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Chapter Twenty-Six - Winifred Drake

The Year 1515

Pee Dee Settlement, NC

"Winifred! Open up!" Zaif continued to pound on the door of Winifred's cottage.

It wasn't even daybreak yet, but his cousin had informed him that Sorcha and Lana were missing. Omar was already helping Henry to form search groups that would split to cover multiple areas. A few witches were spared to support with the search due to rumours of vampir in the area.

"Gabriel may be in danger, please open!"

At these words, Winifred finally opened the door.

Zaif wasted no time in telling her what happened. "Lana---the girl who lives with Sorcha---I advised her to speak to Gabriel yesterday, and now both her and Sorcha are missing. You have to locate them. Gabriel would have been the last to see Lana alive, but I can't find him either. I need to know he hasn't hurt them."

Winifred was disgusted at his assumption, but waved him inside regardless, closing the door behind him. "My Gabe would not harm either of those girls, you know that as well as I do."

"He used to feed on humans," Zaif reminded her. "If he's given in to his bloodlust---"

"I satisfy his need for human blood," Winifred disclosed authoritatively. "When he feels no longer able to sustain himself on animals, I permit him to feed on me, so don't you dare come in here speaking of him like he's some savage animal." She rolled a map open on her table, starting to prepare for the tracking spell. "Give me something that belongs to one of them."

Zaif stuttered, "I don't---I didn't realize I needed---"

Winifred narrowed her eyes at him. "Well, aren't you woefully unprepared?" She released the map, which rolled back in on itself, and stormed around her cottage, trying to find an alternative she could use. Finally, from a wooden storage box, she pulled out a silver amulet containing three teardrop amethysts set in a Y-shape within a Celtic-patterned pendant. "Gabe gave me this necklace when he first confessed his feelings for me. I hated myself for feeling the same, so I used it to perform a spell against three of my sins: my lust for a vampire, my envy of his immortality, and my wrath towards my infertility. But I did not complete the spell. In the end, I came to terms with how I felt, so I returned it to him. After our first night together, he left the necklace for me, even though I could not accept it because I no longer considered my love for him to be a sin. Such a change of heart would have corrupted the spell. But it remained with me regardless. Hopefully it will be sufficient enough to locate him."

It took a moment for the tracking spell to be performed, with Zaif holding open the map and Winifred's blood trailing along it in order to find him. It snaked throughout the woodland areas, eventually stopping at a location in the forest across the river, not too far from a wooden makeshift crossing.

"That's where Henry is planning on heading," Zaif informed her.

"Then we need to get there first," she replied, heading towards the door.

They rode on the back of one of Zaif's cart horses towards the river where they had to dismount. The rickety, handmade bridge, consisting of timber planks supported by a log trestle base, was barely wide enough to walk across and certainly wasn't strong enough to ride across. They made their way along it as quickly as they could, with Zaif shouting out for Sorcha, and Winifred shouting out for Gabe. After deciding they would cover more ground if they split up, Zaif headed northwards while Winifred went south.

It took only three minutes of walking before Winifred heard a noise.

More specifically, a whispering.