Chapter 18: A Salty Affair

SERAPHINA

“Seriously, is this all the salt you have?” I grumbled. I was rummaging through Jack’s private stash in one of the taller cabinets in what had once been our kitchen. Now, I supposed, it was my stash.

“That’s an interesting choice of salt for breakfast.”

Damien’s voice startled me in the otherwise quiet kitchen. I clutched the salt Jack and I had collected from Florida beaches to my chest, trying to keep my balance. Jack’s wedding band pressed into my chest over my pounding heart.

“You scared me.”

“Sorry, ma’am. I saw movement and wanted to make sure the location was secure since I was closest,” Damien said.

“It’s okay, Damien.” I forced a laugh and a smile. My mind, however, drifted to Aleksandr. “You’re just so quiet. The salt is for…um…” My cheeks flushed, not wanting to admit I was desperate to reach for magic. It felt as if it had been days instead of hours since I had felt anything.

Damien wasn’t fooled. He crossed his arms and frowned. His silence made me feel guilty.

“I just wanted to try a small spell. It’s nothing,” I said, raising a hand in defense. I began to climb down from the counter.

“Mrs. Blair, I don’t think I’m overstepping when I say that exploring this further, especially without proper guidance from a mentor or doctor, might not be wise,” Damien said. “I can’t guarantee your safety if you put yourself at risk like you did in public at the pottery shop. As much as I’d appreciate the severance pay, I’d rather keep you safe and keep my job. What does the coven and Elis have to say about your sudden change? Or your doctor?”

I gave Damien a weak smile. “Elis keeps avoiding me. To be honest, I’m going to need your help with him.” I took a moment to gather my thoughts, then stepped closer to make eye contact. “It’s why I’m trying to reach for my powers, too. Especially if one of them is the killer, or if my life is in danger again.”

Damien knew about my concerns with the Coven, especially since they hadn’t responded to me. I only had Marcus as a contact formally even after the funeral. As far as a direct line to speak to anyone, which even Damien agreed was an insult after everything that had happened.

No matter how “shrouded in shadows” a coven was meant to be from technical non-members, I still felt like I was entitled to Elis’s personal line, or have the good graces to pick up when I have to hire people to track it down. Now, I was having to go to further lengths to show I meant business.

It was as if the funeral had been a public show while they continued to drain my money, which was suspicious. It was also making me angry. Angry enough to perhaps think a little irrationally.

“Do you ever worry that this magic is just spurts or remains because of Jack’s death? Magic that might kill you?” Damien asked. He was likely noting not only my past frailness, fainting spells, and long hospital stay when he had first met me. But the frequency at which he was probably now catching my newest exhaustion on camera.

Physically, I probably looked as if I were becoming more and more ill, despite feeling more alive anytime I managed to feel something a little more than myself.

“No,” I lied instantly. I realized I almost sounded like some sort of magic junkie. I decided to stand taller and force a brighter smile. “I don’t feel worse, just a bit out of control, which is why trying to reach it on my own might help balance things out. That’s normal when you come into your powers or they come back. I just need to figure them out to help create an inner circle of peace between the chakras that the magic flows.”

“That sounds…more religious than I expected, Ms. Blair. Don’t chakras represent the Hindu religion?”

“You would be surprised how nonreligious the craft is, Damien, while cultivating teachings from other religions into our own spiritual paths. A lot of people mistake it for being of one divinity, or that there’s two divine beings of masculine and feminine, much like how the Christian bible has God and Mary. Only many people associate us with Satan.

“The further you dive into it all though, it’s much more spiritual. There is a yin and a yang, an Ego, an Id, a right, a wrong, and there’s everything in between. To be graced with the presence of magic and actually touch it.

“It’s like…” I rubbed my fingers together, searching for the right word. I wanted to sound less like an addict and more like someone who understood what she was dealing with.

“Like touching a living, beating heart and feeling every single joy and sorrow in each second. It’s creating something from nothing, something no one else can. In the wrong hands though, it’s destructive and angry. It snarls like a ravaging wolf. It’s kind of like a surgeon with a patient open on their table.”

“A pity I’m just human, it would seem, and without a degree,” Damien said, his voice hollow and devoid of sorrow. It was as if he still didn’t understand me, as if he felt I was being dismissive of him. “I don’t think Jack would have wanted this. Why haven’t you just stepped down and left?”

“There’s still work to be done,” I replied, repressing a sigh. I felt heavily judged. I knew I had told Damien to put things on hold as far as draining, selling, or otherwise having me disperse from the underworld and other worldly trades.

This would leave me a rich widow in retirement, enjoying my feet in the sand or a sailboat around the world. Perhaps even a picket fence with a pool boy that might make me scream his name over and over. Whatever might appeal to me.

“Is it the genetic program?”

“He used that program to save me. Defunding it, destroying all those p—test subjects,” I corrected myself, trying hard again not to think of them as real human beings. “I was in really bad shape, and if I leave, so does it.”

“If Aleksandr finds out about it, you’ll be killed.”

“If anyone finds out about it, including Garrick, Chen, or any other associate—I’ll be killed. I get the picture,” I retorted, running a hand through my hair.

I sighed, turning away and then back, deciding to be truthful. “Maybe after our winter party. It’s the last big event we throw in the mansion before the dark really sets in. All the proceeds go to the community. If I cancel that, we’ll lose the funding we need. I’m sorry I keep moving the deadline. I’m just not ready yet.”

Damien gave a nod, his face as stony as a disapproving father. “Ms. Blair, I will continue to do my duty to keep you safe. However, like Jack—I may be unable to save you from yourself. I will do my best.”

I gave him a small smile as he took a step back. I wanted to say more—yet I was itching to move forward with my plans. Plans that didn’t involve staff that questioned my motives in life.

So, I walked onward. My feet moved swiftly beneath me on the soft carpet to Jack’s old study. The scent of sage, pine, and sweet grass filled the air as I brought in the salt, prompting me to take a deep breath.

I hoped the combination would invoke not just the spirits around us, but the positive energy within them. Energy feeding energy.

I was trying to use a salt that might connect me to the magic through love, memory, or even just because it felt right.

The hum of magical energy was never enough for me unless I was touching it. It began to drive me crazy, like a man in the desert searching for water.

My hands shook as I felt the room, charged and poised with untapped energy.

I opened the salt, yearning to touch the chaotic energy that seemed to flow around me. I poured a solid line and sat in the middle of the large rune-inscribed circle.

Jack’s residual magic amplified everything in the room. His hands had formed the circle I now sat in.

I lit my main pillar candle and placed my palms together to focus. I sat down to center my breathing and felt the hum around me grow.

My feet folded beneath me.

A silence enveloped me.

One breath. Two breaths. Three…

Minutes trickled by. I closed my eyes, waiting for the sensation to fill me. Waiting for the rush of life and joy to envelop my soul, to give me that exhilarating high.

But nothing came.

Time seemed to stretch on endlessly. The ticking of the clock in the next room morphed from a soothing rhythm into a relentless reminder of the passing minutes.

Suddenly, I was aware of my own frustration.

I tried to channel it, to use it as a catalyst for ~something~.

Maybe I was too calm, or perhaps my anger wasn’t potent enough. I stared at the melting candle before me. A sense of regret and disappointment washed over me.

I had been trying for hours. My eyes flicked up to a nearby digital clock.

A sinking feeling began to take hold—had I lost my ability?

~How could it be gone so soon? Why wasn’t I deserving? Why?~

A wave of grief washed over me, gripping my heart like a vise. It was chased by a surge of anger, so intense it felt like it was clawing its way out of me.

This anger, however, sparked a tiny flame within me. I clung to it, feeling it burn in my chest as I gritted my teeth.

I focused on the four colored candles behind the white one in front of me. As they lit, I could smell the grass and feel the soothing spray of water fueling the fire within me.

All of it was hard to reach. Yet, a sudden gasp of relief washed over me as I took them in.

The following gust of wind swept through the room, making me feel both hot and cold. It caused me to clutch my stomach as nausea threatened to overtake me.

The last sensation was too intense. This felt like a galling force, threatening to tear me open while my skin danced, trying to stitch itself whole once more.

But I was determined. I needed to bring something into existence as much as I needed to keep feeling ~this~.

This warmth that filled my body, that pulsed in time with my heartbeat.

This tangible tingling sensation filled me with joy and euphoria. The feeling that I could do anything, be anything, if I just willed it hard enough.

Suddenly, the wave of nausea hit me full force. I vomited. My stomach emptied its contents onto the candles, salt, herbs, and carefully painted runes.

But it didn’t stop there. Like the early days with Jack, when I would have dizzy spells, it was worse.

My body convulsed with dry heaves long after my stomach was empty.

I tried to catch my breath, to crawl away from the mess, but the world seemed to tilt and shift around me.

“Ugh, that’s disgusting,” I groaned. Only then did I realize I was on the floor when I opened my eyes to see a woman’s silhouette.

As I tried to focus, I saw her red stilettos move to pull back a curtain, letting light flood into the room. The cold air and bright light helped clear my head a bit.

“Leave me alone,” I groaned, closing my eyes again and wiping my mouth with my sleeve. My head was pounding, and my eyes burned from the sunlight.

I knew I had been close to reaching the magic on my own.

Evelyn sighed, shaking her head.

“What am I going to do with you?”