, loathing every single fucking breath she takes.
‘The one and only,’ she grins, flicking her greasy blonde hair over her shoulder and clinging to Ash’s arm. She’s so thin, I can see her bones protruding through her skin, and her eyes are sunken and dry. She’s a far cry from the preened princess I knew. ‘Did you miss me?’
‘I thought you were dead.’
‘You killed me once. I learnt my lesson. Once I got my memories back, I made damn sure I was nowhere near you when you came to finish that spell.’
As she recalls her past, I see a flicker of fear in her eyes.
‘How are those memories treating you?’ I ask. ‘I wonder, which one is your favourite? When I made you drink Hendrix’s piss? When I gutted you like a fish and left your insides on your outside? Or when I made you watch as you heard the truth about Toby Smith and how little you meant to him?’
Her eye twitches.
‘I admit I am happy it turned out this way,’ Ava snarls through clenched teeth. ‘I was there when your first child died. Now I get to watch you suffer that torture all over again when brat number two gets what’s coming to her.’
Ava glances back at Callie before settling her gaze on me.
I don’t know what’s worse. The fear, or the rage that stirs at something dark, deep inside me.
Ava smiles up at Ash, just as she used to with Toby.
I shake my head. ‘Trust you to latch onto another lunatic.’
Clara gently laughs, still grinding up whatever is in that bowl. ‘We are not lunatics, Lilly.’ She lifts her head proudly. ‘We are visionaries. You and the rest of your so-called Coven. You’re primitive. You lack vision. Courage. Creativity.’
‘Is that so?’ I scoff back.
‘Extremely so. Yes. But then, your people always were so scared to push themselves. Terrified to accept your full potential. So closed-minded to the possibilities around you all.’
I look at the bowl with blood dripping down the sides.
‘You work with Blood magic. Dark Magic. Your ways were destroyed. Your Coven was decimated.’
‘Yes. Before the Veil cut us all off, my Coven worshipped the Blood magics. Embraced it. Used it to make us strong. Make us mighty. We connected with the Arcane Realm in a way you could never comprehend, and your people punished my people for it. As you said, they decimated us. And because they decimated us, they allowed the humans to defeat witches. We would never have lost the war with the humans if we were there to fight. But you did to us what the humans did to you. And it’s payback time, Lilly. We are rebuilding our numbers.’ She gestures to the hooded figures stood around us. ‘Those you stole from the human world have joined our ranks against you. Well, some of them at least,’ she adds. ‘But with our promises, more will join our ranks.’
‘The Stolen?’ I stare hatefully at the hooded figures. ‘You scream and shout about how much you hate magic, and you join a Dark Magic coven? Why?’
‘They wish to return home. You refuse to send them, so we will. In exchange for their services, of course.’
‘The Veil is sealed. I cannot open it.’ I look at those surrounding us. ‘It’s impossible. Whatever lies they have told you, whatever promises they have made about sending you back, I am telling you that it can’t be done.’
‘It can. And it will. It’s time for us to take back our rightful place as the superior witch.’ Clara looks at her son with pride. ‘With an Arcane Witch, powerful enough to tear down the walls your ancestors built, to lead us.’
‘Him?’ I scoff. ‘You think your son can be an Arcane? Are you delusional? Do you know what an Arcane even is? How they’re made?’
‘Better than you could ever grasp,’ Clara hisses hatefully. ‘After all, how do you think it came to be that Hooper’s have access to all seven realms of power?’
‘You were made, Lilly,’ Ava sings cruelly. ‘The very first Arcane Witch was made with Dark Magic. With Blood and sacrifice. Your ancestors were part of Clara’s ancestors’ coven, and when their creation was discovered by great, great, great grandaddy Kendryk, he slaughtered the entire Coven and stole her for himself. For his coven. To further his power and strength.’ Ava giggles like a little psycho, bouncing on the balls of her feet. ‘You’re the offspring of Josiah Theydon. He unlocked his bloodline magic as well as his daughter’s. She was the first Hooper Witch.’
‘Am I supposed to care?’ I reply. ‘I don’t give a shit where I came from. I’m here now and I’m not going anywhere. This is your last chance. Let us go. You will never get what you want. It’s impossible. You can’t access all seven realms of power. You will never be an Arcane.’
‘An Arcane Witch carries within them the seven realms of power,’ Clara replies. ‘But to be able to access that power, they must have a child with another witch whom they love and love back.’ She turns to Ash, who hasn’t stopped glaring murderously at me this whole time. ‘But what happens when a Hooper child is born to a loveless union? When a lunatic, desperate for a child with magic, whores her way around the Nomad camp and pushes out a child born without even a hint of love?’
I look at Ash.
‘There’s no way…’ I whisper. ‘No… no way!’
‘I was six when our mother gave up trying to make my magic come through.’ Ash lifts his shirt, showing deep scars on his belly. He turns and reveals countless more on his back. ‘He faces me again. ‘She gave birth to me in a shack, in the middle of the woods. Pushed me out and kept me alive. That was it. No love. No kindness. Nothing except pain and torment from my first memory to my last as she tried to get my magic to come through. She left me when it became clear I was not what she wanted. Locked me in that shack. Boarded up the windows. And left to try again. She left to have you.’ His face contorts in hate. ‘I WAS SIX AND SHE LEFT ME THERE TO STARVE!!’
‘I didn’t know that. And if you think she was any kinder to me, then you’re painfully wrong. She tried to kill me. She hurt me too. She was insane!’
‘I found him,’ Clara says, ignoring my words. ‘As I was scavenging in the woods for berries, I came across the cabin and heard him scratching at the door. My Coven, if you could call us that, lived a few miles away. We took him in. The Hooper child abandoned by his mother. Such possibility lay within him. Such potential. To those who know how to harness such gifts, he was a miracle.’ She dips her finger into the concoction and puts it in her mouth, sucking it clean. ‘To take the life source from another and harness it, gives a power you white witches could never comprehend. My coven barely survived your butchery, but we did survive. Our ancestors passed on their knowledge even after the Veil was put up. They taught all there was to know about our ways. We kept the practice alive, knowing one day, we would have that power once more. Knowledge I shared with my adopted son. A Hooper witch by blood.’
‘Your way is evil. You slaughter for your own gain and turn your souls and the world around you black in the process.’
‘Coming from you, that’s hysterical,’ Ava retorts. ‘The Broken Arcane.’
‘Ava told us you were quite the serial killer back in the day.’ Ash adds.
Ava turns to Callie. ‘Did you know that, sweetheart? About your precious mummy-’
‘You don’t get to talk to her!’ I spit, burning hot with hatred. ‘You don’t even get to look at her!’
Callie’s eyes refuse to leave me. Even as the others speak and walk around, she looks at nothing else but me.
‘Our mother was not right in the head,’ I try again, hoping to reach Ash somehow. ‘What she did to you does not have to define you. I didn’t let it define me!’ I’ll say anything at this stage to get Callie out of here. ‘You and I. We’re family. We’re half brother and sister.’ I nod at Callie. ‘She’s your niece! You don’t have to do whatever that woman wants you to do.’ I nod towards Clara. ‘And trust me. Ava is a hundred shades of fucking mental. She loves no one but a monster who died years ago.’
‘I love Ash now.’
‘You love causing pain and misery.’ I turn back to Ash. ‘We have a new life here. We have freedom and safety for the first time in centuries. Don’t destroy it after everything it took to get here.’
‘I’m not going to destroy anything,’ he says plainly, crouching down so he’s eye level with me. It takes all I have not to spit in his face. ‘The Arcane Realm will thrive, as will the witches within it. None so much as my Coven who have lived in hiding for so long. I will be their leader. I will create peace and order. I will get what I deserve and avenge those who were murdered all those years ago.’
‘And I will be at his side,’ Ava declares, thrusting out her chest and standing tall.
Ash leans in close. ‘You, with your perfect family. Doted on by your people. Admired and celebrated for nothing more than being born lucky.’
‘Lucky?’ I whisper before bursting into laughter. ‘Lucky?! Do you think anything about my life has been lucky? You have no idea the hell I have been through. And I will not stand by and let you take control over this realm. Not with your poisonous magic that destroys and kills the innocent.’ I look at Ava. ‘And not with her.’
‘No. You won’t stand by. Because you won’t be here.’ He stands and pulls out his scythe. I watch it closely, recalling my vision.
But he turns and goes to the altar, collecting the chalice.
‘It’s time for me to take my rightful place as the one and only Arcane.’ He stands over one of the witches lying on the floor. ‘With their death brings life to my dormant powers. Let’s start with Elemental.’ He kneels beside the man at his feet, who groans in terror, helpless and unable to move.
‘Callie! Close your eyes, baby. Close them and keep them shut!’ I tell her.
My sweet girl does as she’s told.
Ash starts to speak archaic words as he cuts the man’s throat and holds the chalice at his neck.
He walks away, leaving him to choke on his blood, and makes his way to the next one. All the while, Ava dances and claps her hands like a child.
Ash continues to mutter his words, casting his spell, and does the same to the next person. He slices deep and collects the blood as it spills furiously from their bodies.
And then the next, and the next.
I pull, and I pull at my ropes. I feel my bones strain and crunch. My skin bleeds as I struggle.
No matter what I do, I can’t get free.
As the blood seeps from his victims, it trails in the dirt, moving with purpose. It forms a shape.
A seven-pointed star.
Just as it did in my vision.
He’s killed five.
There is one more before it will be my turn to die.
He stands over Gabriel.
‘The only witch left, except yourself, of course, Lilly, to wield Mental magic,’ Ash says in a chilling calm, watching me closely as he rests the blade at Gabriel’s throat.
Gabriel’s eyes land on mine.
‘Don’t.’ I pull against the ropes. ‘Don’t! PLEASE!’
Ash smirks, and he cuts.
I scream like a wild beast torn in two as Gabriel’s blood spills down his front.
Ash collects his blood before dropping Gabriel carelessly back to the floor.
Gabriel looks at Callie.
My eyes land on our daughter, who still has her eyes scrunched closed.
I tried so hard to keep her safe. To protect her from harm and danger. To protect them all.
Ash stands beside me and wraps his fingers in my hair before tugging it tightly.
I watch the blood from the others continue to meld, forming that star around the Bloodstone and Callie.
With a blink, I look into Ash’s eyes. Hot tears blur my vision as I meet his stare.
‘The blood, all taken from those who wield one of the seven realms, mixed with the remains of the unborn unicorn, will awaken my dormant realms of power. It will bring life to the Arcane bloodline I inherited from my bitch of a mother, the power which refused to come forth because I was born without the bond of love. The bond between mother and child.’ He looks at the bloody bowl his mother places at his feet. The one filled with pulverised flesh and bone from the stolen unicorn foetus. ‘There’s nothing more powerful. And harnessing it is something you will never forget until you die. Which for you, is in about ten seconds.’
‘What about my daughter? Why is she here? You don’t need her. Let her go!’
‘I need an Arcane to keep on hand. Kept safe. Kept close. Kept so I can keep my access to the Arcane Realm alive forever. You see, dear sister. There is a special place, another realm if you like, where Dark Magic dwells. Just as the Arcane Realm gives magic to you and your kind, this realm feeds our magic. I hear it’s quite the living hell. My lovely niece will be kept there, locked up nice and tight for the rest of time, so I can access her power whenever I want. It’s the only downside to this type of magic. It’s powerful, yes. More powerful than you could ever imagine. But it demands a sacrifice. It demands blood. So every time I perform this ritual, revitalising the magic you are all about to give me, I must make an offering. And Callie here will be the battery that charges the Dark Realm, boosting my Arcane gene into life.’ He leans down and sneers the words. ‘I don’t need love to give me power. You and your daughter, along with all your weak and pathetic people, will give me all I fucking need.’
I look at Callie, still tied to that Bloodstone. Trapped.
Doomed.
And I look at Gabriel, bleeding to death at my side.
A sharp sting erupts over my throat. Warm liquid gushes down my front.
Ash lets my head go. It lolls forwards and I watch the deep red of my blood pour down my chest. He rests the chalice close and captures some before collecting the bowl and walking away to the Bloodstone.
My blood pools around me. My life slowly ebbs further and further from my grasp. My ears ring. My vision starts to fade.
I blink.
I take a strained breath, and I whisper one final word.
‘Callie…’
