📎A/N. Hello my lovelies... I thought I'd surprise you with a new paranormal thriller. This time, we are in a world of witches, vampires and demons!!

I hope you enjoy the story as it unfolds. As always, I'd love to hear your feedback, so all comments welcome. And most importantly, if you like a chapter don't forget to vote :-)

Take care and welcome to Witch Doctor.

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Dr. Keira Wynter scanned the full auditorium, a frown on her face as she raised an eyebrow. "No one?" she asked with surprise. "No one can tell me the name of the law that laid the foundation for the mass witch trials in Europe."

She could hear shuffling as a few students flipped through their textbooks, a look of confusion in their eyes mixed with panic as they glanced at each other.

Marcus, her teaching assistant, rolled his eyes in her direction, and she suppressed a smile. She could just imagine the thoughts running through the crowded room of grad students. Keira had sprung a topic on her Anthropology class that wasn't scheduled for another three weeks. However, she liked to keep them on their toes and hear their unrehearsed answers than recite them verbatim from the course material.

Before she could put them out of their misery, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise and a dull pain pulsed in her chest. Without warning, the ground beneath her feet began to shake. Unable to withstand the sudden dizziness that washed over her, Keira reached out and held onto the lecture stand in case she fell. Just as quickly, it evaporated, and she was left disorientated and blinked rapidly to help her refocus. All eyes were on her, waiting for her to continue.

What just happened?

She glanced around the room expecting to find some form of disarray.

What the—?

The auditorium was intact, and all her students were silently waiting for her to continue. There was nothing to indicate anyone other than her had just experienced anything out of the ordinary. Something was off. However, she wasn't in a position to do anything about it.

Keira shook herself out of her stupor; double tapped her clicker, and a new image appeared on the screen. She would have to deal with it after class. "The Constitutio Criminalis Carolina, sometimes shortened to Carolina, is recognised as the first body of German criminal law. It specified that those found guilty of causing harm through witchcraft would be executed with fire."

Her equilibrium now fully recovered, she turned back to the students and stepped away from her lecture stand to move to the edge of the dais. Each person was riveted, and their gaze followed her path as she continued. "So we have a Church that is losing its power base; the Protestants have just pulled away; and we have an entire class of citizen who the church can't control. A class who openly practice actions directly against church doctrine—healing, midwifery, potions, animal husbandry, the list goes on."

She paused. "So Mr. Collins," Keira asked, indicating to one of her students who had a habit of sitting in the nosebleed section. "We know that over fifty thousand people were put to death between 1450 and 1650. If you lived back then, what do you think your chances of not being charged with witchcraft were?"

The student she had put on the spot slumped in this chair, clearly not expecting to have been called. "Um... I'd say pretty high... I guess," he said as he fidgeted with the pen he had been playing with.

"And why would that be Mr. Collins?"

From the repeated clearing of his throat, he struggled to find an answer to his obvious guess. "Because my family is Protestant?" he said with a wince.

Keira let out a small chuckle. "I'm afraid even the Protestants couldn't escape that particular law."

She looked up into the sea of faces and smiled at one of her brighter students. One, who like her, hid behind a mask that belied what she really was. "Miss Patterson, can you please tell us why Mr. Collins would have had a more than reasonable chance of not being charged with witchcraft during that period?"

Selena Patterson bit her bottom lip as she contemplated the question. "Because he's a he," she said with a shrug.

"That is correct." Keira nodded and made her way to the far end of the dais. "Over eighty percent of those tortured and burnt at the stake as a witch were women."

She tapped her clicker, and the image changed to a macabre medieval drawing. "One of the major inventions around this time was the printing press. The church used this medium extremely well to depict and scare the uneducated masses. We are looking at a woodcut from one of the witch trial pamphlets that explained who these iniquitous witches were, and how to identify them. In our stereotypical example, we have three witches supplicating the devil. The key thing to notice is that they are all women."

As she continued her lecture, not a sound could be heard from her rapt audience. They were engrossed with the imagery of a time, long past; she was bringing to life. As one of the more popular Professors of Anthropology and Folklore at Berkley University, she was used to the crowded lecture theatre. She would liked to have thought that it was because of her inspirational teaching ability. However, her work with the F.B.I and various law enforcement departments around the country had more to do with the additional students than her skills as a lecturer. With her recent return from a high-profile abduction case related to a satanic cult, they were more than eager to see if she would give them any more information than had already played over the news channels.

Mid-speech, Keira faltered. The burning sensation that had flared up at the start of the lecture had returned and was building to a crescendo. At first, she ignored it, choosing to get through the lecture rather than show weakness. However, it had now become physically painful, to the point she was finding it hard to keep her mind on track and on her lesson plan.

As she reached out to steady herself from the disorientation that had clouded her mind, a wave of terror washed over her as a thousand voices screamed in pain. Each one sounded more tortured than the next. Her body shook as the ground jolted in violent spasms. A moment later it stopped just as abruptly as it began.

Keira's eyes darted around the room to find the source and was surprised to discover nothing had changed. There was no disaster. No one running for their lives. The earth wasn't moving. There was no earthquake, no bombs or lone shooter. Just her and her students, and, if their expressions were anything to go by, her very confused scholars.

She opened her mouth to speak, and the chaos erupted in full force; this time, its magnitude was one hundred fold. Voices screamed in her head, crowding her senses to the point they overloaded and her ability to see was compromised. Darkness pushed at her, and she felt as though her heart was torn from her chest. A cold hand clenched around her throat restricting her ability to breathe.

The next moment everything was still, replaced by an overwhelming sense of loss. Grief ripped through her body and a feeling of utter hopelessness spread in a fiery inferno and threatened to drown her in its wake. In her confusion, she spun round towards Marcus. Her eyesight still not returned, she took a step forward and held out her hand in his direction.

Her throat was parched and raw as if it has been cut by a million shards of glass. She managed to rip out a single tortured word before she collapsed under the weight of the void that had opened and pulled her into his murky depths.

"Death."

***

The piercing pain behind her eye was felt before any other sensation or emotion returned. It was the ache that allowed her to pull herself out of her unconscious state and gave her an anchor onto which she could hold. Keira placed the back of her hand over her eyes and let out a moan. The ground was hard and uncomfortable, and she could already feel the bruise at the back of her head. Slowly opening her eyes, she blinked rapidly and immediately closed them again as a sharp light penetrated her vision.

Memories of the voices, and the continued feeling of loss returned and Keira struggled to raise herself up.

Something's wrong.

She was firmly pushed back down by strong arms. "Ma'am just relax; we need to make sure you haven't broken anything."

Keira opened her eyes to discover two paramedics kneeling over her. In the background, she spotted Marcus hovering with a look of concern. She pushed the paramedic closest to her away as she sat up. "I'm fine. Stop fussing."

"Ma'am you've had a nasty fall," he argued.

It took Keira twenty minutes to convince the two paramedics that she was physically fine. After signing a consent form absolving them of any responsibility and that she was ignoring their advice, she sent them on their way.

The moment they left, Keira let out a deep breath and held on to the lecture stand to steady herself. The pain that continued to throb just behind her eyes, while growing weaker was still enough to give her vertigo.

Marcus rushed over to her. "What's happened? Did you want me to call them back?"

She shook her head and leaned against him for support. "No, I just need to sit down."

Once she was seated, Marcus thrust a glass of water into her hand. "Here, you look like you need something stronger, but this is all we have."

She gratefully accepted the drink and gulped it down. After taking a shaky breath, Keira handed him back the glass, leaned forward and rested her head in her hands, elbows on her knees. "I feel like I've just done ten rounds with Tyson."

"What happened? One moment you were in full swing, the next all colour vanished, and you looked terrified. Once you went down for the count, I called 911 and cleared the room."

She quickly recounted the turmoil that was still vivid in her mind. "I still can't shake the feeling that there's been a shift somewhere. It's like there's something missing. I can't explain it," she said in frustration.

"Have you ever gone through this before?"

"No, at least not to this degree," Keira replied as she sat up and felt the large bump at the back of her head.

It's the size of an egg!

Keira forced her thoughts back to her current situation. "Did Selina mention anything to you?" she asked, referring to her top student.

Marcus shook his head, and his lips pursed as he cast his mind to the chaos which must have occurred in her class when she dropped like a sack of potatoes. "I don't think so," he said, "But then I was more concerned about you than focusing on anyone else."

Keira closed her eyes and reached out to see if she could detect any stray shards of magic. Anything to give her a clue on what had occurred. The bump on the back of her head was proving too distracting, and she gave up.

She let out a breath and stood up. "My head's too sore to concentrate. I'll try again later, right now we've got office hours to keep."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," Marcus said with concern.

Keira flashed him a look of exasperation. "You're worse than those two paramedics. You're my TA not my mother!"

Marcus held up both hands in surrender. "Fine," he said, "Just don't blame me when they cart your sorry butt out of here on a stretcher."

Keira snorted and began to pack up her notes. "Yes, mother," she muttered under her breath.

Marcus followed suit and placed his laptop into his small backpack. As they headed to the door he stopped short and slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. "I forgot to tell you, Agent Jacobs phoned earlier. He'll be here after six to pick up that evidence box."

Keira groaned. "Make sure I'm otherwise occupied when he gets here. It's already taped back up and signed off so you can give it to him."

Marcus chuckled. "You know I can't do that. Chain of custody and all that stuff. Besides, I want to see what line he comes up with this time to get you to go out with him."

Keira rolled her eyes. The FBI agent was persistent; she had to give him that. However, she wasn't looking to get into a relationship with anyone, let alone someone who she could never be herself with.

As they returned to her small office, she continued to dwell on the loss that she still felt. It was a powerful and raw emotion that was making it difficult for her to think. It didn't help that the oversized bump on the back of her head was still throbbing.

Once she was behind her desk and away from prying eyes, Keira closed the blinds of the tiny window that looked out over the front lawn of Kroeber Hall, the building that housed the Department of Anthropology. As one of the newer professors in the Department, she had initially been housed in an office that was no larger than a cupboard. However, that had all changed with her consultation role with law enforcement agencies across the country which resulted in a flood of funding for the University. While her office was still no bigger than her colleagues, it was the lab attached to it that set her apart. With the need to ensure evidence wasn't compromised, a state of the art secure area had been set up for her.

Keira pulled a candle from the top draw, and, clearing a spot on her desk, set it down. After spending the next ten minutes trying to find the lighter that was forever going missing, Keira snorted in disgust and glared at the unlit candle which had seen better days.

Deciding that she had no alternative, she straightened, closed her eyes and cleared her mind. After whispering an incantation as old as time itself, she opened her eyes just as the wick burst into life. Its flame burnt bright and just as quickly settled back into its familiar dance.

She winced in pain with the effort it required to draw the power for such a simple spell.

Either that bump is more serious than I thought or I'm losing my touch.

Before her headache could get any worse, and before her first student appointment for the day turned up, Keira reached into her bag and pulled out a small drawstring pouch. The worn leather familiar to her touch as she poured the contents onto her desk.

As if knowing they were close; the flame wavered towards the obsidian crystals which sparkled with each dusting of light that emitted from the candle. From her desk, she pulled a small wheat bag and placed it near the candle. Keira then positioned the crystals around the bag. Satisfied she had everything in order, she placed her hands over the material. As before, she closed her eyes and mouthed an incantation.

It took five attempts, four more than normal, to ensure the healing spell cemented to the wheat. After putting away the candle and returning the crystals to the pouch, Keira placed the wheat bag against the back of her head and waved her hand over her desk. The scent of burning candle now gone, she opened her blinds and was ready to see her first student.

It was early evening before she managed to come up for air.

"Damien Sanders just rescheduled, so you're done for the day," Marcus said as he poked his head into her office.

"Thank goodness for that, if I have another student asking me if I'm okay, I'll turn them into a frog."

Marcus's eyes opened wide with a look of horror plastered on his face. The whites of his eyes a direct contrast to his ebony skin. "You can't do that?" he asked, his Adams apple bobbing up and down. "Can you?" This time, he didn't sound so sure.

Keira burst out laughing. After applying enough pressure to the back of her head with the wheat bag, the bump had eventually shrunk, and the hematoma that would have otherwise have resulted was drawn out and no longer visible. "No, that only happens on TV," she said putting him out of his sudden insecurity.

She began to pack up her desk. "I'm going to head home, and I suggest you do the same."

As she lived a short distance from campus, it didn't take long for her to reach her apartment in Thousand Oaks. The moment she was behind closed doors she pulled her phone from her bag, flipped through her contacts list and found the one she was after.

She needed to know if Dayna had experienced the same thing. After checking for any major natural disaster or another event that may have caused such a disturbance, she was more than convinced something had tipped the scales. To what, she had no idea, but the feeling had festered all day.

Keira's sister answered before it had a chance to ring. "I've been waiting for you to call," Dayna said. "Did you feel it?"

Keira let out a long breath. She wasn't going insane; there was something going on. "Yes, but I don't know what it was."

"Neither do I, but I don't mind telling you it scared the pants off of me, not that I wear pants when I'm in bed, but you know what I mean."

"Where are you?" Keira asked, hearing loud music in the background.

"Ibiza."

"I thought you were in London?"

"I was, but I met this sexy DJ, who's quite big—in more than just his music if you know what I mean; so I decided to tag along. The place is fun, and the sex is great. I'm telling you, it's the sixties all over again."

Keira groaned. "Too much information. I really don't need to hear about your extra-curricular activities."

"You really do need to lighten up sis. I'm sure you haven't got any since women were given the right to vote. I sometimes wonder if you even still know what to do?" Dayna said with a chuckle. "If you got it, flaunt it I say."

Keira rolled her eyes. Her sister, the free spirit, had inherited their mother's sense of adventure and had taken off, yet again, to 'find herself'. Five decades later, and Keira wondered if her sibling was any closer than when she began.

By the time she had finished the call, Keira was still none the wiser. She was about to make another call when her phone rang. Not recognising the caller's id, she was about to decline it when she decided better of it and answered.

"Hello Dr. Wynter, my name is Deacon Kincaid. Midge Perry recommended I contact you."

Deacon Kincaid? The name rang a bell, but Keira couldn't place him. However, if he called the Deputy Director of the FBI by name, he'd have to be someone of importance.

"What can I do for you Mr. Kincaid?"

There was a slight pause before he spoke. From his cultured voice, she guessed he was originally from England. "Our Sheriff's department here in New England needs help on a case, and we were hoping you might be able to assist."

"Oh? What sort of case?"

"Several of our citizens were found dead early this evening. There's no doubt the killings were ritualistic in nature. We've kept it as quiet—but that won't last. But considering how the bodies were found and who they were, we need you here before any of the federal agencies take over."

"Why would the FBI be interested in a local case?" Keira asked. "And why would you need me involved before them?"

"Another consultant wouldn't have the same skill set you possess. We need someone who understands the..." He paused as if struggling to find the words. "Severity of the situation."

She frowned. The conversation was becoming stranger by the minute. "What aren't you telling me?" Keira asked.

There was a long silence before he continued. "All those sacrificed were members of the same coven."

This had her attention. The question now uppermost in her mind was—who the hell was she speaking with? Neither the FBI or police would know that sort of information, let alone use it in a conversation. "Where did you say you were from again?"

"Salem."

Keira, unable to hold her own weight at the revelation, reached out and held onto the countertop. "Which coven?" she asked, her voice coming out in a broken whisper.

The memory of the screaming voices from earlier returned, and a sense of dread sunk over her and held strong, forcing all the air from her lungs.

Fear ripped through her body with his answer. "Crossroads."

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📎A/N .. So what did you think?? Seems there's more to Keira and her sister than meets the eye??

I wonder what has her panicked??

Don't forget to vote :-)

Take care, next chapter should be up by the end of the weekend.

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