Page 71 of Mortdale

I wasn’t exactly sure what time it was when the slight scent of cloves in the air stirred my stomach. But I resented how quick my body became aware of him.

I realised I was on the bed, not under it, exposed and vulnerable. Only a little relieved to find Piper right next to me, clutching Thomas to her side. I had not slept on a bed for at least thirteen years. Once ghosts realised you could see them, there was no stopping their persistent harassment and torment and demands. They’d once kept me awake for an entire week until I’d been weak enough to be possessed by one. It hadn't been as fun for them as it was for me when they’d eventually realised that inhabiting the body and mind of a witch with a curse wasn’t exactly a cinch. Those three nights in a coffin thirteen years ago had been perhaps my most peaceful. Cabinets, closets, tubs; I'd slept in them all, in search of the same serenity.

“It was hard for the doctor to reach under the bed,” he said when I looked up to find him leaning against my bedroom door with his hands in his pockets. His gaze went to his niece clinging to my arm, asleep. “And she was insistent on staying.”

“She’s been doing it for a while,” I told him, adjusting my stiff buttocks on the mattress, careful not to pull on the needle the doctor had stuck in the crook of my elbow.

“She always drops by my room first. Fusses around in my bed for a little and then comes here.”

That’s why she always smelled like him.

“You want her back?”

“Tell her I am very sad about it. It ought to buy me some good behaviour for some time.”

His eyes darted to the tie that was tightly clutched in my hand. The one I’d stolen from his study.

“To catch nightmares,” I told him, tucking it under my pillow. “Everyone seems to be terrified of you. Nightmares included.”

He studied me for some time before crossing the distance of the room to sit on the bed with his back to me. “You always have them?”

“I’ve never known not having them.” Curses did more than kill. They haunted. “How long was I out for?”

“Two days,” he said, reaching to pull the needle out of my arm. “Piper was really worried about you. Everyone was.”

He lowered his mouth to the crook of my arm, where blood had beaded out of the needle puncture. His tongue lapped against my skin, licking the trail of blood before his lips wrapped around the puncture, gently sucking.

I shifted to my side when a heavy weight slipped from my stomach to settle between my legs, my knees brushing against his thigh.

His thumb still moved back and forth over the crook of my elbow. “What happened?”

“Maybe sticky-fingers gave me something. I woke up with her whole fist shoved in my mouth one day. I shudder to think where that hand had been beforehand.”

“She doesn’t get sick. She’s a vampire.”

“Is she though? I saw her mark,” I said, and felt him grow tense. “How is it possible, Logan? Every answer I have had is illogical. Our species do not mix.”

He reached to pull down the nightgown that had slipped up and gathered around my thighs. As he brought it down, his cold fingers brushed the length of my leg. “My great grandmother was a witch who was given to the Blood Pact. Sometimes the trait follows. Sometimes it doesn’t. Cassandra had a mark on her shoulder, too. As did my brother, Heath. As does Morgana.”

My eyes widened. I shook my head in an attempt to rearrange all the rattling thoughts in there. “How do they—”

“Practice magic? They don’t.”

“How have you managed to hide the fact that there are Mortdale witches?”

“We haven’t hid it because there are no Mortdale witches.”

“The Cleansing. It’s for them, isn’t it?”

“By design, yes. Later, when the pact was agreed upon, the Basilica required all witches living in Mortdale to go through the Cleansing, pronouncing them free from their oath to the Goddess of Death.”

“That’s just ridiculous. A witch will always be a witch. No matter how many times you scrub her under holy water. Piper and all the others will always have an affinity for magic. Do you know how dangerous it is to suppress chaos? I was only a year old when I hurt the first living, breathing thing. Simply by looking outside the window. How has it gone this long without an accident?” My eyes paced between his as I lifted myself on an elbow until I stood face-to-face with him. “There has to have been accidents, right?”

His eyes flashed and his jaw tightened. He didn’t say anything, and he didn’t need to.

The more I thought about it, the worse it got. What were the chances this was connected to the Madness? Shit. What were the chances this was connected to the deaths of the Crimson Weaver witches? The only thing that made me pause was: why now?

“Does Agnes know of this?”