His father and his friends took their places and began the ritual. The sound of chanting filled the air, making it crackle with their combined power. It raised the hair on Jack's arms and made his ears ring. The power that slid over his skin felt like dark velvet, filling him up, giving him the sensation of light-headedness and euphoria. The magick in his chest reacted by glowing warm and seductively in response, wanting to free itself.

Immersed in it, Jack felt almost invincible. As he looked upon the rapturous expressions of his father and his friends, Jack wondered what they must feel. It had to be much more powerful for the ones working the spell.

The witches making their involuntary sacrifice slipped under the thrall of the powerful, dark forces exerted over them. Their faces contorted into masks of pain as they failed to fight the rape of their magick. That's what jerked Jack from the strange, pleasurable lethargy that had stolen over him. The witches couldn't move, yet their faces showed their agony.

Eventually, they stilled and became submissive. Their bodies slackened as the spell dragged their power into the center of the circle in order to open a doorway for a summoning.

His father had explained this was how to call forth a demon, a supernatural entity capable of great power that would be tied to him and his friends like a servant for a time in exchange for the gift of the four witches, plus a favor or two. It was a beautiful thing, his father had told him, a wondrous sacrifice to bring into being such a magnificent creature.

Jack stood silently, holding the woman's gaze as the magick possessed her and destroyed her. Little by little, Jack watched the light bleed from her eyes until they were dead and glassy, until she'd slumped to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been released slowly. He wanted to do something, fight his father and his friends to save her, but fear held him rooted in place. As each of the witches died in turn, the air in the center of the circle began to shimmer while the demon was birthed.

He never saw the beast in the flesh. Jack ran.

Out of the house, down the long, curling driveway of his father's mansion, past the gate, he'd run as fast as he could. The servants had chased him, but Jack had beaten them to the street and disappeared, hiding among the houses, bushes, and cars until nightfall. Then he'd run straight to Hannah, his mother's sister.

His father had never sought him out after that. He'd let Jack's aunt raise him. Perhaps he'd thought Jack was too much trouble to bother with. Too weak. Too tainted. Jack didn't know.

Ultimately, he'd rejected the name Crane for his mother's maiden name of McAllister. Once he'd turned eighteen, he'd sought the Coven and had been working for them ever since.