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After my night with Alexei in the cabin, I had dedicated the week to practicing my spirit magick—a self-inflicted intervention to focus on my purpose here. With my success at Genevieve’s and a new understanding of the nature of the talismans, I felt more at ease with my magick and the Amulet of Davorina.
After deliberating with myself all day, I decided to wear the Amulet of Davorina beneath my sweater. I felt ready to share it with Genevieve, hoping her extensive knowledge of talismans and the Bled witches could help me better understand the magick within and how to use it.
Liliane propped herself on the stair banister. “Do you think you’re ready to perform the ritual during the Winter Solstice? In two weeks’ time, we’ll come together on the beach and send out our sacrifice to the Goddess. After, we offer the nearby spirits a chance to enter the Beyond, hence the need for spirit magick.”
“I’m not sure I’m ready for that,” I answered honestly. In fact, the idea of leading a Coven throughanythingmade me feel slightly nauseous.
She shrugged, unsurprised. “No matter. There’s still time to change your mind. At least, assuming a certain vampire doesn’t hoard all your time.”
At her devious wink, I blushed.
With another snicker, she shooed me towards the door. “Now, I demand you leave your sulking behind and have some fun. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, dear.”
As I hurried down the cobblestone streets towards the cemetery, my feet crunched through bracken and loose rocks from the earlier rain storm. The barest hint of the first quarter moon shone down on me through the trees as if ready to answer my unspoken call.
“Jade, you made it,” a cacophony of voices rang out from the shadows of a dilapidated building. Genevieve, Sara, and Elaine huddled together with canvas totes bursting with wine bottles and other supplies for the girls’ night within the cemetery.
Sara knelt on the ground and lifted a hidden door marked with a false tombstone. “You’re late. Cavorting with the vampire again?”
Before such a statement might have sent a wave of dread through me, but somewhere between Alexei’s confession and the subsequent activities that unfolded, I lost the dripping shame coloring my attraction to the vampire.
I shrugged. “Why? Are you jealous?”
Genevieve and Elaine muffled snorts of laughter, but Sara merely watched me, approval shining in her eyes.
“Hell yes, I am, you lucky bitch.” She flicked on her flashlight and shone it into the ominous hole. “Come on, I don’t want to be out here when the witching hour begins. Unless you girls plan on waking more than a few restless spirits.”
Elaine pouted. “I only have the babysitter until one-thirty, so we better not be out here until the witching hour!”
While Genevieve and Elaine’s forms disappeared beneath the ground, I silently gaped. A basement bunker hidden within one of Salem’s oldest cemetery shouldn’t surprise or frighten me after the terrors I’d lived through, but I couldn’t stop a shudder from rolling through me.
Sara looked at my face, leeched of color, with a rueful wink. “You’re not claustrophobic, are you?”
“I don’t think so,” I managed as she guided me to the pitch-black staircase that led into the earth itself.
As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I realized the underground bunker resembled Dr. Frankenstein’s lab with the witches lying in wait for a fresh cadaver to splice. The stench of mildew, tar—and some ancient magick, not unlike the curses placed on the mystical objects—filled my senses until I almost stumbled at its intensity.
When Sara flicked on a bright overhead light, my retinas screamed in protest, but now I could better see the filmy strands of cobwebs and ancient leatherbound grimoires that lined the old oak table propped against the wall of the basement.
My eyes got caught on a metal table stacked with neatly folded white sheets.“Tell me we aren’t dissecting anyone,” I whispered to Genevieve, sweat dotting along my forehead in the sudden humidity.
“Fret not, Jade Belle.” Sara lit a mélange of candlesticks with a flip of her hand as Genevieve shut off the overhead lights again, leaving us in near darkness. “We’re not practicing necromancy down here.”
Her ominous words sent a trill of anticipation through me.
“Do Liliane and the Coven know about this?” I wondered aloud, lifting a few trinkets from the haphazard altar along the back wall, as far from the creepy metal table as possible.
Genevieve snorted. “Please. Liliane and Rebecca practically instituted the tradition of young witches sneaking down here to toil with dark magick in the middle of the night. It’s become something of a rite of passage for the witches in Salem.”
Before I could delve further into my grandmother’s rebellious past, the girls prepared for the seance. A well-worn tartan blanket, five half-melted black candles, several slabs of moonstone, and a mysterious velvet pouch materialized on the concrete floor.
Sara had nearly finished drawing the chalk pentagram when Elaine produced a Ouija board from her backpack and placed it in the center. When I shot her an incredulous look, she offered a noncommittal shrug.
“Hey, don’t knock it until you try it. Itworks, okay?”
My lips twitched as I took my place around the circle. “So, what exactly makes this spell different from a typical exorcism? Why must we call upon Nyx and use dark magick?”
“Because we’re not simply ushering spirits to the afterlife to frolic with Hecate,” Genevieve answered with a wink, remembering our conversation last week. “We’re toiling with more selfish pursuits that the Goddess may not always look upon favorably. Nyx, in contrast, loves to help witches and warlocks get up to naughty behaviors. So long as we have the means to control the power she allows us.”
