Taken by Darkness Read online

  Taken by Darkness

  Netherworld Book 5

  Olivia Hutchinson

  Taken by Darkness

  Copyright © 2019 Olivia Hutchinson

  Cover design by Sweet ‘N Spicy Designs

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  About the Author

  Also by Olivia Hutchinson

  Lotan

  For Annia.

  Prologue

  Andrea listened quietly to the laughter filling her cousin’s small home. She sat at the kitchen table next to Lila, the same woman she was raised with and who she’d known since the day she was born.

  It was due to Lila’s prodding that she was even there. The five other women present were having a ball while Andrea tried not to be a stick in the mud, her mind still caught up with everything she had to do at work in the coming week instead of enjoying her friends.

  Taking a deep breath, she tried to push her worries from her mind. There is a time for work, and that's while she’s there, not when she’s supposed to be unwinding from what had been a chaotic few weeks. How horrible was it that she couldn't leave work at work and just enjoy the time she got to spend with her friends and the only family member in her life that mattered?

  “An accent?” Beth was asking Heidi when the conversation began to steer toward sex. It never took long. “Is that all it takes to get into your pants?”

  “Absolutely. A sexy accent is the only excuse I need to lose my panties and pop my legs open,” Heidi said before retrieving an unopened bag of chips from the kitchen counter.

  Andrea watched her struggle with it for a few seconds before swiping it from her hands and opening it effortlessly. She reached her hand into the bag and grabbed a small chip before flicking it at Heidi’s head. “Skank,” she said with a laugh, determined to have a good time.

  “Oh, come on,” Heidi said, taking the bag back. “Just because you’re Saint Andrea the virgin doesn’t mean everyone else is.”

  Andrea frowned. She hadn’t had a boyfriend in a few years, thanks to the inordinate amount of time she spent working. Heidi’s comment dug in more than it should have. “I’m not a virgin.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Heidi said, rolling her eyes.

  “Jeez,” Natalie interrupted, “leave the girl alone.”

  “She knows I’m only messing with her,” Heidi said.

  There was no vitriol behind Heidi's comment, but the frown didn't leave Andrea's face. Just the fact that she was allowing herself the time now to unwind was uncharacteristic. Granted, Lila and the rest of their friends had been working just as hard as she had lately, but it made her want to re-evaluate her life.

  “You better hope she knows that, or you’ll wake up in the morning with a frozen bra and a Sharpie mustache,” Natalie said.

  Andrea couldn’t help but laugh. She may not go as far as the Sharpie mustache tonight when Heidi fell asleep, but she was seriously considering snagging her bra.

  “I’m so happy I’m more mature than the lot of you,” Carey said, holding her glass out for a refill when Natalie retrieved another bottle of wine.

  “Mature? You?” Beth asked. “Are you not the same woman who told the entire nursing staff that Doctor Sallis enjoyed getting enemas as part of his sexual play?”

  Carey didn’t bat an eyelash. “He stole my pen.”

  “Wait a minute. You never even slept with him?” Beth asked.

  “He stole my pen.”

  Lila, Carey, Beth, and Natalie all worked at the same hospital. Sometimes Andrea missed the opportunity to work with them, but then there were moments like these when she realized she was probably better off working with children. They were more civilized.

  Lila gaped at Carey. “You embarrassed that man because he stole a pen? Was it made of solid gold?”

  “No,” said Carey defensively, “it was the one from the bank.”

  “It was a pen you had stolen yourself?”

  “I didn’t steal it, I borrowed it.”

  “You had no intention of giving it back!”

  Carey rolled her eyes. “I was going to give it back when it ran out of ink. Besides, it wasn’t the only pen he ever stole from me. Every single day he steals my pen. He had it coming.”

  Beth leaned across the table and grabbed the open bottle of Jack Daniels. "I work in the lab, and I heard that rumor. You don't think that was a bit—oh, I don't know—uncalled for?"

  Carey glared at Lila and then Beth, her arms folded over her chest. "I've worked with that man for two years, and in all that time he's never once said hello to me. And every single day he's there, he steals my pen. He doesn't steal Lila's pens or anyone else's. Just mine. Do you know how many pens that is?"

  “Um, no.”

  “Three hundred and forty-six!”

  “You counted?” Andrea asked in disbelief.

  “What?” Carey asked, looking at her. “Is that weird?”

  “Yes,” Maggie said from where she sat on the floor behind Andrea, her back against the wall. “Yes, that’s weird. That’s practically the definition of weird.”

  Carey shrugged. “Then I guess I’m weird.”

  Natalie groaned, letting her head fall to the table. “And that’s why I’ll forever be single.”

  “It is what it is,” Lila said.

  Andrea would love to not be single. She wanted a husband and children, although neither one of those things seemed to be in her near future. Her role was taking care of other people's children. There wasn't time for her own, and even if there were, it was hard for her to find someone she wanted to be around, let alone spend the rest of her life with.

  “We don’t have to stay single, you know,” Carey said. “We could meet some men. Some good ones, too.”

  “Right,” Natalie said in disbelief.

  “I’m serious.”

  “And just how do you suggest we do that?” Maggie asked.

  “We can do a spell.”

  With a groan, Lila dropped her head onto the table. "Not the witchy stuff again. Please, Carey."

  It wasn’t the first time Andrea had heard Carey go on about spell casting or about being a witch. Andrea just rolled with it, like she did every time Carey said something totally off the wall. The first few times Carey got drunk and saw ghosts it had thrown Andrea for a loop, but now? Nah. Premonitions? Check. Spell-casting? Double check. That was just Carey.

  “Why not? It’s not going to hurt anything,” Carey insisted, bringing Andrea back to the present.

  “Famous last words,” Beth grumbled.

  “I’m game,” Andrea said.

  “Ha!” Carey exclaimed, bouncing in her chair. “Thank you, Andrea. Who else?”

  Lila rarely disagreed with anything Andrea wanted to do and vice versa. This was no difference. “I’m in, I guess.”

  “Fine,” Beth said.

  Carey clapped her hands. “Yes!”

  Maggie and Heidi both agreed a second later, leaving Natalie as the only one in the room who hadn’t. “Oh, I thought that was a given,” she said when everyone looked at her. “Of course, I’m in. At least this is easier than speed dating. And it doesn’t require waxing.”

  Carey disappeared into the bathroom after giving the women things to do. Andrea went in search of a paring knife in the kitchen while Beth dug through a cabinet.

  “Are you looking for the salt?” Andrea asked her.

  “Yup,” Beth said. “And it can’t be just any salt either. It has to be sea salt.”

  Beth seemed too familiar with Carey’s odd behavior. Andrea had had her fair share of experiences but wanted to know more about what was going on with their friend. With a laugh, she asked, “This isn’t the first time she’s pulled you into this, is it?”

  “Nope and I’m sure it won’t be the last.”

  Beth and some of the others were raised in Cantor and have known each other since they were children. Andrea and Lila only moved to the town five years before. At first, they'd shared a small single-wide trailer before Lila built her own house and the trailer caught fire. Andrea lived with her for a year after that before moving into her own small townhouse in the older part of town.

  “Has Carey always been like this?” Andrea asked as she opened one of the drawers, finding the knives. “You’ve known her since she was a kid.”

  “Like what? Crazy?”

  Andrea shrugged, finding the small knife she was after. “I don’t know if I’d call her crazy.” Possessed, maybe, Andrea thought.

  “No, maybe not crazy,” said Beth, “but to answer your question, yes she’s always been like this. Are you saying that she hasn’t tried casting a protection spell on you yet?”

  A protection spell? “Um, no.” The spells seemed a lot more normal to Andrea than what she was used to seeing in Carey, but she couldn’t bring herself to explain and then ask about Carey’s odd – but pre
dictive – trances she seemed to only fall into when she was alone with Andrea. Maybe she did it when she was alone with the others too, but in the few years since she’d met the rest of the women, no one had mentioned it to her, including Lila.

  “Hmm,” Beth said with a small frown. “Give it some time then.”

  “She did sprinkle rosemary and lavender over my head once,” Andrea confessed, remembering her confusion when she had suddenly been covered in fragrant leaves while Carey instructed her to hold still. “I thought that was a little odd.”

  “That was for purification,” Beth said before closing her eyes for a second and adding, “Don’t ask me how I know that.”

  "Okay, I won't," Andrea said with a smile as she set the paring knife on the counter, a bit apprehensive about why Carey would request the knife to begin with. "Hey, what does she want the knife for?"

  “It’s probably just symbolic. A lot of this crap is symbolic,” Beth said with a shrug. “But then again, who knows?”

  A few minutes later, when everything was set up, the six women stood around the table, waiting for the seventh to find her way out of the bathroom.

  The room was dark, only illuminated by the glow of the candles and the blaze in the fireplace. The lights, as well as the music, had been turned off in preparation. Preparation for what, Andrea wasn’t one hundred percent certain. Silence radiated through the room as the women stared at each other, trying to figure out what they were supposed to do next and, without their leader, finding it impossible.

  “Did she fall in?” Andrea asked, looking to Lila who stood at her side.

  Lila shrugged before yelling, “Any time now Carey, before we fall asleep out here!”

  There was no immediate response from Carey, but after a minute the bathroom door opened, and she stepped out into the darkness. Her face was dark in the candlelight, and she had a stoic expression. She took her place at the table and looked from face to face as they all waited impatiently.

  "Finally," Beth grumbled, her hands on her hips.

  “Friends, it is time to assemble,” Carey said, ignoring Beth. Her voice was soft and airy as she looked down at the salt and knife ready where she had asked them to be placed.

  “Don’t piss off the witch,” Lila said when Heidi smirked.

  Carey’s black eyes narrowed. “I need everyone’s equal participation and silence for this to work.”

  When no one said anything else, she lifted the container of sea salt from the table and began to walk around them, pouring the salt on the floor. Andrea felt Lila cringe next to her as the salt hit the hardwood. As soon as this was over, Andrea would grab the dustpan before Lila freaked.

  Stopping at the same place where she began, Carey put the salt back on the table. Lifting her arms into the air, she called forth the elements. Andrea struggled to repeat the Latin words Carey spoke, inserting incorrect sounds and syllables.

  Carey’s voice was loud and clear as she spoke when she thankfully switched back to English. Her voice filled the large room. “We call forth our soul mates. Men of honor and integrity, both loyal and kind—”

  “With cocks of steel,” Heidi interrupted, and Andrea rolled her eyes.

  Carey cleared her throat. “Loyal and kind,” she re-emphasized. “We seek to bind with these men and create lasting relationships, full of love and compassion.”

  Picking up the sharp paring knife from the table, she held it out and made a small cut in the middle of her right palm and then the left. Blood welled on her skin as she tried to pass the knife to Maggie, who was staring at her as if she had finally gone over the edge. Perhaps the knife wasn’t symbolic, as Beth had suggested.

  “You’re kidding. There’s no way I’m cutting myself with that.”

  “I don’t have any diseases,” Carey said, again thrusting the handle of the knife in her direction.

  “That’s not the point.”

  “Oh, come on and just do it so we can get this over with,” Natalie groaned.

  Sighing, Maggie took the knife from Carey and made the smallest cuts she could before passing it along to Heidi. Heidi sliced through her palm like she did it every day, most likely to get it over with, before handing it to Lila. Once Lila was done, she gave it to Andrea.

  Andrea sliced through her palm, cringing at the sting. She was regretting her decision to participate as the blood welled in her hands.

  When the knife finally got back to Carey, she set it on the table in front of her and grasped Maggie’s and Natalie’s hands. The seven women held hands, blood sticky between their palms. Carey raised their clasped hands in the air, looked up at Lila’s ceiling fan, and began chanting something no one, except Carey, could understand.

  The flames from the candles and the fire dimmed as Carey spoke. A shiver went through her body when she felt a light cold breeze float around her. It seemed to have come from nowhere. The jokes and the laughter stopped, and Andrea felt herself tucking her body closer to Lila.

  As Carey’s voice rose in intensity, the candles and the fire suddenly roared to life, fully illuminating the room and making the six women jump. Carey didn’t appear phased in the slightest, her eyes lifted toward the ceiling and her feet planted firmly on the floor. Andrea’s ears were humming as the energy seemed to build in the room, creating its own pulse in the air surrounding them.

  The candles extinguished suddenly, save for the one Carey had left inside their circle on the table. Someone gasped. When Carey let go of the hands she had been holding and slowly walked around the table, Andrea breathed a sigh of relief.

  Carey flipped on the light and smiled, not seeing anything odd in what just happened. Silence filled the room, and for the life of her, Andrea couldn't find the words needed to cut the tension in the room.

  It was Beth who couldn’t take the silence for another moment. “Fuck this. I need another drink.”

  Miles and miles away, a lone figure walked through the darkness shrouded in a black cloak. His body still whirred from the power stolen from the little witch bitch. He could feel her strength pulsing through his veins, still hear the pleading screams she had let loose from her heart-shaped lips.

  She had begged for her life before he had stripped her of her power. His knife had found that tender spot below her breast and he had buried the blade to the hilt, one slow inch at a time. He had kept her power firmly locked within him as he extinguished the light from her warm brown eyes.

  He had wanted her body in the haze of raping the power from her. His cock was still stiff thinking about it, but he had known he couldn't risk spoiling her. She had what was left of the coven's power within her, and he couldn't risk tainting it, no matter how much his body demanded it of him. He wished now that he hadn't saved her for last. He could have at least played with her a little bit then.

  Only a handful more, he thought, then he would have enough power and strength to continue with his plan. Of course now that so many had been killed and drained, it was becoming increasingly difficult to find more of them, but he did not let that slow him down. The world would be a better place without their naiveté. Magic was a powerful gift they could never master or comprehend like he could.

  This is what Fate had shown him. This was his destiny. He would take his place as leader when the time was right. He would have enough power to truly be a force to be reckoned with. He would be the one to bring the world to its knees.

  As he walked back to the manor house from the crypt, he debated where to look next. It was nearly impossible to wipe out the witches without bringing attention to himself; but so far, he had been successful. The most powerful covens of Louisiana and Virginia were gone. Unfortunately, he couldn't touch the most powerful coven in Massachusetts without the notice of the Netherworld Council, but one day that would change. For now, he needed somewhere else to search.

  He was running out of places to look as the majority of the witches had gone underground after the disappearance of so many of their sisters and brothers. They knew. They knew he was coming for them. He may be able to deny it to the rest of the Netherworld, but the witches always knew when another light was extinguished.