Chapter 7 #2
“Exactly.” Luke picked up his phone.
“Who are you calling?”
“Lorelei O’Shaughnessy. The Grand Witch of Savannah.”
The title startled her. “Is she a member of Black Onyx?”
He nodded.
That explained so much. “She’s in the same coven as Trish. That’s how you know about my friend.”
“Exactly. Sometimes my powers aren’t so mysterious.”
She felt like an idiot. “And you’ve been to the Black Hat Ball, haven’t you?”
“Last year. I’m hoping to be invited back. It was a lot of fun.”
Made sense. Trish’s coven threw a huge invitational ball every Samhain to celebrate the season and their religion. “I knew I should have gone. I could have met you a year ago.”
“Glad you didn’t.”
“Why?”
Luke’s grip tightened slightly on the white wheel. “Fresh out of Hell. I was in a bad place, bad mood, and nothing like I am now. You wouldn’t have liked me.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“It’s true,” Helly said. “I can vouch for it. He was very unhappy about being here. If they don’t invite him back to the ball, I know why.”
Hmm.
Luke dialed his phone.
“You know, holding a phone while driving in Georgia is illegal.”
He laughed at her words. “D! Take the wheel.”
Sorcha gasped as he let go of the steering wheel and the car kept driving. It even turned. “There’s no way a car this old is self-driving. What is up with this thing?”
“Delilah’s driving for me.” He turned the phone speaker on and then returned his grip to the wheel. “Oh ye of little faith.”
Far be it from her to question him.
“Hello?”
Sorcha arched her brow at the soft, Southern drawl. That had to be one of the most feminine voices she’d ever heard.
“Hey Lady L. It’s Luke. How you doing?”
“Just fine, sweet pea. Sipping my coffee and plotting destruction. What are you up to this fine early morning?”
“Here to pick your brain.”
“Well, that sounds all kinds of painful. Can’t imagine there’s anything I know that you don’t, but by all means, amuse yourself.”
Sorcha smiled at the woman’s humor.
“What do you know about Witchbreeds?” Luke asked.
“Don’t much like them as a rule. Put them in with the Sims and Malums for making the rest of us look bad. Why?”
“I’m looking for a witch who might have the ability to take a soul and keep it or possibly destroy it.”
“You personally want to take a soul and need a witch to do it, or someone took one already and you’re trying to find who was dumb enough to be such an inconsiderate ass?”
She definitely liked Lorelei. The woman was quick.
“They took a soul and we’d like to get it back.”
Lorelei went silent for a second. “Well…only a handful of witches would even consider doing something awful like that. Bad, bad form, you know? You’re talking the darkest of dark.
I can only imagine a Malum being mean…and dumb enough to try.
Or a really lucky Sim who downloaded something that went wrong. ”
“What about a Cunning?”
“Nope,” she said definitively. “Healers would never tamper with a soul. Defies everything they believe in. You’re talking someone into necromancy or worse. That’s not a Cunning’s gig.”
“You know any Malum?”
Lorelei sighed. “Unfortunately, and I’m embarrassed to say that I regularly interact with a few.”
“Can you hook me up?”
“You’re determined to ruin my morning, aren’t you, sweetie?”
“Sorry, darling,” Luke drawled. “I hate to take you from your Zen. But I don’t want to tell anyone else that their kid isn’t coming home. I’d like to stop this bastard before they kill someone else.”
Lorelei sucked her breath in sharply between her teeth. “That’s below the belt.”
“I know.”
“Fine.” She let out a sweet sigh. “You could at least say you’re sorry.”
“Yeah, but you’d know I didn’t mean it and I hate being insincere. Especially with you.”
“Hmph.” Lorelei clicked her tongue. “Well, the one I’d try is Senechal Villan.”
“Sounds like an STD.”
“You’re awful, Luke. And he kind of is. You know how the Malum are. They’re terrible people and even worse witches.”
“No comment. Where can I find our STD?”
“He works nights, so he should be home this morning.”
Sorcha snorted at her words. Of course, he would work nights. Was he also a vampire? She was dying to ask but didn’t want to interrupt.
“Text me his address. That way he won’t know you outed him.”
“How you figure that?” Lorelei asked.
“I’ll tell him a demon sent it to me. Put the fear of Hecate in him.”
Lorelei laughed. “You do that, handsome. Good luck.”
Luke ended the call. “I hear you over there.”
Sorcha blinked innocently. “Hear what?”
“All those questions in your head. Lorelei is just like your Trish. She’s Wiccan and not scary at all. Hell, she’s so tiny, I could put both her and Helly in my pocket.” In spite of the law that said he wasn’t supposed to be touching his phone, Luke scrolled through his photos.
“I really wish you’d keep your eyes on the road and hands upon the wheel.”
He snorted at her Roadhouse rendition. “Roll, baby, roll. Delilah isn’t going to let us wreck. She wouldn’t risk damaging her girlish curves.” He handed her his phone.
Sorcha looked down to see a beautiful woman with reddish-blonde hair. He was right, she came up to about Luke’s waist. Tiny and gorgeous with a pair of mismatched eyes. She should probably hate her, but the smile and gleam in her eyes said she was kind and spirited. “Lorelei?”
He nodded.
Wow… She looked more like a secretary or nurse.
“Wicca is just a religion to most. Those who practice it look and act like everyone else.”
“You say that, but I’ve seen them do some rather awful—”
“Sims and Malum,” Luke said, cutting her off.
“And those are?”
“Sims are the ones who practice without any real power. What they do, they do to shock others. They want the attention of being different and counter to the mainstream. Most of them barely understand what they’re doing so they do occasionally conjure something they shouldn’t.
For the most part, they’re posers. Children acting without a clue.
Then you have the Malum who practice so-called dark arts.
The Malum can come from any group, including the Breeds who do it out of sheer malice toward the world and everyone in it. That is when they are truly dangerous.”
Her head was beginning to ache from trying to keep everything straight. “I’m still fuzzy on all this.”
“Witchbreeds are what you probably know as Cambions, Nephilim or Changelings. They’re the children of humans and some supernatural creature…
which is what can make them terrifying. They’re what Hollywood pretends all witches are.
Beings who are born with real supernatural powers they can’t always control or understand. ”
“The ones who cast spells.”
He winced at that. “All of the groups cast spells and even make potions. Witchbreeds have psychic abilities to boost whatever it is they do.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Big oh.”
“What about Warlocks?” she asked.
“Mundane term for practitioners. Wizard, warlock, sorcerer, etcetera. They all fall under the five categories… Witchbreed, Witch, Cunning, Sim and Malum.”
That was good to know, but it left her wondering something. “So, who created this list?”
“A descendent of Margaret Aitken.” He said that so matter-of-factly that she felt like an idiot she had no clue who that was.
“And Margaret Aitken is who?”
“One of the Witchfinder General’s flunkeys back in the Seventeenth Century. A vindictive bitch who saved her own ass by accusing innocent people of being witches and watching them literally burn.”
“That’s awful.”
“Yeah, but in the end, she burned, too. Sadly, not before she killed a lot of innocents.”
“And so this Margaret came up with the first list—”
“No,” he said, cutting her off. “Even though the Witchfinder General and his group were discredited and disbanded in the seventeenth century, some of them continued on with his mission to rid the earth of witches. That group is still around today, causing problems and looking for those they deem witches to punish and expose. About five percent of IA cases every year deal with their current pain-in-the-ass membership preying on someone. Either an innocent or an actual witch.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “Their current members assume the names of the original cast of clowns. Matthew Hopkins, Christian Caldwell, Margaret Aitken, John Godbold, John Cotta, John Stearne, Roger Nowell and Henry Chauncy. So we have no way of knowing how many of them there actually are. What their real names are or were, etcetera. All we know is that someone claiming to be Aitken’s descendent wrote their training manual called The Hexenhammer. ”
“You mean the Malleus Maleficarum?” The Hammer of the Witches. “I thought Heinrich Kramer wrote that.”
“The original one, yes. Kramer was a nut job who was disavowed by the Catholic church and most anyone with a brain. But two hundred years later, the next group of idiots came along and decided to expound on his work. So, they wrote their own operating manual, Hexenhammer, or what should have been rightly termed Hexenhammer II, The Age of Anti-Enlightenment.” He glanced at her as he stopped at a light. “I can send you the PDF, if you want.”
“Sure. Sounds like a good, fluffy bedtime story.”
“Just make sure you have your Chucky doll nearby for cuddling when you get scared.”
She laughed. “Where are we going?”
“Washington Av.”
Since she wasn’t that familiar with Savannah yet, she had no idea what kind of neighborhood they’d see.
But given the fact that the man’s name was Senechal Villan, she was expecting something less than stately. Something definitely spooky.
She couldn’t have been more wrong as they pulled into a ritzy neighborhood and stopped in front of an impressive mansion. One that was reminiscent of an old German or Tudor-style home. Mostly brown brick, it had gingerbread trim and a very Alpine feel. Nothing spooky about it.
Other than the possible price tag.
“Nice house.”
Luke didn’t comment as he turned the car off. “Were you expecting a trailer?”