Hellfire | Hayley Marshall

Chapter 16

The Harvest girls were already awake.

Eisa had gotten to see them at one of the witch homes nearer to Algiers. The girls had been given a chance to bathe and eat, but had yet to speak to anyone other than the few witches who had found them bursting out of their tombs.

"Hello," said Eisa, tucking her hands behind her back once she was invited into the house. She looked at Davina, who looked quite uncomfortable to be there, and then at the other girl, apparently named Abigail. "How do both of you feel?"

Davina shook her head, not wishing to answer. The other girl glared at Eisa. "Don't pretend to care," said Abigail scathingly. "You killed Monique Deveraux. They told us."

Eisa rolled her eyes. "Monique Deveraux killed her Aunt Sophie and helped the witches who kidnapped my siblings. She deserved death."

Abigail scoffed. "Of course you would say that, vampire."

"I'd quit being a little bitch, if I were you," Eisa sneered. "It was because I killed Bastianna and Genevieve that the two of you were able to return to life. I needn't murder any other witch so long as you cooperate with me."

"It's okay, Abby," said Davina gently. "Eisa isn't gonna hurt us."

Abigail didn't seem to believe her, but she relented. "As you know," said Eisa, coming to sit across from them, "my mother, the Original witch, was consecrated in order for your Harvest to be completed. Her power now flows through you. I mean to ask you a favor."

"A favor?" cried Abigail. "So, you allowed your mother to be consecrated just so you could use us?"

"I did not wish for my mother to be consecrated, as a matter of fact. I had no say in the matter, considering the witch Celeste, who is in the body of Sabine, kidnapped me. Now, this favor benefits the two of you and the rest of the witches. If I kill Celeste, the fourth Harvest girl will rise."

"Cassie," said Davina knowingly. She wrung her hands together. "Okay. What do you need us to do?"

"Celeste has a nasty little habit of jumping into the bodies of others, just as my mother has done on several occasions. I require you both to perform a spell that will return her to her true body. I thought, initially, to bind her to the body she is in. But I know not what Protective Spells she has on it. Thus, I'd like you to ensure that her next destination— her final destination— is her original body. The bones, I believe, are somewhere in the Lafayette Cemetery, considering Celeste was in the field where the bones were, and they have since gone missing. Do this, and it will ensure that I can kill her, and cause her power to flow back into the Earth to resurrect Cassie."

Davina and Abigail shared a look. "Alright," said Davina, deciding for the both of them. "We'll do it, so we can get Cassie back."

Eisa extracted a small vial of blood. "This is hers. Use it for the spell."

The girls left for the Cemetery once they'd gone over the spell they'd be performing. Eisa, pleased with their cooperation, purchased cell phones for them, specifically so they could update her on the progress of the spell and let her know if the witches tried to do anything sinister.

She headed off for the Bayou once they'd let her know that they found Celeste's bones. A brief call to Hayley pointed her in the right direction, and with her jar of magic-suppressing herbs at the ready, she walked up to the edge of the water, near the cabin she'd stayed at. There, she found Celeste, hands bound, sitting on a tree stump and having made her own jar of herbs.

"Here," she heard her say as she handed the jar to Hayley. "It's herbs ground into paste. It'll act as a conduit for the spell. On the next full moon, your people become human. Feed it to them, the curse will be broken."