Chapter 3

PRESENT DAY,

Late afternoon.

WILLOW

__

The speakers blared once again and the slurring voice of a witch broke through, "Attention, witches. Humans will be approaching in the next five minutes. I repeat; in the next five minutes."

When she went off the microphone, someone yelled downstairs, "Turn down the f*cking volume next time, Cordelia!"

"No!" Cordelia yelled back. "I live for the ear damage!"

Slamming my door shut, I went around the large room gathering up essentials for my apparating potion. Lilies are the gateway to freedom blasted in my ears, cutting out the noise down the hall. Cordelia's Inherent gift was clairvoyance, so she would alert us of when the humans were to come.

The door opened and closed. In walked my two roommates, Hellene and Corinne. I took out my headphones when Hellene started to talk to me.

"Hi, Lowe," she greeted. "You did great down there."

Lies. "I got my ass handed to me, Hell." Hell, true to her name, had the Inherent gift of pyromamcing.

She chuckled. "To be fair, you did land a few blows on Sybi--"

Corrine released a shriek, throwing her phone across the room. I sighed when it cracked against the wall. I turned to face her. "What went wrong this time, Cor?"

Saying nothing, she crumbled into a heap on the floor, crying loudly. My eyes widened when clouds gathered outside the once sunny atmosphere. A flash of lightning zigzagged down, accompanied by the distinct rumble of thunder.

Hellene was quick to soothe her. "Hey, hey, what's wrong? Did someone get those pairs of shoes you've been eying latel--"

She shrieked, "Zach broke up with me!" It started to rain heavily outside.

The door opened and closed again. Cordelia walked in, a bottle of alcohol in hand. Her deceptively youthful features twisted. "Ugh. Cor's sprung a leak again." She sashayed over to me, talking over her shoulder, "Hey, cheer up, Cor. In two weeks Zach's going to fall down a flight of stairs and break a leg. Wendy's going to dump him two days after."

Cor lifted her blotchy face and sniffed. "Really?"

"Yes."

She smiled and the rain reduced to a drizzle. Then stopped completely as the sun came out, its rays filtering in through the windows.

Cordelia shook her head. "Bloody weather mages."

She propped herself on my desk, watching as I riffled through my potion pots. She took a swig of her drink, swinging her legs back and forth like a toddler.

"Hey," I called, my attention still on what I was doing. "Could you help me with the potions book behind you?"

"No."

I groaned, standing up to grab the book on the table. When I reached behind her, she suddenly leapt up, tackling me down to the floor.

"What the hell, Cordelia?!" I screeched, trying to push her off me. She held tight and whispered into my ear, "Shh, shhhh, let me enjoy this one moment with you."

With a sigh, I placed my hand on her blonde hair, patting it hesitantly. My aunt was decidedly soft in the head. She was drunk more often than she was sane. I would be too if I could predict the future, if I could see things I wished I hadn't.

It was said she never dated, because she always knew when a relationship would end, and knew also when she'd get cheated on; and she had to relieve it all so she wouldn't disrupt space-time continuum and shits like that.

I felt a wet substance touch my ear and I jerked. "Del! Are you licking my ear?"

A drunken giggle told me all I needed to know. Almost immediately she fell silent, then lifted her head to stare into my eyes. Her grey eyes held a faraway look to them when she gripped my face and whispered ominously, "Beware... Beware of them."

Uncomfortable at the way she squeezed my cheeks tightly, I expelled a breath through my puckered lips. "What are you talking about, Del? And, please, get the hell off of me."

She tsked, leaning down until her forehead touched mine. "I remember when you were a teeny tiny baby, Willow. You couldn't even scratch your own bum."

"Del," I intoned, starting to struggle against her surprisingly heavy weight. "Get. Off."

With a disappointed click of her tongue, she pushed off me then gracefully rose to her feet, grabbing her drink off the table. "You'll be doing a lot of that in the coming weeks."

"What?'" I asked.

"Getting off."

My brows went up. "Yeah, I wish." I was ashamed to admit my sex life was... bland. It could be because I always found the wrong men, or the wrong men always found me. I mean, I've never been brought to an orgasm from their head administration and that says a lot.

Getting up, I went downstairs to get a potions vial from the 'cave', and some insects too. I needed just a few more bees for my apparating potion to be done. We weren't like the vampires who could trace and materialize at will, so we depended on apparating potions to travel.

And the potion was required if we were to be in Alaska in just four hours. There, the selection ceremony would take place. A very, very long awaited selection ceremony--we're talking centuries here.

The entire witch population have spent at least five millenniums watching their backs against the lycans. Then two centuries ago, we started watching our lives.

At that time, they actively began to hunt us down, killing us off on sight. Think mindlessly screaming witches being tackled down to the ground by ferocious beasts; a long line of witches bound up to their necks in chains, awaiting their deaths.

The lycans' primary target was New Orleans, where the supernatural oddities happened, which was why a majority of us came down here to hide among many reasons. One of which was; they would never think we were dumb enough to come an inch within their territory.

We were.

The cave smelled of dust and mould when I stepped in. I wrenched open a drawer and bursted into wracking coughs when swirls of dust raced up my face. I clutched a vial and stood, going over to the mountainous shelves in search of bottled insects.

Tonight would be the beginning to  ending to all our nightmares. 

Tonight, at the congress that'll be held in the House of Wicca, Hecate would choose the witch that had been prophesied to put an end to all our hiding and endless fear. A witch that'll fulfil the prophesy by killing the lycan king himself. Lan Farrow.