Chapter Two #2
Now, they lost Wynter.
Losing anyone else was not something he wanted to see happen.
Please. They are my family. They need to know. We all need to know. I’ve lost Ridge. Right now, he’s falling apart, and I know I can’t get back into the static. They are good people, and they will help us figure this out. We can’t do this alone. We need everyone’s help.
That was her problem.
Would they be willing to risk it all, to save them all?
What Avalon did know was that there was a lot on the line.
So, she gave them what she could.
“Death is coming,” she stated. “What this entity is doing is preparing for the next round. He has spent his whole life hating and seeking revenge.”
Tori was curious.
“Hating who? Surely, Wynter didn’t do anything to this person. She was a sweetheart,” she said, her voice hitching as a tear slipped down her cheek.
Avalon was not only risking herself now, hoping that she could trust these people, but she was also trusting them to save one more life.
It was time to share.
As Genesis sat beside Josh, her heart skipped when Avalon turned her head to focus on her.
Then, she said one word.
“Her.”
Everyone looked at Genesis, completely confused by that too. Genesis had been a cop, orphaned by her parents, as she tried to survive in Utah.
“I don’t know what I did,” she admitted. “I never hurt anyone. I swear!”
Avalon was aware.
Only, this person, who was filled with vitriol and hate, didn’t care about that. That evil sickness was driving the bus, and it was heading right for Genesis.
With one intent.
“It wasn’t you,” she said. “It was your family. Your family has been here a very long time, Genesis. Your ancestors go back to a dark time.”
They knew that Genesis’ parents left Salem to get her out. They knew her grandmother had lived here up to so many years ago.
They just didn’t know all of it.
Clearly.
Their first question was a simple one.
Why was this thing fixated on her?
Avalon explained.
“To this thing, you’re the last of the evil that destroyed their family. Your bloodline is the focus, and your gift calls to it in the darkness. Light calls to dark. It’s always been that way, and it will always be that way.”
They weren’t sure where this was going.
It was a lot.
Running headlong into Oracle had been a crash course with trauma.
Avalon could feel their confusion and see it on their faces. So, she tried to help.
“You all know what chases her. This entity is a dream weaver. It haunts dreams, and if you’re having nightmares, it’s already in your head.
Once there, it drains you. That’s the psychic vampire part.
It feeds on that energy—the soul’s energy.
It has been taught for a very long time that your bloodline is evil.
On top of that, this person isn’t mentally well.
He’s sick, and this energy has made it…hungry for pain. ”
As Avalon said this, Genesis had tears in her eyes. She was clutching Josh’s hand, holding onto him like she was about to be ripped away in a current.
Truthfully, he was the ONLY thing keeping her from losing her mind.
At Avalon’s words, she protested.
“I’m not evil. I was a cop. I helped people. I don’t hurt anyone. My parents have been dead for a while. I don’t know what my family could have possibly done to anyone!”
Avalon reassured her.
“Hate gets twisted,” she admitted. “As the generations carried that hate, it became greater as it was passed down. Your family was originally here when the trials happened. Salem’s ground is filled with blood. We know of the infamous trials, but something happened before that.”
They all listened.
Hopefully, this would give them some insight, because Wynter was dead, and it appeared that Genesis was next.
“People left Europe to escape many different things. Religious persecution being one of them. Here, in Salem, this is where many Pagans settled. They stuck to the East Coast when the boats brought them here.”
They knew the history.
Living here, it was difficult not to be aware of all of that history. It lived and breathed around them.
Especially near Halloween.
“What you don’t know is that there was a war before The Burning Times.
Before people began hunting witches, there was a time when the people who worshiped something darker controlled this.
These lands were teaming with Natives, and they had spirits they worshipped.
Add in the influx of dark magick practitioners, and things were summoned. ”
And this was where Julian started getting itchy palms. This sounded like a trip down a not-so-good memory lane.
Been there.
Done that.
Hesitantly, he went there.
“Like what?” he inquired. “Are you saying something more demonic?”
She shrugged.
“That’s a religious term for it. It’s a dark energy, and some people worshipped it. Your ancestors, Genesis, were highly religious. They made sure that stopped. Like with dark and light having to balance, good and evil also has to balance.”
Genesis closed her eyes.
This was getting to be too much.
“I don’t know how to deal with this. Something that happened over four hundred years ago is biting me in the ass? How do I stop it?”
That was why she was here.
Fate had woven the tapestry, and Avalon was slowly trying to unravel it, so that people didn’t die.
Genesis.
Lucian.
Her.
“It grew,” she stated. “Bloodlines converged, and they made choices. Everything before now fed into it, and that hate grew with this person. Doors were opened and left unclosed.”
Raven got it.
As a witch, you ALWAYS closed the door.
During spells.
During scrying.
During the use of a Ouija Board.
“What Avalon is saying is that something that is worshipped is brought into existence with manifesting it. That something can take over a person and cause them to do bad things.”
Uh-oh.
To Julian, that sounded EXACTLY like what Nyx had done, and that made him so twitchy, his fight or flight was now all flight.
Avalon agreed with what he’d said.
“Exactly. This never existed until it did. Now, though, it carries on through humanity. It possesses it, and it makes it fester. As I’ve said, this person is not mentally well.
They’ve been tainted their whole life, born into this.
Now, it wants to get its hands on the person who personifies his whole reason for being.
That takes us to your family. Your grandparents protected their one child, who was born with the same gift you have. ”
Genesis didn’t understand that.
What gift?
She had been a cop with a great sense of when someone was throwing down bullshit.
“I am a walking lie detector. Nothing more, and nothing less. I don’t know how that can ruin someone’s life, or how one of my parents having that gift was able to do that either.”
She wished that was only the case. This woman’s gift wasn’t as simple as detecting truth from lies.
Not.
Even.
Close.
To help out, Lucian explained.
“Remember when you passed out?” Lucian asked. “That was all of your doors being opened. You said you heard someone in your head.”
She nodded slowly.
“I did.”
Avalon switched to talking to her another way.
You’re more than a lie detector. You’ve always been more, Genesis. This is your proof.
Hearing words in her head, Genesis gasped. The whole time, she was watching Avalon, and her lips never moved.
Not once.
Breathe. It’s okay. It’s only me communicating with you as we’re connected to the other plane. When you passed out, that doorway opened to it. You can now move between.
Oh.
Holy.
Shit.
Genesis didn’t like this.
“Why can I hear you in my head?” she asked, catching everyone there off guard.
Well, not everyone.
Bishop, Lucian, Nate, and Avalon didn’t look the least bit shocked.
Because, as I said, your gifts have opened all the way. Like how Tori was born being a psychic, and it came alive due to loss, and the same with Julian, yours was always there. You are a full-blown psychic. You can manipulate the static, like Lucian and I can.
Speaking of the one-eyed devil…
She’s not lying. Oracle is being honest. We can talk this way. I can do this with Ridge and Oracle. Now, I can do it with you. Our mental pathways are in a different plane of existence, and we straddle both of them.
As soon as she heard him, her head snapped and turned, staring at Lucian who was also now in her head as if it was a perfectly normal thing to do.
“How?” she asked.
Lucian didn’t know.
That was out of his realm.
All he knew was he, too, could do this, and it was something he’d come to love.
He had a purpose.
And you have a purpose too. Genesis, something is coming, and we’re in danger.
Avalon agreed.
We three are the key to keeping it at bay. The Littlemoons can’t fight this. They find murderers, and while this thing is a killer, it’s far more. It’s evil that traverses both planes. That makes it ours to police.
From where she was sitting, Tori was watching the three of them, and the silence was very telling. They were having a full-blown conversation in someone’s head.
And that was unnerving, among other things.
“Uh, it’s rude to have a conversation in your head when we can’t hear it. God. I never thought I’d say shit like that,” Tori admitted.
Julian laughed sardonically, as he was one step away from losing his shit.
“Oh, I did. This is the epicenter of crazy. Being psychic was the beginning to the end of my sanity.”
Avalon could sympathize with that.