Midnight Shaman, Fire Witch

by Serenity Woods

  “Can I have my first lesson now?” she asked when they were back on the road.

  He smiled at her. “What do you want to know?”

  “I dunno. I know nothing, remember? Are you religious? Do you follow a particular god or something?”

  So he told her about The Crux’s views on religion—that students were free to follow any path they chose, each and every belief was valid, and part of the Elders’ oath was to promise not to force their own views on their students. He then explained that a good percentage of everyone at the centre followed a mainly pagan path.

  “Is that what you follow?” Kimi asked. “Are you a pagan?”

  “I’m not supposed to discuss my own views, remember?”

  “I’m just trying to learn,” she said softly.

  He glanced across at her and smiled. “Fair enough. Then yes. For me, the God and Goddess personify nature, the cycle of the seasons, and the rising of the moon. It’s easier to think about the strength and power of nature as Herne the Hunter, Lord of the Woods, and of the Goddess embodying the beauty and cycles of nature. I see Her in all women—not just in their monthly cycles but also in terms of the moon’s phases and the seasons—Maiden, Mature Woman, Wise One.”

  “I’ve never thought of the world like that,” she murmured. “What a lovely way to describe the things we all take for granted.”

  “Part of being pagan is becoming more conscious of these natural things. Soon you’ll be aware of the phase of the moon without even thinking about it. He glanced across at her again. “Speaking of which…I’ve got something for you, by the way.”

  “Oh?”

  “I was going to give it to you if you’d stayed in London, but…I’d like you to have it, anyway.”

  He reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a small jewellery box. Keeping his eyes on the road, he held it out to her.

  She stared at it for a moment. He glanced across and waggled it. “It’s not an engagement ring or anything.”

  She laughed and took it, opening it carefully. It was a silver pendant on a simple silver chain.

  She lifted the pendant and let it lay across her fingers. It consisted of a silver disc in the middle of which was set a round black stone. On either side of the disc was a silver crescent, making it look as if the stone had horns.

  “It’s the Triple Moon,” he said, “the symbol of the Goddess. Waxing crescent, full moon, waning crescent. It has a protective spell on it—if you are in danger, the onyx will glow. But it’s not just that—it’s a symbol…of your new life. But you don’t have to wear it.” He sounded suddenly awkward, unsure.

  “Damien, it’s beautiful,” she whispered. “Of course I’ll wear it.” Her heart pounding, she took it out and fastened it around her neck, conscious of his glance across at her. She had to ask. “Do you give all new students one of these?”

  “No. It was my mother’s, and my grandmother’s before that.”

  Kimi’s eyes widened. “Good grief. Won’t they mind me wearing it?”

  He smiled. “No.” He didn’t elaborate.

  Kimi fingered the pendant as she looked out of the window. The gift had completely floored her. Damien plugged in his iPod and started singing, but her head was buzzing so much, she couldn’t concentrate on the song.

  For the rest of the journey, she was conscious of the pendant lying on her breastbone. She didn’t mention it again, and neither did he, and eventually she joined in with his singing, glad to see his mood had lifted.

  When they came off the M5 and headed for The Crux, however, she started to feel nervous about what Margaret and Robert were going to say when they found out she’d returned.

  As they finally pulled up outside the house, she hesitated for a moment as he went to get out. He stopped and turned to look at her. “You okay?”

  She nodded, but still didn’t move.

  He smiled. “Come on. Ella will be thrilled you’re back.”

  He got out, and she took a deep breath and followed him.

  Damien took her heaviest bag in his right hand, then caught her hand with his left. She shot him a look, but didn’t pull away as they climbed the stairs to the house. It was a protective gesture and he wanted people to see it. The star had marked her as belonging to the Goddess. Holding her hand marked her as his. He didn’t care who saw it.

  They entered the foyer, and Damien lowered her suitcase to the floor, keeping a hold on her hand as Robert and Margaret came out from the library. Beside him, Kimi shivered and tried to pull away, but he tightened his grip.

  His father walked up to them. Robert studied his son, then his gaze slid to Kimi. His eyes widened as he spotted the pendant around her neck. Robert looked back at his son, his gaze demanding an explanation.

  Damien turned to Kimi. “Why don’t you go up? Ella will be pleased to see you. I’ll bring your case up in a minute.”

  She looked across at Robert and Margaret, but when they didn’t say anything, gave a small nod. He squeezed her hand, then let it go, and watched as she ran up the steps to the first floor.

  He turned back to the Elders. Robert was frowning. Margaret looked furious. Running a hand through his hair, he said, “I need a drink,” and walked past them into the library.

  They followed him in and waited until he’d opened a beer from the small fridge.

  “Well?” Margaret said icily.

  Damien took a long draught of the beer, then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. He had to come clean with them, but their attitude instantly annoyed him. “I brought her back.”

  Margaret glared at him. “Damien…”

  “Her uncle was waiting for her. He was with the forces of darkness, Margaret—and he’d looked after her since she was eight.”

  They both stared at him, shocked. “And you brought her back here?” Margaret said, incredulous.

  Damien shot her an exasperated look. “She’s not evil.”

  “How the hell can you be sure of that?” Robert snapped, hands on hips. “What you’ve just done is an incredibly foolish and dangerous.”

  “Dad—she’s got the Mark of the Goddess in her aura. I saw it, in her flat.” He nodded as both of them inhaled sharply. “I know. I was just as surprised as you are. But it was clear. And there’s something else…” He hesitated. How could he explain what he’d felt when he was with Kimi? “We’re linked, I don’t know how and I don’t understand it, but we were supposed to meet that night in London. She can feel it as strongly as I can. The Goddess sent her so I can teach her. I think she’s going to play an important part in the invasion, and I know there’s something binding us…” His voice trailed off. Robert looked impatient, and Margaret was downright scornful.

  “Next you’ll be telling us you’re MFEO,” she snapped, adding at his frown, “Made For Each Other?”

  Robert waved his hand at her. “Enough, Margaret.” He came closer to his son. “Why did you give her your mother’s necklace? I gave that to her.”

  “I know, and she gave it to me. She didn’t want it.” He didn’t miss his father’s wince. “She told me to keep it until I found someone that needed it. And I have.” He wanted his father to understand. “She’s linked to me, Dad. I’ve got to protect her, in every way I can.”

  Robert said nothing, studying his son. Beside him, Margaret gave an exasperated snort. Robert sighed. “All right, enough with the romantic bullshit. She’s here—there’s not much we can do about it. We’ll train her up—I’ll get Max to write a programme for her tomorrow.”

  “No need,” said Damien, taking another swig of his beer. “I’m going to be doing all her training.”

  The colour rose in Margaret’s cheeks. “Have you forgotten that you already have a full programme? We can’t spare you for one-on-one training, Damien. Kimi needs to start with the basics and many of your classes are advanced. She can shadow Rose for a while and then—”

  He slammed the bottle down on the table. “You seem to think I was asking you. I’m tell
ing you, Margaret—I’m doing all her training. I’ll switch classes with Rose if needs be and everything else I’ll fit in out of hours.”

  Robert laid a hand on Margaret’s shoulder and stepped forward. “All right, son. If that’s what you think needs to be done.”

  Damien let out the breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. “She’s special, Dad,” he whispered.

  Robert nodded. “Go on. You’ve had a long drive. Get yourself something to eat.”

  Damien looked across at Margaret. She had a thunderous expression on her face, but he knew she wouldn’t go against his father. He gave Robert a quick smile, then left the room.

  As he walked across the foyer, the shouting started. But Damien just smiled.

  For Kimi, the following week was the hardest she’d ever worked in her life, and the most enjoyable. From the moment she came downstairs at seven thirty in the morning to very, very late at night, Damien was by her side, accompanying her from classroom to classroom, trying to cram everything he’d learned over a lifetime, it seemed, into a matter of days.

  She learned about witchcraft and its history over the past few hundred years, and about how many women—and some men—had been murdered because of their beliefs until relatively recently. She learned about the basics of witchcraft, how to open and close her portal so she could call on her powers at will, about the importance of the points on the compass and how these could influence spellcasting, about herbs and essential oils, how to cast the circle, and the importance of protecting herself when casting. The list was endless, and Damien’s knowledge seemed to go on forever.

  Every day, he made her practise her skills, and soon she could control objects at will, raise and lower a candle’s flame, and summon fire in her palms. He also made her start to learn Latin so she could begin to cast the more powerful spells.

  He was a hard taskmaster—harder on her than he was with his other students, and she soon began to feel that any sign of romance between the two of them had gone well out of the window. True, he still held her hand every time he escorted her from class to class, but everyone had stopped teasing them about it because, she thought, it didn’t feel as if there was anything romantic about the touch. He thought of her as his special pupil, and that was it.

  Not that it mattered really. When she was spending all day going over and over the same skills, drenched in sweat and exhausted from the effort, romance was the last thing on her mind. And rightly so, she told herself whenever she felt a pang of disappointment. She was training for the invasion, and she was forbidden to have a relationship with her tutor. He had definitely withdrawn from her in that way, and even though she still wore his pendant around her neck, she knew she had to start thinking of it as a gift to the witch—not to the woman.

  Chapter Sixteen

  As the days went by, so Damien’s teaching intensified. On her first day, in a new channelling class, he’d given all the students a chakra clock. It consisted of a strip placed on the back of the hand, and it had seven small lights representing the seven chakras. By the side of each light was a black square which displayed a number.

  “When you are channelling energy,” he told them, “the clock will show how much of that energy is being expelled through each chakra. Your target is to channel all the energy down to your base chakra, which should show a hundred percent, with each of the other chakras showing zero.”

  It seemed like an easy task. However, by the end of the first lesson, everyone was under no illusion as to how difficult it was.

  “Fifty four percent?” one of the students had howled. “And I was trying really, really hard!”

  “That’s a good starting point,” Damien pointed out, “and it will increase the more you practice, don’t worry.”

  Most of the students had similar results, with their base chakra reading anything from thirty to sixty percent. Kimi’s had read seventy-two, which she had been thrilled with. However, when he walked around them, examining the results, he’d glanced at her clock and merely said, “Not good enough, Kimi. I expect more from you. Keep trying.”

  Embarrassed, she’d stuck her tongue out at him as he walked away. She was top of the class, for once in her life. There was no pleasing the man!

  His frustration only seemed to grow as the week went by. Every evening Damien held a channelling class and every evening Kimi managed to channel a little more energy, but still he wasn’t satisfied and, in spite of her progress, he grew more and more cross at her when she didn’t reach his high expectations.

  By the following Sunday, a week after she returned with him from London, she was getting near the end of her tether. She’d had dinner—under his watchful gaze, as he had been true to his word and had been making sure she was eating properly—and then half an hour later he’d dragged her off to another channelling class, even though she pleaded with him for some time off.

  “You can have time off after classes,” he instructed her, striding off down the corridor, grasping her hand so she had to scurry after him.

  “Classes don’t finish until ten o’clock,” she grumbled. “That’s hardly time off—I can barely keep my eyes open.”

  He stopped outside the classroom and turned her to face him. “No complaining, Kimi. I need your full attention when you’re in this class, a hundred percent effort, okay?”

  “Okay, okay,” she mumbled, following him in. “Nazi.”

  He shot her an amused look but directed her to a beanbag at the front of the room. Most of the class were already there, and he lost no time in starting.

  “Clocks on,” he directed, and the students applied the chakra strips to their hands. He sat at the front of the class, cross-legged, hands resting on his knees. “Extra effort tonight, gang. Let’s really see those clock numbers going up.”

  Kimi sighed and opened her portal, seeing Storm sitting in front of her, looking up at her. As the wolf saw her look at him, he lay down by her side, nose on his paws. Damien snapped his fingers at him, but although the wolf’s eyebrows moved, he stayed put. Kimi tried not to smile and closed her eyes, shutting out Damien’s glare at his spirit guide. It happened every session, although she had no idea why.

  She forced herself to relax and began to channel energy down through her crown chakra. As usual, the rush of energy made her gasp a little, all the hairs on her arms standing on end as she felt the delicious surge flood through her. She concentrated on focussing the surge, trying to send it straight down the central energy channel to her base chakra, keeping the rest of her chakras closed tight.

  Damien began to lift the energy in the room, and the surge intensified. Her breathing deepened with the effort of controlling the flow. She heard him walking around the room, stopping every now and again to talk to someone, explaining how they could improve the flow.

  Eventually he crouched in front of her, checking her clock. “Not good enough, Kimi,” he said softly. “Concentrate.”

  “I am,” she said through gritted teeth. She shuddered as he increased the flow, the energy pouring through her. The exertion of directing the surge was beginning to make her muscles ache.

  She opened her eyes a little as he sat opposite her, cross-legged like herself. He took her hands in his own. “Don’t peek,” he said. “I’ll help you.”

  She closed her eyes tight. She could feel him lending her his strength, even while he channelled even more energy down through her. She was breathing so hard it was as if she’d been running up a hill for the last half an hour. Her muscles were beginning to tremble.

  “Damien…”

  “Concentrate,” he directed. His hands tightened on hers.

  “I can’t…”

  “You can do it.” His voice was firm.

  She was drenched in sweat. She was channelling so much energy she began to feel as if she were melting, becoming a part of it. It was circulating between them like electricity, running between their hands, which were now red hot, slippery with sweat. How did he do this so effortlessly?r />
  “Oh God…”

  “Keep going, Kimi.”

  “I can’t…”

  “Keep going!”

  “I can’t!” She lifted her hands out of his, breaking the bond, and fell backward onto the beanbag. Her heart was hammering and her clothes were soaked through. “I’m sorry…” She lifted her hands and covered her eyes, awash with emotion.

  Gently he reached over and took one of her hands, pulling her upright. She opened her eyes. Smiling at her, he tapped the back of her hand. She looked down. The base chakra reading was ninety-seven percent.

  “Nearly there,” he said.

  She stared at the clock, dumbstruck. “Ninety-seven?”

  “Still not a hundred,” he scolded, then winked at her. He pushed himself to his feet and walked to the front of the class. Around her, everyone was recovering from his or her own exertions. “Why don’t we end with a meditation?” he offered. “Last class of the evening—I think many of you have had enough for tonight.”

  He settled himself on a cushion and waited for everyone to get into position. Kimi’s head was still ringing with the knowledge that she’d been able to channel ninety-seven percent. He’d pushed her, hoping she would be able to make a hundred. She’d been so close! She wished she’d carried on now, but at the time she’d just felt she couldn’t do it for a second longer.

  She was tired, but she needed the meditation to calm herself down, otherwise she wouldn’t be able to sleep. She loved Damien’s meditations. He used a variety of methods with them, but her favourite was his visualisations, as she loved listening to his deep, mellow voice. Now she sighed with pleasure as he began to describe a scene for them, his warm tones as soothing as the scene he was creating.

  He asked them to imagine they were walking along a beach. He painted a vivid picture of golden sand, azure sea and white-topped waves, the sun hot on their skin, seagulls crying in the sky. He instructed them to walk along the beach until they came to an outcrop of rocks marking a small cove.

  “A secret place,” he said.

  Kimi opened her eyes and looked at him. He was watching her, eyes warm with amusement. He shook his finger at her, scolding her, and she rolled her eyes, then closed them again. She gradually relaxed as her breathing slowed and deepened. She couldn’t stop her brain thinking, but she did try and concentrate on the scene of the beach and imagine the colours and smells he was describing. He carried on talking, his deep voice rich and melodious, gradually sending her into a trance-like state.