WitchHunt

By Emma Mills

‘I know it’s selfish, but I don’t want you to go,’ Daniel said, a couple of minutes later.
I looked at him and smiled.
‘I’ll be fine, I will.’
‘You’d better be. I don’t know what I’d do without you. Those months I stupidly spent apart from you... they were torment for me,’ he said.
‘They were torment for me too.’

As the Christmas season is ripped apart by the news that Jess’ old friend Alex has been turned into a vicious killer, festivities are dropped, Jess returns to England and the hunt begins. But Alex isn’t the only one being hunted, for Mary has found a way to extinguish the entire bloodline of Malden witches, and it is Jess’s book of shadows that’s the key. As things hot up, Jess finds she must leave Daniel and the safety of Manchester in a final hunt for her nemesis, Mary. In a fight-off that only one of them can survive, loved ones will fall... daemons will rise... but who will survive?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Emma Mills
• Release date: Nov 4, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301658275

Emma Mills

Emma Mills is the author of several young adult novels, including Foolish Hearts, First & Then, and Something Close to Magic. When she is not writing, Emma can be found editing scientific manuscripts, tending to her large collection of succulents, and deep diving into various fandoms. Emma lives in St. Louis with her dog Teddy, who is best described as a big personality in a tiny package. You can find Emma on X (previously known as Twitter) and Instagram (@Elmify) or at EmmaMillsBooks.com.

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WitchHunt

By Emma Mills

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2013 Emma Mills

All Rights Reserved

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organisations is entirely coincidental.

WitchHunt

Copyright © 2013 Emma Mills

www.witchbloodthenovel.com

www.twitter.com/EmmaMwriter

Cover Image : Bowie 15

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Prologue

Eva sighed and wondered whether she should call Daniel. He’d been in New York for three months now, and even though Eva was happy that the only thing he cared about was making amends with Jess, irritation niggled when she was the one left to deal with the Council on her own. Three months ago he had fled England for America, desperate to get Jess to forgive him, unwilling to believe the potential nightmare that he was leaving behind.

‘It’s nothing to do with us, Eva,’ he’d told her over and over again. ‘The deaths aren’t even in our territory. Don’t worry about it… They probably aren’t even vampire-related anyway.’

But a vampire, and presumably a newborn from the state and frequency of the murders, was definitely on the prowl. The deaths had begun back in the summer, and initially they were infrequent and well-disguised. In fact no-one on the Council had even flagged them up as paranormal crimes until the frequency had increased recently. It was only last month, when Daniel was busy fighting Haitian zombies, that the Council started digging deeper and realised the human deaths were all linked in one ghastly chain, which everyone agreed pointed in the likely direction of the psychotic vampire Mary.

Mary however was impossible to track down, even after taking control of the southern vampire clan, and confusingly, as the angels spotted her in the northern counties, another murder would take place in the south. When Eva had finally told Daniel her concerns over one long cross-Atlantic phone call, he’d remained adamant that they weren’t linked and said that she should stop worrying. Eva hadn’t been so sure, and now a month later she was in Scotland, waiting in the ancient stone hallway of the Supernatural Council building.

‘Eva, I’m so happy you could make it,’ Seth, the African vampire said, holding out his hand as he strode through the doorway.

‘You’re welcome,’ Eva answered with a slight dip of her head.

‘And Daniel is obviously still in the States with the lovely Jess, thinking of nothing other than their little jaunt to Vegas, of course!’ he said, his eyes sparkling with humour.

‘He… what? Do what? Where?’ Eva said, her eyes widening.

‘Oh, I’m sorry. Maybe it’s a surprise… You must not say anything of course, but I have offered my suite in Las Vegas to Daniel and Jess, as a thank you for the help he gave us regarding the voodoo witch last month…’

‘That’s news to me,’ Eva mumbled, her forehead furrowing into a slight frown.

‘Anyway, enough of the love birds. Here in Scotland it’s down to business and I’m afraid I have rather unfortunate news to impart. Come,’ he said.

Eva was led into the same vast chamber that Jess, Luke and Brittany had sat in four months earlier. She sat on the edge of the wooden bench, tension creeping up her spine as she faced the Council opposite her. Seth reclaimed his seat behind the desk, next to the other four council members, who chatted amongst themselves.

‘You look like a chastised schoolgirl,’ a voice whispered behind her left ear. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen you looking so uncomfortable.’

‘Hi Luke, have they dragged you here too?’ Eva said, raising her eyebrow in a smirk, as Luke climbed over the back of the wooden bench directly behind her and sat down, grinning.

‘Damn! I thought I’d make you jump a little…’

‘Luke, I’m a vampire; a very old vampire at that. I could smell you from outside the door. So have they told you why we’re here?’

‘Nope. I thought Jess might be back…’ he said, his words trailing off.

‘According to Seth they’re still in the States and about to head to Vegas for Christmas,’ Eva said. ‘Did Jess tell you about that?’ she added.

‘Nope! I only spoke to her the other night and she didn’t mention it at all. She said she was looking forward to the Yule celebrations with her family. Brittany is getting her certificate or something. I was thinking of going over there for Christmas with Caoimhe…’

‘I wouldn’t bother,’ Eva interrupted with a shrug. ‘You only go to Vegas for an adult weekend, vampire style. Angel’s wouldn’t...’

‘Or to get hitched!’ Luke interrupted with a quick grin, wiping the smirk off Eva’s face.

‘They wouldn’t dare!’ Eva exclaimed, turning her head back to the waiting council, her eyebrows knitting into another frown.

‘So I’m sure you are both wondering why we have brought you here? Or maybe you’ve already made the connections?’ Balthazar, the head of the Council asked.

‘I have my suspicions sir, and can only presume this is in connection with the supposed vampire murders,’ Eva said.

‘You are of course correct,’ Balthazar said. ‘Unfortunately we have discovered undeniable evidence suggesting that that there are indeed two vampires involved in these incidents and we have now concluded that these vampires are in fact working together.’

‘Mary?’ Eva asked, looking towards Seth, looking for confirmation in the eyes of her own kind.

Seth nodded and after a quick glance at Balthazar began to speak.

‘Eva… and Luke, we have brought you here because what we have found out will directly affect Jess and those around her. As we are all aware, Mary wants to destroy Jess and we believe she has found a way to do that. We believe the vampire she is training and working with to be Jess’s best friend, Alex.’

‘No way! That’s impossible…’Luke began, springing from his seat behind Eva, before being silenced with an icy glare from Ariel, behind the bench.

‘Have you checked the grave?’ Eva asked, her face stormy.

‘Of course. There was a recent sighting from two members of our surveillance team last week. They saw a vampire fitting Mary’s description and with her there was a younger girl, skinny, with short hair. She fitted the description of Alex. They fled before the angels reached them.’

‘And then you opened her grave? You checked? She wasn’t there, was she? I told you! I warned you of this,’ Eva said, her voice rising as she too jumped from her seat, her fingers curled tight into fists.

‘You told them what?’ Luke asked quietly.

‘I warned them that Mary was dangerous. That she would want total and complete revenge for her brother’s death. I told them…’

‘Eva, we understand how you feel about this situation, but I’m sure I don’t need to remind you who you are addressing?’ Balthazar interrupted.

‘Alex’s family wished her to have a burial and we saw no reason to interfere,’ Seth explained as Eva sank slowly back into her seat.

‘Apart from the slight possibility that Mary might come back for Alex and dig her up! I would have guarded the site myself if I’d known what was going on,’ Eva protested, her voice strained.

‘Why didn’t we know about this? When we were searching for Mary, all that time, we weren’t told to be looking out for Alex too!’ Luke exclaimed. ‘Are you sure her body’s gone?’

Seth nodded.

‘And no-one thought to watch her grave after she was buried, in case Mary turned her?’ Luke said, his voice a disbelieving whisper.

‘We had no reason to believe Mary would do such a thing. Her time on the hospital ward was so short it would have been exceptionally risky to let Alex feed from her. We saw no reason to watch the cemetery Alex was buried in,’ Seth sighed.

‘We expected Mary to go after Jess instead’, Ariel added . ‘It was Jess we were watching, and maybe if you and Daniel hadn’t been playing dead in France, we would have been less concerned for Jess’s safety,’ she finished, glaring at Eva.

‘Regardless, the deed is done. How are we going to deal with it?’ Eva asked.

‘This is why we have brought you here. As you know, a vampire may sire a new vampire if they follow regulations, but in Alex’s case…’ Balthazar’s words tailed off, leaving Eva and Luke to come to their own conclusions.

‘They have both committed crimes carrying the death penalty, and both will be dealt with accordingly,’ Ariel said, her face emotionless.

‘You can’t kill Alex! She’s not been given a chance,’ Luke pleaded.

‘Luke, it’s not your decision, and we are only too aware of your sympathetic stance when it comes to vampires. They are not our pets, you know,’ Ariel said.

‘Damn right we’re not!’ Eva snapped.

‘Jess will not allow you to murder her friend,’ Luke said quietly.

‘She won’t have a choice, Luke. We are the Council and we make the decisions based on the law. Alex is no longer your friend; she is a monster’s puppet. Do you think she will stop to listen to either you or Jess? Luke, Mary sired her. It is Mary who dictates her path now. It’s entirely possible that Mary has made her forget you both entirely,’ Seth said.

‘There is a way and you know it,’ Luke said. ‘If we find Mary first and kill her then Alex will be free from Mary’s influence.’

‘Alex has not been taught right from wrong. Even without Mary’s instruction she will continue to be an untrained monster, capable of destroying our cover and revealing our kind to the humans,’ Seth replied.

‘She cannot be allowed to survive,’ Balthazar added.

Eva paused, a sudden deep-rooted memory of the vicious attack she herself had made two hundred years earlier; an attack which Sebastian had covered up, and the Council still knew nothing about. If she closed her eyes she could still feel the adrenalin rush as hate and vengeance had flooded her veins; still smell the scent of the three gendarmes’ blood pooling about her feet. Yes, she knew what a vampire was capable of, what Alex was capable of.

‘Jess needs to know. You can’t keep her out of this and tell her afterwards. It would destroy her more than the event itself,’ Eva said.

‘And if we kill Mary first, Alex should be given a chance to change. Maybe Jess can help control her, help teach her new ways,’ Luke added.

Eva looked at the floor. She knew that once a vampire had been given such a start, controlling the blood lust would be impossible, but Jess and Luke would need to see it for themselves before they accepted the inevitable.

‘I’ll go to Vegas. I’ll tell them and bring them back. They can help with the search,’ Eva said.

Balthazar nodded, his eyes grave, understanding the job Eva had taken on, and the inevitable heartbreak facing Jess once again.

‘I’ll come too,’ Luke said.

‘No way! I’m not babysitting an angel,’ Eva said.

‘Luke, you have duties to finish in York, and I believe you can be of more help with the search here until they arrive back,’ Ariel commanded.

‘Fine,’ he said with a sigh and a glare at Eva’s sly smirk.

‘Can’t get out of soldier duty, that fast boy,’ she whispered, as they stood up to leave the room.

‘Just break it to her nicely, okay? Alex was her best friend. When she died and you guys buggered off, it broke her heart.’

Eva paused and looked at Luke.

‘Do you think they are getting married… without us?’ she asked.

‘Dunno! Best hurry up and find out, I guess.’

Chapter One

‘Brittany!’ I shouted up the wooden, whitewashed stairs, utterly unaware of the chaos breaking out back home in England. ‘You need to come and see this…’ I added, trailing off as I entered our shared bedroom, in the attic of my aunt’s colonial-styled house in Malden, Massachusetts.

Brittany was sitting in our favourite spot, the window seat, which overlooked not only the garden but the vast woods behind. She had a huge leather-bound book in her hands and her eyes were closed, face tilted to the sun.

‘I need to memorise this passage for tonight,’ she said. ‘It has to be perfect. If I don’t pass this time, I’ll die of shame,’ she exclaimed, opening her eyes and smiling at me.

‘You’ll be fine, Brit. You were a kick-ass witch when I met you back in London - you barely needed any training.’

‘So why is it that you passed with flying colours two months ago and I’m sat here with this damn book?’ she groaned.

‘You weren’t in any fit state to get out of bed, let alone do the ritual. Your blood had been drained into a bucket! Anyway, what does it matter? It’s only two months!’

‘It matters,’ Brittany said. ‘Saffy keeps reminding me that only the half-wit witches delay their tests. Normally it happens in the month of your sixteenth birthday.’

‘Brittany, you’re only sixteen and three months! It’s hardly delaying; and what about me? I was eighteen when I took my test… nearly nineteen!’

‘And you don’t look a day over seventeen,’ Brittany said grinning.

‘Ha ha, very funny! You won’t find it so funny when you’re getting wrinkles, your hair’s going grey and I’m still a beautiful teenager,’ I shot back, smirking.

‘Are you girls coming down?’ Aunt Sarah called.

I looked at Brittany, who shook her head and went back to her book.

‘Aw, come on Brit, you should see the size of the log they have brought in to burn… well actually it’s more of a tree trunk. We levitated it all the way into the house. It was so awesome,’ I said.

‘I saw you from the window… it did look pretty cool.’

‘Come on then.’

‘I’ll be down in a bit. I just want to finish this.’

‘Okay… and Brit, don’t worry. You’re twice the witch Saffy is. She’s jealous, that’s all.’

Brittany nodded vaguely, but her head was already back in the book, so I left the room and returned downstairs to help with the Yule preparations.

‘Jess, come and help decorate the log. Where’s Brittany?’ Susannah, my slightly older and nicer cousin asked as I entered the room.

‘She’s just re-reading her passage for the ceremony. She’s paranoid that she’ll forget the words and not get her certificate. I wonder why that is?’ I added, glaring at Saffy, my younger and totally evil cousin.

‘I’ll get her,’ Susannah said.

‘Nah, leave her for a bit. She’s fine. So why are we decorating it, if we’re going to burn it?’ I asked, looking at the five foot hunk of wood squeezed into the over-sized fireplace in the back parlour. Saffy was busy winding a red ribbon around the log in a criss-cross pattern, pushing sprigs of holly under the bindings as she went, completely blanking me as usual.

‘It’s just tradition,’ Susannah said. I guess we’re supposed to be thinking of stuff we want to rid ourselves of. So when we burn it later, we are burning away our troubles,’ Susannah explained.

‘Yeah, you can imagine who I’m imagining the holly to be,’ Saffy said quietly, her eyes sliding over to me pointedly.

‘We burn the log to honour the gods. Our fire will symbolise the return of the sun, and later this evening we will write our wishes on scrolls and tuck them into the ribbons before we set it ablaze,’ my aunt said, appearing behind us in her usual unnerving way.

By six o’ clock the house was decorated. Sprigs of mistletoe hung from the ceiling, while garlands of holly and ivy wound around the stairs and along the walls. Vases of greenery filled every spare surface and each and every room flickered with the warm glow of candlelight. Aunt Sarah had been busy in the kitchen and Brittany was holding her stomach comically when I returned to our room.

‘Ahh! The smells, I can’t take it much longer! When is she going to let us eat?’ she said, lying back on her bed, book discarded by her side.

I grinned and pulled out a plate of cold meats and cheese I’d stolen from the table.

‘Here you go. It was all I could bear to grab. The stink from the stew is making me nauseous,’ I grimaced, crossing the room to open the window.

‘Hey! It’s freezing, are you mad?’ Brittany said, pulling her bedcovers over her.

‘I’ll shut them in a bit, but I just need some fresh air.’

‘It’s okay for you, Little Miss Icebox, but I am still human and it’s a New England winter out there,’ she grumbled.

I grinned and watched the tiny snowflakes drifting to the ground. The snow had begun to fall the day before and had already made a thin covering, adding to the festive feel and making me nostalgic for home.

‘We need to get ready soon. Sarah asked me to check with you that you have your cloak and dress ready…’ I tailed off, knowing Brittany was more concerned, if that was even possible, than Sarah was about tonight going well. She wanted that certificate more than she wanted the hot local boy she had seen in town the previous week.

‘Yeah, don’t fret, it’s hanging over there,’ she said with a nod towards our shared wardrobes. ‘Now, will you shut the windows before I turn into a snowman?’

Smiling, I jumped out of the window and pulled them closed behind me, hearing perfectly as she grumbled about me being a show-off and that I needed to come back in time to do her hair.

‘I’ll be back,’ I shouted through the panes of glass, mimicking Arnold Schwarzenegger from our recent ‘Terminator’ movie marathon.

The evening was perfect, the sun had already set and the night sky was a beautiful, seductive black. It was only when you looked towards a light source that you noticed the tiny snowflakes dancing in the air. I leapt across the garden in one easy movement, shimmied up a tree and crouched in the high branches. The other witches wouldn’t start arriving for another hour yet, and the ceremony didn’t begin until eight. My aunt would expect me to be out hunting in her woods, but animal blood didn’t do it for me. I flicked my eyes back to the house and the road beyond, wondering if I had time to shoot into town and get back to meet Daniel.

I grinned - five miles in five minutes? Easy! Leaping down to the ground I sped off, my feet a blur as they raced along the dusty trail winding through the woods. Once I reached the edge of our property I kept to the road verges, darting into the tree line when I saw the headlights of a car, and slowing down to a human pace once I reached the outskirts of town. Feeding from the locals was forbidden, but I figured that what my aunt didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. The one thing I had to be careful of was the rest of the witch community. They knew me, knew what I was, and if they saw me in town on my own they’d know exactly what I was up to! This meant the usual pick-up joints were out. Hopefully tonight the witches would all be getting ready to visit my aunt’s house for the Yule ceremony, but I couldn’t chance the bars - too risky. Instead I headed out to the park.

As I had hoped the park was pretty much deserted. The kids had gone home for their tea, discouraged from staying out in the freezing air, and the evening dog walkers were not yet back from work… just the odd one. But dog walkers were tricky. Their dogs always hated me, always yelping and growling, backing away, or else downright going in for the kill! Nope, dog walkers were a last resort. I stuck to the shadows and scanned the field.

Over in the play park there was a young lad, a teenager, sat on his own, idly swinging back and forth, his eyes staring into the distance. Perfect! I jogged over and sat down on the swing next to him. He looked to be about seventeen, with an outbreak of angry spots blooming across his forehead, his blonde hair cut too short to be flattering. His pale eyes flicked towards me as I sat down, before they quickly dropped to the floor.

I didn’t have time for pleasantries, but somehow it just felt wrong to dive in there without saying hello.

‘Hi,’ I said, smiling at him.

He looked up with a shocked, suspicious expression.

‘What do you want? Did Kate send you over to laugh at me? I don’t recognise you from school’ he said.

I shook my head. ‘I don’t know Kate,’ I said.

‘You’re British?’ he asked.

I laughed. ‘Yeah. I guess I’ve not lost the accent yet.’

‘You live here?’

Uh-oh! This was dangerous territory. If he remembered our encounter, which was unlikely, I couldn’t have him come looking for me. ‘Nah, I’m just passing through with my dad. He’s a trucker,’ I lied. ‘Are you okay?’ I asked.

The boy shrugged and scuffed his feet along the