The Coven

In the 329 years since my making, I'd come to appreciate the finer things in life. The beauty of the meticulously cut colored glass in the arched windows and the prisms of light they cast over the dark stone tile of the halls at Hollow’s Grove University was only one of those. It was not to be diminished by the tantalizing scent of witch’s blood drifting from the messenger escorting me to the Tribunal room.

The Covenant wouldn’t wait long for anyone, not even the male they’d appointed as the Headmaster of their precious school. Cobwebs and dust lined the pathway before us, and I turned up my nose at the way the university had fallen into disrepair since I’d last set foot in it fifty years prior.

The witch at my side stopped before the Tribunal gates at the end of the hall. She waved a well-manicured hand over the lock, watching as the iron-and-gold mechanism rotated until it parted. Gears turned slowly, the ripple effect sliding up until the rest of the locks followed suit. The bars latched across the seam where the two doors met finally retreated. The soft click of them opening a signal for the witch to grasp the handle.

“How many generations separate you and George Collins’s sister?” I asked, forcing the witch to pinch her lips as she looked over her shoulder at me.

“Nine generations separate the Covenant and me,” she said with a sneer.

The witches were always so testy when discussing what had become of their leaders, of the two witches who’d commanded them through the centuries.

Susannah Madizza and George Collins were no longer—replaced by the two halves of the Covenant when Charlotte Hecate raised them from their graves.

“A shame,” I said with a grin. “Sarah Collins was quite lovely before she died. It is unfortunate she wasn’t able to pass that along to her descendants.”

The witch’s face fell with shock as I stepped through the gate she opened. I turned to the right and moved toward the Tribunal room where the Covenant waited for me. My escort remained at the gates, the good little puppy her great-great-great-whatever grandmother had seen fit to raise her to become.

“You’re one to talk, you undead bastard!” she called out behind me.

I adjusted the jacket of my suit, straightening the lapel as I grasped both the inner doors of the Tribunal and swiftly pulled them open.

The Covenant sat in the gilded chairs they’d had fashioned centuries ago, skeletal fingers grasping the arms as what had once been Susannah Madizza leaned forward. Her hood shifted to the side, allowing some of the sunlight shining through the kaleidoscope windows at the side of the circular chamber to illuminate what remained of her face.

The flesh had long since rotted from her body, leaving only the gaunt shape of a skeleton to stare back at me. Her neck tipped at an unnatural angle where it had snapped when they hanged her, the slightest slant to the side displaying the manner of her death all those years ago.