Watch of the Wicked (Devil's Witch Book 3)

Yansmen

“Erma!” I scream into the dark.

Yes indeed, I’m more than a little peeved Heinrich decided to come flowering picking with us out in the field. Pretending to be Tommy is quite easy it turns out. At first, I think my behavior rubbed Valerie the wrong way, but I’ve mellowed down into the dead cowboy’s behavior.

Heinrich hasn’t been feeding properly. Mainly because we’ve been avoiding Valerie’s house like the plague since he can’t keep up the act well. He pouts over his newfound blood source, Stella. He should have known though his feelings were one-sided when he had to go and brainwash her for the boss.

“Tom, she’s probably lost,” Valerie calls above the wind. She’s already inside with the vamp babies. “We should call for help your yard’s too big for the two of us to search alone at this hour.”

“No, I’ll find her. I’m taking the truck.”

I step up into the vehicle, turning on the headlights. The green of the pasture welcomes me as I tear over it ready to run over “Erma”. Trees pass by me as I don’t bother going around the fence and instead run right through its rotted wooden beams. Some cattle wake up and moo loudly behind me as I honk my horn in agitation for the lazy loads to move out of my way.

One particularly big black cow moves out of my path revealing Heinrich laying on the ground in the middle of the field next over. I slam on the breaks skidding to a hault as he transports his hag form in front the grill of my newly claimed monster of a truck.

“Heinrich!” I seethe while throwing open the door.

He looks up at the sky ignoring me as I stomp over to him. “He’s here...”

I scoff blowing a whistle seeing the mud the truck splattered all over him.

“He’s not-” My sentence gets cut off.

Cold fingers squeeze impossibly tighter around my throat. “I’ve been revived, Tommy. Now, you’ve played enough.”

I holler in protest when the man with shaggy hair throws me against the ground. He’s lean like a string bean, but tanned over from working out in the sun. A piece of wheat from the field hangs out of his mouth ridiculously like an old farmer. He wears a neon green muscle shirt stained up in grease and dirt.

“It’s time you be revived too. You must first wash away your...sins,” he says eerily while chewing on the stem of the wheat. He spits it out suddenly as his skin turns to black. The truck lights flicker rapidly as the wind picks up howling as it whirs sharply around me in a circle.

A heavy feeling gets dumped onto me as I fall to my knees. A bunch of tiny, slippery creatures move around in my throat. Their bodies lodged deep inside like tangled noodles struggling to rise up and out.

I can’t scream without choking. So I remain immobile as the baby snakes have their way, and in agonizing leisure, make their way out of my mouth.

I blink my eyes, feeling miserable and more ill than I’ve ever felt. A moment later, the bed of the truck meets my back as the wind gets knocked from me. I look down confused. I wasn’t wearing this green shirt before, Tommy’s hair didn’t hang in my eyes like this before. I sit up just in time to catch the wicked grin of Noctus as he waves at me while Heinrich drives me off probably to bury me alive somewhere.

***

I haven’t left the porch. Tom’s only been gone for ten minutes, but if Erma got hurt out there it wouldn’t take long for her to pass out or panic. She could easily have a heart attack or...

Tom’s truck lights blind me as he comes up over the hill in the distance heading straight toward the house. I turn back into the house seeing Jax and Willow run upstairs for bed. Reluctantly, I follow the kids up the stairs while trying to ignore the old war memorabilia all over the walls. There’s enough confederate flags in here to cover the roof of the house. Thomas did warn me about his parents, but they’ve been dead for some time. I wish he would have taken this stuff down. It’s pretty much the equivalent to the vampire supremacist flags I see on occasion when driving outside town. They’ve been banned since the riots of course -- a symbol of hate like the ones on the wall in here.

That’s not the worst part of the upstairs though. There’s creepy little angel sculptures in each bedroom that have little eyes that light up in the dark. They’re night lights, but some idiot decided to build them into the ceiling rather than make them plug-in to the wall outlet like a normal human would.

After I finish tucking the kids in, I go downstairs getting a strange feeling halfway down the wooden staircase. The air feels like static, a cold sweat breaks out on the back of my neck as my hair drifts around my shoulders. The downstairs lighting his dim because I just let the kitchen light on for Tom thinking it’d be enough for him to see.

The pain in my stomach I had forgotten for so long flares up as a tall black silhouette steps out and around the base of the stairwell. I look down at my hand seeing the whites of my bones standing out against my skin’s new deep, dark red color.

Blood drips from his body like a second skin. It deforms his figure until it rises off of the ground remaking his body...in his own image. It’s identical to his appearance as I remembered it being.

Some blood stays around him keeping him decent while he picks up the clothes on the ground and shrugs them on. Once dressed, he cracks his neck.

“Where’s Tommy?” I demand sharply.

I grimace seeing his veiny skin like I remembered from my dream.

“Dead,” he mumbles while eyeing me.

He licks his lips while looking down as he makes his way toward me up the bottom step. I shake my head in disbelief. My hands grip the railing tighter feeling the luke-warm liquid still dripping from his hands smear over me as he rubs my arm affectionately.

“I told you I would be back in the flesh. I’m here,” he says tentatively while watching me carefully.

He combs his golden hair back while averting his stare once hearing the sound of a car moving around out front. A moment later, the front door explodes as Will’s magic forces its way inside.

“I’m sorry, but silly Willy has run my patience thin.”

“I don’t care!” I say in worry. “Y-you leave him alone,” I add in a quieter voice while watching Will from behind Nick’s back. “He’s just looking out for me,” I add in a whisper.

One moment Will is staring daggers at Nick, the next, he vanishes into thin air.

Nick stomps down the steps taking our magic with him. Will steps back into the house; his hair disheveled and his face all scraped out. How did Nick set up a ward so fast with our magic? That must have been what threw Will out so quickly.

A blue gust of Will’s magic heads toward Nick. He uses his vamp speed to dodge it. It crashes into the living room tearing and ripping up everything in its path.

“Get out!” I scream catching both of them off guard. I take my wrongfully conjoined magic from Nick and hoard it to myself.

He widens his eyes but quickly turns his attention back on William. Our conjoined magic easily enables me to throw them both outside.

“You big lying a-hole!” I shout while watching Nick.

I slam the door shut feeling deeply disturbed. All along, the human I thought I could have a future with was him. And Will...I can’t even start. I know he had been following me around town, I caught him doing it twice and that was just today! Every time I go into town he always seems to be where I am. But coming all the way out to Livertown just to keep tabs on me is ridiculous.

Neither of them knows anything about me. They haven’t been made to watch over two vampire babies alone and live in constant fear for not only their own life, but the life of two little ones. I glare at the door feeling my magic stir in anger. They both should know better than to try coming in here. Hopefully, they’ll be too busy fighting outside to consider it. Hearing them talking outside, well, Will talking, I hurry upstairs and lock the door. Willow jumps out of the guest bed seeing me. Her brother hurries over to me silently.

“Let go please,” I say lightly when Jax bites into my wrist.

As if my mental suffering wasn’t enough.

Giving up, I head over to bed while biting back tears as he drinks the life from me. I wish I had a timer or something. I don’t think they mean to hurt me, but there simply is no way to get them to quit biting until they’ve had their fill. I slump over in bed like dead weight. The children crawl in beside me, Jax staying the closest since he’s still eating.

I hear the door creak as my magic wavers around my dozing form. Of course, he had to come in here when I was about to go to sleep.

Nick walks over to the bedside where Jax lays and growls, fangs extended and all. Jax recoils. In the process, he finally lets go of my wrist and hurries off the bed. His sister follows behind him as their little forms hurry out of the room.

I watch the cunning vamp holding my limp arm. He catches the dripping blood in his mouth while sitting down on the edge of the bed.

He sets my arm down on his lap. “I wasn’t pretending to be Tommy. I had only recently come across him and used him to make my flesh new. It would be easier for you if you let me turn you.”

“None of this is easy. Being a vampire won’t make a difference. You need to leave.”

“You don’t seem as surprised as I imagined you being seeing me-”

“Why would I be? You visited me a few days ago, said you wanted nothing to do with a witch like me. Don’t pretend it never happened.”

His face darkens. “What? I would never speak to you like that.”

“Well, you did. And don’t say it was the devil. I’m done playing that game with you.”

He leans closer. “It wasn’t me. You have every right to be afraid if someone is walking around pretending to be me though.”

He picks my arm back up from his lap, licking my wrist wound lazily like a cat while staring into my soul.

“W-what?”

“William has made some poor decisions, but this is no news to us,” he croons while settling down on the bed beside me. I want to be angry, but some part of me is evil enough to find solace in the fact that he may hurt Will. “Don’t you think? Hmm?” he asks lightly.

Then again, it could just be the conjoinment messing with my mind. I giggle, unable to control the sound or my anger as I jump up when he lets my newly healed arm drop.

"Veni ad me,” I whisper.

My broom obediantly moves from the corner of the room. It makes its way over to me, but Nick grabs it before I can. I can’t stop giggling and squeal like a pig when he lifts me up and over the handle.

My broom wobbles. “Woah!” I shout feeling dizzy when he perches on the broomstick right behind me.

It lurches forward, bumping awkwardly into the wall. Nick chuckles behind me as it readjusts its direction. This time, when I tell it to, it moves more accurately in the direction of the window.

"Patentibus,” Nick whispers behind me.

The window opens just in time as we soar out of the house and up into the sky.

“I want ice cream,” I mumble feeling extremely tired all of the sudden.

Nick wraps his arms around me and I exhale in bliss feeling our magic wash over me like a refreshing gust of air. “I’ll give you all the ice cream you want if you drop me off at the police station.”

“Okay!”

I cackle not caring how I sound because riding my broom again is too much fun. I’ve never ridden with someone else at the same time and it makes it even more thrilling. Enough to make me distracted as we scare a family of bats from a pine tree nearby the house. I scream, accidentally making Nick shift into a snake. He twists up tightly around my arm in a coil.

My clouded mind clears as we land back inside Tommy’s house. It’s then I remember the predicament I’m in and the horrific things he’s done that earns him the title of snake. I rub my face fighting off a yawn as I lie down and pretend he’s just a pet to keep my sanity. He slithers up my arm and around my neck where he creeps back down my other arm in a slow loop.

He hisses around my head while continuing his circle. “S-stop it,” I say feeling another round of giggles come.