Chapter 15
“So you can see it, just the same way that I can sense the energy within someone?” Amanda asked.
Lars shrugged. “I can’t get inside your head to know exactly what you experience, but it seems that way.”
Amanda clicked her turn signal on and waited at the next light. “I’m concerned that I won’t be much help to you today. I mean, we shouldn’t have an undead witch attacking us again. If we will, I think I need more coffee.”
Lars laughed. Things weren’t any different between them, not in the big picture, but his polar bear was still pleased to be near his mate once again.
“You have a lot of talent. Just because you’ve focused it on people doesn’t mean you can’t do the same thing within the earth.
You were feeling something that night we traced the problem back to The Crimson Veil,” he pointed out.
She bobbed her head a bit as she considered this. “A little, but a bit of tingling in my palm doesn’t seem like the same thing.”
“We’ll just see what we can do.” Maybe he didn’t need to bring her along. Maybe he would’ve been just fine on his own, and Lars would’ve helped The Crimson Veil correct the energy issues either way. His polar bear told him, though, that he needed Amanda by his side for this.
“How are the dragons?” Amanda asked as she made the final turn.
“Much better. They were already starting to improve by the time I got back to their clanhouse last night. Our work here today should bring them back to full vitality.” It’d been a huge relief to see them when he’d returned from The Crimson Veil the night before.
Lilith and Ewan were out of bed, and Beck was insisting on helping Chelsea.
Little Corbin had bounced back the fastest and was already running circles around both of them. “What about Kendrick?”
“A vast improvement. He wants to see you again soon so he can thank you personally.” Amanda pulled up in front of the covenstead.
While the house had looked dark and spooky before, in the light of day and with all the damage, it just looked sad.
A few of the windows had been boarded up, but many of them were still just shattered glass with curtains hanging limply through them.
The bushes just outside of the altar room had been affected by Mary’s powers, their branches bent and broken.
Debris littered the yard, and as they got out of the car, Lars could see that the items had likely come from inside the house.
Books, papers, photographs, and other small household wares had been caught up in Mary’s whirlwind and flung through the windows.
Lorelei greeted them at the door before they even had a chance to knock. “I’m so glad you’re here. Come in!”
The living room furniture had been put to rights, and someone had cleaned up the floor. This was the room where the windows had been boarded over, and several lamps offered a warm, ambient light.
“Have a seat. I’ve got some coffee for you,” Lorelei insisted, waving to the couch before she hurried into the kitchen.
“She seems like she’s in a good mood,” Amanda noted.
“There’s something about believing you might die and then not dying that will do that to someone,” Lars replied. “I feel pretty good myself.”
Amanda looked down at her lap. “Yeah. It makes you think about a lot of things.”
He studied her profile, letting the implication hang there between them.
“She was pretty scary,” Amanda finally said. “If anyone ever brings me back from the dead, I hope I look better than that.”
“Here we are!” Lorelei came in from the kitchen, carrying a tray. She put it in front of them on the coffee table and poured them each a cup. “I know this is nothing, but I wanted to thank you once again for what you did last night.”
“There’s no need for that,” Amanda told her gently. “We were all glad to help. In fact, our coven would like to extend our friendship to yours.”
Lorelei sat back in her chair and pressed her hand to her chest. “You don’t know how much that would mean to us.”
“You don’t think Corinna will mind?” Lars asked. He left his coffee black and took a sip.
“Um, no.” Lorelei scratched behind her ear and looked at the floor for a moment, scrunching her face. “Corinna didn’t come back last night or this morning. As the rest of the witches gathered, we took a vote. Her actions were self-serving and dangerous. We kicked her out.”
Amanda nodded. “A good choice. Someone who refuses to even help clean up her mess isn’t going to be much of a leader. Can I ask who the new High Priestess is?”
Lorelei ducked her head and lifted her hand, waggling her fingers in the air. “It’s me.”
“Congratulations!” Lars enthused, lifting his cup in salute.
“Well, thank you, but I don’t really know what I’m doing. I was hoping I might be able to talk to Maeve and Lucille and get some advice. Corinna wanted to do everything her own way, but I’d really like to chat with someone who’s got experience.”
“I’ll tell them as soon as we’re done here,” Amanda promised.
“Thank you. And really, I can’t thank you enough for last night.
I know you’ve said I don’t need to, but I can’t help it.
I was terrified, and I had no idea what to do.
Because of you guys, The Crimson Veil has a chance to go on and become a successful coven.
I hate to think what might’ve happened to us otherwise. ” Tears glimmered in her eyes.
When they’d finished their coffee, Lorelei walked with them to the altar room. “We haven’t touched anything yet. We thought it’d be best to let you do what you could, then worry about everything else later. Can I do anything to help?”
Lars examined the space. It was strange to see it in the daylight. The winter sun crept in through the shattered window, highlighting the smashed furniture, the broken drywall, and the deep ruts in the floor. “I don’t think so.”
“You just holler if you need me!”
Amanda took a slow trip around the room. “Weird, isn’t it? Everything was so dark, so real, so terrifying. It’s all just stuff, though. No sign of angry spirits.”
“No, just the residue left behind from someone who abused the ley system for their own gain.” The clumps and threads of energy still inhabited the room, floating along on an invisible air current. “I’m glad we have the chance to make it right.”
“How do we get started?” She turned to look at him.
She was pure beauty. She made his heart ache with nothing more than a look, a simple question. Just being in her presence pleased his polar bear to no end.
Lars cleared his throat and forced himself to concentrate. “Let’s stand here, in the middle of the room. It’s everywhere around us. Put your hands out and close your eyes. See if you can feel it.”
Amanda did as he asked. She took several breaths as she did so. “I feel something. I’m just not sure what.”
“The situation in here is chaotic. Do you remember when we were walking along the sidewalk? You were feeling it in thick, concentrated lines. It’s a little easier that way.
” Lars thought back to all that he had to learn as a young man.
His family was gifted in this, but that didn’t mean they knew it all instinctively.
“True. That helps a bit.” She moved her hands in front of her and around to her sides, looking like someone who’s trying to find their way in the dark. “I’m not sure how to distinguish it all. It feels muddy compared to what I experience in a person, or even when I’m doing magic.”
“I have an idea.” He stepped up behind her, wrapping his arms around her and placing his hands on the back of hers. “Is this okay?”
She swallowed. “Yes.”
Using his hand, he guided her hand up and to the left. “There’s a big mass of it. Just notice how it feels.”
“Mm.” She made a small sound in her throat as she concentrated. “Almost…fuzzy.”
“Over this way.” Now he brought her right hand further out. “How does this feel?”
Amanda simply stood there for a moment, breathing and taking it all in. “Kind of a tickle.”
He smiled. “Threads of it. Tell me, when you work on a person, can you see their energy?”
“Sort of. It’s not as visual as some people think it is, but I can see it almost like a static in the air,” she clarified.
“And what about here? With this energy? Can you see it?” His chin was just over her shoulder, and he could see her eyelashes fluttering open.
“I think maybe I can. It’s like interruptions in how I’m seeing the rest of the room.”
“Then let’s see what you can do with it. It might help to close your eyes again.” Lars pushed her right hand out a little further. “The threads are easier to deal with. They’re small, and they’re already in the right shape to return to the ley lines.”
Her back rested easily against his chest. “Okay. What do I do?”
Lars had noted as soon as they’d arrived that the excess ley energy he’d packed down into the earth the previous night had already dissipated.
That was going to make this much easier than if he’d had to get it moving manually.
That also meant the ley lines were well on their way to repairing themselves.
“Lift your hand up and around, like you’re going to catch them,” he told her, guiding her the whole way. “Then push your hand back down into the earth, then out.” Now he moved her hand laterally, parallel to the floor.
“That seems too easy,” Amanda protested.
“I will be honest. It’s a lot easier since I’m here to help. The first time you do it on your own, you wonder how it ever worked at all. I think you can do it, though. How do the threads feel now?”
“Like there are fewer of them. I’m worried I’m just making that up because I think that’s how it’s supposed to feel.” A bit of tension knotted her shoulders.
“No, you’re right,” Lars soothed. “Let’s work on the rest of them.”
He coached her through pushing the energy into the earth, one long thread at a time. The larger masses of energy, the ones that he’d shoved to the side for lack of any better place to put them, were a bit trickier.
“Have you ever spun wool?”
“Um, no,” she said with a laugh. “Have you?”
“Yes, actually. I told you about how much knitting my mother’s family did. Some of them also raised sheep and made the yarn, which supplied the knitting business. My mother only did it for fun, something to remember the old ways, but she was good at it. The process here is similar.”
“Then I guess I’ll learn how to spin wool and ley lines at the same time,” Amanda joked.
They worked together, pinching off a small bit of the energy, twisting and wrapping it in on itself until it made a long strand. These were thicker than the threads they’d already dealt with, but they were just as easy to put where they belonged once they were in the right shape.
The work came easily to him, and she was a good enough student that she didn’t make it any harder.
The only difficult part for Lars was being so close to Amanda.
She was his mate, the person he was meant to be with.
Their souls recognized each other, and they’d even been able to communicate telepathically when they were both in their animal forms. He knew exactly what that meant when it happened, but the threat of Mary Riddle had caught most of his attention.
Now, though, as they finished cleaning up the mess there, he could only think about how little time he had left in Salem and the fact that he’d be spending so little of it with her.
“Last one,” Amanda said. Whether she realized it or not, she was practically doing them on her own now.
Regretfully, he took his hands from the backs of hers and stepped away. “I knew you’d be able to do this.”
“Don’t give me too much credit. I only did it with your help.” Her cheeks were pink and her eyes glittered, looking truly satisfied.
That only made him think about a different time she’d looked satisfied. Doubt, conflict, and heartache consumed him all over again. “Still, you’re a natural.”
Lorelei knocked on the doorframe, since the door itself had been badly crushed by Mary’s violent tantrum. “How’s it going?”
Lars took one last look around the room to be sure he hadn’t missed anything. “All done.”
“Really? Oh, you guys are going to get me started thanking you all over again,” Lorelei gushed.
“You can thank us by reaching out whenever you need it,” Amanda told her. “Our Sisterhood is very serious about being friends.”
“Okay. You guys are great.” She walked with them to the front door, opened it, and paused. “You’re a really cute couple, by the way. I noticed it when you first came by, and I just wanted to tell you that.”
The pink in Amanda’s cheeks turned a bright red. “Thanks,” she said stiffly. “We’ll talk soon.”
As Amanda drove him back to the clanhouse, Lars had to keep reminding himself that nothing had changed. They’d had a good time there, sharing intimacy on a whole new level, but she’d already made it plain how she felt about a long-distance relationship.
Nothing had changed, no matter what Lorelei or anyone else thought.