Chapter Fourteen
She may have only been teasing, but Charlotte knew what horrors awaited them on the other side. So when Latin incantations spilled from Katherine’s lips, a shiver skittered down her spine.
Black, half-melted candles flickered to life from the windowsills, casting shadows over the moonlit glass.
Charlotte’s words came out in a long breath. “This is a bad idea.”
“We will be okay,” Katherine replied, tightening her grip. “They can’t hide from us when we’re in their realm.”
Charlotte’s eyes flicked to the door. “Or we can’t hide from them.”
“They can always see us,” she stated, as if that made it any better. “This way we can see them too. Now, help me recite these words. You must use the correct inflections. Follow my lead. You are my anchor for the spell.”
“Isn’t there another way? I’m not sure I’m comfortable siphoning the dead.”
“No, unless you want to sacrifice a living person. Admittedly, that energy would be much stronger, but I am not in the mood to murder anyone tonight.”
“You jest, but you don’t understand.” Charlotte glanced over her shoulder as goosebumps spread over her arms. “The ghosts here have been haunting me since I arrived. I am certain they will see this as an invitation to get even closer to me.”
“Then stay close,” Katherine warned. “Now, empty your mind and think only of the words on the page.”
That was easy for her to say. Her mind was never calm. If it was, she’d be worried. At a minimum, there were at least three anxious thoughts swirling around in her head, along with some background noise that never stopped.
With a heavy breath, she tried to focus. The words all pulled together as they spoke them in unison.
“Permitte nos hunc mundum transire et in alterum ingredi. Velum quod nos separat solve, et spiritum nostrum a corpore separa donec cum mortuis simus.”
The tension left her body as the familiar pulse of power, from when she had been in the graveyard, shot outward from her core and into the air. Tatters of gray fell around them like ribbons cut from a sheer curtain they couldn’t see until now.
The library shifted into a decayed monochrome version of itself. The wallpaper, which had just been luxurious gold and black damask, was now a muddy maroon that was peeling from the rectangular panels.
A cold draft whistled through the empty fireplace, sending soot swirling across the stone hearth.
Katherine squeezed her fingers, and Charlotte turned her head to look at her.
Even in the realm of the dead, her green eyes still shone brightly, while the rest of her outfit had faded into a deep, earthy brown.
A layer of mist covered the marble ground, coiling around their crossed legs. Charlotte coughed as a faint scent of decay and rotted wood crept into her nostrils.
“What do we do now?” Charlotte asked, her whisper bouncing off the walls around them in an echo.
With wide eyes, Katherine lifted a finger to her lips. Her lips parted and she mouthed the words, don’t speak.
They stood together, her knees cracking as she straightened her legs, and they stepped out of their bodies. Their breaths fogged the air, the icy chill creeping in from every side of the fog-soaked ground. The mahogany tables and cabinets were covered in dust and peeling varnish.
Katherine guided her toward the door and past the moth-eaten drapes that moved with no wind and worn shelves filled with the skeletal bindings of books. She glanced back before they walked through the door, staring at their still bodies, covered in an eerie, gray hue.
An icy gust bit at her fingertips, sinking deeper into her core, chilling her to the bone. Her body shook as she suppressed a shiver. With a deep, foggy breath, she followed Katherine into the endless, dark corridor.
Though the hallways were empty, except for the familiar oil portraits that adorned the walls, a feeling of being watched brushed against her senses.
She glanced up at the painting depicting the man with a top hat.
She’d walked past him several times, even stopping to stare once or twice, but this time was different.
An awareness shone from his painted black pupils that made her skin crawl.
With a harsh tug, Katherine pulled Charlotte into an alcove just in time before a harsh, raspy breath sounded from the shadows of the corridor.
Footsteps echoed on the floorboards, the long shuffles growing closer with each step. Charlotte clapped a hand over her mouth, stifling the involuntary gasp threatening to escape.
Her stomach lurched, and her heart hammered frantically against her ribs.
The footsteps were closer now. Just feet away from where they were hiding.
Katherine’s lips were pulled between her teeth, her fingernails biting into Charlotte’s hand.
She hissed out a breath and yanked her hand away, rubbing her fingers over the crimson indents blooming on her skin.
As the spirit’s breath rattled from inches away, Charlotte braced herself to face the ghost from the reflection in the window, and the same who had chased her through the corridor that appeared out of nowhere.
Her bottom lip quivered when she envisioned the spirit, with its long dark hair hanging wet around its face, and that too-wide grin filled with rotten teeth.
As the figure rounded the corner, Charlotte noticed her ashen skin and the dark circles under her dull-brown eyes. That ghost was not the one haunting her.
It was a young woman in her mid to late twenties, dressed in maid's clothes with a white, frilly apron tied around her middle.
She couldn’t have been much older than Charlotte when she died.
The woman’s beauty was evident in her angular features, big eyes, and wavy dark hair.
Yet, death had depleted all the radiance from her.
Panic settled through Charlotte’s ribs when the dead woman turned and faced them, her brown gaze pinning her to the wall.
Her pale, split lips fell open, with only a ragged, dry rattle of a breath leaving them in what she assumed was a word.
She just couldn’t hear her. The dead didn’t talk. But this ghost wanted to. Desperately. She got closer, pointing her ringed finger at Charlotte. Shards of bone jutted out from her broken wrist, and blood seeped from her neck, wetting the ends of her dark hair.
Tears of blood rolled down her cheeks, a sadness creeping in through her bloodshot eyes.
Katherine positioned herself between Charlotte and the ghost, grabbing the woman’s arm, muttering Latin under her breath that came out in a rush of unintelligible whispers.
The corridor twisted, spinning them back through the veil in a suction that stole the air from her lungs.
Suddenly, she was sucked back into her body in the library.
The fire was crackling with orange and red flames.
The smell of wood smoke and parchment was heavy in the air.
Leather spines adorned every polished shelf, and the grandfather clock let out two loud dongs.
Charlotte glared at Katherine. Her eyes were shut, incantations still spilling from her lips. Without looking at her, Katherine extended her hand in a motion for Charlotte to join her.
Hesitantly, she walked over and Katherine grabbed her fingers before she could protest. Shockwaves shot through her palm, her body absorbing every surge of bubbling energy. The tingles ran through her arms and into her neck in a shiver, before working their way down her spine.
It was magic. More than just energy, the power was also a feeling akin to a first kiss, to seeing a perfect starlit sky, and drinking champagne for the first time.
The horror of what had just happened slipped away. The power within her was alive.
It made her feel powerful. And once she’d gotten a taste of it, there was no way she was going back. This magic that sparked her soul to life was just a diluted form running through Katherine, just from one ghost.
She understood now why the Avery family siphoned an entire graveyard of dead witches. They sacrificed people and channeled the energy from an immediate violent death. It was a high unlike any other.
It was so good it was dangerous.
Katherine’s green eyes flung open, the whites of them swirling with shadows.
“Here,” she uttered before pulling Charlotte toward the open grimoire.
“This spell will disable the power of anyone in the Avery bloodline.” She pointed at the sigils for each of the thirteen witch bloodlines and landed on theirs.
“We will carve this symbol on the door they will enter through and infuse it with these spells.”
“You are layering spells,” Charlotte stated with admiration. “Sigils to hold the power, a spell to siphon the magic, and a spell to transfer it. It’s clever. Do you do that often?”
“I’ve always experimented with magic,” she deadpanned, her expression hardening.
“This power,” she said, changing the subject, “it is unlike anything I’ve felt before. It’s—”
“Terrifying?”
“Invigorating,” Charlotte confessed, her heart racing. It was only when she imagined the weeping woman’s soul that a twinge of guilt broke through the addicting high convulsing through her body. “What happened to the ghost? Did we hurt her?”
Katherine arched a blonde brow. “Hurt her? She doesn’t have a body.”
“She looked like she was in pain.”
“It’s all emotional. I assure you.”
“What is it we did to her exactly? I mean, what will become of her?”
“We siphoned her pain and anguish, that’s all.
Her spirit will recover. What you’re feeling is her emotions converted into energy through our magic.
The more violent the pain, the more potent the power.
It is only temporary, of course. However, it will suffice so we can cast the disruption spell.
” Katherine walked to the fireplace and held her fingers over the flames to chase away the leftover chill.
“You did well. I’ve never gone into the Realm of the Dead before, but I suspected with you it would be easier. ”
Charlotte’s brows knitted together. “What does that mean?”
“I was channeling you. Why do you think I needed to hold your hand? You’ve felt death. It lingers on you. I feel a darkness shrouding your aura. That’s how I could cross through the veil. I’m just amazed it worked.”
It seemed ridiculous to call what she’d done a violation, but it felt like it, nonetheless. “So my aura is damaged?”
Katherine glanced over her shoulder. “Tainted. You cannot break it. It’s not a physical thing.”
“I know that, and you know what I was insinuating,” she quipped, tired of the condescension in her tone that made her feel like a small child when they were the same age.
With a heavy sigh, Katherine stepped away from the fire and walked back to the grimoire. “Your aura is fine,” she stated dismissively. “We must prepare and see if this will work. We can only hope the Avery family will not notice their sigil on the doorway before they enter. Follow me.”
Charlotte walked behind Katherine, surprised at how much the magic helped the pain in her joints. While the stiffness was not gone, the burning sensation was almost tolerable.
With a glance down the corridor where they’d met the ghost, Charlotte asked, “How long could we have stayed in the Realm of the Dead?”
“Not long and I warn you not to go there without me. When we travel between realms, our mortal bodies become the perfect empty vessels for demons who want to get a taste of being alive again.”
She was certain that the woman haunting her was a darker entity than the ghost. The sentient, creepy smile and a nauseating energy were enough to turn her stomach.
“How can you tell for certain what is a ghost and a demon?” she asked, although she knew a lot from the journal, a practiced witch would know far more.
Katherine’s voice echoed around the foyer as they descended the sweeping, dark staircase.
“I suppose, the only way to truly know is if they show up in a reflection. Only demons can traverse the veil for long periods, and while in ghosts we see flickers of moments of full-body apparitions or orbs, in demons we can see them in mirrors or—”
“Windows.”
“Sure. They can also, occasionally speak into our minds, even paralyze us, temporarily of course.”
A lump formed in her throat. That was exactly what had been happening to her.
They reached the front door and Katherine got to work carving the Avery sigil—a wand with two knots—into the side of the wood doorframe where no one would think to look.
She took Charlotte’s hand and pressed her other to the marking on the frame, whispering the spell that would disable their magic once they passed the threshold.
While she’d always wanted to use magic and wanted to soak in the moment, her mind was elsewhere.
Because the entity had shown up in the reflection of the window and that meant only one thing.
A demon was haunting her and that mark on her hip, which was growing with each passing day, couldn’t have been a coincidence.