Page 11 of The Powerless Witch

Desperate. Drained. Dying.

I looked down at the wound, waiting for it to heal itself. I needed to get back, needed to save my family, to punish Medina and Noah. I needed to do it now.

“Why am I not healing?” I asked when he stepped back. The ground shook, and the earth beneath me shifted like there was an earthquake coming. “What is…going on?”

“Your body is too damaged,” the demon replied with a light smile.“You will return to the earth to heal so you might rise again stronger. And when you do, you will be given free rein to fulfill your part of the bargain.”

“No!” I gasped in horror while my legs sunk into the soil that seemed to have turned as soft as quicksand. I tried to crawl out, but I could barely move, barely speak. “That’s not the deal! I need time…now!”

The demon winced, his shoulders caving in. The dirt was already by my neck when he met my eyes. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, unfastening his fingers just a bit to look at the bright light trapped within. “I’ll see you again in Hell.”

I opened my mouth to tell him to wait, but earth filled it, pushing down my throat and sliding over my eyes as something dragged me down, down, down where death—and new life—awaited.

Chapter 4

Roman

This made no sense.

I threw the manila folder on the table, not even caring that the papers scattered all over the untidy surface. Running a hand over my face, I took a deep breath and released it slowly. Even after all this time, I couldn’t get rid of this pointless habit, only getting more frustrated when it didn’t calm me like the humans claimed it did for them.

My eyes landed on the picture of the hunter lying right in the middle of the mess, his tattoos stark against his skin. His hair was matted to his head, his shirt torn while he pressed a hand to his neck where blood was sipping from his fingers. The last picture we got of him before he disappeared without a trace that night.

I had my suspicions that a witch had helped him get out of there so quickly, but I still couldn’t figure out how it was all connected. Taking all those people hostage couldn’t have been a lure for Celeste. She cared, but only when there was a personal stake for her or someone asked for aid. After years of being blamed for trying to help, she had stopped meddling. So, taking those young wolves and Fae had to be for a different reason.

To provoke their kinds? To incite them to attack? To weaken them? It could be all of those or neither.

But this man, this witch hunter, his target had been Celeste from the start. The way he flaunted her medallion—it had been a challenge. According to Kevin and Julia, even when she had the upper hand, Celeste couldn’t harm him. But that made no sense. If he wore some kind of protection, then why didn’t the other hunters wear the same? Celeste hadn’t attacked the hunter with magic. She had done it with a normal blade. Why did it stop her, but not Isaac? I saw the bite; I smelled the blood.

Unless…it wasn’t a protection against witches, but something more specific.

Sitting up straighter, I grabbed my half-closed laptop, settling it on top of the mess of papers. I closed the windows I had been sifting through for the last twelve hours and logged into the government database, clicking on the search.

During the Samhain ball, Celeste had said that she had gotten her medallion in return for an oath to the Castle bloodline. The woman we met was called Mariam, but what about her ancestor? Wincing, I shifted through my long memory until I found what I was looking for.

Moira Castle.That had been the name.

I hit the search button, gritting my teeth as pages after pages of names appeared before me. I tried narrowing the search by adding the years she would have been alive before Celeste died, then the area she would have lived in if she were part of the Coven of the Silver Flame. The list dwindled until, finally, I found her.

I skimmed through the details of her birth and death, fake for sure, since I doubted a witch could die ofnaturalcauses at the ripe age of sixty-seven. I clicked on what I was really looking for.

Her descendants.

Scanning the listings, I soon found the file on her granddaughter, Mariam Castle, with information about her birth, her address, and even the schools she went to as she grew up.

Exemplary student. Valedictorian of her year. Full scholarship in science and robotics. Mariam certainly followed her grandmother’s path, even if she took a more modern approach.

Still, something felt off. Mariam looked young, but there had been something in her eyes the night we met, something old and sinister that didn’t belong there. It had set me on edge back then; it was driving me mad now.

I clicked on the file of her mother, Malia, scanning through her information. She had lived almost eighty years according to the database, then died quietly on her deathbed. Funny how they all died in peace when they were such chaos-bringers in life.

Malia had three children. Well, two, since one of them was marked as dead.

Two boys and a girl, where one of the boys had died at birth forty years ago. Maybe it had been a male witch who they had to kill—the one rule all Covens agreed on and enforced reverently, and for a good reason. But with technology advancing so fast and magic evolving, they had become…a little more progressive.

Male offspring were still terminated, but only after it was confirmed they had powers. And that wasn’t hard to do considering the moment the baby boy developed a pulse and brain, it started channeling subconsciously, often increasing the mother’s magic abilities tenfold. Yet, with so many witch descendants being born without a spark of power, killing a boy who couldn’t even light a candle was pointless.

Or maybe he had been just a regular stillborn. Either way, I had no interest in the dead. Mariam’s younger brother was another story, however.