“You bet it was. Witches were hunted and burned at the stake, even women who weren’t witches, but the powerful aristocrats of that time just wanted to punish them. They were accused of witchcraft. Their numbers were dwindling fast, so they knew they had to do something drastic. Back then, there was this powerful witch in Europe. Her name was Dahlia. She practiced all kinds of magic, including dark and blood magic. Around that time, a comet passed by, so she drew power from the comet and mixed in some other things from her apothecary-this was the lab of those times-and she brought on the plague. No one knew it would be as bad as it was. Dahlia lied and told everyone it was just a little spell to scare the humans, but it wasn’t. It almost wiped out half of Europe’s population, as you know, and it also spread past Europe,” she tells me.
I can’t believe this. “So how did you guys stop it? Because I know it just stopped, it disappeared, and there was no mention of the plague until the 1500s,” I tell her.
“Well, that strain of the plague wasn’t the witches’, but that’s another story. Basically, we had to reverse-engineer everything: the spell and the items she mixed up. That’s how we stopped it,” she says.
“So that’s what we have to do. But wait a minute, you keep saying ‘we.’ Does that mean you were there?” I ask her. Then, I look at Leo and remember him telling me that she was old, but he didn’t know how old.
“Yes, Lena, I was there.”
Lena’s POV
She was there? I look over at Leo, and he has the same stunned look that I’m sure I have on my face.
“How old are you, Freya?” Leo asks her.
“Didn’t your parents teach you that it’s rude to ask a woman her age, Leo?” Freya replies, but she has a smile on her face. I don’t think she realizes how shocking what she just dropped is.
“I’m serious, Freya. How old are you?” Leo asks again.
“Fine, I’m over a thousand years old. After I hit a thousand, I kind of just stopped counting,” she tells us.
“A thou… A thousand years?” I ask her.
“Yes. You see, this is why I don’t like telling people my age, because they get that same look that the both of you now have,” she says.
“Well, you have to understand, this is a first for us. The only people that can live that long are vampires, and vampires that are that old are very rare,” I tell her.
“Yes, I know. But I can assure you, I’m not a vampire. You can’t be a witch and a vampire. A witch is a servant of nature, and well, a vampire isn’t,” she explains to us.
“So how have you been able to live this long?” I ask her, and a dark look crosses her face.
“It’s not something I like talking about, but you guys are family, so I might as well tell you. Remember the witch I told you about?” she asks.
“Yes, Dahlia,” I reply.
“Yes, her. She was my aunt. I never knew my parents. I have a very faint memory of them, but that’s it. Dahlia was the one who raised me. She said my parents couldn’t take care of me, so they gave me to her. At the time, I thought she was telling me the truth. For the first few years, I hung on to her words, believing everything she said was the truth. Her beliefs were my beliefs. A lot of witches and warlocks heard of her power, and they all came to Europe, and she had her coven. But I digress. After the plague, many of the witches saw Dahlia for who she really was, and they left. Her coven was disbanded. She didn’t have anyone except me-well, she thought she had me. But I had met someone, I fell in love, and I was pregnant…”
“We were going to get married.” She takes a deep breath and wipes the tear from her face.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” I tell her.
“No, it’s fine, I’m fine. Anyways, she lied to me and told me that she was happy for me and Adam, but then she poisoned him. I was so heartbroken that I lost the baby. I tried to run away, and I did. But she was too strong. She put a spell on the both of us, and we slept for two hundred years, not aging or anything like that. When we woke up, it was a new world. Nobody knew us, so they didn’t know who Dahlia was or what she had done. She amassed her followers again, and I pretended that everything was good between us, but in all honesty, I was just biding my time, waiting until I was strong enough to kill her. I know you’re thinking that I could just stab a knife in her neck and get it over with, but it wasn’t that easy.
She was drawing power from dark objects, so she could heal herself. At that point, she was stronger than a thousand witches combined. That’s how she was able to keep both her and myself from aging. It took me years-more than a century-but I finally figured it out. How to kill her, with the help of some witches who saw Dahlia for who she really was. I lured her into a trap, stripped her of all her magic, it took everything in me, and then I stabbed her in the chest.
You see, when a witch dies, every spell that she casts is undone. So the moment I killed Dahlia, the spell that kept me young was broken. I was so weak, but Dahlia’s followers found me, and they used a dark object to trap me. With the last strength and magic I had, I used a spell to preserve my body. Over the years, my powers came back, and that’s how I was able to ask for help. People thought the place was haunted, but luckily for me, either Leo was just too hungover to care or not scared of ghosts, so he found me. Now I’m just like any other human, except for the fact that I have powers. But I age now,” she explains to us.
“Wow, that’s just… wow. Your aunt was a lot,” I tell her.
“Trust me, ‘a lot’ doesn’t even begin to cover it.”
“I’m so sorry that happened to you, Freya. If I was there…” Leo trails off.
“If you were there, she would’ve killed you too. It’s okay, I’ve come to terms with it. It still hurts, but I’ve realized all those things needed to happen to get me to where I am today. If they didn’t happen, I never would’ve met you, Leo, or even you, Lena,” she tells us.
“Yeah, I guess that’s another way to look at it,” Leo says.
“Did you try finding your parents? I mean, if you’re a witch, they were probably witches too,” I ask her.
“Yeah, I know that, but I haven’t been able to let myself do it. I’m just scared of what I’ll find. But someday I will, I still have time. But for now, we need to figure out who cursed your pack and how to get a cure,” she says.
“You said your aunt Dahlia was the only one you remember casting a spell like this, so is it possible that she’s still alive?” I ask Freya.
“No, that’s impossible. If she were alive, I’d know-I’d feel it. This is someone else, someone who has access to Dahlia’s teachings and her grimoires,” she tells us.
“But Dahlia died here in New Orleans, and the pack is back in New York. How is that even possible?” I ask her.
“Well, that’s what we have to figure out, and it all starts here in New Orleans,” she says.
Lena’s POV
“I don’t understand. Can’t you just follow us back to New York, to the pack, and we can figure everything out there?” I asked her. This was supposed to be a quick in-and-out mission. We get here, convince her to help us, and then leave. Staying wasn’t part of the plan.
“I’m sorry, but we can’t do that. For me to help, I need to figure out which witch or warlock is behind this, and I need to understand the spell they used. To do that, we need to track the culprit from here. Are you in a hurry or something?” Freya asked, looking confused.
“Yeah, something like that. I promised my kids I’d be home soon,” I replied.
“You have kids?” she asked, both happy and confused at the same time.
“Yes, I do. Triplets. I hate being away from them for too long. So, whatever we’re doing, can we do it quickly?” I asked her.
“Yes, of course, I completely understand. I know where we can start. I just need to make a call first. But until then, how about you wash up and get some rest? The rooms are ready. Leo, could you take Lena to her room?” Freya said, then got up and left to make the call.
I turned and looked at Leo. After everything that had happened and everything we had been told, unexpected laughter bubbled out of my throat. Leo looked worried.
“Lena, are you okay?” he asked cautiously.
“I’m… I’m fine. It’s just that when I looked at you just now, all I could picture was Freya throwing you across the room,” I told him, and he groaned.
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