"I saw it. I watched you push it out of him. Was it her? Kanti's spirit?"
Abby shook her head.
"I don't think so, but honestly, I don't have a clue. I feel like I need another hundred years in this life before I'll have a context for ninety-nine percent of the stuff that's been happening lately."
"How did you bring us back?" Sebastian asked. "I was dying, I was buried alive, and then suddenly I felt you. Your light surrounded me and pulled me out."
"Elda taught me. After I saw you in the Pool of Truth, she wanted me to learn how to draw people back from their astral travel. I wasn't sure if it would work."
"But it did."
"Yes, but something strange happened." She paused and ducked beneath the water for a moment, gathering herself for the memory. When she emerged, water poured down her face in rivulets.
"When I tried to get Victor, I felt him pulling me. It terrified me. It wasn't just the sense that I was being drawn toward where he was, but that his energy intended to absorb mine completely."
Sebastian moved around the edge of the bathtub to face her.
"Did it seem intentional? Like he did it on purpose?"
Abby bit her lip and considered.
"In the moment, yes, but now, I'm not so sure. You saw how out of it he was in there."
"Not just out of it," Sebastian added. "Creepy. He was smiling, he looked happy. He obviously didn't get buried alive."
"None of the other witches were with you underground? When we used that magic at Sorciére, all of us traveled to the same place. Why did it work differently?"
"I'm still coming to terms with the experience. I may need a few days before any theories start popping up. I feel brain-fried."
"You and me both."
"Are you sure about this transfusion? You're exhausted and the baby..."
"She's okay. It's weird, but I think I felt her when Victor's energy was pulling me. I experienced this powerful, serene presence. I think it was our daughter."
Sebastian smiled and scooted onto the floor. He rested his chin on the edge of the bathtub.
"Our daughter the savior."
****
Oliver and Ezra unloaded the equipment from the van.
"Thanks Josh, you're a lifesaver ," Ezra told the man behind the wheel. He smiled and touched his fingers to his ball cap.
"You and me both," he told her. "Literally."
"Thanks man," Oliver added.
They had not been introduced, but there was little time for niceties.
Oliver and Ezra pushed the cart, loaded with medical supplies, back into the building and onto the elevator.
"Does he know you're a witch?" Oliver asked her.
"No. He's a don't-ask-don't-tell kind of guy. I implied that we're trust fund babies when we first got the clinic started. We have lots of money and want to do good with it, that kind of thing. He might notice that patients have pretty miraculous turnarounds on days when we visit the clinic, but the human brain is great at rationalizing."
"Yeah," Oliver agreed. "It's easier to believe the lies sometimes."
"Pretty much. What we believe is what we see, after all."
"Where did you go?" Oliver asked. "During the spell."
Ezra frowned and watched the floor numbers lighting above them.
"I was in a dungeon. Maybe a Vepar's lair. I've never been in one, so it's hard to say for sure."
"Did you see Dafne?" he asked, hopeful.
"No, I didn't see anyone. I walked out though. It wasn't like the magic we've done before. Usually all of the witches who drink the potion are there together. I was alone and scared. I kept walking because I felt like something was stalking me in the tunnels. I wanted to run, but everything felt really heavy. I finally saw light and ran out of the tunnel only to find myself on the edge of a cliff. The only escape was down, but it had to be a thousand feet onto jagged rocks."
The elevator dinged as they reached the top floor. Ezra pushed the cart and Oliver followed.
"What about you?" she asked.
"Woods, but something was chasing me too. I was running away and branches kept scraping my face. My head told me to turn and fight, but my body kept running."
"Oh thank God," Ezra said, as they moved into the meditation room. "His color is coming back."
"Thanks to Abby," Kendra told her.
"Where's Victor?" Oliver asked.
"Julian is with him. Giving him some kind of tea. He thinks it will bring him back."
"He's still astral traveling?" Ezra asked, surprised.
"Not exactly. He's conscious, but, I don't know, somethings not right."
"Oliver, can you sling Kendra's arm?" Ezra asked, handing him a roll of gauze.
Sebastian drew back the curtains to the room and walked in.
"Abby is getting dressed," he told them.
"Tell her to find somewhere comfortable to sit. It shouldn't take more than twenty minutes to draw her blood."
Abby settled on the couch and watched as Ezra hung a clear blood bag from a metal frame. She connected a tube between the bag and a large needle. Abby cringed and looked toward Sebastian instead.
Ezra wrapped a rubbery band around her upper arm and pulled it tight.
"Can you flex your hand for me a couple of times?"
Abby opened and closed her fingers. Sebastian watched her closely, holding her other hand firmly.
"Little poke," Ezra told her as she slid the needle in.
It hurt, though not terribly. She preferred Bridget's stone method—even if it was more placebo than actual numbing.
Abby could see Julian in the kitchen. He stood next to Victor, who sat hunched on a stool. Julian kept lifting a blue coffee mug to Victor's lips and encouraging him to drink.
"Easy as Sunday morning," Ezra said, several minutes later.
Abby glanced up, surprised to see the bag nearly half full.
"You've got some powerful blood flow," Ezra told her, sliding the needle out of her arm. She pressed a cotton ball against Abby's skin and taped it down.
Sebastian kissed her hand.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
"Fine," she said honestly. "Not woozy or anything."
"Witch gifts," Ezra told her with a wink.
"How'd you learn to do that?" Sebastian asked.
"I used to be a nurse," she admitted. "I still am, I guess. Just better at it now."
"Oliver, could you and Marcus carry Dante into Victor's room? It's close so it will be easy for us to monitor him there."
Oliver and Marcus lifted Dante and gently moved him to Victor's bed.
"He's going to be okay," Oliver reassured him.
Marcus looked pale and waxy. Little worry lines stood out around his mouth.
"I panicked," he sighed. "He was spitting up blood and we couldn't wake anyone up. I completely panicked."
Oliver cocked his head and looked amused.
"And? We all panic, man. Especially when people we love are foaming at the mouth. When I was a younger witch, just discovering my powers, my dog Tex got run over by a car. I flipped out. I put him in the car and raced across town to the vet only to find out they were closed. He died before we got there. I kept thinking afterward, 'you're like a superhero, you idiot—you could have saved him yourself.' I told Elda that story at Ula once, and she reminded me that everything happens for a reason. I used to think that saying was hokey, now I know it's the truth. Every moment guides us; we're not always meant to save the day."
Marcus looked down at Dante. He leaned forward and kissed his forehead.
"I appreciate that, Oliver," he told him. "I'll just stay in here with him."
"We're ready for the magic blood in here," Oliver called to Ezra.
****
"He's doing much better," Ezra said, leaving Victor's room. She had been checking Dante every half hour since the infusion. "Not yet awake, but heart rate and blood pressure are good."
"I'm still trying to figure out what happened,
" Victor complained, rubbing his temples. "I have a splitting headache and Kendra's pain potions haven't touched it."
Julian handed him another cup of steaming, rank-smelling tea.
"Ugh, another one?" he asked. "Are you trying to kill me?"
"Just the opposite actually," Julian replied curtly.
"What's in that concoction you've got there, Julian?" Oliver asked, wrinkling his nose as the smell wafted his way.
"Sebastian's tried it," Julian said, smiling.
"Don't remind me," Sebastian grimaced.
"When?" Abby asked, nestling deeper into the crook of Sebastian's side.
They all sat on couches and chairs in the loft trying to piece together what had happened during Dante's spell.
"It helps with memory retrieval," Julian said, "but more so, it helps right the mind when something has wreaked havoc in there."
"In France," Sebastian answered Abby's question, kissing the top of her head.
"Maybe I should have some too," Kendra commented, closing her eyes. "I can't get those visions out of my head."
"Talking will help," Julian told her. "Now that Victor has joined us, I think it's time to tell our stories."
"What about Dante?" Victor asked.
"I think it best if we not wait," Julian said. "I will begin. I was in a Vepar's lair. I recognized it by the smell, which was interesting because generally in astral travel there is no sense of smell. I'm not sure exactly what this magic is of Dante's, but I think it's important that we study it further."
Victor inhaled sharply, but did not speak.
Abby glanced at him, but his face betrayed nothing of his thoughts.
"I was standing outside a great wooden door. I could hear whimpering on the other side. I, Julian, wanted to help the person behind that door, but I had no control over my body. I turned and walked deeper into the earth. I came into a room with a blazing fire. I don't know how the smoke was escaping, but the fire danced with orange and purple and green flames. I stood there and stared at it until I was pulled back into my body. I felt fear. I don't know why, but I wanted to leave that place; however, nothing I did brought me back. I felt the tug as Abby reached into the astral plane and pulled me home to my body. I could have screamed for joy when I opened my eyes and I was back in that room."
"Me too," Sebastian agreed. "I'm pretty sure I ended up in the same place as Dante, buried alive."
He described his experience of trying to claw his way out. The other witches looked at him in horror, obviously connecting his experience and Dante's.
Ezra followed.
"I believe that I was in a lair too, but instead of going down, I followed a tunnel that took me out to a cliff. Something followed me, I could feel it, but I never saw anything."
Oliver described a similar feeling as he raced through woods to escape something that stalked him.
"Was there snow?" Julian asked.
"No, I hadn't thought about that. It was summer. Lots of green. I couldn't see far ahead because the woods were dense."
"Could you have been in another place?" Abby asked. "Somewhere warm? Down south maybe?"
"I don't think so," Oliver admitted. "It felt like Michigan. The freshwater lake smell and the same species of trees and plants."
"Me too," Ezra added. "I'm pretty sure I was looking down on Lake Superior."
Julian frowned.
"So the magic transported us to a different time, that's the only explanation."
"To one of Kanti's experiences," Sebastian added.
"What makes you say that?" Oliver asked.
"A feeling. I wasn't alone in my terror. It was like I felt it double, through me and through the person who had actually been buried alive—and I believe that was Kanti."
"And you think the lair you were in was on Lake Superior. You've been there, then?" Julian asked Ezra.
She nodded.
"I used to hike there and camp by myself. I liked the quiet. The cliffs are spectacular. I remember them well."
"So the Vepars have a lair on Lake Superior?" Abby worried.
"It would make sense," Oliver noted. He balled his hands in his lap. "It was so easy for them to attack us."
"But they didn't return to that lair with Lydie. Why not?" Abby asked. "If they had a cave on the mainland, why travel into the lower peninsula?"
"Because they were luring us into a trap," Julian reminded her. "They're protecting the lair on Lake Superior. That's why we don't know about it. If they're being hunted, they go somewhere else."
"What do you remember?" Ezra asked Victor, who continued to sip his tea with a look of utter disgust.
"Nothing." He shrugged. "I remember taking a drink of cider and then waking up in the kitchen."
Abby watched him carefully. She thought back to the sense that he'd tried to consume her in that astral space. Maybe it wasn't him at all, but Kanti who tried to absorb her light.
"I was in a cabin," Kendra recounted. "There was fire all around the cabin. Smoke was pouring through a crack around the door and into the windows, which were just holes, no glass. The room smelled like blood. There was bloody straw on the floor. When I looked at my own body, it wasn't my body, but another woman's hands and legs. They were streaked with blood."
A tremor moved through her and she wrapped her uninjured arm across her chest.
Victor sat next to her. He placed his cup on the coffee table and put an arm around her shoulders.
"I agree with Sebastian," Kendra continued. "I think I was in Kanti's body, in her memories."
"I don't think this was a mistake," Julian said finally after several minutes of silence. "I'm not sure what happened to all of us, but that lair on Lake Superior is new information. It narrows down our search."
"You think they took Dafne there?" Abby asked.
Julian nodded.
"I do. I think she may have even been the one I heard behind that door."
"That's a pretty big assumption," Sebastian interrupted. "Look, I don't want to be the naysayer here, but we've made a lot of mistakes going after Tobias. Kanti seems to have the power. How do we know she didn't just show us exactly what she wanted so that we'd walk right into another of her killing grounds?"
"That would mean your experience was in the present moment, not the past," Ezra pointed out to Julian.
"True, but that's my sense. Unfortunately, none of us have more to go on than that."
Abby noticed that Victor looked pointedly away when she glanced at him.
"He's awake," Marcus exclaimed from the other room. "Dante's awake!"
****
"Thank you," Dante whispered to Abby as she accompanied Julian into Victor's room. His voice sounded hoarse and the effort of speaking seemed to exhaust him.
"I'm just so happy I could help," she told him.
She sat in a chair near the end of the bed. Marcus sat on the bed next to Dante, holding his hand.
"Do you remember anything?" Julian asked, taking a chair near Abby.
Dante closed his eyes and nodded.
"I was in a hole and someone was shoveling dirt on top of me. I tried to climb out, but my body wouldn't obey my thoughts. I was getting buried alive. I was shoving it away, but it came in droves. It filled my mouth. I had to swallow it or suffocate."
Dante lifted a trembling hand to his throat.
"It was real, wasn't it?"
Julian sighed and looked away.
"Yes. There's no other explanation."
"Do you have any idea who was burying you?" Abby asked, glancing toward the sitting area where the other witches remained.
Victor had nearly accompanied them to speak with Dante, but Julian encouraged him to relax and focus on gathering his thoughts.
"I thought I heard a voice," Dante started. His gaze shifted to Abby, but he quickly stared at the floor when she met his eyes.
"Whose?" she asked, not sure that she wanted to hear the answer.
"Sebastian. I thought I heard Sebastian."
> Chapter 27
"I think I saw Dafne in the lake," Lydie told Elda.
The witch stood in the healing room carefully stripping the linen from the beds. She stood and turned to Lydie, surprised.
"In the lagoon?" She started to walk out of the room, but Lydie stopped her.
"No, in the big lake. I took the rowboat out."
Elda put a hand to the pendant around her neck.
"Just now?"
"Yes. I didn't imagine it."
"She didn't try to speak with you?"
"No, she swam under my boat, but there was something different about her eyes. They didn't look like Dafne's eyes."
Elda frowned.
"I think that she's being possessed."
****
"Oliver and Ezra went for takeout," Victor told them.
Julian and Abby had left Dante to sleep and Marcus to continue his vigil.
"Salads okay with you guys?" Kendra asked.
"Sure," Abby said, though food was the furthest thing from her mind.
Julian held a similar expression of unease.
"Sebastian?" Abby asked, scanning the loft.
"Went to the roof," Kendra told her. "He said he needed some fresh air."
"Shall we?" Julian asked her.
Abby bit her lip and nodded. She preferred to talk to Sebastian alone. If he reacted defensively, Julian might misinterpret his behavior and assume that he had something to hide.
Their footsteps echoed in the cold stairwell as they walked to the upper floor. Abby had put on her jacket and gloves, but still shivered beneath her layers.
"Take a deep breath, Abby," Julian told her, pausing.
She tried, but the chilly air constricted her lungs.
Julian touched two fingers lightly to her chest.
"Keep pulling the air in. Envision it moving through a wall of fire as it passes across your lips."
She tried again, picturing the fire, and the inhalation came easier.
"Now imagine that each breath moves through your whole body, from the top of your head, out to your fingertips and down to your toes. Feel it warming every cell."
She breathed, and a warm glow spun through her body until she no longer felt cold at all.
Kanti (Born of Shadows Book 3) Page 24