She appeared the way she’d looked in life, for which I was infinitely grateful. Black hair, trim figure, large eyes that poured ghostly tears that vanished as soon as they dripped down her cheek. She was naked, but a thin mist wrapped itself around her, obscuring most of her body. Her face was twisted up in a mixture of fury and horror, causing her pretty features to be masked by the depravity of what happened to her.
We looked at each other for several moments. She seemed to be studying me, as if waiting to see what I would do. Truth be told, I felt like running for the hills, screaming bloody murder along the way and not stopping until I reached sanctified ground. Hey, I may be a witch and used to the occasional paranormal occurrence, but ghosts are just plain freaky. And I’d never encountered one that could manifest as clearly as the one in front of me.
It made me wonder what else she could do. If she decided I was a threat, or just wanted someone to take her rage out on, I doubted my flimsy circle would be able to protect me. But she didn’t move. She didn’t do anything. I realized it was up to me to make the first move.
“I’m sorry for what happened to you,” I said. “I promise I’ll do everything I can to find your killer and stop them from doing this again.” I wasn’t sure she could hear me. I mean, it’s not like she had ears or eardrums anymore. I put a hint of power into my words, to show that I was sincere.
She seemed to get the message. I saw her slowly nod, then turn and vanish down the hallway, leaving me alone once again.
It took a couple of minutes for me to work up the nerve to open my circle. I did so by tracing my athame in a counter clockwise motion while giving thanks to whichever spirits had answered my call. When it was done, I waited for the crushing weight to settle itself back on my shoulders, but it didn’t come. Instead, there was just a sense of wary watchfulness. The air was still thicker than was comfortable, making breathing difficult, but it was tolerable. Apparently, nearly suffocating me while grinding my soul under a mountain of pain and despair had been Nichole Barret’s way of getting my attention. Now that she knew she had it, she was content to wait and see what I would do.
Well, I wasn’t going to catch her killer here on my knees. I got to my feet, replacing the athame in it’s sheath, then swayed for a second as the room blurred unexpectedly. Casting a circle wasn’t considered heavy-lifting in the magical effort department, but doing it on the fly without any foci or charged crystals while being under psychic attack had taken a quite a bit out of me. Besides, if you wanted to know the truth of it, I was out of practice. I hadn’t casted an honest-to-goodness spell in months and had felt myself slowly separating from my witchcraft for several years before then. My Gramps, a big practitioner of the arts, wasn’t happy about that.
I steadied myself and left the room, intending to go back downstairs and check in with Charley’s team. I stopped. Something had changed.
The little hallway was the same as it had been; a little narrower than three feet, open door to a guest bathroom on the left, with large windows at either end to let in sunlight. But there was something…I couldn’t put my finger on it. I sighed in frustration.
Why was nothing ever easy? I could ignore it. Go back downstairs, follow up on whatever leads forensics and Bill had turned up, but that would be breaking my promise. I’d told Nichole Barret I would do everything in my power to find her killer. And if I was missing something here, in this little hall, I had to do something about it.
Damn it all! I hadn’t casted a real spell in almost two months, now twice in one day. This was going to give me such a headache.
I took a deep breath and raised my power again. It was more difficult this time. The glowing pool of energy was a little weaker and rose to the surface reluctantly, but it came. Once I had it, I said my spell.
“Sight unseen
Eyes half open
Let me see
By these words spoken.”
Another head rush as the power rushed out of me, and I leaned against the wall for several seconds for support. Holy hell, I was out of shape. That shouldn’t have been that hard. Maybe I should consider some light, witchcraft calisthenics.
When I was sure my knees weren’t going to buckle under me, I straightened up and opened my eyes. The world came into crisp, clear focus. It was like I had been looking through a foggy lens all my life that was suddenly torn away.
I could see individual particles of dust swirling in the air, dancing on unfelt currents of air. I could count the brush strokes used to paint the walls and even tell where the painter had to do touch ups. Sunlight from outside streamed in through the far window, and I saw the way the light twisted and broke the glass to play along the floor. But, most important of all, I saw the little door, right across from the bathroom, standing unnoticed by all who’d passed it…including me.
Holy cow! A whole room of the house, overlooked by professional, trained personnel, and one witch who was summarily embarrassed and impressed at the same time. That was one hell of a cloak. Apparently, the psychic hoodoo that
