Blood Sacrifice (The Astral Chronicles #1)

Chapter ThreeLuna - Present Day

Chapter Three

Luna - Present Day

I stared up at the long dormant Misti volcano, her last eruption had been when Balor murdered Emperor Atahualpa and his family. Archaeologists had excavated this site a few years ago, and I had ensured I had been on the team as a form of atonement for being involved in the sacrifices all those years ago.

Our temple was long gone, but the energy was still engrained in the fabric of the ground.

Four centuries evaporated as I looked at the snowcapped volcano that had remained unchanged. The ghosts of my sister priestesses flashed through my head, their deaths shown to me as I stood here in a pilgrimage I carried out every few years.

I had felt the death of every one of my sister priestesses over the years. There were very few of us left in the world. I had no idea how many, only that I could feel the hum of their presence in my solar plexus.

Four hundred years was a long time to hold a grudge, but Balor had never ceased his quest to hunt us down. There was nothing I hadn’t seen in this world, no place I hadn’t visited, but it had been a lonely journey.

I had used potions and enchantments to sleep through decades to jump through time in properties I had purchased so no one would disturb me. Over time, I had learnt to covertly use magic to aid me, ensuring it couldn’t be detected because it no longer resembled the magic we used in the temple in Peru.

Balor and his priests searched for energy signatures. I learned that from the visions of him tracking down and slaughtering the priestess who contained the magic he coveted. So I studied with other magic users, and changed the way I cast.

I returned to where my family had lived about fifty years after the night of the massacre. There had been nothing there, and I had never found my sister. It felt as if someone had eradicated my past.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” The tour guide stopped to ask me.

“It hasn’t changed in centuries,” I replied without thinking.

He shot me a strange look. “I guess it hasn’t. Nothing that big in nature ever really changes, creating the landmarks we use in maps. We’re travelling toward Cusco tomorrow. Are you looking forward to the rest of the tour?”

I had discovered it was easier to hide within crowds, being a tourist allowing me to conceal myself in plain sight in case anyone still guarded this place. “I believe Machu Picchu is the highlight of the tour,” I replied with the required response since it was advertised as the highlight of the tour.

“Visiting the site certainly takes you back to a different time,” he said.

He had no idea.

I moved on to avoid further conversation, walking on the ground where our temple used to be. The energy of the ley lines under my feet reminded me of the times we had joined our gifts together to form the unique magic we created as priestesses.

I was almost back at the tour bus when the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I felt the prickle that indicated someone was watching me. Instead of looking around, I continued on so that whoever it was wouldn’t know I sensed them, stopping to look behind me in the window of the bus.

A man stood apart from our tour group, dark glasses covering his eyes, and his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans.

I pretended to bend down to tie the lace of my trainers, touching the ground to detect any discrepancies in the land energies that would suggest a magic user. Instead, I found a block, like the natural flow encountering a brick wall.

Every time I visited this place it was a risk, but even after all this time I hoped to find answers to where the women who had become my family had disappeared. I came here as a pilgrimage to look for any signs that one of us had returned, like the crystal I had buried in the sand when I tied my other shoe lace about an hour ago.

Inside the bus was cool with air conditioning, and I relaxed to watch out the window while everyone filed on as they walked back. Another man with black sunglasses had joined the first, both of them watching everyone return to the bus with their heads lowered slightly so they could talk without anyone being able to read their lips.

The couple in front of me threw themselves in the seats, complaining about the heat outside. They should be grateful they had air conditioning—it had been a recent invention. Most of us learned to acclimate to the temperature we lived in in the days prior to its invention. They were a new age couple who had seemed to have an opinion on everything, including why sacrifices were offered in this place. Two nights ago, they had wanted to perform a séance, and wore tie-dyed T-shirts and lots of bangles and crystal jewellery. They were how the world viewed magic users, not how myself and others like me portrayed ourselves, since magic was on the inside, not in ornate decorations.

The intercom crackled before the tour guide’s voice made him sound as if he was sitting beside me. “I think that’s everyone back on the bus. We will be heading straight to the hotel we’re staying in tonight. I’ll answer questions and give you more information about places we’ll be visiting as we travel there.”

I slid down in my seat, my sunglasses covering my eyes as I discreetly observed the men outside. There was nothing human about them, and my heart pounded loudly in my chest, closing my energy in tightly around me to prevent them from determining which person on the bus was a magic user.

The hotel was an old monastery, the rooms steeped in history that acted as a layer of protection against anyone trying to detect supernatural energy inside. I automatically worked my way around the room, creating a null shield for me to hide behind. My home was completely masked, spells incorporated into the foundations, and every brick that created it. It was a safe haven for any witch who needed protection from the predators of this world.

My phone pinged, and I swiped it open.

Maia: Annalise from the vampires left a message. Her daughter’s enchantment has broken.

It was hard to contain the energy of an Elemental Sorceress, so I had bound her powers until she met her fated mate who would protect her. I typed a quick reply.

Me: Tell her that it means she no longer needs it as she is ready to step into her own destiny.

I tended to try and avoid interfering with others’ fate, but Annalise’s story had touched my heart. I detested the creatures who were crawling their way up from Hell, and stalking an innocent child was an unforgivable sin. Tasha would take her place in the upcoming war between Heaven and Hell, and that would only happen if she survived to adulthood.

When I was finished, I changed for dinner and put on my pendant, which had been painstakingly made two hundred years ago by a medicine man in Africa who specialised in soul magic. When I wore it, no one could detect who I was or what my gifts were.

Peru was famous for many things, but potatoes and sweetcorn were part of the staple diet, even the local beer made from corn. No matter where I travelled in the world, this was the cuisine I loved, including the dessert mazamorra morada, made from purple corn and fruit.

I tended to travel alone since the magical energy of two witches was harder to hide than that of a lone witch, and I didn’t need any unwanted attention on me. Therefore, on tours, even though I had to sit at the table with the others, I preferred to talk as little as possible.

Halfway through the meal, I became aware of the sensation of being watched, the hairs on the back of my neck rising. It was something humans had become accustomed to over the years, and several members of our group looked over to the back corner. I silently sipped my water, my fingers automatically seeking out my pendant, engaging myself in a conversation with one of the people at my table even though I had no interest in their conversation.

After twenty minutes, I excused myself to go to the toilet, checking the inhabitants of the back left table on my return. Two men with dark hair sat watching our group, their eyes glowing amber in the darkness to denote their lycan heritage.

I retook my place at the table and tried to concentrate on the conversation. I hadn’t encountered lycans on any of the other times I had visited this place, and I tried to calm my heartbeat since they would be able to detect any irregularities.

“Do you often travel alone?” Sylvia asked. She sat to my right with her husband, Frank.

“Sometimes,” I replied, smiling to cover my disinterest. “The friend I tend to travel with had a family gathering, and I’ve always wanted to visit Machu Picchu.”

“What did you think of the site at Ollantaytambo?” Sylvia asked. “I found it fascinating with that massive Incan fortress and large stone terraces on the hillside. It felt as if I could reach out and touch history.”

“I would love to have seen it in its prime,” I replied, even though I had been there to witness it in all its glory.

“The Sun Temple was my favourite part of the tour, followed by the Princess Baths fountain.” Sylvia dabbed her mouth with her napkin. “I read an article that said they sacrificed children to the gods.”

“Thankfully the world has evolved from those types of practices,” I murmured. “No one should have to give their life so another can benefit.”

She continued to gush about articles she had read on the ancient site, and I nodded and smiled in the appropriate places, all the time conscious of the men who were following our group. Normally, I left the table early, but tonight I stayed so that it would be hard to read my aura in amongst all the others.

I slid the locks in place in my room, and picked up my phone.

Me: Lycans following our group.

My phone pinged a few minutes later.

Maia: Do you recognise any of them?

Me: No, but 400 years is a long time, and they tended to be kept away from us.

All but Salvator since he had been watching over me and my sister.

Maia: Do you want me to organise someone to collect you?

I wandered over to the window and looked out through the slats. Four hundred years had been a long time to hide from my old priest. It was also a long time to be alone and gave you the time to think. After spending several decades terrified of my own shadow, I began to travel and seek out other magical beings. Instead of trying to consume their power as Balor did, I created a network to help each other. Maia would only have to lift her phone, and those closest to this location would come to help me.

Me: No, this is the first time anyone has reacted to my presence. I’ll monitor the situation.

Every bone in my body screamed to run, but there was a small part of me that wanted to stop hiding and face my fears. However, that did not mean that I would allow myself to become prey to whatever was out there. I tended to carry small surveillance devices with me that allowed me to monitor my room when I was separated from my possessions, so I set up the cameras and motion detectors, moved my luggage to the bathroom, and prepared myself for limited sleep.

I created a pillow person and lifted some bedding into the small bathroom, creating a bed in the bath and pulling the shower curtain over. I had slept in worse places, and the locked bathroom door gave me an added layer of protection and time if someone was in the bedroom.

Several hours passed and I dozed in and out of sleep before my phone alerted me to the fact that someone was in my room. I watched as two figures entered the room, and systematically searched the wardrobe and drawers, avoiding the bed and the fake me sleeping in it.

They were silent predators who moved with lithe precision, leaving again when they satisfied themselves that what they were looking for wasn’t in the room. People tended to ignore the bathroom since there was rarely anything of value kept there.

When they left, I climbed out of the bath and strained my ear against the bathroom window that was slightly open. I heard movement in the room next door, and my body sagged against the wall in relief since they seemed to be searching everyone’s rooms.

They were looking for something or someone, but they didn’t know the location of their target.

I spent the remainder of the night in my room, sleeping on the edge of sleep in the bath, until a scream jolted me awake. People had begun to gather outside when I emerged from my room. A member of the hotel security was trying to make people return to their rooms, talking between themselves in rapid Spanish.

One of the tourists was dead, and they were trying to contain everyone until the police arrived, giving us false information about a problem with a gas leak.

Back inside my room, I made the bed look as if it had been slept in, put all my cameras and surveillance equipment in a pouch at the bottom of my suitcase, and made it look as if I was a tourist living out of their suitcase. Then, I had a shower and used the specially designed make-up that I carried with me.

One of the witches I met about fifty years ago helped me to create a make-up range infused with magic, the foundation allowing you to mask your emotions, the lipstick making humans believe what you told them, and the eyeshadow aiding you to see the truth in a situation.

I plaited my hair, tying crystals in it as I wound it around the crown of my head. It was my own form of armour, a delicate layer of protection to ensure I could walk this world undetected.

We were finally told it was safe to leave our rooms, and even though I was in the breakfast room, I felt the presence of strangers close to one of the crystals left in my suitcase. I noticed several uniformed officers moving around in the gardens outside the hotel, and presumed whoever was upstairs was with them. It would make sense to search before any of us realised what was happening.

The lycans from the night before were seated at a table in a different corner, and I suppressed the shiver that threatened to ripple through me. My pendant almost throbbed against my skin as it masked my true identity from those who sought to harm me.

I walked past them on the way to the breakfast buffet and noticed a tattoo on both of their left hands. The double-headed snake that Balor tended to engrave on his temple and the staff he carried everywhere with him.

Death had a unique energy pattern and it currently surrounded the two lycans, so they had been present when someone had transitioned from the physical to the spiritual. They had not possessed that energy yesterday, which meant they were involved in the death last night.

One couple was missing from breakfast. They had been in their early thirties, and the woman had considered herself an expert on the occult, trying to get others to participate in communing with the energy of some of the sites we had visited. No self-respecting witch would involve themselves with her suggestions and self-aggrandising. Her partner tended to wear wooden bead bracelets, with chakra tattoos poking out from under his T-shirts. Any permanent marks we placed on our bodies could be used in the craft and to make a spell quicker, not as decoration.

I slowly sipped my mate de coca tea that all the hotels in the area offered for altitude sickness. Instead, I drank it as it reminded me of the tea my mother made in the village I grew up in. We didn’t have tealeaves imported from around the world as we do now, and so our elders made tea from what was available in the local area. It settled my nerves since lycans sat close to me.

“I heard one of the hotel workers talking, and they say there was a death last night,” Sylvia said, taking a seat beside me, her eyes glued to the door. “Frank said he saw police in the gardens earlier.”

“I saw men in uniform earlier, and thought they were security staff,” I replied, and she nodded excitedly as if her gossip had been confirmed. “Has everyone in our group been accounted for?”

Her eyes grew large and round as she turned herself into the human equivalent of an owl to determine if we were all here. “I must go and find the tour guide, and ask him if everyone is okay.” She scurried off in her quest for gossip and I continued to sit and sip my tea.

Magic had been detected and someone had paid the greatest price. The power dynamic had changed in this region from the last time I visited. I had been in danger before, but there was a different, darker threat now on the horizon that made my skin crawl.

We were kept at the hotel for two days and discovered that the couple had been found dead in their beds with no evidence of a crime. Magic could steal the air from your lungs or freeze the blood in your veins to leave no trace. Given the option of staying on the tour or leaving, I voted with the majority to continue our adventure, hiding among the others in a group.

Something dark and evil had taken root in this land, and I fully intended to discover what it was before I left, even if it started a magical war.