CHAPTER 26 PART 1 | new beginnings

📎A/N. Hello my lovelies.

Before we get into the final chapter of Witch Doctor, I just wanted to let you know it's day 9 of The Decameron, and that means #TeamCoincidence is up.

Eleven teams, eleven themes, twelve judges, 110 stories, and some great prizes!

If you'd like to check out my first attempt at a short story, check it out at https://www.wattpad.com/367207645-the-decameron-2-0-day-9-2-coincidence-triskele

I would love to get feedback on what you think of it...

I have also added it as a link to this chapter, as well as in the first comment to this chapter.

Each team was assigned an archaic word to use, see if you can work out what was ours.While you are there, show some readerly love at my team mates. The first eight stories are up.

1. What's your WiFI Password by leighwstuart

2. Triskele by <-- That would be mine

3. The Lost Luggage of Time by jespah

4. Until We Meet Again by raekitano

5. Spinning Threads by ddonohue78

6. Xia Xenides by lmareeapps

7. Unus Mundus by red_harvey

8. Martian Rendezvous by elveloy

9. In Light's Shadow by bloodsword

10. Coincidence by sleeplessinchicago

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This chapter was particularly long and I have split it into three parts. Don't panic, they will all go up within a few minutes of each other.

I hope you enjoy the final chapters in Witch Doctor. If you do, don't forget to vote...

Take care,

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Stop that infernal racket!

Keira held her breath and grimaced. The jungle drums pounded from all directions. With each painful beat, a flash of color exploded and then evaporated just as quickly into the darkness.

Thump. Thump.

Please, I beg you, stop that noise.

Her body tensed as the colors and drum beat collided, shooting pain up through her aching bones and muscles as they blended into one. As the pain subsided, the dense fog that had taken hold of her mind cleared. Keira relaxed into the pillow when she realized the drums were nothing more than a pounding headache that had taken hold and was determined to both deafen and kill her at the same time.

Keira opened her eyelids; or, at least she tried to. They were half way open when she snapped them shut with the unexpected effort to do something as simple as lift two bits of skin covering her eyes. Her lids were heavy; very heavy.

"This has got to be the worst hangover ever," she groaned. Her voice came out croaky and dry.

Hangover? I can't remember drinking.

It was then the floodgates opened, and her memories returned in full force. Leviathan, the General and... Keira's breath caught in her throat as she recalled the image of Amos plunging the dagger into Maize.

Keira's eyes opened. This time, the effort wasn't as intense as it had been moments before. It was daytime, and from the position of the sun as its rays streamed into her room, near midday.

The door. We need to make sure Leviathan can't come through.

Keira struggled to lift herself up. She let out a small cry as her sore and weakened body failed to comply, and she fell back into the soft bedding. There was a movement from the corner of her eye, and her sister's head suddenly hovered above.

"Are you okay?"

Keira brought up an arm to cover her upper face. Even that movement was painful.

"Did I get hit by a freight train?"

Dayna giggled as she sat on the bed and reached for Keira's free hand. "Close. You and that magical weapon of mass destruction you conjured, were the freight train."

Keira frowned and pulled her arm away from her face. "What the hell are you talking about?"

The jungle drums chose that moment to attack her in full force, and she snapped her eyes shut again. Images of dead bodies strewn across Mystery Hill swamped her as the rest of her memory returned in violent spasms along with the headache. She hissed through her teeth and hauled in a breath.

Once the pain had dulled, Keira made another attempt to raise herself up. "Amos and that Legion; did Ryker and Deacon manage to track them down?" Her mind, not yet clear, sifted through the events of the previous evening to try and make sense of what had happened. "The bodies, we need to work out how to deal with the carnage that was left behind. What about the door? Did you make sure it's secure?"

Dayna pushed at Keira's shoulders and forced her back down. "Relax sis, it's all sorted."

"How could it be sorted this quickly? It's going to take more than a couple of hours to work out what to do next."

In their hastily put together plan, they hadn't had the opportunity, or the time, to cover how they would clean up the mess or how to explain that many bodies.

"You've been out for three days," said Dayna.

Impossible. "Three days? I slept for three days?"

Dayna rested her hands on her hips. "Calm down, or you'll fall back into that coma." She then reached for another pillow and placed it behind Kiera's head to raise her a little. "We had a doctor come in and run some tests. You used up every reserve you had and the best we can tell, your body shut down to repair itself." She shook her head. "With all that kerfuffle you pulled when you were out of it, you certainly had us scared. In the end, Ryker had to draw your blood. I just couldn't look at the needle without wanting to throw up first. We were just lucky that the GP was gifted and didn't freak too much. We did warn him, but you know how it is, typical man, think they know everything." Dayna grinned and chuckled. "When he landed flat on his ass, that showed him he knew diddly-squat."

Keira's head was about to combust. "Stop. Just stop, will you. You're not making any sense."

If the jungle drums weren't going to kill her, Dayna's strange conversation would.

Dayna raised a mischievous eyebrow, and her eyes sparkled in mirth. "Oh, that's right, you have no idea what you did, did you?"

Keira stared at her sister as though she'd just grown an additional head. She was too tired and too sore to try and make sense of Dayna's bizarre behavior. Unable to gather the strength to physically shake her sister, Keira opted for the next best thing; she closed her eyes and turned her head. If she could just get rid of this headache, she might be able to understand the strange language suddenly sprouting from her sister's mouth.

Dayna sighed. "Somehow, the moment you fell unconscious, a barrier locked into place, surrounding you like an aura. Only I could see it."

Keira turned back to face Dayna. That didn't sound right. "But I didn't place a protection spell, and I certainly didn't have enough time to transfer it to an external object to allow it to stay in place while I was out of it."

"What do you remember?"

Keira thought back to the night of the summer solstice. "I remember seeing Trudeau and the others bound and gagged. I remember becoming so tired I could barely keep my eyes open, it all becomes blank after that."

Dayna wiggled her eyebrows. "Well hon, you fell, and McSexy caught you just as the weird shit hit the fan."

Weird shit? Keira was starting to feel like an echo.

"I didn't see when it happened. Otherwise, I might have been able to stop Vincent from suffering as much as he did." Unable to sit still, Dayna readjusted the pillows. "After Ryker made sure you were still breathing, he needed to help with the spill on aisle three, if you know what I mean."

"Go on."

"He wasn't keen to leave you near that weasel Trudeau, so he asked Vincent to get you and me safely back to the house, and wait with us while they sorted things out. The moment Vincent approached, there was an unexpected incident."

Dayna picked at a cuticle and her lips pursed together in a grim line. "I blame myself really. I was too focused on the chaos that I didn't pay attention until it was too late..." She trailed off.

"Don't stop there, too late for what?"

"The moment Ryker tried to transfer you across into Vincent's arms, Vincent practically lit up like a Christmas tree. It was as if he were being electrocuted. Had I been paying attention, I would have noticed the red aura around you earlier. I pulled him off before he became burnt toast."

"Is he okay?"

"He's a vampire, what do you think? Anyhow, turns out, the only two people that could get beyond the protection of that aura was Ryker and me."

"Are you sure it was my invocation and not something else? If I was unconscious, there was no way I could cast that sort of spell."

Dayna shrugged. "Well, it certainly wasn't my spell that was turning everyone into crispy critters."

Keira was mortified that she had injured more than one innocent. "Who else did I hurt?"

Dayna giggled. "The only person who thought it was a hoot, was Mitos. He decided that there was a timer on your barrier and that he needed to test the theory. He kept pushing Trudeau in your path. While I have to admit, it was a great punishment, and Mitos is the strangest person you'll ever meet, it got a bit old very quickly. So, by the time the doctor bounced off you and electrocuted himself, it wasn't even mildly amusing anymore."

It took a while for Kiera to wrap her head around the fact she'd been out for such an extended period. Three days? So much can happen in three days. She asked for a condensed version of events. Any more than that, and she didn't think she could cope.

"Well, the entire state is in an uproar," said Dayna as she leaned forward and glanced around as if checking to see if they were overheard. "You see, the cult you helped the Sherriff's department track down, got wind that it was only a matter of time before they were caught."

Keira groaned. She could see where this was headed.

Dayna reached over to the bedside table and tossed a folded up national newspaper on the bed. "According to what reporters have managed to uncover, after raiding their base of operations, the Sheriff's Department sifted through the evidence—which, by the way, was unbelievable. They discovered that the cult was behind the recent abductions of tourists and was about to carry out some freaky cult thing at Mystery Hill. It turns out that they believed if they sacrificed enough people they could resurrect some sort of god they worshiped. You can imagine the Sherriff's Department's surprise when they raided the area to discover over eighty dead bodies and that some the perpetrators were law enforcement, planted by the cult to keep them one step ahead of the law.

"Dare I ask about the others?"

"According to the thirty grateful survivors that were rescued in the raid, the cult drugged their victims, branded their foreheads and left them to die."

Okay, so there's a grain of truth in that. What about the rest?

"Should I ask how you managed to get all of them to conveniently miss out what actually happened?"

Dayna dusted a non-existent piece of lint off the bed covers. "When we got to them, they were drugged up to the eyeballs and didn't know which way was up. That's how they kept them so pliable waiting for their walk to the gallows." She shrugged. "It wasn't too hard to convince them that they were having a mass hallucination. Their minds could cope better with that explanation, rather than the thought that they were about to be turned into zombies and the devil is real."

"What about Trudeau and the other members of The Order?"

"Oh, you mean the murderers who are trying to get away with killing dozens of innocent people by claiming there are vampires, witches and other creatures of the night running around the state and they were protecting the world from them by resurrecting their God?"

Keira raised a brow. "I see your point."

"With the amount of evidence at the estate they operated out of, there is more than enough to put them away for their natural life."

Provided they could keep the half truth under control, the explanation just might stand up to scrutiny. "How long did you have before the public got wind?" asked Keira.

Dayna placed the newspaper back on the bedside table and let out a long breath. "Unfortunately, the moment the news broke, you can imagine the panic. Tourists all over the state left in droves. Deacon is having to deal with the Governor, the FBI, who have taken over the case, as well as the City Council and Small Businesses that have been affected by the mass exodus. Both the Essex Sheriff's Department and the Salem PD are under the microscope on how they both had cult members on their payroll. Ryker's job is hanging in the balance; and while all this is going on, Deacon, Ryker, Kahair and the others are trying to track the General and the leader of The Order down. All while not arousing suspicion while under the FBI microscope."

Kiera closed her eyes and groaned aloud. Her headache had just upped a notch. "That won't sit well with Ryker. He was already blaming himself for not seeing through Alan's façade."

Dayna agreed with her assessment. "Ryker hasn't slept since this all happened. He's sorting out the chaos at the station during the day; he checks on you each evening and then races off to watch over Grant until the morning. Then it's rinse and repeat."

"Why? What's happened to Grant? Has something happened to Velvet?"

"Don't panic Velvet's fine. She's still a little weak but recovering. The damage is more emotional than physical. However, Grant's not taken Maize's death very well. I think Ryker's worried he might harm himself."

Unable to ignore the constant throb in her temples or the fatigue, any longer, Keira sunk back into the pillow and winced in pain as it sent another spray of color behind her closed eyelids. She felt Dayna's arm slide behind her shoulders and pull her to a half sitting position.

"Here, take this," Dayna said.

Keira reached for the offered glass of water. Her sister then handed her two small white pills.

"Your body still needs time to recover. If your heads anything like mine was, you'll need these painkillers and to sleep it off while your batteries recharge."

Keira downed the meds and handed back the empty glass. "Isn't there a spell to make this all go away?"

Dayna smiled and rolled her eyes. "Been there done that, and it doesn't work. Until a few hours ago, even the simplest of spells have eluded me. I suspect that it's going to take you a few more days before we have access to our full power again. Even then, I don't know if we'll be able to tap into our new powers."

"How's that possible? Has it affected everyone?"

Dayna shook her head. "No. Just Velvet and I. I'm assuming that it's done the same to you."

Keira was too tired and sore to see if her sister's theory was right. All she wanted to do was sleep.

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📎A/N. So, do you think they'll get their powers back?

Don't forget to vote before going to Part 2 :D

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