Enflame (Insight #6)(4)
I followed her, hearing the floor creak with each step I took. The room she went in was lit by candlelight. It was a musky, aged room. Decorated with antique furniture, a red velvet couch with a high back was adjacent to black chairs with backs that reached well over whomever would sit in them. A dark wood desk was off to the left of the room, and a narrow table was before it. On that table was a golden chalice, a silver tray, and an array of candles, all lit and all white, with the exception of one: the red one in the woman's hand. A small dagger was in her other hand, and she was carving something in the red wax as her lips whispered words I could not hear. She sat the red candle in the center of the narrow table, then waved her hands over the wick, which ignited a flame that reached at least six inches in the air before settling in flow with five white candles next to it.
After emptying a small velvet sack into the chalice, she bowed her head in what looked like a prayer. A moment later, she raised her hands and placed a bundle of green leaves before her candle display, igniting it with a glance. The burn was slow, and the aroma of sage filled the room.
“Who are you?” I mumbled.
“Saige,” she stated as she reached for a white candle and poured a circle of wax around a golden chalice.
“No, not what are you burning—who are you?”
She turned to me, gray eyes locked with green. “Saige. The witch that is going to help you tonight.”
I glanced at the desk behind her altar to see a laptop computer, phone, iPod deck, books, and more plants than any office should have. My gaze drifted back to her, to the fashion jeans she was wearing, the symbolic yet elegant jewelry that lingered on her wrist, fingers, and neck. She didn’t look like a witch. She looked like an eccentric, wealthy, older woman.
“Looking for my broom?” I heard a bit of humor in her voice, laced with evident contradiction.
“Only if it can fly me to wherever Landen went.” She needed to know that sarcasm was a language I spoke fluently.
Her soft lips echoed a painful smile. “I’ll bring him back to you.”
I smirked. “I have no doubt he will come back. It’s what he’s doing when he’s gone that has me bothered.”
She glanced at her altar. “I intend to stop that, too.”
I furrowed my brow. “I wasn’t aware that a witch had the power to stop someone like Landen.” I was trying to politely tell her that her candles and herbs could not compare to what Landen and I had become. The fact that Perodine herself could not stop us made that notion fact.
“Were you aware of witches at all?”
I didn’t know if she was intending on being rude or not, but her tone was harsh.
I took in a breath before I spoke. “Let me be blunt: if you’re trying to shock me with the claim that you practice witchcraft, you’re ranking fairly low on my ‘wow’ scale at this moment.”
In my mind, all the evil that I’d fought flashed into view, causing a gust of wind to assault the glass pane windows behind her desk.
Her gaze shifted to the window. I saw a familiarity in her glance and turned to see who she was looking at. Not seeing anyone, I returned my attention to her, only to see her nod then walk past me toward the front hall.
“Where are you going?” I asked as I followed her.
She opened a hall door and pulled out a black pea coat. “I told you. To help you. To stop this.”
“How do you know where he went?”
She opened the front door and stopped short, as if she were staring at a mass of people, but there was no one there. “The dead outnumber the living in this town. They know where they are.”
“You see the dead?” I asked, swallowing nervously, wanting Charlie and Draven right now. They were the only ones I trusted to see lost souls.
She stepped out on the front porch as if she were sliding through people. “I do more than see.” A few steps later, she glanced to her side. “Keep her here. Don’t let her follow me.”
“Keep who here?” I asked, stepping forward, only to feel an icy wall blocking my way. Panic, anger, and frustration vibrated in my soul, causing thunder to rumble, the wind to pick up, and lightning to strike the street before her home.
“You.”
I struggled to move forward, but the icy wall pushed me back into the house. The door then slammed in front of me. I rushed to it and did everything in my power to open it. As I focused my energy on the door, prepared to break it down with a glance, it began to rattle violently as an icy chill claimed the air. My panicked breaths leaked fog from my lips. Thinking it was my fear that was causing it, I tried to find a calm feeling. When one came, the cold air remained. It was so chilling that all the mirrors and framed portraits on the wall began to ice over. My heart raced. I’d faced a ghost before: Donalt. This energy around me didn’t feel as angry or demonic, but it was still demanding, and it still made me question if I could overpower it. The last time I’d fought Donalt alone, I ended up in a coma, fighting my own subconscious. I didn’t have time to sleep now.
I cautiously stepped away from the door, finding warmth in the air behind me. I stepped further back until I reached the room she’d lit the candles in—her study. From the threshold, I watched as the rest of the house began to freeze over. I felt a tense energy daring me to move from the room I was in. Paralyzed by fear, I held in a breath and let one warm tear stream down my cheek. I was in a prison, one in which Landen had purposely placed me.