Nail in Her Coffin (Devil's Witch Book 1)

The passenger side window of officer Nick’s police car slides down. He waves for me to get in, and reluctantly, I do.

I’m glad when he doesn’t bother to ask about my short call with my boyfriend. It makes things less awkward and honestly, I really don’t know what to make of it. The more I think about it the more worried I get, so maybe it’s just better to let it go.

Soon enough, we arrive at Stella’s townhouse and Nick parks the car on the side of the street.

“Is something bothering you?” He asks me with a knowing look. With a sigh, I exit his car and nod my head.

He walks me up to the house and I walk inside thinking I wouldn’t mind catching up with him. I don’t really know where our relationship stands though, but I know it’s not like we are going to do anything not appropriate.

We’re just friends, and he, my familiar. I look over my shoulder at him, wondering why he’s still standing on the porch. He looks funny standing in the doorway.

“You can come in Nick,” I tell him feeling silly.

With a wide grin, he enters, as if finding me the one acting funny. I sit down on the couch after he shuts the front door. Nick sits down next to me, almost too close for comfort. I debate whether to say anything, but end up keeping quiet about it because my stomach ripples in pain.

The stupid curse mark choosing the best of times to be a nuisance.

“Nick?” I gasp seeing him turn into a snake just as the front door opens.

I quickly shut my mouth seeing Stella drunkenly stagger inside and slam the door shut.

“Bar kicked us. Colin drove me over,” she hoots in a sing-song voice before collapsing onto the recliner across from Nick and I.

Her eyes slam shut and she proceeds to snore loudly. “Jeez,” I mumble watching her.

Nick slithers over my lap and trails up the edge of the couch and behind me. In great pain, I pick up his clothes and carry them to the bathroom. He travels across the living room floor and into the bathroom.

I sit back down on the couch and shortly after, he comes out fully clothed in his police uniform. Nick pulls a piece of candy out of his pocket and tilts his head back, dropping the chocolate into his mouth. I wheeze against the pain on my stomach from my position on the couch. Nick puts an arm around my shoulders steadying me.

He helps me up to my room and my legs give out from under me, the searing flashes of pain increasing. The pain is so bad I begin to cry like a big baby.

“No, I’m fine...” I argue weakly when Nick effortlessly carries me bridal style up the creaky wooden staircase.

“Could have used your magic to aid you. Guess you rather depend on the strength of a man.”

He starts to laugh, but I don’t correct him. How can I? I wouldn’t know the spell to fix my legs, I never studied magic like most witches did growing up.

Still, this is too embarrassing and he thinks it’s hilarious!

“Thank you,” I murmur when he sets me down on my bed.

He scratches the back of his neck looking like a giant lost puppy, then tosses some kind of caramel candy at me and I barely catch it in time.

“Someone is comin' for ya Ms. Parway. You’d do well to choose the right side while ya can because I cannot promise that magician farm boy will be of any help. The war has begun...” he explains sounding cold.

Just as icy as his sudden reprimanding tone, his fingertips tap the patch of skin between where my shirt hiked up when he dropped me off on my bed.

I clench my jaw to keep from making a sound like I always stupidly end up doing when he touches me. The agonizing searing burn across my stomach vanishes as I sit up straight fully alert.

He recoils his hand, looking down at it as if surprised by his odd tapping on my stomach.

“You mean the necromancer?”

“Yes,” he implores.

There’s just something about Nick that has always seemed off to me. Sometimes I look at him and swear he is just waiting for me to spill it, to admit my own suspicion to his face.

“What a-are you?” I ask in a waver.

No human would be able to diminish the pain of a demon curse mark put on somebody else. He’s done it more times than once, now I’m sure of it. He can’t be any ordinary human.

He makes a strange clicking noise with his tongue and his eyes dart out the window, then back down to me.

There's a hint of slyness in his tone and I don't really like it, “I’m very close to solving this case, Valerie. If I give away too much information without full disclosure my team risks ruining our chances at narrowing down the location of the necromancer.”

“Who is the necromancer? Just tell me that,” I demand tiredly.

His voice is soft, “You’re not ready to know and neither is your community. Please, just have faith in me to do my job.”

He must think I won’t like the answer. It offends me more than I’d like to admit that he associates me with the coven when I have done everything in my power to separate myself from them. Me dating Will is different, I have more hope in him than the others.

“Okay,” I reply in a hollow voice, not feeling much different on the inside.

Why do I care what he thinks anyway? If he knew any better, he’d stay away from me even if he is some kind of supernatural.

“Nick?” I say, gathering the courage to pester him more about what he really is.

However, when I look up from my bed covers I find him gone.

I hear the front door close downstairs and slump back against the headboard of my bed. A green wrapped bar of chocolate sits on my nightstand and like a starved animal, I rip it open and indulge myself.

Even after everything he just told me, all I can think about is Will on the phone and that girl’s voice I heard in the background.

Dark thoughts swirl around in my head and I find my broom already in my hand. I’m not a little girl anymore, I don’t have to wait around for someone to find the answers for me. I’m going to find them myself.

Right now.

I gulp down the last of the bittersweet candy. Getting a weird after taste in my mouth, I feel my magic dancing around my aura. Small sparks of my blue magic shoot out from my fingertips and my hair raises off my shoulders.

A wicked cackle escapes me as I start to get some kind of weird kick out of eating the candy.

I look down at the floor, seeing a blazing red light trail over my own blue one. My magic is being devoured, if I were in the right mind I would be terrified. I feel like I’m trapped in a body that isn’t mine and all I can do is silently watch as my magic is being consumed by someone else’s.

My feet bounce in excitement as my vision goes black, floorboards creak behind me as I hear someone walk around me. When I can’t feel the ground anymore, I frown in confusion.

I feel a hand cradle the side of my face and instinctively lean into it.

“I’m sorry I can’t tell you yet, just give me a little more time then all will be well.” Their deep and distorted voice tells me, sounding much like a radio announcer with static interference. When their hand leaves my face, I open my eyes.

I’m sitting alone on my broom in the night sky, floating right above my house.