Malcolm didn't smile. "Meet me here again in twenty minutes whether you find the witch or not. If Axel hasn't brought her back by then, we leave."
He touched a kiss to Saba's lips. The brush of their mouths grew warm, and it was hard to keep it a brief kiss. When he turned away, he gave her a look that promised more to come, then he opened a door that led under the main staircase and disappeared into darkness.
Lumi looked at Saba as the door closed. "So what do we do?"
She sighed. "We go up, I suppose."
As Saba suspected, the main stairs did indeed wrap along the inside of the turreted tower in a spiral, an elegant wooden handrail curving along the wall. Each landing opened off into a dark corridor full of antique furniture grouped around closed doors. Saba didn't stop on the first floor, but kept climbing toward the top, figuring they could start there and work their way down.
They met no one as they ascended, the party staying firmly on the ground floor. It was at least quiet up here, the screams and laughter and music downstairs fading as they climbed.
"It's a little humiliating," Lumi said behind her. "Malcolm sent me with you not so I could protect you, but so you could protect me."
"He knows we can protect each other," Saba contradicted. "I against magical attacks, you against physical ones."
"Huh," Lumi said, not reassured.
Saba stepped off the last stair at the very top. The landing here was smaller, with only three doors leading from it, and the stairs went no farther.
"What worries me more is what's in the basement," she said as Lumi caught up to her. "He went down alone, because he knew the danger is greatest there. That's why he sent us upstairs."
Lumi looked startled. "So why aren't we down there helping him?"
"Because he knows we can't."
Lumi chewed on his lip. "I see what you mean. Plus he doesn't have to worry about protecting us while he takes out whatever he finds." He noticed her anxious expression, and tried to look encouraging. "He's a dragon, he'll be all right."
"I keep telling myself that." Saba rubbed her hands over her bare arms. "Maybe if I repeat it enough times, I'll believe it."
"We might as well look around up here, anyway. Where do we start?"
Saba glanced around the square, uncarpeted landing. As she'd climbed, she'd counted eight doors on each floor except here at the apex of the tower. They'd ascended three flights, putting them on the fourth floor, the last flight narrow and ending in the gallery where they stood.
She thought about how she'd studied the tower while they approached the house and frowned. "Wait a minute, there should be another floor. I counted five from the outside if you include the very top room of the tower."
"The staircase ends here," Lumi pointed out.
Saba looked at the low ceiling above her, but the dark boards contained no trap door or any other opening that could lead to an attic.
"The next flight might start in one of these rooms," she suggested. "People liked to build secret staircases and things like that a hundred years ago."
"I found out that my grandmother has a secret room under her restaurant," Lumi said. "It used to be a speakeasy. My cousin Carol wants to turn it into a museum and charge tourists to see it." ,
"Not a bad idea," Saba answered, cautiously trying the first door.
"Grandmother had a cow," Lumi answered. "She said every family should keep some of its secrets."
"I'd like to see it." Saba peered into the room and found it empty. No furniture, no curtains at the windows, nothing. It was clean, she saw when she snapped on the overhead light, the floor swept, but unused. "Do you think she'd let me?"
"Sure. She likes you. If you bring Malcolm or Caleb or Lisa, she's bound to let you, and probably serve you a ton of food at the same time. She'll do anything for a dragon." He had no jealousy in his tone, just amusement at his grandmother's eccentricities.
There was a door in the room, but it only led to a closet, Saba found when she checked. Saba closed the door and turned to leave. "Nothing here."
She moved to the next room. As Saba started to open the door, it was suddenly wrenched open from the inside, and a white-faced woman stared at them in shock.
Saba stared back. Their witch, maybe? The woman's black hair held a few streaks of gray, but her face was unlined. She wore filmy, floating black that more resembled an evening dress than a witch's robe, and pentacles on necklaces, earrings, and bracelets. Her eyes were red-rimmed as though she'd been weeping, her hands trembling on the doorknob.
"I'm sorry," Saba said. "I didn't mean to scare you."
The woman stared a little longer in obvious fear, then her gaze lit on the pentacle on Saba's necklace. "Are you a witch?" she breathed, clearly relieved. "Good. I need your help."
"With what?" Saba asked warily.
"A spell. I've been trying all day, and it just won't work. I need more energy."
"What kind of spell?"
As Saba spoke she tentatively felt for the woman's aura and that of the room behind her. She found nothing malevolent, despite the party downstairs, no sign of the dark magic, no sign of sex perverted into evil.
"A locator spell," the woman gabbled. "Please."
Her desperation seemed real enough. If this was the witch Axel had brought them to see it might be worth finding out what she was doing. "Go find Malcolm," Saba told Lumi under her breath.
Lumi's coffee-colored eyes widened. "If I leave you up here alone, he'll kill me."
"I'll be all right," Saba whispered. "She's not very strong, and if she knows anything, she's worth talking to. Just hurry."
Lumi stood still, fighting his compulsion to obey the black dragon's command no matter what. He looked at Saba's determined face and the middle-aged witch who stood clutching her hands. "All right," he muttered. "I'll run."
He started down the stairs at top speed, noisy in the relative silence. Saba pasted a reassuring smile on her face and turned back the woman. "I'm Saba. Blessed be."
The woman jumped as though she'd forgotten the Goddess greeting. "I'm Annie. Er… blessed be."
Saba kept her smile in place despite her misgivings. "All right, let's do a spell."
Annie bustled back in the room, which was empty like the other except for a large circle of salt in the middle of it. No magic infused the circle; it was only an outline.
"I need to raise the power again," Annie said. "I was doing all right, then everything faded, like it ran into a dampening field."
"Maybe it did." Saba closed the door behind them and pocketed the old-fashioned key without locking the door. She had no intention of letting the other woman shut her in. Annie, gazing worriedly at the circle, didn't seem to notice.
Saba stepped into the salt circle without feeling any prickle of magic. Annie had fashioned an altar from a wooden footstool, upon which she'd placed a candle, incense, bowl of salt, and bowl of water, all surrounding a pentacle made of wood. Fire, air, earth, water, and Akasha—the fifth element or combination of all elements, also called Spirit.
The witch faced her across the altar, her eyes anxious. "Will you close the circle?"
Saba nodded. She felt no malice from the woman, just hope that a stronger witch would be able to infuse the circle with energy. Annie had brought nothing here but representations of the four elements and the spirit of the universe. Nothing evil in that.
Asking the Goddess to guide and protect her, Saba walked the circle, pointing her finger at the outline of salt. After only one pass, a silver blue shimmer rose from the salt to fuse together over their heads, enclosing them in a bubble. Saba felt the other half of the bubble flow through to the floor below, completing a sphere of protection.
She returned to the middle of the circle, her skin tingling with the magic. Annie stared at her, eyes wide.
"You have so much power," she said in an awestruck voice.
"I practice circles a lot," Saba answered neutrally, though the magic had clicked into place more quickly than usual. "Would you
like me to invite the Watchtowers?"
The witch looked alarmed. "Not the Watchtowers. I'm afraid of them."
Saba thought of the tough spirits who answered her call to guard the four points of her circle when she worked tricky magic. She always saw them as four warriors with broadswords. She knew the Watchtowers weren't really four warriors, but they appeared to her in that guise. She wouldn't mind a cluster of muscle-bound men around her about now.
"Watchtowers are protectors," she tried.
"Yes, but I can't control them. What if they turned on me?"
The woman was truly frightened. She had no business working magic in a strange house filled with negative energy if she couldn't handle a basic circle.
"All right," Saba agreed. "We'll just call the elements and invoke the Goddess and the God."
"I'm afraid of the God, too."
Saba peered at her curiously. She'd never felt anything but benevolence and love from the God, who was a father figure as well as a fertility deity. "Do you belong to a coven?"
Annie nodded. "I'm new. If they knew I was working a circle here, they'd punish me. But I have to find her."
"Find who?" Saba asked. "And what do you mean by punish?"
Uneasiness stirred inside Saba when Annie didn't answer. A coven that punished by fear didn't sound good.
"Who are you trying to find?" Saba asked, holding onto her patience. "We're safe here, in this circle. You can tell me."
Annie's throat moved with a swallow. "She's one of the coven, but she's disappeared. I thought I'd look for her here tonight, pretend I'd come for the party and then search the house."
Exactly what Saba, Malcolm, and Lumi had done. She wondered if the missing witch was same one Malcolm hoped to find.
"Let's start, then," Saba said. She held her hands out over the altar, and Annie put her somewhat sweaty hands in hers. Saba closed her eyes and asked the Goddess to join them—Please, I think I desperately need your guidance here.
Annie seemed fine summoning the elements. She chanted, "From the east, air, from the north, earth, from the west, water, from the south, fire…"
They began the spell. Saba liked to use a pendulum and a map for a locator spell, although to locate the witch within the house a blueprint or at least a rough sketch of the place would be better. Annie hadn't come prepared with anything like that, and looked blank when Saba suggested it.
Saba had to settle for visualizing the layout of the house in her mind, what little she'd gleaned since her arrival. When she asked Annie what she knew about the house, Annie shook her head again.
Sighing to herself, Saba closed her eyes and pictured the house as she'd seen it on the way upstairs, the ground floor with the living rooms and dining room full of questionable guests, then each floor with its landing and doors. From that she visualized the house as though she looked down at the floor plan from above, then pictured a white arrow floating through it.
Keeping her eyes closed, she asked Annie to describe the witch. A tall young woman, Annie answered. Platinum blond hair, very dark eyes. She didn't like to wear much in the way of clothing, Annie added disapprovingly. Saba pictured the young woman the best she could and told the floating arrow to find her.
She braced herself for the magic to not work. She had so little to go on. She felt vulnerable in this house, and Annie was dampening the magic field with her fears instead of lending energy. Saba also worried about Lumi, which didn't help, and she wondered why he and Malcolm were taking forever to get back upstairs.
Something twitched outside the circle, and Saba opened her eyes. She thought she saw a flicker of darkness beyond the circle of power, though the overhead light flooded the room with brightness. But as the spell went on, small fingers of darkness solidified outside the circle, brushing the floorboard like wisps of black smoke.
Saba's heart beat faster. The spell grew within the circle and the darkness drifted closer, as though it sought to feed on something and thought Saba's magic would be a tasty snack. Saba had faith her circle would hold, but as the dark fingers brushed against the nimbus she tasted the bite of something evil, and fear squeezed her throat.
The darkness seemed somehow familiar, like a memory she couldn't place. Some forgotten terror that she'd managed to drive away long ago, rising to taunt her again.
Should she stop the spell? Would the darkness recede or would it hover, waiting for her to take down the circle? Uneasiness gnawed at her. And where was Malcolm?
Silently she asked the Watchtowers, if they were listening, to come and help her, never mind Annie's fears. She'd never before simply asked with her mind; she'd always lit candles and made it a respectful request, but she didn't have time for that now.
Please help me.
Annie kept her eyes tightly closed and noticed nothing, but Saba imagined she saw faint shimmering figures grow at the four compass points within the circle. The darkness did not recede before them, but she felt the slightest bit better.
She continued chanting, picturing the arrow hovering in the house, but the dampening effect of Annie's fears, plus the darkness skimming outside the circle, repressed the spell. The arrow in her mind floated and spun and settled on nothing. She was going to have to admit defeat and take down the circle, and she wondered if the darkness would recede when her power flowed away.
Then again, it just might attack. She cracked open her eyes and looked sideways at the black tendrils just as one reared up and attached itself to the glowing bubble of her magic.
A spike of power suddenly shot through her, and something wrenched her arms over her head and pressed her hands hard together. Magic surged from her fingertips in a thin swordlike beam that skewered the ceiling, sending plaster raining down to bounce off the glowing sphere of her magic. The wooden beams beneath the plaster began to smoke.
Annie opened her eyes and gaped. "It worked." She started to move.
"No!" Saba cried.
She dragged her hands down, the magic dispersing, and caught Annie before she could break the circle. Annie saw the fingers of darkness writhing like cords of smoke and screamed.
Just then the door burst open and Lumi rushed inside to be grabbed by Malcolm and Axel and hauled back out.
The three men hovered in the doorway, Malcolm studying the darkness with glinting eyes, Lumi fearful, and Axel looming behind them, grim-faced.
"The witch is in the room above this one," Saba called. "I think. I don't know what's causing this." She gestured to the ropes of darkness coiling on the floor like heavy smoke.
"Evil," Axel spat. He pushed past Malcolm and Lumi and faced it. "Get out!" he shouted.
His voice rocketed through the room, and the darkness receded the slightest bit, looking for all the world like a cringing dog. Axel snarled deep in his throat, and the darkness suddenly gathered to one fat point then vanished like a stream of smoke.
Axel turned around and peered through the bubble of magic, cupping his hands around his face as though he looked at them through a window. "You can come out now."
Saba blew out her breath in relief. She held out her hands and withdrew the silver blue light into her, politely thanking the Watchtowers for coming to her aid. Annie watched her in awe.
When Saba stepped out of the outline of salt, she felt Malcolm's power pulsate through the room, driving out and keeping out any remnants of evil. Silver black threads swept into every corner before returning to Saba and wrapping her in a gentle cocoon.
The threads of magic touching her were warm and amazingly tender. All that power damped down for her, lacing protection around her body without force. She met his gaze, finding it fixed on her with silver intensity.
"I think she's upstairs," she said, her voice soft.
Lumi looked around. "I keep saying, there's no way up there."
Axel studied the ceiling and its ruined plaster, then gave Saba a look of respect. "I know this house. Follow me."
Annie cast him a fearful glance, but she left along with the
others, sticking close to Saba. Axel strode into the next room without hesitation and to the door on the other side of it. Instead of the closet Saba had found in the first room, the door led to a wooden staircase that bent sharply upward, the rough steps thick with cobwebs.
Axel started to climb, Lumi after him, then Saba and Annie. Malcolm brought up the rear, his protective net still draped over Saba.
The top of the tower was an octagonal room tucked under the roof with windows on four sides. Axel flicked on a wall switch, and a bare bulb glared light into the room. The floor had an intricate wooden inlay that once upon a time must have been beautifully polished, but the boards were scratched and pitted and now soaked in blood.
A woman lay in the exact center of the room in the middle of a perfect circle marked by white rope. She had white hair, peroxide bleached, and was dressed in a teddy trimmed with white faux fur.
Any power that the circle had radiated had long since gone, and the woman was dead. Her hips were twisted at an impossible angle, her face gray with death, her dark eyes wide and staring.
"Goddess." Annie breathed, then she let out a high-pitched scream.
* * *
Chapter 6
"We need to call the police," Lumi said. His face was white, eyes dark pools of horror.
Saba shook her head. "You have a record, Lumi. You don't need to be where drugs are when the police come. We'll call them after you go."
Lumi started to protest, but Malcolm shot him a hard look, and Saba felt him tighten the bonds on Lumi's mind. "She is right. Axel, take Lumi and this woman downstairs and say nothing until I join you."
Axel nodded without argument, seeming to understand and share their protectiveness of Lumi. He spread his arms wide, shooing Lumi and Annie toward the door.
Malcolm had said nothing about Saba, and she didn't count herself among those who needed to be shepherded. She waited until the others had gone, then watched as Malcolm studied the body, one hand cupping his chin.
The witch had outlined her circle with plain white rope, but it was new rope with no feel of magic on it. Saba suspected she'd not had time to finish the circle of power before she was attacked. She'd been twisted in half, her spine and neck broken, and it was clear she'd known it was coming—Saba saw terror reflected in her eyes.
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