Page 78 of The Witch's Heart
Ghost Genevieve kneels in front of her child, there but not, unseen but seeing all, and my heart breaks for them both. For this whole family. For my family. My grandmother, who I never knew but only heard stories of. For my mother, for Genevieve, for all the women in my family who have suffered because of Cutter and his monstrous ways. For the legacy I’d always thought was tainted by our own unhinged minds, but was instead a product of a hateful, scorned lover from the past.
Power sparks around the child as her screams grow louder, and when one of those sparks hits the couch, a small flame alights, burning through fabric and spreading.
I shake as the memories I was forced to endure of my own fire fill my mind. I can smell the smoke, feel the heat. My heart pounds against my ribs as panic floods my system.
Dr. Livingstone pulls me against his chest, holding me tight as he whispers into my ear. “You’re okay, Celeste. It’s not real. You’re safe.”
I almost laugh at that word. Safe. None of us are safe.
But his voice has a calming effect on me, and when Ghost Genevieve returns to us, her face an unreadable mask, my breathing is calmer.
“He’s evil,” I tell her, anguished by her pain and loss.
“There is one more thing you need to see.”
The door once again appears, and we walk through.
After what we just saw, I’m not sure I want to know more, but I can’t turn back now. Knowledge is power and I need all the power I can get if I’m going to defeat Cutter.
“What happened to my grandmother?” I ask as we step through the threshold.
Genevieve looks back at me. “She was raised by distant relatives. The trauma erased from her memory, along with all traces of who she truly was. Eventually, her mind couldn’t handle the missing pieces anymore and she threw herself into the Seine.”
I’d heard the stories from my own mother, but Genevieve’s version makes it so much more real. I swallow hard at the legacy Cutter left us.
“And my great-grandfather? He was a wolf?”
She nods. “You come from a strong and dangerous blood line, my child. Cutter is right to fear you.”
Our next stop takes us to someplace more familiar. The bowels of a dungeon with cages stacked one on top of the other.
“What the bloody hell is this?” Dr. Livingstone asks, the shock in his voice mirroring my feelings.
In each of the metal crates, a hideous beast growls, clawing and chewing at the bars. Some look part human, with a leg or an arm that juts out from their disfigured bodies, like a doll put together with wrong parts. They are mutants, covered in thick matted hair and cancerous growths pulsing in their flesh.
“These are Cutter’s failed experiments,” Genevieve says softly. “He’s trying to do the impossible. He’s trying to create a serum that will give him the shape shifting of a wolf and the magic of a witch.”
“He wants to be all three creatures. . . in one,” I realize as I look around.
Dr. Livingstone sucks in a breath and tightens his hand around mine. “That’s insane.”
Genevieve nods. “He’s insane. Losing me broke what was already cracked inside that man. And now, he is unreachable. Believe me, many have tried. But he will settle for nothing less than complete dominance over all the creatures who hurt him most in this world.”
“That’s what he’s been doing here with all of us,” I say.
“For decades, he has tried and failed but then he found you,” she says to me. “And he’ll stop at nothing to achieve his goal. Now he has a witch from my bloodline, and two twin wolves from the most powerful shifter lineage in the world. He will try again. He’s already garnered more power than any one person should ever have. If he succeeds, he’ll be unstoppable.”
I look back at the door we came through, shimmering in the darkness. “Then we will have to stop him before that happens,” I say, a steely determination settling into my bones.
“Go,” she says. “You have more power than you know. Go, before it’s too late.”
We walk to the door, but before we step through, I turn back to Genevieve and shiver at her expression.
With one look at her face, I know.
She thinks it’s already too late.
18
