THREE
Angela didn’t remember the journey from the city.
Or how she got to her street with her hands locked in a white-knuckle grip around the steering wheel, desperately trying to control her erratic breathing pattern.
At one point it got so bad that she had to pull over to the side of the road in fear of passing out.
By the time she reached her house, she was shaking so hard the keys rattled as she struggled to unlock the front door.
Inside, she slammed the door shut and threw every deadbolt and safety chain, until everything clicked into place.
Only then did she stop to lean back against the door and drag in a breath so deep it hurt.
Yet, somehow, that putrid, rotting sweetness that made her stomach roll with nausea had followed her inside.
Angela staggered toward the kitchen. The refrigerator light flared too brightly as she reached for the vodka.
With hands that still struggled to obey, she twisted the cap and took four hard gulps straight from the bottle.
The liquor burned its way down her raw throat, but barely felt it in her chest.
“What did I see?” she whispered to her cozy little kitchen, where Aunt Claudine’s plants came to die.
It did nothing to stop the images flashing behind closed eyelids: the Black Cloaks, pale hands, red eyes, bodies turning to stone and then ash.
And that stench that threaded its way deep into her memory, while coating her skin like grease.
She tenderly touched her throat, swallowing slowly to get an idea of the damage.
For a second she could feel that icy grip, the pressure, and the terror of knowing that if help hadn’t arrived, she would have died in that alley.
“Shower.” She needed to wash off the terror creeping under her skin like beads of ice being dragged along by an army of ants.
Angela took one more mouthful of vodka and left the bottle on the counter. She moved through the house, flipping on the lights to get rid of any shadows, until she reached the bathroom. There, the tiles gleamed too white and bright.
She tore off her coat and dumped it on the floor, kicking off her shoes.
Her fingers fumbled with the dress zipper, the heavy fabric clinging to her skin. That smell had soaked into the fibers, making the memory and panic rise so swiftly she ripped the dress, tearing at the fabric to let it fall into a discarded pile on the floor.
With the shower blasting, the steam rose instantly. Yet that stench still lingered on her skin as another wave of nausea washed over her…
Was that the Grim Reaper? Or an angel of death?
“I don’t want to know.” Her voice echoed off the tiles in the shower cubicle as the panic rose again.
Until his face filled her mind. Not the monster. But the man with those eerily light teal-blue eyes that shone like sea-glass, and how his gaze held hers as if he were reading beneath the shield that the scars of her life had put in place.
Zarek.
Just the sound of his name invading her thoughts was enough to make her breathing slow down and the trembling terror recede like an outgoing tide.
With soap and cloth, she scrubbed and scrubbed until her skin burned, and still she scrubbed, desperate to lift that stench and for the chill to work its way out of her bones. By the time she turned the water off, her skin was flushed red and hypersensitive.
Wrapped in a towel, Angela stepped out of the shower—and gagged.
The stench was still there.
Not from her skin, but from the pile of clothes squatting on the tiled floor.
She backed away as if the fabric might reach her. Rushing towards her bedroom with her heart thudding loudly in her ears. There, she caught her reflection in the hallway mirror.
Purple shadows bloomed along her throat in the shape of fingers. She could blame it as a blemish from the strange marks on the glass where her aunt’s wards were drawn to lock the mirror, so she’d said. But none of that stuff was real.
Sadly, the marks on her throat were.
She threw her towel over the mirror, as if to block it out of her mind.
Inside her bedroom, she slid on sweatpants and a loose tank top.
Near her bed, she tugged hard on the top drawer of the dresser.
It always stuck, that she had to jimmy it a few times before it opened.
Inside, she rummaged past folded scarves and old notebooks until her fingers closed around a squat glass jar.
The label was faded, but her mother’s handwriting was still legible. She’d refilled the contents herself a few times over the years with comfrey, arnica, calendula, and lavender.
Angela unscrewed the lid and inhaled the smell of fun nights and sunny days, of the fleeting time spent with a woman who fixed what she could with her hands and herbs.
Scooping up a little salve onto her fingertips, she gently worked it into the bruises on her neck, wincing at the tenderness. The coolness sank in, easing the tightness in her chest while soothing the pain in her throat.
She imagined what her mother would say: There now. You’re still standing. Now go get ‘em, my girl.
The salve felt like a small shield, that bandage you’d wear to cover a scraped knee as a kid.
It was also the same comforting words that helped her through the first day at a new school where she knew no one.
The words that carried her through lecture halls full of Ivy Leaguers and misogynists who had assumed she didn’t belong, even through job interviews where she’d been underestimated, talked over, and dismissed.
She’d learned early how to breathe through it to stand tall, roll her shoulders back, and keep moving forward, making it the perfect medicine.
Angela capped the jar, slid it back into the drawer, and rolled her shoulders, letting the last of the panicky-tremor work its way out of her body. Then she went to kill the stench in her bathroom.
At the cleaning cupboard under the kitchen sink, Angela pulled on a pair of plastic gloves, grabbed a heavy garbage bag, and returned to the bathroom. She swept the dress, coat, underwear, shoes—everything—into the bag, careful not to touch a thing, then tied it off tight.
She then liberally poured an entire bottle of bleach over the tiles, replacing that rotting stench with a chemical scent, which she rinsed away with the shower nozzle.
She lit some scented candles and opened the window to let the steam and bleach fumes escape, keeping herself busy cleaning because stopping meant remembering.
At the back door, she tossed the garbage bag out onto the lawn.
But then as the back door slowly closed behind her, she spotted the simple shakers by the stove.
Salt.
She couldn’t stop staring at the salt shaker, as if her mind was trying to tell her something.
Her mother and aunt would babble on about the properties of salt all the time, and it had nothing to do with adding it to dinner. There was always a fresh bag tossed into the shopping cart almost monthly, with backup stashes kept in the pantry.
Hmmm. She peered around to check no one was watching, or whispering over her shoulder to judge her, even though she was stuck in some crisis of what was real and unreal.
So she grabbed the large saltshaker from the pantry and went back to the bathroom. Poured a small mound of ordinary white crystals into her palm, and hesitated.
If her aunt were here, she’d say words, wave her hands, breathe deep, and manifest it into some spell. Or she’d toss it over her shoulder for luck.
But which shoulder? The left or the right?
Angela shook her head and said the first words that popped out of her mouth. “Evil be gone.” It was absolutely ridiculous.
But her aunt, the self-proclaimed white witch, would approve.
Spiritual protection, purification, and warding off evil, words Aunt Claudine would mumble while sprinkling salt crystals across the entryway of their store or their homes.
Full moons, new moons, the equinox, or because a customer just didn’t vibe with Aunt Claudine—out came the salt.
It made Angela roll her eyes as she swept up the mess the next morning.
Except this time, Angela willingly sprinkled salt crystals onto her freshly cleaned bathroom floor. Only for her eyes to widen as they fell…
Faint wisps of steam curled up from the floor, thin as hot breath on icy glass, and dissolved into nothing. And so too, thankfully, that putrid smell.
“I’m really losing my mind.”
It was just a chemical reaction. It had to be. It was salt reacting to the bleach. That was all. Like how baking soda and vinegar react. It’s just science. Nothing else.
Right?
Yet, the overwhelming panic rose in her chest, forcing her to clutch the saltshaker like a lifeline. It wasn’t real.
But her heart wouldn’t stop hammering, as her pulse pounded in her ears.
“Zarek,” she breathed. Somehow, it instantly calmed her.
Back in the kitchen, this time she was adult enough to actually pour herself a glass of vodka. Not that it mattered much; she drained it in moments while staring through the back door at the garbage bag squatting like a lumpy toad on her darkened lawn.
It had to go.
Within minutes, she’d dragged the small barbecue into the center of the back lawn, then scrunched up some papers to sit around the bag. She dug through the pantry for matches, snatched up the big stash of salt, and ditched the drinking glass but kept her vodka bottle close.
With the night sky a silent overseer, she lit the fire and stepped back as it caught.
The flames blackened the garbage bag where it melted and curled in on itself, unleashing that vile stench of evil, making her step back even further.
No, this is my house. Where the glow of the suburban streetlights was comforting along with the sounds of a car, a television blaring somewhere, a dog barked, and the smell of Mrs. Nonea’s overnight chicken broth brewing in her slow cooker—that the other neighbors wished would retire—mixed with the cool night air.
All the normal things that said she was home.
She took another hard swallow of the vodka, rolled her shoulders to find her backbone, then stepped forward again and tossed another handful of salt crystals into the blaze.
A hiss escaped through the crackle, and somehow the smell vanished.
Just like that.
Angela didn’t move from her spot, vodka in one hand, box of salt in the other, until everything was reduced to ash.
Even when the fire had long burned itself out, Angela remained until the salt box was empty, and the vodka bottle lay on the grass. She wanted to forget more than anything. But her mind refused.
And yet, beneath the exhaustion and fear, gratitude lingered for the handsome man with sea-glass eyes who didn’t look at her like some oddity.
Eventually she closed the barbecue lid, scooped up the vodka bottle, and headed back inside. With one more glance back at the metallic monster that hid her secrets, she tried to put it all behind her and locked the back door, knowing already that sleep would not come easily tonight.