Page 13 of Soul of a Witch

This time, IknewI hadn’t imagined it. Whirling around, I searched frantically for the source of the voice. It had sounded so close, as if someone was standing right behind me.

“Who’s there?” I called out, trying to make my voice sound fierce and bold.

The light was dim. Candle flames danced in the sconces along the walls, as if beset by a breeze. A strange smell, like wet stone, permeated the air.

Then the shadows moved.

They grew, stretching along the walls like long fingers reaching toward me. They bulged and swelled, darkness becoming appendages within a fluttering shroud.

Wisps of shadow and fog swirled to create a wraith-like form with a shimmering blade in one hand. I stared, at first not daring to move, hoping it couldn’t see me. But beneath its cowl, silvery eyes locked onto me. Shriveled lips pulled back from blackened teeth, and the creature shrieked, flying toward me with the blade raised.

I turned and bolted, quickly becoming lost within the labyrinthian halls. Portraits glared down at me from every wall, my footsteps terrifyingly loud as I fled. I tried every door, but none of them opened. And despite running until my chest ached, the shrieking cries of the wraith followed me. More joined it; every time I glanced back, another wraith was flying with the pack, or crawling along the walls or ceiling.

Their bodies looked incorporeal; the blades in their hands certainly did not.

With sickening horror, I realized I was facing a dead end. But I couldn’t stop. At the very end of the hall stood a large set of doors, wrapped in braided black rope. If those doors were locked, I would be dead.

Throwing myself against them, I grasped both knobs and shoved, glancing back frantically as the wraiths were almost on me —

The doors opened, and I fell inside, landing hard on the floor and knocking the breath out of my lungs. Scrambling forward, I barely made it out of the way before the doors slammed shut, leaving the monsters screaming furiously on the other side. They pounded against the door with so much force that the stone walls shook.

They wouldn’t be held off forever. Surely, there was another way out of this room.

My mouth was tainted with the taste of iron, and I reached up to find my lip bleeding. I must have bitten it when I fell. But strangely, I couldn’t just taste iron; I could smell it, too. Iron and coal, but also something sweet and pungent. Like the rich scent of a cigar.

As the wraiths screamed and clawed at the wood, I surveyed the room. Shelves stuffed with books lined one side, volumes stacked in piles on the floor. Potted plants, vibrantly green with life, hung from the ceiling and were wedged into every available space between the shelves. Large arched windows occupied the wall directly in front of me, but they were shrouded with heavy curtains. The light was faint, emanating from smoldering embers in a fireplace to my left. Beside the fire sat a small table with a gramophone on top.

To my alarm, the gramophone was playing. The record’s crackling jazz melody filled the room; a strange juxtaposition to the cries of the monsters outside.

Narrowing my eyes, I tipped my head curiously as I examined the stone floor. There were markings: two circles, one inside the other, with runes etched between them.

As the wraiths’ shrieking grew more furious and my eyes followed the strange language beneath my feet, a cold sense of realization settled over me. I knew what these markings were. Although I couldn’t read them, I knew what they were used for.

It was a summoning circle. Made to call and contain a demon.

But if there was a summoning circle, then…

My eyes drifted to the far side of the room, to the shadows beneath the window, and I barely held back a scream. There, lying upon a massive bed covered in red velvet, was a man.

He had one leg propped up and the other extended out, his head resting limply upon one folded arm. His eyes were closed.

Was he asleep…or dead?

Daring to take a few steps closer, I was able to get a better look at him. His body was long and lean, his chest bare. He had an angular face, unnaturally poreless and pale, as if he’d been carved from marble. His dark hair curled around his ears, just long enough to brush the curve of his neck. It looked soft, like it would slip through my fingers like silk. His feet were bare, and thick black claws curled from his toes. His fingers were clawed, too, lying limp against the soft velvet and leather blankets.

Then I realized it wasn’t leather at all. The “leather” was bat-like wings, splayed out across the bed. The thin gray membranes were marbled with black veins, with tiny spines along the top.

This wasn’t a human. This was a demon. But he wasn’t an ordinary one, no. Mama had told me his kind existed: ancient demons with massive wings and immense strength, royalty amongst their own species.

He was an archdemon.

Father used to talk about wanting to summon one, insisting he needed to replace disobedient Leon — who had served the Hadleigh family for nearly a century. But Mama had quickly put a stop to that, and for once, he listened to her. She had said, “You don’t summon an archdemon. You call them. And depending on how unlucky you are, one might show up.”

Maybe facing the wraiths in the hall wasn’t so bad after all.

But the demon didn’t stir. Not so much as a twitch, or even a single breath.

The wraiths were beginning to cause significant damage to the door. The wood was audibly cracking, the metallicthunkof their blades striking the door again and again. There was no other way out; no door, no stairway, no hatch in the floor. Perhaps I could try the window, but that would require climbing on the bed and potentially disturbing the creature lying there.

---