Page 22 of King Alejandro

“Then, what is it?” I asked, fear filling me.

“A demon.”

From the look on both their almost emotionless faces, I knew there was a lot more to it than that, and something told me it was not going to be good…

Her Decision

Kiara

“This is worse than we thought, isn’t it?”

“Demons are rare, and if this was cast by a demon, and I’m sure it was, then finding the one behind it is going to be rather difficult, even for us.” I closed my eyes, wishing that was not the case.

“Is there no other way?”

“Of course there is, finding the one who summoned the demon. If we find him, then we find the rest of the answers,” Magdalene stated, smoothing out the sleeve of her dress. The two women exchanged looks. I knew they were keeping something from me.

“There’s more to it, isn’t there? Tell me,” I demanded sharply, just as Mom entered. Janaina sighed heavily.

“If anyone else had performed this spell, or any spell for that matter, trying to lift the curse…. they would have died instantly. The only reason Delsanra survived is because of her demon side.” Her words made my blood run cold. I felt as if I had been slapped across the face. Goddess.

My heart was thundering erratically, thinking of the consequences of what could have happened. I had called her here; she could have died…

Mom placed her arm around me, and, for a moment, I took comfort in her touch before I walked over to Delsanra, thinking of what could have happened.

“What do you propose?” Mom asked them.

“We shall perform a spell to simply bring them to consciousness, however, they will remain cursed. That means hallucinations, weakness, and whatever other side effects there may be. I can’t be fully sure,” Magdalene said quietly.

“Are they not better off staying unconscious, then?” Mom asked.

“No, there is a chance they will begin to lose their minds if this continues. Time will run out. We need to make sure the curse is broken before then, but how long that may take, I am not sure. Whoever is behind this planned it very carefully,” Magdalene continued.

Janaina sighed, “Someone strong enough to summon demons and to have them do their bidding… that’s a first.”

“We all know what happened the one time our kind tried that; male demons are extremely hard to capture... to think they made a deal with them. It has to be a djinn. Normal demons are more… childlike, you could say; they don’t think like humans. Then, there are the djinn. How they managed to get a hold of one, however… is beyond me. He must have paid an extremely high price…” Magdalene murmured.

“So, is the enemy a witch?” I asked, frowning.

“We cannot say for sure, but if it is, it is not anyone we know of. Someone of this calibre… is definitely not from our Coven,” she replied.

I listened to them, my mind made up. I was going to have to find this person.

“They left a message.” I reached into my pocket, grabbing my shattered phone, and held up the picture of the notepad where I had written the two sentences. Janaina took the phone from me, and they both read it, looking thoughtful.

“The Crimson King, I haven’t heard of anyone by that name. We can check if there’s anything we can find on him via magic. For now, let’s perform the spell,” Janaina remarked when Magdalene raised her hand.

“Wait… I feel like I may have heard the term somewhere… I will look into it,” she mused.

I nodded, watching both women get to work. Individually they may not be as powerful as Delsanra, who was at a calibre beyond even the most powerful witches, yet it was clear they had experience on their side.

With each passing moment, as I looked upon the two forms on the bed, their hearts beating fast and those dark, angry veins lining their skin, I knew that I had to do something. I couldn’t just sit there and allow everyone else to be out there…

The two highwitches had been at the spell for a while. It took them almost an hour to steady Dante and Delsanra’s heartbeats. I left for a short while to check on Skyla whilst Mom got the witches some refreshments, despite both being in full concentration mode.

When Delsanra and Dante’s eyes flew open simultaneously, they blazed red as they looked around. The veins still remained on their bodies, and their skin remained ashy, yet their heartbeats were level.

“Mom?” Dante croaked as I rushed to the edge of the magic trigram that was surrounding them.