29. Hecate
Alexa play: Burn the Witch by Shawn James
T he screams of my people came to me in the wind. The Earth was my constant connection to the lives I was responsible for, and despite knowing this was Shem’s attempt at a trap, I needed to go to them.
Skoll and Fenrir had tried to convince me to remain in Rome, where we had learned Shemhazai, for some unknown reason, would no longer step foot… but I couldn’t.
I could feel the hysteria from across the sea, and the terror and pain of my people were just something I couldn’t ignore.
Things were worse than I could have imagined when I arrived in Salem. The humans had managed to hang some of my witches. However, they had mostly hanged innocent women and men.
In typical puritanical fashion, the men who ran the town had skewed the witch hunt to serve their greed .
They began targeting individuals with wealth and land, as the law stated that if they were accused of witchcraft, their property was forfeited to the government or claimed by accusers.
I was seeing red when I manifested in Salem, flanked by a snarling Skoll and Fenrir, who remained in their canine forms.
Knowing Shemhazai would be waiting for me, ready to gloat, I was surprised to find another demon standing on the outskirts of town. This one had tanned skin and ice-white hair.
He smirked at me, his piercing blue eyes swimming with a sinister sort of excitement.
“Hello, Hecate,” he hummed, giving me a cool up and down. My back went up, and magic sparked at my fingertips.
“Who are you? Where is Hazai?” I spat. The low rumble of Skoll and Fenrir’s growls punctuated my words.
“My name is Arteqoph,” he replied, his voice laced with a quiet sort of disdain. “You must be the little bitch that has stolen Shem’s attention from me.”
I scoffed. “I have stolen nothing. It’s not my fault he’s developed an obsession with chasing me.”
He narrowed his eyes. For a moment, it looked like he wanted to snap at me, but instead, he smiled.
“Come. I’m sure you’re angry with him for what he’s done here. I’ll take you to him.”
You fucking better.
I was livid.
Following the demon into the woods, I did my best to contain my rage. It wasn’t worth wasting my depleted magic on him. My quarrel was with Shemhazai and Shemhazai alone.
Skoll and Fenrir sniffed the air next to me as we walked deeper into the forest outside Salem.
‘Something is wrong,’ Skoll whispered into my mind. ‘I don’t smell Shemhazai. I smell an angel. A powerful one.’
That didn’t make any sense. Why would there be an angel in the woods? And why would someone loyal to Shemhazai be leading me to one ?
We entered a clearing, and Skoll and Fenrir’s suspicions were immediately confirmed. We came face to face with a seraphim, his six ivory white wings curling around him ominously.
He was old.
Older than any angel I had ever come across.
So old that he even appeared more physically mature than most of his kind.
“Good, Arteqoph. I see you held up your end of the bargain,” the angel crooned, and I glanced over at the demon who claimed to be Shemhazai’s partner. “Now bring Shemhazai to me.”
Art glared at the angel. “No. The deal was I give you the mother of witches, and you leave Shem and I in peace,” Art snarled, and I frowned.
What the fuck was happening right now?
I knew Shem and I had been playing this game for centuries, but he hated Yahweh and his followers. Our game was always just that, a game. I didn’t think he would willingly hand me over to an archangel. No matter how pissed he was with me for making him fuck that vile king.
The seraphim smiled, and chills sheeted through my body.
“It doesn’t matter. He’s coming anyway. He senses her presence. I can see him.”
‘Fuck this.’ Skoll snarled into my mind, and before I could warn him not to, my guardian launched himself at the angel.
Art looked panicked and left the second Fenrir joined the fray. The demon vanished into the woods in what I assumed was an attempt to keep Shem from finding out what he had done.
The forest lent me its energy as I called magic to my fingertips, but even as I prepared to cast, I knew it wouldn’t be enough.
My people had been hanged, my sanctuaries burned, and I no longer had enough power to properly defend myself against an angel this ancient.
The angel lazily waved a hand, and my guardians stopped in their tracks. I screamed as he tore away their earthly forms and forced them back into the coin I had originally released them from.
In a fit of desperation and anguish, I fired a powerful blast of fire at the angel, but he shielded himself with two of his six wings. The stream of fire sputtered uselessly against him.
I was panting and panicked when he snapped his fingers. A golden noose snaked out of the grass and curled around my ankles.
“What the—” I tried to back away as the strange gold material sapped even more of my strength away from me.
“Yahweh has been waiting to add you to the graveyard for a long time, Hecate. I will be rewarded for your capture.”
The noose wound around my limbs, tying my wrists and my ankles together so tightly I dropped to the ground.
“I will fucking end you for this!” I spat, my mind still reeling with how quickly everything had happened.
The seraphim rolled his eyes and crouched before me, easily scooping me up into his arms.
“Now we just need to return Shemhazai to my collection, and everything will be as it should.”
The way he said Shem’s name made the blood drain from my face.
I was angry with him, sure, but whatever this angel was planning for him was not something I wished on the crafty chaos demon. Even he didn’t deserve whatever plan this sinister being had in store for him.
“Hec?”
Speak of the devil.
I thrashed against the seraphim’s chest in an attempt to get him to drop me, and my gaze collided with Shem’s green eyes as he melted through the wood.
“Shem! Run!” I screamed, and the seraphim laughed.
“Hec!” he barked in alarm, taking a step toward me until he realized who it was that held me.
The second his eyes took in the angel, he froze.
I’d known Shemhazai for thousands of years, and I’d never once seen him afraid.
“Shem, run! It’s a trap, Ar?— “
The seraphim slapped his hand over my mouth, and the rest of my words fell dead in his palm.
I watched Shem struggle with himself. He wanted to help me; I could see it on his face. But he was afraid of this angel, so much so that he was now shaking.
Our eyes met, and I let him see that I wanted him to run. He couldn’t help me if he was frozen with terror. It would only get him snatched up, too.
More golden strings snaked through the grass toward him, and I screamed against the angel’s palm in warning.
Shem glanced down, then back up at me.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and then, he vanished.