She had purposefully parked several blocks away from her target, Witch’s Brew, so she could explore a little. She left her sample case in the car for now, figuring she’d scope things out first. As far as she could tell, Witch’s Brew was a combination coffee and tea house and magic shop. She looked forward to seeing how it worked.
Salem was quieter than Portland, but the state capital was busy enough for a weekday. People wandered in and out of the shops, businesses, and restaurants that lined the street.
Zipping up the new quilted blue coat she’d bought the day Rafe had abducted her, she slung her purse across her body and tucked her hands into her pockets. She was determined to enjoy the day.
Walking underneath the cherry trees, Caroline lingered at shop windows, peering in at bright, blue-and-ochre woven scarves and textured jackets. Another store was filled with walking boots and shoes. A shop with kitschy housewares flanked a bookstore. Maybe she would stop by there before she left for home. Get Dan a gift for feeding her so well.
Funny that. She was already thinking of Portland as home. Sydney and Dan had been just great. They told her she could stay as long as she needed to. She had a feeling she’d be finding a place of her own within a month or two, but it was nice not to feel rushed. To have room to figure out some things about her life.
About how she planned to move forward.
Maybe she’d stop in the bookstore, she mused, and pick up some science fiction, or a romance. She’d loved romance in high school, especially historicals, but Rafe had sneered at them, and she’d stopped reading the books rather than deal with his scorn.
She batted at the back of her head. It felt like some sort of insect was buzzing near her neck.
“I guess that’s one of the perils of spring,” she said. “Bugs.”
Her back began to itch, first down low, near her spine. As she reached around to scratch, it moved up between her shoulder blades.
“Damn it.” She couldn’t quite reach. She’d just have to hope it went away on its own. Tucking her hands back into her coat pockets, she walked on, trying to ignore the itch.
Witch’s Brew was right across the street, with a stylized swoop of black giving the hint of the curve of a black cat wearing a traditional peaked witch’s hat painted on the awning. She waited for the light to change. The itching wasn’t going away. If anything, it was growing stronger.
Caroline hoped it wasn’t a recurrence of the eczema she’d had a few years before. The doctor said the skin condition was exacerbated by stress, and she’d certainly had enough of that the past week.
The light changed. She started across the street when a voice behind her called her name.
“Caroline!”
Oh no. Not that voice. Not him. The itching and tingling increased, along with a sense that she was being tugged backward. What the hell was going on?
And how in the world had Rafe found her?
Once she got to the opposite sidewalk, she turned, slowly, then backed up toward Witch’s Brew, trying to get as much sidewalk between her and him as possible. She also wanted to be near the door to the shop, in case she needed backup.
It wouldn’t be a good first impression on her clients, but all Caroline cared about right now was staying safe.
Rafe looked like hell. His usually perfect dark hair was uncombed, his jacket had a rip at the collar, and there was a bruise high up on his left cheek. Looking down, she saw that loose white bandages wrapped both hands.
She couldn’t feel badly about that. Heart thumping faster, she planted her feet more firmly on the sidewalk and took her hands out of her pockets.
“Stay back,” she said.
He slowed his walk, then stepped up on the sidewalk, face darkening with rage. She peered into his eyes. Even at the slight distance, she could see that beyond the rage, there was bewilderment. His little toy had just woken up, and he was discovering it could bite.
“Why did you do that?” he asked.
What the hell was he talking about?
“I’m not the one who did something, Rafe. That’s all on you.”
He took two more steps toward her. She held up both her hands. He stopped again.
He was too close for her to feel comfortable. Maybe backing up against the storefront had been a bad idea. There was nowhere else for her to go now.
Rafe darted his head from side to side, then licked his lips. Then, seeming to settle on something, he turned his face back towards her, the rictus of a smile cracking his lower face. As if she would be fooled by that.
“Come on, baby,” he said. His voice was soft, just loud enough to carry over the midday traffic and the conversations of the people walking by.
A woman slowed her walk, and raised a questioning eyebrow Caroline’s way. Caroline smiled and shook her head. No way did she want to involve someone in this. Not if she didn’t have to. The woman walked on.
That’s an old habit, isn’t it? Keeping other people safe. The thought flashed across her mind, so quick it was barely a blip.
“I want you to come back with me,” Rafe was saying. “Come back home. We can go to counseling if you want. I know you’re upset, and I don’t blame you. Shouldn’t have made you come with me like that. But I’m willing to do what it takes to get you back.”
“I’m not coming back, Rafe.”
The smile shifted to a sneer as his lips compressed. The flush returned, creeping up his neck and staining his face red.
In that moment, he looked so ugly, Caroline couldn’t imagine how she’d ever found him attractive. How he’d ever charmed her.
Rafe moved again, two steps forward. The itching along her back increased, and the medal at her breastbone warmed and hummed. It felt as if the amethyst point jumped in response.
“Stop!” Every alarm inside her was sounding, so loud inside her head it was practically deafening.
Then he closed the distance between them and shot out a bandaged hand.
And then, all of a sudden, he was there. The Archangel. Michael. Standing between her and Rafe, a shimmering shaft of light. She could barely see him through the brilliance, but she felt it when Rafe stopped.
And she could see that the angel carried a sword.
The shop door opened next to her. A woman’s voice, speaking. “Are you okay? Is he trying to hurt you?”
“Take me inside. Please.”
“Yes.”
Warm hands on her arms, warm brown eyes set in deep brown skin, a worried crease between thick, arched brows.
And then, they were inside. In a place that smelled of coffee, and cinnamon, chocolate, and cardamom. And peace. It smelled like peace.
“Thank you so much,” Caroline said to her rescuer as the woman led her to a small round café table with a marble top and dark wood legs. The woman pulled out a stuffed dining chair and gently pushed Caroline down.
Another woman, this one with skin pale as the white cherry blossoms outside, blond stubble haloing her head, came over with a pot of tea and a blue china cup.
“Aztec chocolate,” she said. “It’ll be good for the shock.”
“Thanks, Lindy,” the first woman said.
Caroline realized she was shaking. She looked out the window. She couldn’t see Rafe anymore, but the shimmering light was still there.
Michael? She flung her purse off her back and unzipped her coat. She needed to get to the medal.
“I’m sorry. I just…” Once her fingers closed around the metal, and the amethyst was once again resting just beneath the heel of her hand, she felt better. Like she could calm down.
The Black woman sat across from her. She smelled of sandalwood and amber. A woven purple scarf, like the ones Caroline had seen in the shop window down the street, coiled around her head, clearly holding in a mass of hair.
“That your boyfriend? Husband? Do we need to call the cops? Or someone to come get you?”
“I think… No.”
“Drink your chocolate.” The woman poured some of th
e steaming brew into the delicate blue cup and set it in front of Caroline. “Go ahead.”
Caroline took a tentative sip. It was delicious. Chocolate, cinnamon, and the bite of cayenne. She drank some more. The woman was right, it helped.
“It’s my husband, but I’m trying to get away. I thought…he’d been taken care of. I have no idea how he even found me.”
The woman looked around the edges of Caroline’s body, in that way Brenda and Raquel had, as though she was seeing something ordinary eyes couldn’t catch.
The woman nodded.
“That dude’s corded into you…. It’s weird. The cords are braided so tightly, at first I mistook them for your own energy signature. It’s a wonder you got away at all. Some strong magic must be helping you. My name’s Shani, by the way.”
“Caroline.” Caroline took another sip of chocolate. Her brain finally stopped stuttering and kicked in. “So, cords? I assume you mean some sort of energetic tie. And…what do you suggest I do about them?”
“With your permission, I can help you cut them, calling your energy back to you, and sending your stalker husband on his way.”
29
Brenda
“I can’t believe he came after you! We disabled his tracking systems and I know Selene’s binding was effective.” Brenda and Caroline talked as quietly as they could over the music piping through the big yuppie food store down the street from the Inner Eye. Sly and the Family Stone. Too bad Brenda was unable to enjoy it.
She had no desire to be shopping, but if the coven was going to do ritual to stop whatever the heck was going on in Portland, they were going to need food. And afterward? They might even want some wine. Funny, the coven had never done more than drink the occasional glass, but since the events of the past few months?
Well, they still didn’t drink before magic or ritual, so as not to mess up the workings, but after? For some of Arrow and Crescent, the single glass had turned into two or three. She and Raquel were going to need to keep an eye on that. Make sure magical discipline didn’t break down and no one’s health became compromised.
Brenda pushed the small, double basket cart past the deli, before pausing to look over the cheese display.
“Well, he couldn’t get at me,” Caroline replied, “so the binding worked that way. And he looked terrible, as though something was eating away at him. The witch I met, Shani, said Rafe found me through some energy cords. She helped me cut them.”
Brenda stopped the basket. “Cords. Damn it. I have no idea how we missed those. Rookie mistake.”
“Shani said they were so tightly wound, they almost looked like my own energy.”
“We still should have seen them. Shani has a good reputation. I’m glad she could help you.” Brenda wheeled the cart forward again, before pausing to consider the relative merits of manchego and Havarti. She tossed both into the cart.
“How do you feel now?” Brenda perused the bins of olives beneath the sneeze guard, and began packing a plastic tub with large green Spanish olives.
“I feel better. More free. But I felt that way after you all got me away from him, too. So I don’t know if I can trust that. And it still bugs me that he chased me down to Salem. Makes me wonder if I shouldn’t go to the cops after all.”
When Caroline looked at Brenda, Brenda wanted nothing more than to kiss her, right there in the middle of the grocery aisle.
“Do you want to?”
Caroline shook her head no, the shining sheet of black hair drifting across her narrow shoulders.
“You have backup now. You aren’t alone,” Brenda said. Instead of pulling Caroline toward her, she pushed the cart down the cracker aisle, which was immediately blocked by another shopping cart. Brenda sighed. She’d hoped that by hitting the store before the after-work rush, they would have avoided traffic jams in the aisles.
“You’re that psychic woman!”
A woman with curly blond hair leaned over her cart. Oh. Just great. It was her shoplifter. And apparently, it was also the woman Caroline had met at the support group. Sharon.
“You tried to keep me from getting the tools I needed to do my work!” Her eyes looked wild, and energy swirled around her body. The woman was completely ungrounded.
“I believe what happened was that I stopped you from stealing from my shop,” Brenda replied.
The woman banged her cart into Brenda’s. Caroline stepped forward, holding out one hand.
“Sharon. Stop. Whatever you think you’re doing, Brenda isn’t harming you.”
Sharon whipped her head toward Caroline. “You. I thought you might help me, but you’re just like everyone else. No one cares about my daughter. Not the police. Not the judges. Not her.” She pointed straight at Brenda.
Police? Judges? Maybe she was haunting people. But that didn’t explain the others who were also hearing voices.
“Women are in danger,” Sharon said, more quietly this time. She picked absently at a piece of loose skin on her lips. “You are interfering with justice. There are demons in the government, and you don’t even care! My daughter went to the police for help after her assault, and what did they do? They raped her! Then laughed at her. And that judge? Another woman! Did nothing. Nothing!”
Oh, sweet Goddess. The police raped this woman’s daughter? Brenda made sure she was centered, and sent soothing energy out through her aura. Diana, be with me. Lend me your certainty and strength.
“Sharon?” she said, as calmly and quietly as she could, “do you want to talk about this? To see if there’s any way we can help you?”
The woman gripped the handle of her shopping cart, her knuckles showing red. The blond corkscrews of her hair obscured her face for a moment. Brenda thought she heard her sigh. She felt Caroline beside her, breathing softly. Sly and the Family Stone segued into a second song. It all felt so surreal, standing in the middle of the grocery aisle, with a woman babbling about voices, and revenge.
A shopping cart entered the other end of the aisle before the old man pushing it looked, frowned, and backed away, shaking his head.
Good choice, Brenda thought.
Sharon’s head snapped up. “You. You have an angel around you.” She looked toward Caroline. “You, too. Both of you. Angels. Angels of light. Avengers. Avenging angels.”
“Sharon, how can we help you?”
Sharon held on to her cart, backing it away. “Use your angels. Use your angels to help avenge. Seed the voices. You have to help me. You have to help me seed the voices. If they won’t bring me justice, we bring justice to them. Understand? Understand? Do you?”
Sharon’s voice escalated, becoming louder and louder with every utterance.
Brenda opened her heart to all the woman’s pain, all the anguish, the rending, the tearing of heart and soul until they were fragments, strips of flesh flayed off of bone. She didn’t know how anyone could survive such a thing. No wonder the woman’s mind had shattered.
“Something wrong here?” a male voice behind her asked.
Brenda didn’t want to take her eyes off Sharon’s face, she was afraid of what the woman might do. Luckily, she heard Caroline murmur, “She’s just upset. We’ve both met her before, and are trying to help. We’ll get her out of your way as soon as we can.”
Oh no. Brenda prayed Sharon hadn’t heard that.
“Out of the way? That’s what they all said. They all wanted Sharon out of the way. Well, I’m showing them, aren’t I? I’m showing up in their dreams.”
She rammed her cart forward, smashing into Brenda’s cart. Brenda wasn’t prepared. The cart slammed into her belly and hips, and she stumbled backward, into Caroline.
Caroline fell. Brenda turned to see her friend on the floor, with the grocery clerk, a young man, trying to help her up. When she looked back at Sharon, the woman had abandoned her cart and was running away.
“Should I go after her?” Brenda asked. Caroline was upright by this time, brushing at her pants and wincing. She rubbed at her elbow, clear
ly in pain. Damn it. Following on what that bastard of her husband had done, that tumble must have hurt.
“Just leave her,” Caroline said. “Just leave her be.”
“Are you okay ma’am?” The clerk asked.
“I will be, thanks.”
“Do you want to press charges?”
“Oh! No. No. I think her life is painful enough as it is.”
Brenda agreed. Sharon was a disturbed psychic, the kind that all too often ended up on the streets or in prison, or trying to numb themselves with drugs, sugar, or alcohol.
A wash of sadness filled her. Damn it.
“Well, I guess I’ll put these groceries away,” the clerk said, disentangling the two carts.
Caroline looked at Brenda. “Do you have enough supplies yet?”
Brenda looked down at her cart. The last thing she wanted to do was finish shopping. And the last thing she wanted to do after that was have a meeting to decide how the hell the coven was going to deal with this mess that grew more complex and less straightforward by the minute.
Good job, angels, she thought. I thought you guys were supposed to be helpful.
Was Sharon possessed by something? Or had she just become a distorted mirror, twisting the face of justice into something her shattered mind could recognize?
There are forces too vast for the human mind to understand, Frater Louis had said. And whether that force was a demon, or the depth of human evil, it didn’t matter, Brenda saw.
She just hoped her angels were enough to save Sharon, and to save the innocent people caught in the overflow of her madness.
The whole city was being poisoned, and, much as Brenda wanted justice, she couldn’t allow Sharon to work her magic this way.
Hypocrite, her inner voices said. Maybe so. But a witch had to draw her boundaries somewhere. Right or wrong.
By Wind Page 15