Page 7 of Blood Sacrifice

Maia:Do you recognise any of them?

Me:No, but 400 years is a long time, and they tended to be kept away from us.

All but Salvator since he had been watching over me and my sister.

Maia:Do you want me to organise someone to collect you?

I wandered over to the window and looked out through the slats. Four hundred years had been a long time to hide from my old priest. It was also a long time to be alone and gave you the time to think. After spending several decades terrified of my ownshadow, I began to travel and seek out other magical beings. Instead of trying to consume their power as Balor did, I created a network to help each other. Maia would only have to lift her phone, and those closest to this location would come to help me.

Me:No, this is the first time anyone has reacted to my presence. I’ll monitor the situation.

Every bone in my body screamed to run, but there was a small part of me that wanted to stop hiding and face my fears. However, that did not mean that I would allow myself to become prey to whatever was out there. I tended to carry small surveillance devices with me that allowed me to monitor my room when I was separated from my possessions, so I set up the cameras and motion detectors, moved my luggage to the bathroom, and prepared myself for limited sleep.

I created a pillow person and lifted some bedding into the small bathroom, creating a bed in the bath and pulling the shower curtain over. I had slept in worse places, and the locked bathroom door gave me an added layer of protection and time if someone was in the bedroom.

Several hours passed and I dozed in and out of sleep before my phone alerted me to the fact that someone was in my room. I watched as two figures entered the room, and systematically searched the wardrobe and drawers, avoiding the bed and the fake me sleeping in it.

They were silent predators who moved with lithe precision, leaving again when they satisfied themselves that what they were looking for wasn’t in the room. People tended to ignore the bathroom since there was rarely anything of value kept there.

When they left, I climbed out of the bath and strained my ear against the bathroom window that was slightly open. I heard movement in the room next door, and my body sagged against the wall in relief since they seemed to be searching everyone’s rooms.

They were looking for something or someone, but they didn’t know the location of their target.

I spent the remainder of the night in my room, sleeping on the edge of sleep in the bath, until a scream jolted me awake. People had begun to gather outside when I emerged from my room. A member of the hotel security was trying to make people return to their rooms, talking between themselves in rapid Spanish.

One of the tourists was dead, and they were trying to contain everyone until the police arrived, giving us false information about a problem with a gas leak.

Back inside my room, I made the bed look as if it had been slept in, put all my cameras and surveillance equipment in a pouch at the bottom of my suitcase, and made it look as if I was a tourist living out of their suitcase. Then, I had a shower and used the specially designed make-up that I carried with me.

One of the witches I met about fifty years ago helped me to create a make-up range infused with magic, the foundation allowing you to mask your emotions, the lipstick making humans believe what you told them, and the eyeshadow aiding you to see the truth in a situation.

I plaited my hair, tying crystals in it as I wound it around the crown of my head. It was my own form of armour, a delicate layer of protection to ensure I could walk this world undetected.

We were finally told it was safe to leave our rooms, and even though I was in the breakfast room, I felt the presence of strangers close to one of the crystals left in my suitcase. I noticed several uniformed officers moving around in the gardens outside the hotel, and presumed whoever was upstairs was with them. It would make sense to search before any of us realised what was happening.

The lycans from the night before were seated at a table in a different corner, and I suppressed the shiver that threatened toripple through me. My pendant almost throbbed against my skin as it masked my true identity from those who sought to harm me.

I walked past them on the way to the breakfast buffet and noticed a tattoo on both of their left hands. The double-headed snake that Balor tended to engrave on his temple and the staff he carried everywhere with him.

Death had a unique energy pattern and it currently surrounded the two lycans, so they had been present when someone had transitioned from the physical to the spiritual. They had not possessed that energy yesterday, which meant they were involved in the death last night.

One couple was missing from breakfast. They had been in their early thirties, and the woman had considered herself an expert on the occult, trying to get others to participate in communing with the energy of some of the sites we had visited. No self-respecting witch would involve themselves with her suggestions and self-aggrandising. Her partner tended to wear wooden bead bracelets, with chakra tattoos poking out from under his T-shirts. Any permanent marks we placed on our bodies could be used in the craft and to make a spell quicker, not as decoration.

I slowly sipped my mate de coca tea that all the hotels in the area offered for altitude sickness. Instead, I drank it as it reminded me of the tea my mother made in the village I grew up in. We didn’t have tealeaves imported from around the world as we do now, and so our elders made tea from what was available in the local area. It settled my nerves since lycans sat close to me.

“I heard one of the hotel workers talking, and they say there was a death last night,” Sylvia said, taking a seat beside me, her eyes glued to the door. “Frank said he saw police in the gardens earlier.”

“I saw men in uniform earlier, and thought they were security staff,” I replied, and she nodded excitedly as if her gossip had been confirmed. “Has everyone in our group been accounted for?”

Her eyes grew large and round as she turned herself into the human equivalent of an owl to determine if we were all here. “I must go and find the tour guide, and ask him if everyone is okay.” She scurried off in her quest for gossip and I continued to sit and sip my tea.

Magic had been detected and someone had paid the greatest price. The power dynamic had changed in this region from the last time I visited. I had been in danger before, but there was a different, darker threat now on the horizon that made my skin crawl.

We were kept at the hotel for two days and discovered that the couple had been found dead in their beds with no evidence of a crime. Magic could steal the air from your lungs or freeze the blood in your veins to leave no trace. Given the option of staying on the tour or leaving, I voted with the majority to continue our adventure, hiding among the others in a group.

Something dark and evil had taken root in this land, and I fully intended to discover what it was before I left, even if it started a magical war.

Chapter Four

---