CURSED

~Chapter 16~

~Witch's Territory~

~Third Person's POV~

It has been a while since the three checked on Nancy and they were starting to feel guilty. Electra keeps having nightmares about Nancy, Melania, and Lyssa have been unable to meditate. After serious deliberation and consideration, they decide to check up on her, not for her sake but for theirs. 

They make their way down the flight of stairs and into the prison hall that links directly to the ancient tunnel they keep forgetting to seal up. They walk down the rows of cells flanked left and right of the hall till they get to the front of Nancy's cell. Melania brings out a bunch of keys and after shuffling with them for a bit, she finds the right one and opens the cell up. 

The three search around the room for Nancy before finding her curled up in a corner of the room, almost blending in with the walls. Her skin looks pale and her lips are chapped and chalk-white. Her skin is patterned with bruises and her hair looks like a rat next. Lyssa picks her up and the three make their way out of the room, locking the gate behind them. They make their way up the stairs and into the main house. They take her into their healing room and place her into a tub of water, then they gather up roots silently and start to treat her body. 

Melania takes an herb and mash it up in a mortar then she adds a black potion to it and stairs it up. She mutters some spell and the mixture turns green. She pours it into a cup and hands it to Electra who feeds it to Nancy. The concoction is supposed to bring her back to consciousness, but after minutes of waiting, they become worried and decide to check for a pulse, but there's nothing. She was breathing when they got her into the tub, it was weak and shallow, but it was there. How could she not have a pulse and still be breathing?

"This girl never ceased to surprise me!" Electra yells in frustration as she runs her fingers through her hair. 

"Is this even possible?" Lyssa asks as she sits down. She had been cleaning Nancy's skin, healing her wound so she didn't wake up in pain, but it was pointless. 

"It is. The only logical explanation is that her soul was evoked. But it'll take a powerful witch to evoke a soul without completely disconnecting it from its body."

"Why would anyone want to evoke her spirit? What exactly is she?" Electra asks as she joins Lyssa on the couch.

"I don't know, but what I do know is that if she was indeed evoked from her body, she would have a mark on her back. The mark would be unique to the witch and since we know all the powerful witches that exist, we'll find her and get some answers." Melania says as she walks up to the body, eyeing it wearily.

"And if there's no mark?" Lyssa asks as she stands and joins Melania by the tub. Electra follows suit and replies to her.

"Then the next logical explanation is that she astral projected and we'll have to call her back for questioning because I ran a test to check if she was a traveler and it came out negative.

The three hold their breaths as Melania turns her over and the mark on her now exposed back sends shock and anger to the three sisters. 

"This is impossible! She's dead! I killed her myself" Melania yells as she turns the body back and closes her eyes as flashes of the night she faced the owner of the symbol evade her senses.

The symbol is a vulture with a snake in its claws and its wings spread out.

"Athena can not be alive." Lyssa murmurs and Electra just stares, completely speechless.

The three storm out of the room, leaving Nancy's unconscious body in the tub. They head over to their shrine and begin a locator spell. Melania gets a talisman that Athena lost in battle with the three and uses it to cast a locator spell. Lyssa cuts her palm open with a knife and allows the blood to drop onto the map spread out on a table. Electra begins to chant and the blood starts to make a trail across the map. The three sisters crossed their fingers as they hoped she wasn't beyond their borders. They are well aware of how difficult it would be to get a plague from the elders, especially since they aren't exactly in their good books. So when the blood flowed out of their territory and into that of the vampires, they felt a wave of disappointment course through them. They exchanged a look as they knew their next course of action. It would take forever to get through to the elders and they didn't have much time. The longer a soul spends outside its body, the more difficult it would take to reunite the soul back to the body. They all felt a strong urge to protect Nancy and although they couldn't explain it, they didn't question it either.

They might not be able to get to Athena, but they could make her come to them. They began to chant an ancient spell. They hadn't used this spell in years as it was extremely dangerous. The spell is used to summon a demon from hell for the sole purpose of haunting the person who makes you burn with hatred. As simple as its purpose is, the spell could go south the moment the hatred in even one of the three starts to wear off, and in such a case, the demon stops haunting the person it was summoned for and starts to haunt all of the three. The only way to get rid of the demon is by the death of either party; those who summoned it or the person it was summoned to haunt. The worst part is that they have to take their own life.  

An alarm goes off and rings through the three's castle. They all pause from their chatter and exchange a frustrated look. They had gone through enough for one day and were thoroughly drained by the spell they used to summon that demon, so the thought of dealing with whoever had walked through their borders and set off the alarm wasn't exactly appealing. They got up from their seats and made their way outside anyway since it was their duty as the head of the witches to handle things like this. 

Lord Titus walks in through the borders of the witches' territory with all his men. The plague in their possession made them immune to the spell protecting the territory. Lord Titus already had the layout of the whole territory imprinted on his memory, so he led his men to the three's castle without any difficulty. They were greeted by the three standing outside the castle as if they had been expecting them.  That wasn't supposed to happen.

The three were thoroughly shocked as they saw a troop of vampire heads their way. Their pale skin and sharp ears as well as the dead aura around them was enough confirmation they were vampires. They weren't expecting anyone and these vampires came in through the borders. The elders usually send a message to the leader of the territory in advance but in his case, they didn't. Nothing made sense in that moment so all they could do was stand and watch.  Soon, they came properly into view and shock coursed through Melania's body as one word resounded in her head.

Mate

Lord Titus felt satisfied as he registered the look of shock on their faces. He had no idea why they were outside at that moment, but seeing as they weren't expecting them he didn't care. All that feeling soon washed away as soon as he set eyes on a certain witch. He couldn't help but let out a growl as he looked her dead in the eye. 

"MATE!" He growled out with irritation in his voice.

~A/N~

Hello lovelies.

 I know it's a short chapter but I didn't want this chapter any more loaded than it already is.

Don't forget to like and leave a comment. 

You are loved, you are beautiful and you are you.