Inner Magick

Chapter one

I rubbed sweaty palms on the thighs of my jeans and watched with rising panic as the body in front of me heaved its last breath, before deflating like a blow-up doll right before my eyes. The body; that's all I could think of it as. I couldn’t think of it as a person, my anxiety and panic levels were already shot to hell. I was now an accessory to murder. Granted, there was no blood, and no murder weapon, and the people responsible had been committing these crimes for years now without being caught. But still, I had stood by and watched them kill her without a second thought as to the repercussions. Oh, my Goddess, her, she had a life, a family; someone who was going to grieve when they found out that she was dead.
Stop it. I shook my head to clear it before looking again, this wasn't like that. It felt the same though. I knew that dreaded feeling of having the police knock on your door in the dead of night and deliver the inconceivable news that your loved ones weren't coming home this time. I'd stood paralyzed on the doorstep as my father's best friend and most trusted work colleague had told me that when I had kissed my father good night before he had left for work that evening, it would be the last time I ever saw him alive. I knew how that news could rip apart a person from the inside; I'd been that person. I knew all of this, yet I'd still watched and said nothing.
The body. I had to keep my head and finish up what was already started. It wasn't a she; she was long gone. The others had left already; they'd shown no remorse at all. It was a job to them, and they'd carried out their orders. I knew how this was supposed to work. Five years they'd had me in training for this; and rule number one was never linger at the crime scene; do the job and get out. That’s how they'd successfully gotten away with this time after time throughout the years since they'd been formed as a group. I knew it all, and yet here I stood, a good twenty minutes after the others had evacuated and disappeared into the night. All I'd had to do was paint the symbol on the wall, light a candle and say a few words and then get the hell out of there; simple really. Yet here I was. I just couldn’t seem to tear my gaze away from the dull grey eyes that now stared back at me from the lifeless body that lay only a few feet from where I stood.

Sirens. I could hear sirens. I had to move. I had to be gone before I was found in the middle of an abandoned factory with the corpse of a seemingly innocent young business woman. Of course, I knew differently. I knew the truth; that this situation was more complicated than any police officer was ever going to understand. That was why they hadn't been caught yet; no apparent motive. The killings all looked random to the police, innocent people murdered in the prime of their lives, no links between suspects and no significance with the places that were chosen for the killings.
I willed myself to leave. Just turn around and walk away, but no matter how loud the sirens became, I just couldn’t seem to convince my feet to move. I was going to be arrested if I wasn't careful, and that was the last thing I needed.
When the flash of blue lights blurred my vision, something in me seemed to snap. I wasn't going down for this. Twenty-three was far too young to be going to prison; and with my priors, it was bound to be time that I got. I'd had one too many raps on the knuckles now, being found here would be enough to put me away for sure. I grabbed the black spray paint from my backpack and turned to the bare brick wall that the body stared at. The paint ran as I left the coven symbol like I'd been instructed to do, but I didn’t have time for the rest now; I’d just have to trust in the power of our sigil. I slipped through the door we had entered through less than an hour ago and was running towards the trees that lined the forest just a few hundred feet away when I heard them enter the building from the other side.

Just in time. I heard the shouts and crashes as the police burst through the barricaded front doors of the old, abandoned milling factory and let out a deep breath as I slowed to a fast walk.
'Eloise Phillips, freeze.'
Crap. I took another step, testing the sincerity of the all too familiar voice behind me.
'I mean it Eloise, don’t take another step.'
Busted. I wasn't getting away now. I shouldn’t have stayed so long.
'Drop the bag on the floor and turn around,' another voice, not one I recognised, called as the first continued to talk to me.
'What are you doing out here Eloise?' the original voice continued in a much calmer voice now that I was conforming.
I turned around slowly, slipping the bag from my shoulders and throwing it towards the officer who had asked for it, then raised my hands to shoulder level to prove that they were empty.
I faced Officer Will Jackson.
'Taking a walk?' I offered keeping my voice steady so as not to betray the panic I still felt bubbling up inside me.
Jackson stared me down, a look on his face that told me he really wanted to believe me but knew that duty meant he couldn’t. He had known me since before I could walk; my late father had been the Chief of Police at Rocky Hill Station until his untimely death at the hands of a petty thief who got his hands on a gun and fired at close range. My mother had died during childbirth, and with no other living relatives, the incident had left me an orphan at the age of fifteen. I'd been shipped off to Sister Hope's Home for Girls, an orphanage on the outskirts of the city.
That is where I had met Penny who later turned out to be my half-sister on my mother's side - and my link to the coven, getting me involved in the mess that had left me standing here in the dark, looking at Officer Jackson. Confusing, I know; I'll come back to that later.
Officer Jackson kept looking at me expectantly, a small crease on the bridge of his nose the only sign that he wasn't pleased to see me here. It had been a while now since our paths had crossed, and I knew from the messages he kept leaving on my voicemail that he was worried about me.
'Eloise, without a damn good reason for your being here right now, outside a building with a body inside, I'm going to have to take you in,' he said in a voice that betrayed his emotional connection to me.
He had been like an uncle to me when I was growing up and had fought for custody of me after my father's death, but to no avail. Since then he'd kept in contact, but recently I'd been out of the loop. I knew he had to take me in; I'd had my fair share of dealings with the law since my father's death. The orphanage had called it rebellion. The councillor had labelled it as ‘acting out in grief’ and claimed that it was completely understandable in my circumstances; I'd been rebelling against the system that had been supposed to protect people. My father had spent every day of his working life protecting people, but the system couldn’t protect him that night and I lost him because of it. I believe Jackson's words last time he had caught me shop-lifting had been that I was a 'miscreant'. Every time I had gotten away with a slap on the wrists and no official charges.
I wasn't so sure that I could wiggle my way out of this one though.
The cold metal closed around my wrists and the other officer, a young guy with mousey blonde hair and a pointy nose, put me in the back of the cruiser. This wasn't good, and I knew couldn’t count on the others to get me out. We had rules for a reason, and whatever my connection to the coven may be; it was my mistake. I had to get myself out of this, which meant I needed a plan; and fast.
I forced myself to stay calm and concentrate on listening to Jackson and the other officer talking just outside the cruiser and tried to formulate a plan.