by Medley, Lisa
His hope was the witch was bluffing. The slow burn in his gut told him she wasn’t. The hex had been elaborate and detailed, and the words singed his consciousness like a demonic embroidery sampler.
The entirety of the ramifications of the successfully executed hex were not at first apparent. Only later—much later—did he come to full realization concerning the last part and its improbability.
Tanner closed his eyes and resigned himself to his next action, if not his fate. He’d lead the charge. It was the only thing he could do. He’d leave his future to whatever the fates had in store for him, but he wouldn’t be reckless. He’d do his job. He would not, however, walk in front of a bullet on purpose. Suicide was for lesser men than he.
This wasn’t his first battle.
He hoped it would not be his last.
Determined, he threw open his tent flap and crossed the threshold, then stopped. A small box lay at his doorway. He cast his search about the grounds, wondering if the Captain had noticed the box, or perhaps left it for him. Confounded, he bent to retrieve the small pine box and lifted the lid. Inside lay his ring, entwined with red and black threads, the colors of the shawl Sylvia wore.
Tanner hesitated. Perhaps it was an apology—a peace offering from her. Her words echoed through his mind, but the ring was important to him. He didn’t have time for her nonsense. He was relieved to have his ring returned. Cursing under his breath, he unraveled the strands of thread, tossed them to the ground, and pushed the ring onto his hand. He was finished dealing with the witch. After today, the Major General could appoint a new lackey. Even if it meant he was transferred. Or disciplined. Although, he doubted it would come to that. The Major General would not be keen for anyone outside the Brotherhood to discover he’d solicited the services of a witch. And as far as Tanner was concerned, the farther away he was from the witch, the better.
With long, swift strides, he made his way to the gathering of soldiers to address the men. Major General was nowhere to be seen. Per usual for him. A twinge of fear coursed through Tanner, but he straightened his spine and fixed his gaze on the men. His men.
“We’ll line the front lawn of Chatham with our artillery. Move cannons there and there.” He pointed out the positions. “We’ll hold our high ground. Let them cross the river. We have the numbers and this bluff on our side. No man in our battalion needs die today. Prepare to fight.”
Tanner turned on his heel and walked toward the ridge. He stared across the river at the town. He knew every inch of the Chatham grounds. As his men marched, he did indeed lead them. As they arrived from the tent encampment behind the grounds, he made his way forward moving toward the edge. He knew exactly how close he could get to the Chatham boundaries before he’d be visible from the ravine below where the Confederate forces hid amongst the trees and overgrowth. He hugged the edge, flanked by his men. He had no intention of crossing that invisible barrier just yet. For all intents and purposes, he was living up to the letter of the hex. He led the charge.
The witch hadn’t specified how far he had to lead it.
The line filled in to his left and right—a hundred men on either side of him, and layer upon layer behind him. The ridge curved around in a perfect geographical bowl. His frontline soldiers belly-crawled to the edge of the woods for a better look, and stopped before the land sloped off into the ravine. The first crack of gunfire startled Tanner as it came from his right side and very nearby.
Had one of his own men fired without order?
The second shot caught him in the chest, and he fell to his knees on the hard ground.
His immediate thought was he should have written a note.
Should have left something for his mother in New York. But he’d been consumed with his predicament, and he’d left nothing now but a body. Reaching to his chest, he pressed his palm against the wound as warm blood pulsed free. Melee commenced around him. With each beat of his heart, he watched his lifeblood pump out from him. Shots hit the dirt beside him. His ears filled with the sounds of his own demise. He drew his hand away to look at his life on his palm. A mortal wound. No doubt. He counted the labored thuds of his failing heart. One. Two. Three.
He slid the ring from his finger and gripped it tightly in his bloody hand. Maybe his men would notice it this way and think to send it home to his mother. The ring was all he had left and the culmination of his time on Earth embodied in one piece of jewelry. It was the symbol of his service to the Brotherhood and his country.
A solider scurried to his aid, but it was no use.
His vision faltered first and then his hearing. Everything grew silent, and his body crumbled beneath him. He fell to the ground, face first before the soldier could catch his fresh corpse. Confused, he floated up and then out from his body. He stood beside it. He caught the flow of a white gown from the corner of his eye and turned to face Sylvia. Across the lawn behind him on the steps of Chatham, she appeared to float toward him, ethereal in the hazy veil he now inhabited. The wind picked up her hair, which licked like flames about her head. She touched her palm to her lips and blew him a kiss.
The kiss of death, Tanner thought.
And then she vanished.
Tanner shook himself from his unwelcomed recollection.
Get hold of yourself, man.
He opened his eyes again and took full measure of his surroundings, desperate to reunite with the here and now, to ground himself. Energy filled his desiccated essence, reigniting forces that were beyond his meager understanding. It wasn’t more than a spark, and not nearly enough, but it was a start. And the closest he’d been to another living person in years.
Concentrating, he let the energy gather, and a great roiling ball of light surrounded him inside his onyx cell. The witch had trapped his soul inside the Brotherhood ring. Bound him with her words and string to the one possession he’d cherished most. When they’d removed his body from the field, instead of collecting the ring as he’d hoped, it had slipped from his cold, dead hand. The soldiers he’d spared from death had unknowingly trampled his treasure into the muddy soil.
Body and soul buried but separately, he’d spent every second for the first few months testing his prison boundaries. It hadn’t taken long to realize the depths of his despair. His was a fate far worse than death—a living Hell.
A soft glow from beside his cell caught his attention. The woman. Her aura emanated around her body in a bright pink fog, waves of light rising and falling with her breathing, pulling him toward her energy like a moth to flame.
Tanner’s essence stretched and strained inside his cell, reaching toward the light. A shadow passed over his window, and he found himself hurtling through space once again. A glimpse of the yellow beast filled him with horror. He came to a soft landing on the bed and inside the glow of the woman’s aura.
Pink light filled his confine, and he was drawn through the black onyx stone in a cyclone of magic and power. Stunned, Tanner reformed beside the bed of his liberator.
He was freed.
The ginger tabby cat hissed from the nightstand, arching his back and baring his teeth.
Tanner startled, leaped back from the bed, and looked about the room to determine the source of the beast’s distress. A low growl rumbled from the animal’s chest as Tanner took a tentative step toward the cat.
“Easy now.” He reached his hand out in an effort of friendship.
The creature fled, racing off into another room. Rattled, Tanner took inventory of his situation as he basked in the glow of the aura beside him. For the first time, he got a clear view of the aura’s source.
The woman’s dark brown hair lay across her pillow, not like a fan, but in a jumble more resembling a bird’s nest—tangled and wild. With her face half-covered in some sort of mask and her blankets wrapped around her like a death shroud, it was impossible to determine her visage.
Still, to Tanner, she was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. His liberator. His heroine.
Whatev
er magic had befallen him, previously or current, he was freed from the ring. Freed from Purgatory. Tears dampened his face as joy surged within him. A soft sigh escaped his deliverer’s lips, and he noticed his ring lying against her back. The cat, having knocked the ring from the nightstand and into her aura, could also be credited in his rescue.
He owed the beast his eternal debt of gratitude. Clearly, the direct contact had released him from his confinement. Tanner fell to his knees beside the bed and pressed his forehead against the cool sheet, his hands clutched in prayer.
“Dearest Lord, you have not forsaken me. Thank you for delivering me to this kind woman and her clever beast. Show me the way to redemption.” He sobbed his prayer in great gasps of relief.
Whatever fates befell him from this point forward, he was free, and he had no intention of returning to his onyx cell. With each passing moment that he remained within the glow of her energy, he grew stronger and more alive.
A new spark flared within him.
Chapter Four
Sarah hit the snooze on her phone for the third time. Exhausted from her night with Ellie and plagued by odd dreams, she finally rolled over and glanced at the display.
Nine a.m.?
Dear God, late again!
She groaned into her pillow and pushed herself to a sitting position. Bitly growled from above her head. Perched on her headboard, he stared into the ray of sunshine as it cast a warm rectangle on her wood floor.
“What’s your problem? I’m the one who’s going to get fired.”
She untangled herself from her blankets and swung her feet over the side. Something flew from the coverings and clanged across the floor and into the light.
“You couldn’t leave it alone could you, Bitly?”
Sarah picked up the ring and examined it. What a night. Her dreams had been filled with the craziest nonsense. Most of it starring a Civil War soldier…and blood. A lot of blood. Exactly what one would expect after a midnight ghost hunt on a battlefield. Her imagination had been on overdrive, and today she’d pay the price.
Late and exhausted. A perfect start to her day.
“Thanks for that, Ellie.”
The cat meowed.
“All right, already, I’m on it.”
After dressing in record time, she filled Bitly’s food and water bowls and gave him a quick scratch behind the ears, despite his poor attitude this morning. If anyone should be upset, it was Sarah. Bitly had spent half the night batting around that stupid ring. Thinking of the ring, she retrieved it from the nightstand and dropped it in her purse, then thought again. She’d never remember to return it if it was in there. She had the memory of a gnat these days. Rummaging through her jewelry box, she found a silver chain, threaded it through the ring, then fastened it around her neck. She tucked the ring inside the collar, pulled on her coat, and threw a knitted scarf around her neck.
She walked four blocks to work every day. Since her car was parked in the multi-garage four blocks in the opposite direction, walking was actually faster than driving.
Sarah hustled down the stairs and past Greysmith’s, ignoring the rumble in her belly. The smell of fresh brewed coffee and the fantastic little pastries they served nearly did her in. Stalwartly, she pressed on and broke into a trot after she hit the bricked sidewalk and the winter sunshine.
A half hour late. Maybe not that big a deal, but it wasn’t the first time.
It was the seventh.
In two months.
She hated being late. Since the web developers could technically work from home, it shouldn’t have been a big deal. But her boss, Candace Day, seemed to have a vendetta against her from the beginning. Sarah was very good at her job, but Candace was sleeping—working—her way to upper management. Sarah’s success should have been an asset to Candace, but instead she was a threat. Candace had taken credit for Sarah’s work more than once. Not wanting to make waves, Sarah hadn’t said anything. Instead, she’d put in tons of face time in the office to try to demonstrate her commitment to the job. A job she desperately needed to keep unless she wanted to move back home to Georgia, which she most assuredly did not.
Sarah didn’t break rules, and she didn’t make waves. She had this one, tiny problem with being on time. And it had haunted her for twenty-three years.
She needed a break.
A lucky one.
*
Tanner was slightly less thrilled with his new state of being the second he realized he was still bound to the damned ring. And noncorporeal. While he was no longer caged, he was far from free of its hold. His one consolation was the ring remained within the woman’s aura, which meant he could at least receive a constant infusion of life-renewing energy. As he tested his new boundaries, it didn’t take long to discover his tether seemed to stretch a paltry hundred feet. Maybe less. Distance was difficult to accurately measure as the woman rushed ahead of him, dragging him through the streets of the futuristic metropolis. Every few seconds, he’d forget himself and be snapped from his goggling back into her sphere of energy like a leashed dog.
It was infuriating. And terrifying.
Hell, indeed.
He’d never seen the manner of conveyance, dress and color along these streets—the same streets he himself had once traveled. This new version of Fredericksburg was barely recognizable. He’d never seen anything like it in all twenty-nine years of his short life. Not even in New York. And the noise…
Horseless transports raced by near the sidewalk they hurried along. Every storefront held colorful signs and banners proclaiming wares and services for sale. Gone was the simplicity of livery, bar, church, school, hardware, and staples. In its place was pawn, jewelry, antiques, hair supply, an entire store below her home dedicated to coffee and books alone.
Dear Lord.
They traveled by foot for what might have been a mile before she entered a building, then a metal box, which shot them straight up in vertical transport lift of some sort with no visible ropes or pulleys. Before he could determine the witchery behind such a thing, they were out and into a large office area of some sort three stories above the street. The hustle and bustle reminded him of the Major General’s war room at Chatham Manor, but the configuration confounded him. Across the top floor of the building they’d entered, each employee seemed allotted an approximate six foot by six foot, half-walled work space. A desk covered with all manner of contraptions resided in the center of the three padded walls.
His liberator entered one of the cubes, tossed her shoulder bag under the desk, then unloaded the oversized satchel she’d lugged from her home. A name plate on her wall read SARAH KNIGHT.
Finally, the name of his savior.
*
“You’re late,” Ellie whispered, crouching beside the chair in Sarah’s cubby.
“It’s your fault. I had nightmares all night, thanks to our little outing.”
Ellie patted her thigh. “Don’t sweat it. Candace has been in a closed door meeting all morning. No one even noticed. Besides, you’re salaried. She’s lucky you’re even in the office.”
“What’s going on with the closed door thing?” Sarah plugged in her laptop and booted it up.
“I don’t know. But she lost her flash drive this morning with some big presentation on it. I thought she was going to cry. Can you imagine? The Ice Queen crying?”
“Not in this life.”
Ellie rose and perched on the edge of Sarah’s desk. “Did you bring the ring? I’d love to get a good look at it in the daylight.”
Sarah reached under her hair and undid the clasp of the chain, then pulled the ring from beneath her sweater and dangled it for Ellie’s inspection.
“Aw, you’re going steady.” Ellie snatched the ring from her hand.
She held it toward the skylight and the onyx stone glinted. Sarah seized Ellie’s elbow and pulled her arm below the cubicle wall.
“Contraband here. Let’s not advertise it, please.”
“Sorry. It’s not lik
e its micro-chipped or something.” She turned the ring to examine the dragon design. “You really got it cleaned up well. That must have taken forever.”
“Another reason I’m so exhausted today. Seriously, no more weeknight adventures. I’m too old for this stuff.”
Ellie snorted. “We’re the same age. So no, you’re not too old. You’re beaten down because of that loser boyfriend of yours.”
“Oh, no.” Sarah remembered Jason’s missed calls. He’d be angry she’d waited so long to call him back, but he’d have to deal. If it were an emergency, he could have at least left a message. She checked her phone. Three more missed calls since she’d gone to bed last night. Her heart sank.
“What is it?” Ellie looked over her shoulder at her phone. “He’ll live. It’s good for him to wonder where you are. Know you aren’t at his beck and call. That you have a life beyond his selfish needs.”
“He’s not selfish.”
“He’s the definition of selfish. You’ve just been blinded by his demonic charms.”
“Enough, please.”
“All right. All right.” Ellie strung the chain around Sarah’s neck and fastened the clasp. She smoothed out Sarah’s hair. “It is a pretty stone. What do you think the ring is worth?”
“I have no idea. It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m taking it back at lunch.”
“Too bad. It might be the only piece of jewelry you ever get at this rate. I mean, it’s been five years. If he were worth marrying, it would have already happened. Something to think about.”
“Ellie!”
“I’m going. I’m going.”
Ellie skipped away, and Sarah watched her bounce along the cubby farm, her head bobbing as if disembodied before she vanished into her own cube. That girl had hated Jason from day one. Sarah had attributed it to jealousy at first, but after five years, she knew it was genuine love and concern. Ellie had been her champion since grade school. The past few months, she’d been not so subtly nudging Sarah into situations where she might meet someone new. Someone of the male persuasion.