Witches Immortal: A Novel (DeSai Trilogy) Witchcraft of a Dark Witch Read online

  DeSai

  Witches Immortal

  by

  R.W.K. Clark

  Copyright © 2015, 2016 R.W.K. Clark

  All rights reserved, www.rwkc.us

  This is work of fiction, all names, characters, locales, and incidents are product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual people places or events is coincidental or fictionalized.

  Published in the United States by Clarkinc.

  Printed and distributed by

  Amazon Digital Services LLC

  Edition 1.2 Last Updated 12-19-2016

  United States Copyright Office

  #1-3449260800

  International Standard Book Numbers

  ISBN-10: 0692722165

  ISBN-13: 978-0692722169

  ASIN: B01GD7CVXC

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I dedicate this novel to my wonderful readers and for all the amazing people I’ve met and those I haven’t. To my family and loved ones, all your support will not be forgotten.

  Thank you

  Prologue

  With each passing generation this idea grew in the mind of the witches. In the beginning it was a tiny seed, powerless in appearance, but with a great tree inside of it. As time passed, each generation played a part in its cultivation.

  Vampires were as Satan’s puppets; not his children, but used by him to perpetuate the death and destruction he desired to see. It fulfilled him, and he was grateful for that if for nothing else. But they were not the catalyst.

  Witches he bestowed with the power to fulfill dreams, but he gave them a major defect: they were doomed to die, and most of the time they died terrible, horrible deaths, deaths that could not be avoided. Over time they became obsessed with avoiding their own destiny.

  This, too, was part of his plan.

  It was a motivating factor that would drive them to seek a solution. The vampire was put on Earth only to give them something to seek. Rasia Engres’ ancestors began to realize the chance they may have for eternal life, but it was only an idea, a theory, an out of grasp dream.

  Rasia’s grandmother was just obsessed enough to study. If there were vampires, what would happen if one could be found, and his eternal life harnessed? She recorded her hopes and dreams, and she passed them down.

  Rasia’s mother could have cared less. She was lazy and lost in dreams of love and fulfillment. She was content to work a daily job and to lead her coven and raise her daughter. Her own weakness had been the death of her in the end.

  But Rasia had the passion and the hatred in her heart, the greed that it would take to pursue the answers. Her grandmother had known it; she had counted on it. It had been her sole purpose to spurn on her own granddaughter to carry on her work.

  She had, and she was successful. Rasia would live forever, yes, and she would bear the only offspring that was spawned between a true witch and a vampire. What could the purpose of such a life be? The world was already in her possession, the world and everything in it. So now, it would belong to her child.

  Chapter 1

  Ninety years earlier

  The little girl woke to the murmuring once again; she didn’t startle awake, she was used to it stirring her from her sleep. She would simply rouse and open her eyes and listen to the rhythmic drone of chanting from the other room. In the end the very sound of it would take her back to her dreams.

  But tonight was different. As she lay upon her bed listening to the voices she realized they were becoming a bit louder and more determined than usual. She had never heard them reach this pitch before, and it was enough to cause her to sit up in her bed and listen more intently.

  The girl pulled her long, copper-colored hair to one side in her efforts and tilted her head toward the door of her room. All of the voices belonged to the women, as usual, but tonight they were feverish, almost desperate. They were repeating the same words, over and over, and even though she could tell they were speaking in the same strange language with which they always spoke when they held their ‘meetings’, a language which she did not know, she was able to clearly make out the words.

  “Purga animam suam,

  Facient illam tota,

  Relevare anumum,

  Offernt igitur eam a mortuis!”

  The girl, Anfisa, got a confused look on her face at first, but as she continued to listen to their repetition her eyes suddenly lit up; she understood! It made no sense to her why they would say the things they were saying, but she clearly understood nonetheless!

  “Cleanse her soul,

  Make her whole,

  Ease her head,

  Bring her back from the dead…”

  Anfisa threw the covers off of herself and swung her tiny three-year old legs over the side of her bed, landing with a light ‘thump!’ on the cold hardwood floor. She crossed the room to her door and slowly and quietly turned the glass knob until the latch workings within gave way with a small click. She cracked the door slightly and the warm glow of light entered the doorway; the chanting voices grew even louder and more intense than before.

  “Purga animam suam!

  Facient illam tota!

  Relevare anumum!

  Offernt igitur eam a mortuis!”

  Curiosity got the best of Anfisa at that point, and she opened her door just enough to creep through it, quiet as a little mouse. She tiptoed in her bare feet to the head of the staircase which led down into the common areas of the home, where she sat on the very top step and peered through the bannister at what was going on at the floor below.

  Anfisa saw her mother and all of her mother’s friends, thirteen women in all. They stood in a circle and chanted, and as the words came from their mouths they swayed from the right to the left in the light of the lanterns around them. Then the girl took notice of what was in the middle of their strange circle.

  A slat of wood was settled on two of the chairs from the kitchen, and on the slat was the pale figure of one of the women’s daughters, Anfisa’s own cousin Lada. The sight of her older relative planted the seed of even more confusion in the child’s mind, as her color was off. While one would assume she was sleeping there on that board there was something wrong with the way she looked, and besides, who could catch a wink of sleep with all the racket the women were making who stood around her?

  Suddenly Anfisa’s mother’s eyes snapped open and she looked directly at her daughter seated on the stairs. She continued to chant with the others, never missing a beat, but she held her daughter’s eyes steadily. Slowly a smile spread across her face, then she closed her eyes and reset her focus.

  As Anfisa looked at Lada she noticed that the girl was beginning to get her color back. Her skin was slowly becoming more and more pink and alive-looking. She was sick, and the ladies were making her well with their words! Anfisa may only have been three, but all of this was very clear to her, and it made her feel big and strong somehow.

  For the next twenty minutes the voices continued to grow in intensity, the words never changing, but the mood and emotion reaching what seemed to Anfisa to be an almost unbearable pitch. However the sound hurt her ears she could not pull herself away to return to her sleeping quarters. She felt compelled to continue to watch and see what was going to happen.

  All at once Lada’s eyes flew open and she sat straight up on the board. The voices simultaneously stopped and Lada’s mother cried out loud with relief.

  “Oh, my precious daughter, you are back with us now!” The woman left her spot in the circle and rushed to her daughter, embracing her passionately and weeping on her shoulder. Lada lo
oked stunned and remained limp and silent in her mother’s arms. The other women closed the gap in the circle and began to chant in Anfisa’s native tongue. It sounded like they were thanking God, but the girl knew this could not be; her mother would thank God for nothing. If anything she would curse him, so who were they praising.

  Finally Anfisa got her wits about her and rose from her place on the stairs. She ran with her tiny legs to her bedroom, and shutting the door behind her, she jumped quickly onto her bed and pulled the covers over her head. She could hear the women laughing with joy, and she knew that soon they would be leaving. She would be scolded by her mother, she was sure; all she could hope was that her mother really hadn’t seen her spying from the staircase.

  She lay still under the blankets listening for whatever she may hear. After a while the house went utterly silent, and then shortly after that she heard her mother’s footsteps on the staircase. Anfisa held her breath waiting for her mother to come in and give her a tongue lashing.

  The doorknob to her room squeaked as it turned, and the door creaked open.

  “Anfisa. I know you are awake. It is time we had a little talk, you and I,” said her mother calmly.

  The girl slowly took the covers from her head and turned to her. “I’m sorry, Mama. The voices woke me.”

  Mother shook her head and smiled in the light of the lantern she was carrying. “No matter. You are not in trouble. Come with me down for some warm milk, child. It will help you to get back to sleep, and I can speak with you as you drink it.”

  “Yes, Mama,” replied Anfisa obediently. She came out of her bed for the second time that night and took her mother’s open hand; it led her out of the room and down the stairs to the kitchen where her mama prepared her meals.

  Anfisa did not know her papa; Mama had told her he had died at the hand of others because he had owed them and didn’t pay. The home they lived in was occupied only by the two of them, and the thought of a male role model missing from her life usually never even crossed the mind of the youngster, but tonight as she sat at their meal table watching her mother pour milk into a cast iron pot over the fire she thought about the faceless man that had been her papa. What would it have been like for him to sit with the two of them late at night, as they were doing now.

  As her mama, Alyona, stirred the milk in the pot she began to sing a song to Anfisa softly in their native Russian language, her voice melodic and entrancing. It served to soothe the young one, even causing her eyes to droop a bit. She crossed her arms on the table as she sat on the stack of books on her chair and laid her head upon them; her mother’s voice made her feel so safe and secure.

  She must have dozed a bit, because soon her mother was placing a crockery cup on the table before her with the warm milk inside. “Anfisa, here, drink your milk.”

  She sat at the table across from her daughter and began to speak softly.

  “Anfisa, do you understand what you saw us doing?” The young girl held her mother’s eyes, listening to her and sipping warm milk from her cup. After a moment she slowly lowered it from her mouth and shook her head slightly.

  A small smile appeared at the corners of her Mama’s mouth. “You are privileged enough to belong to a very important and powerful people, my daughter,” she told her. “What you saw was one of the displays of that power. Tell me, were you afraid?”

  Anfisa’s eyes left her mother’s as she considered the question. “No, Mama. Not afraid, just watching.”

  “What is it you would guess we were doing if I asked you to?” Alyona continued to smile at her daughter as she gently prodded her for the information she was holding in her mind.

  Without hesitation the child returned the smile and replied, “Making Lada all better.”

  Alyona threw her head back and laughed a rich, heavy laugh. When she looked back at Anfisa her eyes seemed to be sparkling with joy. “Yes! Yes! We were making Lada all better. How do you know that, Anfisa? Who do you think told you that?”

  The girl thought for a moment before looking back into her mother’s eyes and saying, “I did. The me inside of me did.”

  Now Alyona sat back against the straight-backed wooden chair on which she sat and crossed her arms over her chest with satisfaction. “It is time for teaching to begin.”

  Chapter 2

  Present Day

  Rasia DeSai lay atop blood red satin sheets which covered a down-filled mattress. She raised her arms over her head and stretched her body from head to toe, moaning and smiling as she did. She had dreamed of her grandmother, a dream she had often, and it always made her smile upon waking. It was as though the woman was spanning space and time just to be with her and guide her.

  She swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat up straight, looking around the still-darkened room. She could see clearly; the dark never bothered her anymore, not since Cyril. I should have thanked him, she thought, and the idea made her want to laugh.

  Rasia looked over at the clock next to the bed. Nine in the morning. This was the very best thing about power: she could have slept for the next two days and no one would have ever looked at her sideways for it. My, how the rules had changed. My, how she herself had changed them.

  She could remember in the beginning, when she was still searching, wandering the world seemingly aimlessly in her job as a journalist. She had never been looking for the next best story, she knew that now. She had been looking for the key, and she had found it because of her poor, deceased husband, Cyril DeSai.

  The key was in her hands, and her hands alone.

  She stood and shuffled across the nearly pitch-black room toward her bathroom. There she turned the light on, but even that lighting was much softer than one would expect. Rasia reached her arm into the glass doors of the shower and turned on the fountain-like stream that poured down onto the ceramic tiling and trickled into the drain below. She allowed the water to flow over her hand until it reached a humanly unreasonable temperature, steam rising in great billows. She was always cold, but that went with the territory. Occupational hazard, one might say. This did make her laugh out loud.

  She shed her satin sleeping gown and dropped it to the floor as she stepped into the shower and closed the door behind her. She backed her long, lithe body into the falling waters, letting it saturate her long red hair and flow down over her face. Oh, it felt magnificent as it warmed her body to its icy core.

  She began to shampoo her hair, and as she did her mind went back to her grandmother, her great-grandmother, and all the women in her line even before her great-grandmother’s time. She had not known any of them, and she had only known her great-grandmother very briefly, but throughout the generations these heroic women had strengthened the bond and the roots of who they were, who she was, and what was destined to be. They were witches, plain and simple, and they desired the great power available to rule this planet.

  But alas, the evil within them brought them to terrible ends each and every time. Their bones weakened horribly, and with the passing of the years their once beautiful faces and bodies became disfigured and horrendous to look at. Even her own striking mother, whom she had hated, had fellen victim to the inevitable end which awaited them all. Rasia would be different, though. Rasia had found the key, and she would be beautiful for all eternity.

  But she knew she had to maintain, she saw the changes that were steadily taking place in her, and she knew that they were much more defined and pronounced that anything that typically happened when one was turned, as she had been by Cyril. She was far more than simply the Queen of the Vampires; Rasia DeSai was also a witch, through and through, and the combination of the differing blood which was coursing through her veins made her more treacherous than any before her.

  Rasia pondered these facts as she stepped from the shower. She wrapped her head in a plush black bath towel and then donned her thick red terry cloth robe. She didn’t want to lose her heat any faster than she already would.

  As she went back into her room she f
lipped the switch and turned on the overhead light. The room was instantly illuminated with a soft white light. Rasia headed to her desk in the corner and took her seat behind it. She opened a large drawer on the bottom right and took out several manila envelopes, all containing nothing but blank sheets of paper; smoke and mirrors, the envelopes were. It was what was beneath that she was interested in.

  She slid a small panel from the bottom of the drawer and revealed a combination dial; the bottom was false. This was her private safe. Rasia deftly spun out the combination and a dull ‘click’ could be heard from behind the door. It popped up gently, and she raised it up to reveal her Book.

  It was instantly as though she felt the power emanating from its binding and pages. With both hands she reached into the drawer, and as though with kid gloves, she grasped the book gently and lifted it out, setting it down on the leather blotter on top of the desk before her.

  It was ancient, and its appearance gave that fact away. It was bound in red leather, and a band with an intricate locking clasp kept the book closed and kept its contents away from prying eyes. Rasia ran her hand over its cover, her eyes closed with ecstasy, her face smiling.

  Now she opened her eyes and pulled out the narrow drawer that ran along the underside of the desk’s main writing surface. A tiny metal key, tarnished with age, lay in one velvet-lined section of the drawer. She removed it and placed it into the keyhole on the book’s metal clasp. Rasia turned the key, and the clasp opened without a sound.

  The pages of the book were written in dark red ink. At least that was how it would appear to someone who was none the wiser, but Rasia knew the truth. It was the blood of those sacrificed over the last several centuries. Those who had been sacrificed to appease the Earth and her ravaging hunger. The writings were clearly visible on their yellowing pages, pages which showed their age in the curling of their edges. They were parchment thin and made soft rattling sounds as she turned them one at a time.