Sacrifice: The Vampire King Series

It has never been my intention to be ‘bad’. Perhaps I don’t always make the best decisions or do the right thing, but it isn’t because my goal is to be evil. I just have a tendency to find myself in precarious situations. And when you’re a witch, these situations happen more often than you’d think. Sometimes the only way out is to do things that maybe aren’t…er, good. Hence, I often have to explain myself. Like now.

“Natalie,” my mother breathes, closing her eyes as if seeking some sort of divine patience. Her elbows rest on the arms of the stiff upholstered chair she occupies on the other side of the table with four other elder witches from our coven, her hands are steepled in front of her as if in prayer. Maybe she really is praying to some divine being. “What happened to Sylvia’s bird?”

I shrug, not really worried about being on this side of the table…again. The damn bird was a nuisance anyway. I’m pretty sure every other witch in our coven besides Sylvia is happy to learn of its demise. “It may have died.”

My mother’s dark eyes open. “It may have died?”

It’s definitely dead. “Well, it wasn’t intentional,” I reply carefully. “More like a casualty of war.”

“Of what war?” my mother asks incredulously, her hands coming to rest on the polished oak table.

Ugh, this is where it was going to get ugly and I’m likely going to get in trouble. There is no good explanation for the events leading up to the bird’s death given I had simply not listened to my mother. But I’ve learned less is more in these situations. Sometimes you can simply wear out your interrogator by only supplying the simplest of answers.

“The bird was injured by the poltergeist.”

She gapes at me for a moment, as do the other elders. Sylvia, who is not yet an elder, but sits nearby holding a box decorated in oriental symbols on her lap, lets out a pitiful sob.

“A poltergeist?” repeats my mother. “What poltergeist? Where is there a poltergeist?”

“In the attic.”

My less than detailed reponses are triggering my mother’s temper and being the newest elder, I can see her struggling to keep a calm demeanor in front of the others. At any moment I anticipate Anna, the oldest of the elders sitting to my mother’s right, will lightly touch her hand and remind her to breathe. My mother must anticipate this happening too, for she pauses for a moment, and I can see her chest slowly rise as she inhales.

“Natalie, how did a poltergeist get in the attic?”

“It escaped from the Ouija board,” I answer as if it was the most obvious explanation in the world.

My mother stiffens. “What Ouija board? The Ouija board I specifically told you not to touch?”

Er, yep, that’s the one. Why is it that something gets increasing more interesting when one is told not to touch it? It’s not like I immediately touched it like a defiant child. I hadn’t seen the board in years. I came across it quite by accident. I don’t know why the elders thought putting it in the attic where anyone could find it was a good idea. It’s not like they kept it under lock and key like they should have.

I tilt my head to one side. “You never mentioned it is a portal to hell.”

My mother’s hands fly in the air. “You weren’t supposed to touch it!”

“It was in the way!”

“In the way of what? What were you doing in the attic in the first place?”

Anna gently pats my mother’s shoulder, murmuring something meant to be calming in my mother’s ear, but it does nothing to stop the fire flashing in my mother’s eyes. Yikes, I might really be in trouble. Fortunately, I’ve inherited my father’s calmer disposition and am able to maintain a façade of cool indifference, as if the fact that I accidentally opened a portal to hell that released a poltergeist is no big deal. It definitely is, but my mother doesn’t need to know that. I got rid of the beastly thing and I’m ninety percent sure the portal is closed.

I hope.

“My athame is missing and I was looking for another one,” I confess.

Of all the things I just told the elders, it is this admission that causes them all to look at me in disbelief.

“You lost your athame?” Anna asks in a hushed voice.

It requires a lot of control not to roll my eyes because I’m pretty sure it was her bitch granddaughter, Kimberly, who took it. Kimberly has deemed herself Queen Bee, or Queen Bitch Witch as I prefer to call her, around the coven house amongst the younger generation. Kimberly claims her family has never diluted their ancestorial bloodlines by marrying outsiders.

However, my mother married an ordinary human guy who immigrated from Poland with my grandparents when he was six. Apparently, this is why my powers didn’t reveal themselves until I was nearly twelve, which in terms of witchcraft is latent and therefore has earned me Kimberly’s scorn and ridicule. And since no Queen Bee is without her drones, acceptance among my witch ‘sisters’ has been minimal at best.

I’ve been living at the Coven House for the past four years trying to catch up on mastering my powers while balancing high school. I graduated from high school three weeks ago and my final initiation test for the coven is in two weeks and without an athame, I’m screwed.

“I didn’t lose it – it was taken,” I clarify, looking straight at Anna. But it’s pointless. She is oblivious to her granddaughter’s bullying. “Someone took it from my things at the last meeting. I was looking for another one to practice with.”

You’d think taking the initiative to find a replacement athame would earn me some bonus points, but nope – the whole accidentally-opening-a-portal-to-hell seems to have overridden that. The elders, which only recently included my mother upon my grandmother’s passing, is now abuzz with discussing my lost athame and the Ouija board. At least this has distracted them from the poltergeist and dead bird.

I squirm impatiently on the hard wooden chair I currently occupy. The humidity of July makes the back of my legs stick to the uncomfortable chair. The white leotard I’m wearing with high waisted jean shorts has shifted uncomfortably and I’m resisting the urge to pull at the wedgie it’s giving me. Instead, I tousle my honey brown hair and flip it back over my shoulder.

“Natalie,” my mother begins with a sigh.

But she is interrupted by a bloodcurdling shriek from outside the room. Everyone, including myself, springs to their feet and rushes out to the foyer. Kimberly and two of her friends, come flying down the stairs with their hands over their heads attempting to protect themselves from the objects being thrown at them from an unseen source. Above us comes a ruckus of unnatural proportions.

Shit! How did that poltergeist get back out? Maybe I didn’t seal the portal as well as I thought.

The elder witches cast blocking spells, protecting us from the flying debris. You’d think, for all her bragging, that Kimberly could have done that herself, but she cowers behind her grandmother. Rolling my eyes, I draw energy from the earth, cast a field of protection around me, and run up the stairs.

“Natalie!” my mother cries with exasperation, chasing after me. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I need to close that portal!” I yell back over my shoulder as I reach the second floor and turn right towards the attic steps. The poltergeist is at the opposite end of the hall, its blank, gleaming eyes are as freaky as hell.

“You can’t close that portal alone!” my mother informs me. “You can’t summon that much energy on your own!”

She’s right about that. And apparently sacrificing that bird didn’t provide enough energy either. This is going to require a bigger sacrifice. Of course, sacrificial magic isn’t allowed in the Coven House, but I can’t help but wonder where the house cat is. Likely hiding and hissing under a sofa somewhere.

The cat turns out not to be necessary. The elders summon all the witches in the house to the attic. We cram into the small space around the Ouija board that sits on the floor. It’s once solid surface wavers like simmering oil. Below us the poltergeist continues to wreak havoc as we join hands.

“Wait, don’t we need to get the poltergeist back in?” I ask.

My mother shakes her head. “It gets its energy from the portal. Cut off the portal and you cut off its lifeline.”

Oh. Given how Kimberly rolls her eyes, I probably should have known that. Likely in one of those boring old books about the histroy of the supernatural that my mother gave and I stuffed under my bed. If it doesn't contain spells, I don't read it.

When the sisters of the coven join hands and simultaneously draw power from the natural elements from world around us – the warm summer air, the earth, the light of the sun – the rush of power that flows between us is intense. It starts as a mere heat between our joined hands but then flows through our bodies, up one arm and down the other, in an endless circle of energy, of power. In my mind it moves like liquid gold but in reality it is unseen, only felt. The power surges through me, my body a mere vessel, but the rush is amazing. Addicting.

I spent most of my childhood imagining myself to be extraordinary. Craving more than Barbie dolls or play kitchens. My roller blades were by far my favorite toy because I loved feeling the rush of wind lift my hair off my shoulders and flying out behind me. I loved being able to manipulate how fast I could go and the dizzy sensation from spinning. When I discovered my powers inherited through generations of witches, I was ecstatic. I knew I was never meant to be ordinary. Finding out I was a few years behind my witch sisters was daunting only for a moment or two, for I was fiercely determined to learn as much as I could. So yeah, I may have made a few blunders along the way and caused more trouble than my mother would like, but it is undeniable that I have caught up to my witch sisters despite my limited number of years and I have every intention of surpassing them.

With or without my athame.

***

Once the portal is sealed, the coven house still vibrates from the amount of energy and power we pulled in. Candles randomly light in various rooms. Books spontaneously fly open. Doors open and shut for no reason. Feathers, cups, dishes, even the muffins Sarah made earlier levitate in the air. No one is purposely manipulating any of them, it’s just the residue aftermath of using so much power.

I coast around on the lingering high of using so much magic, plucking one of the muffins from midair and taking it to my room to continue studying for my initiation. I ignore the snide comments Kimberly makes as I pass her in the hallway and duck into the small bedroom in the back of the house that I’ve shared with Erica since I moved into the Coven house.

Erica is visiting her family for the weekend, so I have the room to myself. I flop down on the bottom bunk with my grimoire and the fire spell book I’ve been studying. It’s not a book on how to start fires, but a book of spells that work best when you draw power from fire elements. I eat the blueberry muffin and scribble notes in my grimoire. The red leather book is fiery, just like me. One day, I have every intention of dying my hair as red as the book when my mother isn’t looking.

I’m experimenting with a particular spell for repairing glass by drawing energy from the candles I’ve lit on the table next to my bed when my mother appears in the doorway.

“Natalie.”

There’s a somber note in her voice that catches my attention. I look up warily. “Yeah?”

“We’re going home.”

“What?”

She steps into the room. “You’ve been suspended from the Coven House.”