The Seventh Son of the Seventh Son

At first glance, Lisa and Brian Majors seemed like your average middle class couple, nothing could be further from the truth. They were witches, not a couple just playing at a game like young people dressing in Goth clothes and attending Wiccan ceremonies, they were real and true practitioners of witchcraft. To the casual observer, they seemed to be in their early thirties, but they were actually over one hundred years old. They maintained their youthful appearance in the most horrible way. They bathed in the blood of children, their own children. They had born twelve children over the last century, but none of them mattered beyond their blood. They only needed to bathe in the blood of an infant once every ten years to maintain their youth.

Brian Majors was a seventh son of a powerful warlock and Lisa was the latest in her family's long line of witches. They both knew that the seventh son of a seventh son would be born with mystical abilities, those abilities coupled with the training they would both give a seventh son, would make a powerful sorcerer indeed.

The first twelve boys and girls only served to provide the blood they needed to maintain their youthful appearance, but recently they had the seventh son they wanted. A seventh son need not be the seventh consecutive baby a couple had, simply the seventh son out of however many boys and girls. After a century of hoping they finally had the seventh son they wanted, they both vowed to make him the most powerful warlock in history. This child they named Drew.

Allowing this child to live meant they couldn't bathe in its blood so their eternal youth spell would start to weaken. They started to show their age, not by much, but their hair started to turn grey and a few wrinkles started to show around their eyes. They considered it a small price to pay considering the wizard they were trying to create.

They never even bothered to name the previous children. They simply offered their souls to demons in different ritualistic ceremonies, which only increased their occult powers. Once they finished their religious offerings, they exsanguinated the body and bathed together in what little blood there was. Drew was different; he was the seventh son they always wanted. Each night they would chant spells over his crib, and pray to the demonic entities they worshiped.

Ever since he was a toddler little Drew showed innate mystical abilities. He could float above his crib; no playpen could hold him. If he stared at a kitten or a puppy, it would just drop dead to the floor. As he grew older and they schooled him in the mystic arts, other powers manifested themselves.

The Majors lived quietly for the last ten years in a large old house with a very large back yard on a secluded cul-de-sac. They had very little to do with their neighbors and kept to themselves. Due to their practice of witchcraft, they had to hide their true nature. Drew's birth changed all that. The Majors could no longer be the recluses they always were. Since they let this child live, they couldn't hide him completely. He would be seen playing in the backyard; they would be seen walking him in a stroller. Lisa and Brian were not heartless; they knew a child needs playmates and playmates meant people coming to their home. He had to be taught to function in the world of mortals without revealing his true nature and to walk among them unnoticed. He needed to hide his mystical nature while secretly developing it.

As he grew older, his presence in the neighborhood was impossible to hide. He would occasionally interact with the neighborhood kids. Sometimes he would slip up a bit or feel the need to impress the others and he would reveal some of his mystic abilities. He became known as "the weird kid."

For the first thirteen years of his life, they were effectively able to home school Drew, but in accordance with law by age thirteen, he had to attend public school, high school.

Drew's first day of high school was his first day of school ever. He entered the hall with his notebook in hand. He was rail thin and slightly taller than his schoolmates were, and was a bit pale skinned with sullen sunken eyes. Like his parents, he dressed almost exclusively in black. The other students past by him some pausing to wonder why the weird kid was going to their school now. While Lisa and Brian tried to hide their mystic nature, Drew flaunted his nature. His gothic clothes and slicked hair fit right in with some of his classmates. The difference was they were playing dress up and he was a real wizard.

As Drew walked to his first class, he saw a teacher, apparently the gym coach, chewing out a student for some unknown offense. He didn't like what he saw; he thought the teacher was an abusive bully. Drew focused his concentration on the teacher and made a subtle gesture. Only a few of the other students saw what he did. The teacher went from a booming voice to barely a whisper. Drew simply smiled and nodded at his awestruck classmates and continued on his way.

He entered his first class and took his seat. As he listened to the teacher drone on Drew grew more and more bored with the class. He decided to amuse himself with a little fun. He whispered a short incantation and pointed at the teacher from under the desk. The teacher turned pale and told the class to sit quietly he would be back shortly. The teacher never made it to the door, peeing in his pants to the amusement of the class. A few more of the students saw what he did and they started whispering among themselves.

At the end of the day, Drew returned home. "Hi Mom, hi Dad," he said as he placed his books on the table and looked through the refrigerator for something to eat.

"Hi Sweetheart, how was your first day at a real school with mortal kids?" Lisa asked.

"Not bad," Drew laughed. "I made one old fart lose his voice," he answered without taking his head from the refrigerator, "and another one pee in his pants."

"Drew! You can't do things like that! Don't you realize we need to hide what we are from the mortals? They would never understand witches," his father told him. "My grandfather barely escaped being put on trial in Salem. He learned the hard way about putting curses on his neighbor's cow just for the fleeting satisfaction of revenge."

"We've talked about this honey," Lisa said. "You can't reveal yourself or what you can do."

"They were both dicks!" Drew protested turning to face them.

"So were my teachers son," Brian responded, "but I waited until after graduation for my vengeance on people that ticked me off. I simply made a list of offenders and offences and after graduation I took my time and punished them accordingly so nothing traced back to me."

"I know, I know it just seemed right at the time, but your right I'll do better."

The next day he went back to school, some of the students stared at him, some gave him a wide berth, and others smiled and stuck out their hands praising his pranks on the two teachers. He smiled and made small talk with a few then he saw her. She was dressed in Goth clothes as he was, as several students were, but there was something special about her. She had long silken blond hair and a petite frame. There was something special about her. Something he couldn't quite put his finger on, but even at a distance, he felt chemistry with this girl. She just smiled, winked, and walked away.

Later that day during gym class, he saw her again and decided to impress her. When it became his turn to climb the rope, the other students watched intently as the weird kid grabbed the rope to begin his climb. Given his slight willowy stature, they expected him to fall on his rear. He whispered a spell to make himself lighter than air, scampered up the rope, and slid back down. The Goth girl seemed to be bored with him. Something about this girl was captivating, he needed to impress her.

Later that day in the lunchroom, Drew sat at a table near the Goth girl with the few new friends he had made. He looked at her and smiled; she simply turned and looked the other way. A larger boy, an upper classman, pushed Drew out of his chair, claiming it as his own. He laughed as Drew hit the floor. Drew picked himself up with pure hate on his face and fire in his eyes.

A hush fell over the room as the rest of the students expected to see a fight. Drew started to mutter a spell to banish the bully to an alternate dimension but caught himself in time. He might have been home schooled, but growing up he did take karate lessons. He jumped in the air and kicked the bully in the face! The lunch lady and two teachers rushed to intervene. Drew and the bully were both suspended and sent home to get their parents.

Drew let himself into the house and put his books on the table. As he fixed himself a snack, he could see his parents in the parlor performing a rite of devotion to the dark lords of chaos. They finished and came into the kitchen with angry looks on their faces. "What happened now?" Brian asked.

"I got into a fight, a kid knocked me down. One or both of you have to go see the principal. I didn't use magic, I just kicked him in the head!" he responded defensively.

"Drew! You've got to stop calling attention to yourself!" Lisa said.

"I didn't start it! I just defended myself"

"Look son," his father said with a stern look, "from now on limit yourself to a spell done in private. We can't have all this light on us."

The next day both Lisa and Brian went to see the school's principal. Once his parents got to the school the principal reviewed the fight and the schools policies with them. The principal's autocratic authoritarianism annoyed Lisa. She shared a glance with her son and focused on the principal for a second. The principal excused himself saying he'd be right back in a moment and headed for the door, but like the teacher before him, he peed his pants before he could make it. He told the Majors to try to police their child more closely in the future and limited the punishment to a week's detention.

The next week the school was holding a dance to celebrate being ranked with the highest scholastic scores in the state, most of the students were going. Drew decided to ask the Goth girl to go. To hedge his bet he decided to use a love spell on her. His parents were delighted he was learning to use his abilities in private. They helped him to organize his materials and approach.

The next morning when he went to school drew expected to see a sparkle in the Goth girl's eyes and for her to approach him. She approached him, but not as he expected.

"How dare you try to use a spell on me!" she hissed. Drew was a bit taken aback and at a loss for words.

"I don't understand." He stammered.

"You tried to use a love spell on me! I felt the energies!" Drew was dumbfounded, how did she know that. "You're an amateur! I don't know who trained you, but you clearly have a poor command of magic."

"What do you know about magic?"

She glanced around quickly to make sure there were no witnesses and said, "Things like this!" she made a hex sign at him. Drew immediately felt an overwhelming feeling of nausea and ran to the boy's room to vomit. He thought to himself, how did she know to do that?

For the rest of the day she refused to even look in his direction. At the end of the day as he left school, he saw his parents waiting outside for him. As he walked to them, he heard the Goth girl call his name. He turned and saw her walking towards him with her parents. He noticed her parents and his seemed to recognize each other.

"Brian and Lisa," her father said, "we need to talk!"

"Hello, Frank, Magenta, it's been some time," Lisa smiled.

"Lisa, your son tried to use a love spell on our daughter and we're not happy!" Magenta said.

"We know, we know, we just didn't know it was your daughter he was using it on." Lisa responded.

The Goth girl's father put his arm around his daughter and looked at him sternly and said "Young man, if you want to date my daughter just ask, you don't need to resort to magic and with a clumsy, ham-handed spell at that." Drew's parents rankled at the remark.

Lisa turned to her son and said, "Drew, this is Mr. and Mrs. Curry. They are old friends of your fathers and mine. They attended your consecration ceremony and we attended their daughter's. We all used to be in the same coven."

"You're all witches, too?" Drew asked incredulously.

"Yes!" The Goth girl hissed. "Before you ask for a date or cast half-assed spells try asking my name, it's Janet."

"I'm sorry," Drew responded, hanging his head.

"We're getting into a bad place here," Lisa said. "Frank and Magenta, we've been friends for years. Our kids are learning the craft, let's get together tonight, and we'll all perform the rite of tranquility. We can form a new coven!"

Frank looked at his daughter and said, "Janet, if this young man promises to keep his spells to himself would you give him a clean slate and we can all start over?"

"I suppose," Janet said sullenly. She looked at Drew and said, "If you still want to go the dance, I'll go with you."

They all went to the Meadowbrook Pizzeria for dinner together then returned to the Majors home. They formed a powerful coven, other wizards and witches joined them. Over the next five years, Drew and Janet's training and powers increased. They married at eighteen years old and bore their parents a granddaughter. They named her Samantha. Twenty years later Samantha completed her magic training and gave herself to Satan. Drew's daughter bore the Devil the son he always wanted, the son that would one day rule the world.

THE END

Bio: Ray Prew was originally from Rhode Island, but now lives in Florida.  He is a graduate of the New England Institute of Technology.  Ray has been a blue-collar worker all his life, and started writing as a hobby.  He spent 9 enjoyable years as a phone psychic.  Ray’s work has been published in Spinetinglers magazine (6 times) one of the stories was used in a trivia quiz.  Two Spinetinglers stories are on You Tube, one story called Some Monsters Are Real is narrated by someone, and the other was made into a short video called let me out by Ray Prew.  He has been published in Blood Moon Rising (7 times including 2 poems), Aphelion magazine (10 times including 2 poems) as well as several other magazines.  He has an anthology book of published and unpublished stories available on Amazon called Delightful Nightmares.  His work has also appeared in the anthology vicious circle season one put out by sinister grin.

E-mail: Ray Prew

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