Page 6 of Filthy Little Witch
“Their recent merger with Vanderbilt Holdings has been good for them,” our road captain, Hekate, joked. Hekate had long black hair and deep olive skin. She’d gotten her road name because she was a devotee of the ancient Greek Goddess and claimed to trace her heritage back to that same source. Hekate knew these roads better than anyone else in the club.
The rest of the sisters laughed.
“Gullveig,” Lilith said, glancing to our sergeant at arms. “What’s up on the network?”
Gullveig had gotten her name from the Norse legend about a woman who burned three times on a fire and still lived. She had long blond hair and a bright, pale complexion, making her look like a Viking shield maiden come to life. In addition to being our sarge, she could manipulate fire with her bare hands, something that most witches spent years learning. She took a deep breath and rustled some papers in front of her. “The Bloody Femmes were seen riding out of our territory late last night.”
Murmurs and gasps of surprise echoed around me. The Asheville Harlots controlled most of North Carolina, into South Carolina, and Southern Virginia. Even if we were stationed out of a small town in the Appalachian Mountains, we were responsible for keeping those bitches from sticking their noses anywhere near us.
The Bloody Femmes Motorcycle Club was the enemy of the Harlots and had been responsible for more chaos and destruction than most first-world countries. They were magic practitioners, but calling them witches would do a disservice to all who lived in harmony with the earth and drew their power from the Great Mother. The Femmes wielded their power with reckless abandon, using it to summon demons and compel monsters. I doubted any of them were human anymore, and if they were, they’d long ago lost their souls to the dark magic in their veins.
Not that I believed in light or dark magic—there was only chaos and order, action and consequence. All magic could be light or dark, depending on how you used it. The earth, after all, needed both day and night to survive. But the more a witch dealt out harm, the more tainted their soul became, twisting and perverting until the thing that made them human no longer existed. The Bloody Femmes had been running rampant up and down the East Coast for decades, well before the Harlots were incorporated.
“Any strange reports coming out of that area?” Circe asked.
“I’ve got a few things from the local news,” our tech guru, Aradia, said. She was tall and statuesque with reddish-tanned skin and dark features. She had a photographic memory and knew more about computers than anyone I’d ever met. “There have been a few mysterious deaths, but nothing that would jump out. I’ll check the tabloids and the socials.”
“While she’s doing that, where do we think the Femmes are headed?” Lilith asked, raising an eyebrow. Though she was our leader and arguably the most powerful of us, Lilith had become the president for a reason. She was strong and independent, and after losing her warrior some years ago, she went on missions by herself, surrounded only by her sisters. None of us liked it, but she said after watching her best friend die right in front of her, she couldn’t do it again. I didn’t blame her for that.
“They crossed into the Georgia chapter’s territory late last night,” Hekate said.
“Fuck.” Lilith pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “I’ll call Blaze and let her know.”
Blaze was the president of the Atlanta chapter, but their territory stretched up to meet ours.
“Okay, I got it,” Aradia cut in. “People on the socials report strange behavior in Biltmore Forest and Hope Springs.”
“What kind of strange behavior?” Circe asked, inhaling on a cigarette.
“Wait, that can’t be right,” Aradia said as she typed faster on her keyboard.
“What?” Circe asked. “What are you seeing?”
“They’re saying people are devouring each other.” Aradia furrowed her eyebrows.
“What? Like cannibalism?” Isobel asked.
Aradia shrugged and pulled up a video, turning the volume so everyone could hear it.
“I know this sounds crazy,” said the girl on the app. “But what’s happening in Biltmore is a nightmare, and no one’s talking about it. My best friend went to see her boyfriend last night, and now they’re both in the ICU. They wouldn’t stop, and now she’s got an infection and his skin is peeling off.”
“What the fuck?” Bridge asked. “Is this for real?”
Aradia showed another video. “This won’t be reported on the news because no one believes it, but I swear to you, America, Hope Springs is literally boiling from the inside out. I walked in on my grannie having an orgy last night.”
“Fucking hell.” I rubbed a hand over my face, trying not to laugh. It sounded ridiculous, borderline hilarious.
“This is a prank,” Morrigan, our tail gunner, said. She had flaming red hair, almost as bright as Bridge’s, and dark eyes that contrasted with her alabaster skin. She’d gotten her nickname from her association with animals, particularly crows. She said she could speak to them, and after observing her interactions with them only a handful of times, I believed her. “If something like this were actually happening, it would be all over the internet.”
“We’ve heard weirder,” Lilith said, looking at me. “Marta, Bridge, Isobel, go check it out. Report back on whatever you find.”
I nodded, pleased to have my first mission. Hopefully, it would turn out to be nothing but a joke, but the chance to flex my skills as a Harlot twisted hope and excitement in my belly. The meeting carried on for another hour as the prez assigned missions to the other witches. By the time it was over, I couldn’t contain my anticipation.
Bridge and Isobel met me in the front room, crossing their arms with serious looks on their faces.
“We handle this like any other mission. It’s not that far away, so we can call in backup if we need it,” Isobel said in her Scottish brogue. She was the most senior of the three of us, having been inducted into the Harlots almost a decade ago. She was from a small town in Scotland, and her family traced their lineage back to Isobel Gowdie, the so-called Queen of Witches. “We’ll ask the locals and the PD. Go round up your warriors. We head out in an hour.”
“Got it,” Bridge said with a nod before walking over to Leander, Isobel’s older brother. They were a good team, and as far as I could tell, always kept things professional. Isobel headed off to find Caspian, Circe’s twin brother, and I turned to the back of the room, where Atlas and Wesson sat on the couch, huddled together in quiet conversation.
