Chapter 4

The rusted iron nail hissed against Evelyn’s flesh. Mark twisted the heavy head. Fresh, blinding agony ripped through her shoulder blade.

Mark yanked his hands back as the consecrated metal flared. A violent pulse of energy shot from the nail and slammed into the marble floor. The ruined stone ignited. A massive, geometric grid of blinding silver light exploded across the entire banquet hall. The true exorcism array.

The heavy barbed chains jerked tight. Evelyn’s knees hit the floor hard. The magic tore the breath straight out of her lungs. The boiling black-red blood on her palms turned instantly to gray ash. Her supernatural strength vanished, replaced by a crushing, suffocating weight that pinned her to the silver runes.

Footsteps crunched over broken glass. Tristan walked into the dead center of the glowing circle. He adjusted his bespoke lapels. The terror from moments ago evaporated, replaced by a clinical, devastating arrogance.

"Standard operating procedure, Evelyn," Tristan said. He looked down at her. "Delta Rho’s primary containment protocol. Specially designed for monsters like you."

The paralyzed socialites scrambled backward toward the heavy oak doors. But a dozen men remained. The core fraternity brothers. They stepped out of the shadows, stripping off their tuxedo jackets and rolling up their silk sleeves.

Black ink scarred their forearms. Interlocking iron crosses. The ancient crest of Puritan Witch Hunters.

They didn't just study law and finance. They hunted. They harvested supernatural cores to fuel their trust funds and secure their family empires.

Mark stepped up next to Tristan. He pulled a folded piece of heavy stock paper from his security jacket. He held it up, displaying the university letterhead.

"Johns Hopkins Medical School. Full ride," Mark said. His voice carried zero guilt. "And my green card sponsorship is already expedited." He looked down at Evelyn, his expression utterly hollow. "You were a good friend, Evie. Really. But selling out a witch is just good business. I couldn't pass up the ROI."

Evelyn choked on a mouthful of copper-tasting blood. A raw, jagged laugh tore out of her throat.

Good business. They slaughtered her sister for spare parts. They sold her out for a tuition waiver and a visa. The sheer, calculated psychopathy of it burned her insides worse than the holy silver. She hated them. Her skin crawled with the desperate, violent need to rip their throats out with her bare teeth.

Tristan drew a sleek, silver hunting knife from his waistband. He knelt in front of her.

"I have to admit, your bloodline is incredibly precious. Much more potent than Lily's," Tristan said. He traced the cold, flat edge of the blade down Evelyn's jawline. "But you're entirely too untamed. Too emotional. Chloe needs a stable power source."

He grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him. His eyes were dead, reflecting only greed.

"I'll keep your body alive," Tristan whispered. "I'll keep the magic flowing. But we are going to scrape your consciousness completely clean."

Tristan stood up and nodded at Mark. "Drive the nail directly into her heart. Just deep enough to paralyze the central nervous system. I'll handle the lobotomy."

Mark stepped behind her. He gripped the iron head of the nail protruding from her shoulder. He raised a heavy silver mallet.

Evelyn squeezed her eyes shut. The consecrated silver burned through her muscle tissue, searing against her bones. The pain threatened to drag her into unconsciousness. But beneath the roaring agony, a quiet voice echoed in the dark corners of her mind.

“Evie.”

A memory surfaced. A cramped, freezing apartment in Boston. Lily sat on the edge of a mattress, gently wrapping bandages around Evelyn's scarred hands after a magical flare-up.

“If you ever have to choose between hiding and surviving... don't hold back,” Lily had whispered, her dark eyes fierce and uncompromising. “Please, sister. Don't drown your power for me.”

The mallet swung down.

It never hit the nail.

Evelyn snapped her eyes open. Her pupils vanished. Pitch black ink swallowed her irises and sclera.

The mental dam holding back thousands of years of the First Witch’s raw, catastrophic power obliterated.

Despair, fury, and a suffocating, violent grief collided. They sparked a nuclear detonation inside her soul.

A shockwave of pure, pitch-black energy blasted outward from her chest. Mark flew backward, crashing violently through a solid mahogany table. The heavy silver chains binding Evelyn's wrists shattered into brittle, useless fragments.

Evelyn stood up.

The holy nail embedded in her shoulder bubbled. The consecrated silver melted, turned to glowing slag, and ran down her back like dirty water.

The massive silver array carved into the floor shrieked. The metal runes boiled, popping out of the marble and vaporizing into the air.

The entire manor violently shuddered. The foundation groaned. Every single window in the banquet hall blew outward simultaneously. A storm of shattered glass rained down into the freezing night.

Tristan dropped his hunting knife. He stumbled backward, his hands trembling wildly as he stared at the absolute nightmare rising from the center of the ruined room.

Evelyn floated an inch off the cracked marble floor. Shadows bled from her skin, twisting and coiling in the air like living serpents.

"You want to harvest witches?" Evelyn whispered.

Her voice no longer sounded human. It echoed from the walls, layered with a thousand ancient, hollow frequencies that vibrated directly inside their skulls.

"Let me show you primordial terror."