There's A Circle of Witches

I might have lit the very fuse, that you were trying not to light

HELLO!!! This chapter is so long..so so long.  So please read through it when you have the time.  Every detail is so important to the story line.

No smut today obviously because I have decided to not finish this book yet.  There is a lot to cover still.

This chapter takes place in the 70's and also back to the current Bayou timeline.  

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December 25, 1976

12:30 am, Seattle

Nathaniel made his way through the dark halls of the mansion towards the bustling sounds in the kitchen. Christmas was his favourite time of the year. He smiled to himself passing by the dining room. Nathaniel stopped to admire the view of the decorated room and its reflection on the French doors surrounding it.

The room was decorated with strings of white lights that Alistair found aesthetically compatible to his elite taste. Outside the long French doors, Nathaniel could see more lights twinkling all around. Marcus strung lights through the trees lining the main courtyard. Green and red lights reflected from inside the central fountain onto the tranquil stream.

He expected to find Alistair with a glass of bourbon in hand by the fireplace in the adjacent living room, but instead the smell of pine from the large and heavily decorated Christmas tree greeted him. Nathaniel stood by the fireplace taking in its warmth.

Since the Halloween incident, two months ago, Alistair insisted on running every fireplace in the mansion. Marcus and Jackson simply followed orders without question. Because Alistair turned them, he assumed their loyalty was due to their blood bond. He was unaware of the curse around his neck, bonding his blood and anyone he turns to it. They were to serve his every whim.

Nathaniel watched the fire crackle. He was visited by Tabitha on Halloween night. It was the first time he was able to speak and see her since she was banished to the other world in the 60's. For a few months, prior to her contact with Nathaniel, Tabitha was receiving strange visions of Kid fused with a dark entity. At first she couldn't understand how a witch exiled to the other world could still receive messages. But Tabitha remembered wild tales her coven sisters shared.

It was never proven, but Tabitha remembered witches banished to the other world could connect with the living in two ways. 1. If an elder witch of voodoo origin channels her energy to them before her death or 2. If a curse, spell, wish intercepts another. This collision would cause an imbalance leaving behind a trail of unfinished cycles. Everything in a witch's cycle of life and death relied on balance.

Tabitha knew whatever was happening to Kid was somehow connected to Alistair, and that is why she was able to navigate out of the other world, breaking the barrier. She felt Kid was tied to some form of black magic, and she assumed it was unfinished. Tabitha built a fire in the other world, the forest realm, to communicate through her most powerful element.

Feeling a knot in his stomach, Nathaniel recalled the horrific events of that Halloween night and many more following it. Alistair wasn't himself. His new strange behaviour was fit for a Hitchcock film. It started with the two women he mauled on Halloween, followed by weeks of scattered outbursts that left a blood trail of decapitated bodies and disfigured corpses. Marcus, Jackson, and Nathaniel could not understand the sudden change and neither could Alistair.

Malakai best described him as Jack The Ripper.

Worse yet, Nathaniel recalled feeling the heavy sorrow that plagued Alistair after the rage and hunger subsided. It was an overwhelming feeling of fear, regret, and shame. He never saw anything like this or studied it in the coven. As an empath, Nathaniel was the only one in the mansion able to feel the despair and sorrow Alistair endured after his violent acts. He never shared this revelation with Alistair. Instead, he would let Alistair tease and bully him, as a way of allowing Alistair to purge the pain.