***Veronica

Ben is screaming. He is screaming. He is screaming. His voice is broken to pieces as he screams and the sound crackles like dry leaves under foot.

He can't be in pain. Not anymore.

It will be over soon, so soon. He will cross soon – the poison in his bloodstream will carry him away.

Bloodstream. Blood streaming. When I twisted the knife, I felt entrails, muscle and skin slicing, as expected. But I hadn't imagined the blood would be so hot to the touch.

Ben faces me, asking me why. Then the pain from my opened gut shoots through me. The knife I've buried in my stomach burns hotter than Vivian's flames. I fall forward on Ben, my blood pooling on the altar and dripping on the ground. I am in agony from skin to bone and a million nerve endings writhe in torture.

My blood is everywhere, I notice. Slimy-hot organs and intestines spill out from the wound and I try to catch them so they won't get dirty.

A little girl is crouching under the altar, out of sight. She holds a doll in one arm.

"The words," she whispers. I know her. The spirit of Vivian's last sacrifice that she trapped in the pendant.

I shake and fall to my knees. It is too much. Too much. I am dissolving in an acid bath of pain. I can't finish the ritual, and it won't work anyway. I was a fool for hoping; I am not a suitable sacrifice.

"The words," the girl insists.

What does it matter? I've spared Ben the knife. I wouldn't hurt him. Let us both die.

"The words!" she says again, shaking the doll at me.

"Mutatin umbrax. Vex vitan ad mortuim. Vex luximt ad tenebrim. Vex mortalium ad umbrax. Lest potent fluex. Inceptennt," I whisper. "Inceptennt."

Vivian takes the knife from my limp hand. I don't struggle or protest. I can't.

Pressing the knife to my throat she curses me and promises to find me in the afterworld, me and Ben, to trap our souls as her slaves.

I choke and cough, blood splattering on her face. "Come get us. I'll be in the darkest shadows." Among her many enemies in the beyond, Ben and I will be well protected. I can sense them already; a thousand watchful souls gathering around me. The shadows swirl, gaining strength.

"You know the sacrifice has to die," the little girl whispers in my ear. A thousand voices echo in her throat. She flickers in and out of sight under the altar.

I nod in agreement. I chose to sacrifice myself and I am dying.

Vivian is casting a spell, but whatever she is saying, it is too late. The dead take hold of my soul and rip it from my mortal body. I watch Vivian shakes my body and yells.

I see the dead clearly now – lights in the darkness.

The little girl is the only one with a human shape and she stares up at me with shining eyes. I remember that Vivian trapped her in the pendant, and a grief I have never felt before consumes me.

"The sacrifice must die," she repeats. "In order to be reborn the Shadow Hex."

The souls dart away, leaving darkness in their wake. Shadows are free to rush into me, giving me form and purpose, giving me strength and power.

My new body is taking shape as magic and shadows surround my mangled soul. By sparing Ben, I spared myself. The shredded bits of my outer soul, the part that longs for love and light clings to the center by threads. It is enough to keep me from turning into a witch.

I use the shadows to ancor the parts together. As a spinner winds a skein of yarn, I pull a line of shadow through my ethereal fingertips and wrap it around and around the halves of my soul until only darkness can be seen. But it is safe inside me.

No blade wielded by my hand or another's can cut the light from the center. I am whole. I am darkness.

I am a Shadow Hex.

I have things to do.

Vivian has gone mad with rage and is mutilating my former body beyond recognition. Vessa and Valda are trying to free themselves from their prisons while cursing Vivian and the false prophecy.

My transformation is not complete, but I feel power moving through me.

Ben is nearly motionless on the altar. Except for a few stray tears that streak down his temples into his sweat-matted hair and the shallow rise and fall of his chest, he is still.

Vivian rises, gory and haggard, to use the knife on him.

"I will hunt you in the afterworld," she says. "I will make you both suffer."

She raises her knife over her head and stabs for his heart.

I catch her arm, the tip a hair's breadth away from his skin.

He inhales sharply in surprise when he notices us and the blade cuts through the cloth. Anger swells in my chest.

"As was foretold, I've become a Shadow Hex. I will take the head of this coven now," I tell her.

Vessa and Valda screech in anger or triumph, I'm not sure which. Perhaps both. But I don't care. First things first.

"You...you cannot be a Shadow Hex. The sacrifice still lives. You cannot have that power and I will not give you the head of this coven!" Vivian attacks, scratching for my face.

I fade into the shadows and reform behind her. "It is no longer your coven!"

She stabs at my eye. By the time it reaches me, the blade sinks into empty darkness. I am on her other side.

I grab her wrist, drawing strength and form out of the absence of light. She hisses and bites at me, but I wrench the knife from her hand.

"As I said," I continue, "I will take the head of this coven."

Fear registers in her reddened eyes when I point the blade at her, but she doesn't fully understand until I strike. Spinning faster than the eye can see, I whip my arm around and cleave through her throat and spine. Her expression is still changing as her head flies through the air, cut free from her shoulders. It lands with a sickening thump and rolls to where Valda is pinned to the ground by the boulder. The body collapses. I cut something else free, I realize. The pendant holding the girl's soul falls to the ground, as well, flashing once or twice by the faint starlight.

Valda howls in fury. Vessa, however, laughs.

"You've taken the coven head, dear sister! Now unite us in the promised power!" she says, pulling at the branches embedded in her abdomen and shoulders.

"Dear sister," I say. I step over the bodies on the ground and through the soppy mud the blood has created. "I will do so. I will unite us all in a flame of power this world has never seen." I stand between the witches. "But I will need your help. Will you join me of your own free will? Will you blend your power with mine, dear sisters?" I hold out my hands. "Liberatim Zei." The boulder bursts and the branches wither. The sisters are free.

"Yes," Vessa says, spitting blood. She wavers and nearly falls.

"Never," Valda whispers. She can't stand. Half a dozen ribs must be broken, and she certainly has internal injuries.

"Then die in the dirt," I tell her. I reach out a hand to Vessa.

"Reconsider, Valda," Vessa says. "You desire power, you'll have it if you join us. Reconsider! We will all be stronger together."

Valda swallows, fighting for air. Then she nods once.

"Done," I say. I haul her to her feet, ignoring the crunch of broken bones and her cry of pain. I take Vessa's hand, too. "Let flames of magic seal the pact. As one, we'll burn."

For a brief moment, doubt flickers across Vessa's features.

"United in a flame of power this world has never seen. Hex and witch," I say to reassure her.

Then I call up the flames of our combined powers. Like Vivian's flames, it burns both flesh and soul. Or Valda's and Vessa's flesh and souls, I should say. The light chases the shadows from me, but my soul, safely kept in darkness no light can banish, holds tight to theirs. I draw magic from them – they said I could. I pull power from the forest, from the ground, from the altar, and from the heavens above. I siphon Vivian's fading power, as well, extending the flames to include both her and my dead bodies .

My dear sisters scream and writhe in agony. The flames shoot skyward. Vessa and Valda's skin blacken and melt and their inner organs begin to sizzle. The screams rise with the flames in the pillar of light. I killed Vivian far too quickly, I think with a twinge of regret for her swift death.

But I am burning away, too, I realize. My humanity, my feelings, and my dreams change to wisps of smoke. I shed the ghosts from my past as I take up the true mantle of Shadow Hex. No one alive can hurt me. No one dead will dare cross me. I am scorched through and through until I am free for the first time in my life. Only one desire remains: to taste the fear I inspire in those around me.

My sisters and I are united. Our bodies burn up into little piles of ashes together.

Then I rise from the shadows and leave them in their little piles. They mean nothing to me.

I glance around the hilltop, my blood lust dying now I've had my revenge. The souls that gathered here earlier have fled, chased perhaps by the flames. I begin to flow into the deeper darkness under the trees.

"Wait," calls a soft voice.

The little girl phantom is still here. She steps up to me, glowing a faint blue and holding something between her hands, like a child who has caught a firefly.

"Benjamin's soul almost escaped when he died. But you can still save him," she says.

I squint in confusion. Save him?

Why would I waste my time bringing a human back to life?

*** Will Veronica remember her feelings for Ben and save him or will she walk away into the shadows forever? One more chapter will tell! ***