The Amber Lee Boxed Set

  He bowed out and went into the living room, leaving me alone with my thoughts and the dirty handprint on my shoulder. I must have sounded like a bitch, but what was I supposed to do? Have sex with him? And then what… throw up during? No.

  I slipped the towel off and used it to rub the spot on my shoulder where Damien had touched, but no amount of rubbing helped. In the aftermath of my attempt at removing the filthy feeling from my skin all that remained was… irritated skin. Add to that a frustrated boyfriend, a startled ex, and the knowledge that some foul, invisible being—or another Witch—was to blame.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The sun had disappeared by the time I stepped out of the bedroom. I had slipped into a pair of black leggings and a long-sleeved black without sparing much conversation for Damien. I didn’t know what to besides apologise, and doing so would require an explanation; one I wasn’t ready to give.

  My belly was grumbling, though, so I checked the fridge for something to eat and decided upon a bunch of red grapes I figured would go bad if I didn’t eat. The stomach-emptying revulsion I felt earlier was gone, but a ceaseless cabaret of thoughts was cascading through my mind now. I wasn’t sure which was worse.

  Why is a demon attacking Aaron?

  Had that same demon attacked Eliza?

  Did I really touch that Demon?

  Do I need a priest, now?

  Do they need a priest?

  How the hell am I going to get a priest?

  “Hey,” Damien said, snapping me out of my trance. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, quickly swallowing my mouthful of grapes.

  “You don’t seem fine… did I do something wrong?”

  “No, no. You didn’t. I’m just… I’ve got things running through my head.”

  “Anything I can help with?”

  I sighed. “I didn’t want to say anything.”

  “But?” Damien’s interest had been peaked.

  “I don’t like worrying people.”

  “You’re worrying me right now. Why don’t you just tell me what’s going on?”

  “It’s nothing. I’ve just been having some dreams and lately I’m starting to wonder whether I’m going insane or some… thing… is trying to tell me something.”

  “What do you mean?”

  A breeze floated into the house. I watched it flutter curtains, lampshades, and even the table clothes on the kitchen window as it made a circle of my house and headed for my ears.

  “Blood in the snow.”

  The words came from out of nowhere, as if spoken on the breath of a ghost. A horde of spiders scurried down my arms and ribs making me shiver like a leaf in the winter. Eyes wide, I turned toward the bay window all the way across the room. There, a silent figure watched on from the dark.

  “Oh my Gods. Damien!” I said. The shrillness of my voice made Damien spin around and face the window, but the figure was gone. A rush of cold wind came, and the lights went out. I swallowed as my heart-rate started to fly, then I dashed to my kitchen window to peer out of the back, but the backyard was quiet.

  “Where is he?” Damien asked.

  “I don’t know!”

  Someone knocked at the front door; three hard bangs loud enough that I could feel them in my chest. The doorknob started to turn. Damien and I stared, waiting to see what would happen next. Then the locks undid themselves, one by one each giving way without anyone touching them.

  I clenched my fists. Warm waves filled me as my Power manifested. I pointed at the door and opened my palm, visualizing a pulse of energy pushing against the door to hold it shut. In my mind I invoked the power of the Watchtower of the South—the Watchtower that held the power to hurt people—but the door started to open. And crack. And creak and groan. Thunder grumbled in response to my waking of the Guardian. I saw the door open an inch, but I pushed another pulse of power into it and forced it shut again.

  Damien closed his eyes and his fist, then he opened his palm and tossed hundreds of shiny silver motes into the air sending light to all corners of the dark room, but as the light spread I found that I couldn’t hold the door! My power was fading, my connection to the Watchtower weakening, somehow. The door suddenly swung open and luminous silver light from Damien’s orbs spilled outside, engulfing the hooded man in light.

  An instant passed, and the man at the door groaned and shielded his hooded face. Another instant and he was retreating, pulling the door shut behind him to protect himself from the light of the orbs.

  I didn’t hesitate. I rushed out of the house and charged onto my front lawn. The hooded man was sprinting toward the trees on the other side of the road, stumbling over himself as if somehow the light had hurt him.

  “Fuck!” I cursed.

  The attacker disappeared into the trees across the road and I wasn’t fast enough to stop him. Above, streaks of lightning were starting to whip and crack inside of thick, dark clouds. I closed my eyes and thanked the Guardian for its help, but the rumbling thunder and the crackling lightning wouldn’t stop.

  Damien pulled me back into the house and closed the door, locking it once we were inside. The little silver orbs had disappeared, but the power in the house had returned and the lights, at least, were back. Though with the sudden change in weather I had caused I wondered how long it would be before the power went out again.

  “Are you okay?” Damien asked.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, breathing heavily. I couldn’t believe he had gotten away.

  “What the fuck was that all about?”

  “I don’t know. Was he a Witch?”

  “He must have been.”

  “Why the hell do assholes keep showing up at my house? It’s not like I advertise where I live!”

  “If he’s a Witch it wouldn’t have taken him long to figure out your location,” Damien said.

  We went around the house to make sure all of the doors and windows were locked, but my home still didn’t feel safe. The whole building felt heavy and stifling, like a car that had been left in the sun for too long with the windows rolled up. This place was becoming synonymous with unease and discomfort.

  “God-dammit.” I said. “I’m calling Frank.”

  “Frank?” Damien asked.

  “Yeah. We’re a Coven and we need to figure this out. That means the three of us are involved. For all I know, he’s in danger too.”

  “You really think that?”

  “I’m not about to take any chances.”

  Frank picked up his phone pretty quick when I called, thank the Gods. He promised he was fine and told me to stay put and that he was on his way down, but I couldn’t tell him just how happy I was that he was okay. I don’t know what I would have done if he hadn’t picked up his phone. Panicked? Gone out looking for him? Cried?

  All three, I suspected.

  I squashed my what-ifs like a bug under a boot and brought my mind to bear on what was about to happen. My eyes met Damien’s and my chest tightened. I was about to tell him about Aaron, and I had no idea how he was going to take it. Nor how he would feel when I told him that Aaron had been in my house before Damien had shown up.

  Damien had, after all, been in that situation before.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I wasn’t sure what was worse; that Aaron and I only ever had sex throughout the duration of our agreement or that Damien and I hadn’t had nearly as much sex in our time together as I had with Aaron. Sometimes I wondered whether Damien could perhaps sense Aaron’s mark upon my body as if by scent or by Magick. I wondered whether, maybe, every time he walked into my house he could see me sitting upon the kitchen counter, digging my nails into Aaron’s back and moaning his name. I was probably making all that up in my head, but the worries came all the same as worries tended to do.

  Maybe if my relationship with Aaron hadn’t been of a carnal nature I wouldn’t have felt so bad for not telling Damien about the help I was giving Aaron. I wouldn’t have been sitting on my couch, with my
chin to my chest, chewing the inside of my cheek. I wanted to tell him, really I did, but I just didn’t know how he would react.

  Did I really trust our relationship so little?

  I shook my head and climbed back down from my thoughts. “Damien,” I said, “Sit down.”

  He had been pacing.

  “I’m fine,” Damien said, “I’m just trying to figure out who that guy was.”

  “You’re not going to do it standing up and pacing around the room. Sit.”

  Damien gave me a sidelong glance and sat down on the sofa with me.

  We were silent for a while until I gathered the courage to speak. “Damien, there’s something—”

  A rapping at the door stopped me in my tracks. Damien sprang up and answered. Frank had arrived, covered in bits of snow.

  “Where’s the fire and or blood?” he asked as he rushed inside.

  “What?” I said.

  “You told me it was urgent so I figured there’d be fire or blood involved.” Frank analyzed Damien and then me. “Is someone going to tell me what happened?”

  “Someone came to Amber’s house tonight,” Damien said, “A guy wearing a hood, possibly a Witch. We had to fight him off.”

  “Well… yeah, okay, that counts.” Frank sat on the arm chair across from me, one leg crossed over the other. “Is me or is it stuffy in here? Someone should crack a window.”

  “There’s more,” I said, “I think I’ve been having dreams about the guy who attacked us.”

  “What kind of dreams?” Frank asked.

  Damien locked the front door and joined us on the sofa again.

  “I don’t know,” I said, “I can never really remember them, but he seemed familiar. Like something out of a dream. I have to trust my gut on this.”

  “And you’ve been seeing this guy for how long?”

  “A few weeks, I think.”

  “This guy was no joke,” Damien said, all business, “We have to find him before he hurts someone.”

  “Well,” Frank said, “Before we go charging into the breach and all that we need to be armed with as much knowledge as possible. Knowledge is, after all, our friend against a more powerful foe, so let’s round up all the facts. Skip no details.”

  I glanced at Damien and then turned my eyes back to Frank’s. My pulse was racing; I could feel it thumping in my neck. “I think something big is going down,” I said, “I don’t know if it’s related to what happened to me a few months ago—that isn’t the impression I get—but I know it’s personally connected to me somehow.”

  “Personally? How do you figure that?” Frank asked.

  “Why else would I be the one getting the dreams and not you two?”

  “Your Magick is strong but you’re still not totally trained,” Damien said, “You could have powers you don’t even know about.”

  “True, but the connection runs deeper than that. I think it has something to do with Aaron.”

  Damien perked up at the sound of Aaron’s name. I wondered if his skin was breaking out into warm prickles too. “Aaron? Why him?”

  I sighed and turned to face him, admiring his beautiful features for—possibly—the last time. “I’ve been in contact with Aaron for a few days,” I said, “I saw him in the street the other day and he looked… terrible. Homeless.”

  “Okay, so how does this hooded man connect you to Aaron?” Damien asked.

  “He was here today, before you showed up. I asked him to come. He thought some dark entity was trying to possess him.”

  “Possess him?” Frank’s face lit up like he had just seen a piece of Carrot Cake—his favorite. “Now there’s something you don’t hear every day.”

  “Wait, Aaron was here?” Damien asked.

  I could see it on his face. When Damien arrived I was in a towel, my hair was wet, and my cheeks were flushed from the heat of the shower. A shower I had taken to, maybe, wipe the smell of man from off my body. And then, to make matters worse, I rejected him when he made a move on me. Shit, the rejection. How must that have looked now in light of what I had just told him?

  “Damien, it wasn’t like that,” I said, but his eyes were narrow and defensive. If Frank hadn’t been there, we would have been fighting.

  “I’m sure Damien can swallow his ill-founded suspicions for a moment,” Frank said, “Amber, continue.”

  I hesitated, but did as Frank asked. “I thought he may have been wrong,” I said, “His life was in shambles, his health was poor, and he told me he’d been having trouble sleeping, too. But none of what I saw made me think some kind of dark entity was riding him… until today.”

  “What do you mean?” Frank asked.

  “I… touched it.” There was that sick feeling again. I wasn’t supposed to touch it. I knew that now.

  Frank’s face went serious. “You… touched… it?” he asked, “Then what happened?”

  “I wanted to throw up. Aaron left and I spent a while in the shower trying to shake the feeling, to clean it off. That’s when Damien showed up.”

  “So that’s—”

  “Yes,” I said to Damien before he could finish. “That’s why. I felt sick, Damien. So, so sick.”

  Damien took my hand and squeezed it, and a ton of pressure fluttered off my shoulders. With that single gesture I knew his suspicions were gone. I knew he believed me. But none of that helped the sickly feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  Frank tapped his chin as the gears and cogs worked hard in his brain. “I know a bit about what you’ve described,” Frank said.

  “You do?” Damien asked.

  “I’ve been known to dabble in the black arts now and again. It could explain why my life turned out to be such a fucking train-wreck, but the experience has given me knowledge beyond my years.”

  “What do you think is going on?” I asked.

  Frank paused. “I’ve also reached into the Nether and felt something foul and disgusting before. It was during a séance a few years ago. Young drunk and stupid, a bunch of us tried to conjure a demon to ask it questions. We wanted to conjure one, as if it were no big thing. Like calling up directory enquiries.”

  “What do you mean by ask it questions?” Damien asked.

  “Demons can see the future better than any Witch can. They know things no one else does; secrets about you, me and the world. They’re experts at talking about things that haven’t happened. That’s where their use is.”

  “Use? You talk about them as if they’re tools,” Damien said.

  “They are to some. To others they’re foot-soldiers in a war. Other people keep them as sort of pets.”

  “Pets?” I asked. “I’ve studied Demons before and I’ve never heard about anyone keeping one as a pet.”

  “You can only learn so much from books. The underbelly of any metropolis can teach you way more than a dusty old tome ever could. When you’re down on your luck and all you have is the ability to use Magick, you’ll turn to anyone and anything to try and get ahead.”

  “Do you think the guy who just came to my house…. owns the Demon? That maybe this is the connection I’m feeling?” I asked.

  “The thing is, even the people who claim to own Demons don’t actually own Demons,” Frank said, “You strike bargains with them, if you know how to play their game. Most people just wind up being possessed. These wretched, fucked up things live in a state of constant agony and pain. A human host alleviates that pain, that’s why they’re always possessing folks who let them in.”

  “And you think Aaron, somehow, let one in?” Damien asked. He wanted to say more. I knew he did. I could see it on his face. How could a simpleton like Aaron get mixed up with a Demon? He didn’t need to say the words for me to hear them.

  “I don’t know how he’s involved in this,” Frank said, “But there’s more than one way to skin a cat. Demons need permission to fuck with someone’s life, but sometimes that permission doesn’t need to be spoken out in plain language. He could’ve opened the door to one in
a moment of intense emotion or pain and not even known it.”

  I fell into the sofa and ran my hands through my still drying hair.

  Damien sighed. The whole situation was a puzzle with missing pieces. “There are no coincidences,” Damien said, “This guy shows up in town at the same time that Aaron’s being possessed by the devil? There has to be a link.”

  “There’s only one way to find out what’s really going on,” Frank said.

  “You mean go after him into the woods?” I asked.

  “Exactly.”

  “But we don’t have any idea where he’s gone.”

  “You said you’d been seeing ruins in your dreams, right?”

  I had. I never saw them clearly, but I always got the impression of old buildings. Caves. Ruins. “Yeah, kinda.”

  “So? How many ruins or old building sites can there seriously be around here?”

  Chapter Eighteen

  I was beginning to learn that Frank had lived through some pretty dark times, and that his spooky visage wasn’t only an aesthetic choice but a mirror into his occult predilections; and maybe even his soul. Raven’s Glen had kept me wrapped in a cocoon my entire life, but Frank had dragged me out of that cocoon and shown me things I never would have known. And I was grateful.

  All told, nothing ever happened in Raven’s Glen. Well, besides the odd murder. The town was quiet and sleepy. Everybody knew everybody else and—almost as a bi-product of that familiarity—folks tended to behave, meaning that the sort of people who lived in town were good, clean, honest people. But Frank was like a walking reminder that the world was much bigger than the misty woods surrounding our little town, and that maybe I was missing out on the kinds of lessons other Witches just wouldn’t learn by their propensity to stay away from big cities and live in small rural towns.

  Even though the way he told it, there were just as many—if not more—Witches in big cities as there were in little towns.

  None of us made much conversation in the short time it took to narrow our search down and locate a little historical information about Raven’s Glen that may hint at the location of some ruined buildings. Damien’s deftness with a search engine, however, allowed us to pinpoint an area of the woods about three miles due east which seemed like a candidate for the hooded man’s destination. In the 1960’s, an archaeologist’s discovery of a few peculiar items led to a small-scale excavation project that revealed a series of old structures buried underground.