Watch of the Wicked (Devil's Witch Book 3)

A lithe, silky body moves around my arm in a slow circle. I peel my eyes open, blinking against the blinding morning sun coming in through the window.

“You didn’t shift back?”

My heart goes cold when I hear no response. I open my eyes, sitting up in a panic when I don’t feel our magic moving around us. Nothing, but the stuffy air I first smelled stepping into Tom’s house. I yelp, seeing the snake much thinner than Nick and green like one of those snake’s everyone’s always finding in their garden in the heat of summer.

I shake my arm rapidly. My magic isn’t working again and I scream when the snake bites me against the movement. Something moves at the foot of my bed. Marcella’s green eyes watch me with scorn as she moves to stand up by the bedside. She lifts her thin, bony arm while uttering a spell.

The snake explodes and I recoil backward.

“What are you doing here?” I demand, not bothering to cover-up the accusation in my tone.

I gasp in shock, but my mouth forms a hard line seeing her turn into the mirror image of Nick. “Making sure you’re in the right mind. William says you’re doing swell, but last night you looked ready to jump in my arms,” she says. “It wasn’t easy to conceal my powers and replicate his, but it was enough to prove you still are attached to him -- as I thought.”

“No!”

Marcella laughs at me, but my mind is racing. How dare she trick me! How could I have been so stupid? My arm pulsated where the snake she literally planted in my bed decided to bite me. It bruises an ugly yellow and grey color while trickling with a steady stream of blood. I move to make her leave, but my legs shake and I fall backward onto the bed. I blink hard as my vision doubles, but it’s not good enough to regain my focus.

***

Colin

Heinrich won’t stop whining in my mind about Valerie being somewhere she isn’t supposed to be. Noctus hasn’t spoken a word since the brute paraded into my girlfriend’s house and kidnapped me. They dragged me out to the car, and so here I am, on the highway to hell.

At least this time around my maker has given me the capacity to think for myself...I think.

Noctus parks the car in front of the old farmhouse, then he steps out. The gravel crunches beneath our feet as we make our way inside the dark building. The front door swings open in the early morning wind.

Heinrich presses the barrel of his gun into my spine to make me quicken my pace. A second later, our leader disappears. When Heinrich and I meet him upstairs, we help him sit a very dead looking Valerie up in the bed. Some kind of animal must have bit her arm, but the bump is too swelled up and oozing yellow goop to tell just what exactly bit her.

Heinrich lifts up one of her wrists feeling for her pulse, “Still here. Faint, need hurry.”

We all are caught by surprise when Valerie’s eyes pop open, a bright green instead of their dark blue. Before we know it, Marcella’s got us all pinned against the wall by way of her annoying craft capabilities.

“You are all guilty of several degrees of murder and conspiring against the state of supernatural affairs as well as the statehood! No one is leaving this room until I get the high council in here to convict you all!” she shrieks while giving me a wild look as her dark hair drifts violently around her face.

Her multi-colored skirts flare out from below her as furniture around the room gets lifted up off the floor and thrown around. She shouldn’t be able to see through Noctus’s concealment. He should still appear as Tommy, that including his yellow aura concealing his real one too. Marcella’s going off on a limb here.

“Where’s Valerie?” Noctus asks in a calm voice.

Marcella ignores him and walks out of the room without turning her back to us. We all try to transport, but somehow, we’ve been hexed inside these walls.

“You should have stayed in hell! None of y’all are getting out of here until I give the werewolves what they want. Their new omega, Valerie. You see, Jackson is a smart young man...unlike you and your kind. He wants to be alpha. He’ll take the white witch off of our hands. Yes, he’s leaving for Georgia soon with his pack. This isn’t about our differences, it’s never been. It’s about money and you should have known so from the moment the three of you stepped foot in my town. Your father never gave you his ranch in his will! He gave it to Jackson! And you took it from your little brother before he even knew.” Marcella moves her pointed stare to me.

Well, what else is new? Jackson is still a scruffy teen in my book. He’s fresh out of high school. He’ll make a lousy alpha, and even worse homeowner at such a young age. With all those stinky mutts cooped up in such a fine home, they’d destroy its value the moment they’d walked in.

Jackson is supposed to be dead though.

Why is Noctus being so quiet?

This does remind me of when we found her scratched up by a were before. Could it have been Jackson that time too?! Noctus must have been protecting him then, but I don’t know why he’d bother. The wolves are the most loyal and easy swayed of all supernaturals. Nothing but mindless dogs looking for trophy wives and big mansions to keep them in.

Jackson is part vampire though, making him a hybrid alpha. He’s so much younger than Valerie, don’t know why he’d want her.

Heinrich speaks first. “Goddess not here.”

“No, really?” I spit.

Noctus moves away from the door. I follow him over to the window throwing my faith in him out of it. How could he just let Marcella sneak up on us like this without telling us? I’m sure he knew she was around when we drove up here. He probably knew Valerie wasn’t in the house the second we entered Livertown.

“What are we supposed to do? I thought you nutjobs were doing screwing with me! Why drag me here with you if we’re all just gonna go up in flames?”

I wince feeling the vampire-hybrid’s cold fingers grab my throat roughly. He slams me against the wall of the room while gritting his teeth so hard blood draws from his gums. It shines between the gaps in the cowboy’s teeth. He doesn’t look so threatening while using Thomas’s body as a vessel. His teeth extend into fangs though reminding me of my place -- beneath him. I instinctively withdraw my own and gulp as something warm and liquid moves down my leg.

“He pees!” the brute squeals while catching me.

I’m sure he meant to throw me across the room, but Heinrich caught me like a football, intercepting my path. I’m still trying to catch my breath having the wind knocked out of me. Guess I got the short end of the stick seeing as I did not inherit my maker’s strength.

Noctus pulls out a gun from the back of his pants. The door splinters sharply as a large hole cracks its middle from the bullet’s impact. Heinrich kicks it down. I gape at the two of them thinking the witch was waiting on the other side. Did she really not put up a ward? She must think her words were enough to stop us.

The two of them stop in their tracks. Noctus turns his head peering at me from the corner of his eyes. “Have you lost faith in your savior?”

“No,” I mumble. “But I don’t wish to stir any trouble either,” I add while hurrying after them.

“She’s not here, Colin. Your witch is with her over at a bar in Wixton. The dogs and the coven are hosting a mixer to fundraise for a new supernatural school district. Marcella was lying and trying to send us on a wild goose chase.”

Heinrich nods in agreement. He then grabs my arm roughly, “Time to dance, newborn.”

***

“Why isn’t he picking up?” Stella complains while twisting her braid with her finger.

She passes by me, pushing the person on the nearest stool to the side so she can reach over the bar and get her drink from one of her friends bartending right now. We were here almost a year ago for their Halloween party. Will liked it so much he chose to host a similar themed event here for their new school.

For some reason, when I woke up this morning, I couldn’t remember anything from the night before. Will and Marcella showed up at the house though to give me an invite to the event. I think they were really just there to “check up” on me. I caved in earlier this week and signed the kids up for camp so that’s where they’ll be for the next few weeks.

I won’t have to worry about hurrying home or anything now. It’s kind of nice.

“Stella!” I hiss. I tap her shoulder and she looks at me over the rim of her glass of beer.

Her orange hair hangs lovely over her shoulders in long ringlets. It makes her look almost exactly like Patty. I really didn’t want to dress up so...

She bends down after setting her glass on the counter of the bar. Her dark stockings glimmer in the lights flashing around us. Her white nurse outfit barely covers her for better or for worse. For her, the better I think.

Since our outfits are identical my situation is a little different. She’s much thinner and the shirt-sized dress actually looks like a dress on her. Unfortunately, the store didn’t have my size though. She had already bought her outfit at that point and I promised we could match. I had to buy it especially since they were on sale.

I haven’t moved from my stool since we got in here. Neither do I plan on moving. My cleavage would be spilling out of my dress right now were it not for the flimsy silver button keeping the material of my dress held together and buttoned-up. It’s a nurse outfit like hers. I do realize the intent of them is to be for the purpose of showing off the figure of which I don’t have.

Cold, dark golden beer spills out of the hands of the man beside me. “Eek!” I blurt out while squirming in my stool as the liquid stains over a nice pool of wet in the white fabric straining against my thighs.

I twist uncomfortably in my seat to reach for a napkin blindly while glancing behind me. Of course, Stella has already flocked to the dance floor. Oh, Colin’s here now -- no wonder. He wears some kind of homemade shark outfit with a goofy giant bluefin on his head and goggles on his face. A second later, their dancing bodies are concealed in the crowd as other couples move in front of them. It already smells like sweaty bodies in here and cigarette ashes dunked in a bath of perfume.

“I’m sorry,” he says while wiping at the spill on my dress.

Slits are cut into his creepy pig mask where his eyes hide behind. I smile uneasily at the painted teeth of the pink pig’s cheeky smile on the plastic mask he wears. An apron smothered in fake blood is tied around his neck and hugs his body overtop his black tee shirt and jeans. He takes off his mask and sets it on the counter of the bar next to his newly emptied glass beer bottle. His hand is cold as he swipes the liquid off my dress with his bare hand. It doesn’t work that well, but butterflies still flutter in my stomach at his careful attempt to wipe it off me.

His touch remains on the bare skin of my thigh where the drying beer sticks to. I place my hand over his wondering where the night will or won’t lead.

“It’s alright, Tommy.”