Detective Witch (Devil's Witch Book 2)
Chapter 24-The Experiment

at’s okay, I think I’ll walk.” I say quietly feeling both disturbed and scared.

A large gust of wind howls outside and I can see the shine of ice on the sidewalk. He walks ahead of me outside and I follow him.

Nick puts his hands on his waist and walks up to the black truck seeing Will in there waiting for me. He didn’t tell me he was coming to pick me up.

“It’s much warmer in here than out there.” Will says loudly and feeling nervous, I look anywhere, but at him. He knows we agreed to give each other some space this week and it’s only Tuesday.

“I’m walking home tonight, Will.” I say weakly.

“Really? Oh. Well, I don’t see why you’d want to walk in this weather and time of night.” He laughs lightly.

Nick walks back to his own car and leans against it watching us.

Feeling very alone, I look up at Will’s expectant stare and step toward his truck. Beth sits in the seat behind him and rolls her window down giving me an encouraging smile.

Not wanting to make Will come here for nothing I walk around the truck to get in.

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Yansmen

The crescent moon shines into the church around the altar, cascading down and around the room in a gloomy red hue from the painted glass artwork in the large church windows. Kneeling and handcuffed, the witches wait in front of the stage behind the altar for their penance.

Women and men, both all in the coven and both all found to be plotting to hurt Valerie. Noctus asked us to handle them before he gets here tonight. I’m sure he would have liked to be here. It kind of takes away the fun without him. Kind of gloomy too. Ever since he had to go all the way up to Vermont for the court appearance our strength has greatly weakened.

They have made us vulnerable.

“No loyal in faith.” Heinrich states sharply from the church stage while pointing his gun down at them. The coven members face him, panicking seeing his weapon pulled from its holster and aimed at them.

We won’t be using guns tonight. They are too loud and anyone standing outside the church walls would hear.

Some of the witches below him cry and beg for mercy or forgiveness. The others scream empty threats at us. Little do they know, we do not hold such sympathies towards their chosen actions. They do not belong in our society. They refuse to get along with us and, by doing so, have willingly ruined their own communities.

We have reached our limit.

The last guilty coven member is finally brought in. It’s a middle-aged warlock. He’s being dragged in by the foot, crawling and screaming as Johnny steadily strides up to the other blindfolded and handcuffed coven members.

“P-please! No!” The man screams as Johnny forces him to his knees next to the others. Johnny stands back up and steps backward until he reaches my side where the rest of us stand behind our new sacrifices. Starved and deprived of nourishment, we’ll all surely go home full tonight.

None of them are going to walk free from this like Amelia Hooser did.

I wince briefly after cutting my palm open with my butcher knife. Holding my wrist of my newly wounded hand, I watch the blood pour above and onto the witch’s head in front of me. They are nothing, less than animals to us and must be used to symbolize our new reckoning.

Now that savior has unified his magic we have more power than the blood oath alone would permit us. His magic is connected to us by blood and although we may not be able to use magic directly, our strength and senses are heightened.

Only after a good feed though.

In one swift motion, we cut their throats and dive for their blood. All of us losing track of time getting our own highs off the thrill of the kill for not all die instantly and some must be eaten alive. A metallic smell fills the air as we step away from our finished meals. Getting to work, we pick up the blood-stained bones and carefully align them in an upside-down star.

We move the church pews back against the walls while Heinrich pours a black vase full of gasoline and some chemical component onto the carefully placed bones.

By the time we finish moving the pews, the pentagram we made has been lit on fire. Patiently, we wait for the bones to become charred and turn to ash. When they do, we sweep up the ashes and pull the pews over the new mark burned into the floor. The symbol is old, older than Noctus. The coven has their own form of representation, but we want our own now too.

Noctus said his father believed in the necessary separation of humans and supernaturals. Even more so, the superiority of vampires over all other supernaturals and humans. It was the only thing he agreed with his father about.

His father was forced into the war with Heinrich’s own father at the time. I’m not sure which side of the war they were on, but Heinrich said it was the second world war. They were over in Germany and that’s where Noctus’s father became awakened to vampire supremacy. At any rate, once the war ended, his family moved to the states where the coven waited to greet our kind. After years of hiding, his father formed together with other like-minded vampires and formed his own new identity.

For hundreds of years, history has written us off as mindless monsters. The coven specifically wants to erase us from the planet claiming us a threat. The werewolves are still on the fence and the humans will side with whichever supernatural holds the moral high ground. The governor understands this, that is why he has graciously given us our new uniforms and equipment.

We have a new identity here and have designed our own beliefs and created new meaning. We refuse to ignore the mistakes of our ancestors and hide in the shadows while our true worth and existence get erased at the expense of those in power. This symbol embodies our core values. As well as the promises goddess will bestow upon us.

Our past is coated in too much blood at their expense. I’m not big on war, but this is our only answer and when it comes time we will be ready.

A strange draft filters through the room and Noctus appears before us above the altar. He is dressed in his usual work uniform and looking agitated, he hops down onto the church floor where we now kneel before him.

“Everything is ready savior.” Heinrich informs him.

He was to bring goddess tonight, but instead, another witch stands in her place beside him. A deep sloppy bite mark bleeds from her neck. He must have bitten her and glamoured her because she looks like she’s in some kind of trance. No witch would appear so unaffected being surrounded by so many of our kind in an environment like this.

The witch’s hair is dyed white and black at the roots. She wears a long black dress and kind of resembles goddess, but not really. Is he planning on testing the waters before doing the real deal?

The newly turned vampire-witch hybrid bares her fangs at us, but not in a threatening manner. She must be trying them out because she accidentally bites her lip and trips over her own two feet. I suppose he really did give her his blood. Must have been within the hour too for her to still be acting so feral.

Noctus doesn’t help her up.

A dull bang resounds around the room as his magic pulls against the walls of the church, his body shaking with an unspoken rage. At what, I don’t know. Everything is going as planned.

His magic buzzes through the air making a ringing noise as it condenses tighter together in the room around us.

“Stand with me and watch as Amelia Hooser pays for her crimes against one of her own. May goddess have mercy on you for your god has none to spare.” Noctus says sternly while drawing a switchblade from his black police jacket. We stand to our feet and circle around the upside down star symbol Amelia lays in.

He must have just revoked the glamour when she stepped in there. Now, she trembles in fear on the ground. Sobbing as if she didn’t know the pain she put Valerie through or the true intent of her people towards our kind. It’s hysterical to watch and exciting as we soak in the immense amount of blood laced magic Noctus summons around the guilty witch.

The charred marks we recently just burned into the ground become lit on fire with his magic as it traces over the ground in unforgiving sharp angles, our sign of unity. She will be our sacrifice. After all, this is nothing, but a rehearsal for the true fated day to come.

“Help! Save me! Somebody, help me!” The witch cries out pathetically, but her pleas for forgiveness and salvation go unanswered. Noctus watches from a distance, unaffected by her little outburst.

A terribly loud shriek escapes the witch and some of us, myself included, wince hearing the high-pitched noise. A giant black snake enters the pentagram with her, our savior. He twists around her neck strangling her, her body tries to fight him off, but eventually, she goes still. After a long minute, he slithers away. The sharp sound of crackling and gurgling liquid follows from inside the ring of fire circling Amelia. The fire is low enough for us to see the blood bubbling from the remains of her torn open carcass.

Noctus’s magic was already violently flying around in there, ripping right through his fire and sending it waving back and forth violently. It shredded the witch’s own magic up in less than a heartbeat. When her magic gave in, her body got torn apart by our savior.

It was inevitable that she die in there. Goddess will be strong enough to stand her own ground against our savior’s magic since they are unified now. As a precaution, I’m sure he’ll go inside with her just in case.

The witch’s blood leaves her own body and naturally searches for its ‘other’ to claim its next host. Before it reaches the edge of his black boots, Noctus steps on it and in one swift motion smears it across the floor and whispers something too quietly for any of us to hear while steepling his hands.

The blood moves once more with a life of its own as it rises off the ground. Slowly, it reaches higher and higher until it forms the blood-soaked mirror image of himself.

Then, with a dreamy expression, Noctus spreads his arms out and steps back looking up at the stained glass ceiling. New black magic pours into him flowing from the blood phantom into his aura. If I were a warlock, I’d be able to actually see it, but seeing his concealment completely drop and his true form appear I can say confidently it must be the doing of black magic.

Our leader’s skin now appears a dull black, for his veins, blood and organs are stained in the same dark hue of the devil’s magic heavily swarming around his body. The whites of his bones beneath are visible in a translucent shade of pearl white since his skin is so weakened and thin from the burden of being exposed to the heavy use of black magic for so long. His eyes maintain their dark blue tint and his hair its dark blonde tone. His police outfit turns into a shade of dark red matching that of the phantom in front of him.

Several other vampires around me start cowering backward toward the church walls and away from him seeing the true sight of him probably for the first time. This is the second time I’m seeing it, the first was when I helped him initially create his concealment as well as many others in here.

“Will this suffice, father?” Noctus asks the blood phantom standing before him with a scornful expression as if doubting the magic were to not be enough for the fated day.

I’ve heard rumors of this, summoning the spirit of the dead with black magic. Never have I seen it before and I am not alone either as several of my kin step quickly further away from the demonic looking creature standing face to face with our leader. Surely, it is not his birth father.

No, it must be our father.

The phantom turns as if to look around the room to consider his question.

“It will. You have my blessing to proceed with the witch.” The voice gurgles out sounding more like the devil for which I now realize the creature to be.

At the sound of the devil’s words, an image shows in our minds. One with Noctus using Valerie to activate the portal, a vision of what is to come. What we have been working for and trusting in for the future of our kind. The vision ends and some of us look around dazed, but then our gazes quickly replace the devil again.

I haven’t been here long enough to see the being myself, but I’ve been told his visits are less than frequent. However, just as quickly as it materialized, the blood phantom of the devil evaporates. It disappears into the air then, leaving us all in awe for our promised future.