Hellfire | Hayley Marshall

Chapter 56

"We need to bend the rules," finished Hayley. "How?"

"Simple loophole," the first girl said. " You're both bound by blood to a New Orleans witch. We can use the link to your child," they looked at Hayley, then Eisa, " your niece to cast a spell and link you to an audience with the dead."

"And who'll be meeting us on the other side?" asked Eisa as she and Hayley bit into their hands and let their blood leak into the bowl.

The last Harvest girl smirked. "Someone who is very eager to see you, Eisa Mikaelson. Just one more thing— this is gonna hurt."

They started the spell, and both Eisa and Hayley let out screams of pain before crumpling to the ground.

"I'm going to kill those godforsaken Harvest girls," sneered Eisa when they awoke in the Ancestral plane.

"Answer one question first," said Hayley as Eisa pulled her to her feet. "Who the hell is this person meeting us?"

"It could be any of the witches I knew before. Kol and I were friends with quite a few of them."

Hayley pursed her lips. "Well, is there any... special witch that might be interested in talking to you?"

Eisa sighed. "I slept with almost all of them, Hayley, I don't know. Though, there might be one..." she looked up as the woman she was about to mention walked up to them. "Wonderful. Astrid Malchance."

"You remember," said the woman. "Mary Alice and I never quite forgot you and Kol."

"If you want an apology for what happened, I'll say I'm sorry, but it wasn't my fault. We just wanted the Fauline diamond at the time. We couldn't get the two of you out of there. We were daggered before we could try. By the time I awoke, you were dead."

"The point," said Astrid, waving her hand dismissively, "is not to bring up the past. Out of all the witches who knew you, I seemed to be the only one willing to share this information."

"Let me guess, Genevive, Monique, and Bastianna are still sore about the fact I killed them?" said Eisa innocently.

Astrid rolled her eyes, and Hayley nudged Eisa to make her be quiet. "You wish to defeat The Hollow," said Astrid. "So do the Ancestors. But first, you must know the enemy you face, as intimately as you can.

"One thousand years before the city was founded, there were two tribes of witches. They were rivals, but chose to set that aside to combine their power. They thought that by uniting in peace, they would enter a new age of harmony. They arranged a marriage between two powerful witches, and forged a unified Coven."

"A ceremonial wedding," murmured Hayley. "Like the one Jack and I had to unite our packs."

Astrid nodded. "A child came from that marriage. For each month of the pregnancy, the tribe elders would visit the mother, using magic to grant the child great power in hopes that the newborn would become a symbol of prosperity. She was named Inadu.

"But magic in such a high concentration had a negative effect. The child born was a psychopath who sucked the life out of everything. She was stronger than anyone could imagine, and she craved more power still. Though her family attempted to stop her, desperately trying to undo what their magic did, they could not.

"As she grew, she lashed out to attain more power. She channeled all forms of life to sate her hunger, and even then, it could not be so. She liked to instill fear. To feel blood on her hands. She was known to be ruthless, unfeeling, empty. Until that became her defining quality. So they began to refer to her by that single trait... 'The Hollow.'"